Hitta's Tea Maker

by Edwina Fort

  “I think you’re going to change your mind once you taste this.”

  He reached up and took it from me before bringing it to his nose sniffing it again.

  “Smells like you. Yeah…okay.”

  I little while later, I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing as I spooned up a third bowl for Mr. Yeah…Okay. He loved the oatmeal and the tea.

  When I first poured him a cup of chamomile tea in the little hand-painted teacup and set it in front of him, his fierce gaze went from it to me.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

  I laughed. “You supposed to drink it. Like this…” I picked up the matching teacup and lifted it to my lips. But before I took a sip, I closed my eyes and let its healing fragrance into my lungs. Then I took a little sip and moaned.

  “Mmmmm…nothing like that first sip of chamomile to start the day.”

  He watched me with one eyebrow raised, then lifted the little teacup that looked like a toy in his big hands. When he held it like I did, Jessie erupted in laughter. I’m not going to lie, he looked ridiculous holding the little dainty teacup with his big, rough, bruised fingers. The man had scars on top of scars.

  He even put his big pinky in the air like mine. When he brought it to his lips, he closed his eyes and inhaled. I studied the area around his eyes and temple…when he exhaled, I saw the area visibly relax.

  It came to me right then what needed to be done. Of course, it would only be a temporary fix until we found out what was causing the tension. But the ingredients for his daily blend became clear to me, I needed to get to the shop though, I didn’t have all I needed here.

  “Mmmmm…nothing like that first taste of chamomile to start the day,” he said drawing my attention back to him. “But next time I prefer for mine to come from between your le—”

  “Ooookay, time to go!” I said standing abruptly frowning at him. “We are going to have to do something about your habit of saying the first thing that comes to your mind.”

  The look he was giving me had me biting my lip to keep from laughing at him.

  “I told you, Teacup, I don’t sugar coat nothing.” And then he lifted his teacup batting his eyelashes in a most ridiculous way before taking a sip. Of course, this caused Jessie to nearly fall out of her chair laughing at him.

  Goodness, we had to get him a bigger cup.

  ***********

  “Damn, Teacup, this joint is tight!”

  I was cheesing so hard my cheeks hurt as I flipped on the light for my tea display.

  Hitta sat on the couch in the front of the store facing me with his muscled arms stretched out across the back of it. After I turned on the light for the tea display, he stood completely wowed.

  “Wow!”

  I nodded, very proud of myself. My tea display had that effect on everyone the first time they saw it.

  “You did this all by yourself?” he asked, now looking at me as if I was some kind of wonder.

  I grinned. “Yep!”

  “What’s up with that though?” He was pointing to the huge hole in my wall covered by the plastic. The wind was causing it to dip in and out.

  I scrunched up my face. “There was a fire in the wall. I’m trying to get it fixed, buuuttt---ummm.” I looked off to the side, too embarrassed to tell him that I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t want him to think my business was doing badly or anything.

  “What caught fire?”

  “The building has old electric wiring.”

  He grunted as he walked over to get a better look. He was so different from the kind of people who come in here. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone in here like him.

  Today, he wore a gold chain around his neck with a charm that was a pair of diamond boxing gloves. One didn’t have to guess that it cost a fortune. The gold watch around his wrist also had enough ice in it to catch the eye every time his hand moved.

  Although he clearly liked to wear sweatpants…they weren’t cheap sweats and neither was his t-shirt. Today, he had on another pair of brand-name gym shoes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear the same pair twice.

  His assistant must have brought his clothes and shoes while we were gone yesterday too, because this morning when I went into the closet, his side was loaded with sweatpants hanging on hangers with plastic cleaner bags over them as well as jeans. Even his t-shirts were pressed and on hangers under plastic. The shoe rack had been built into the wall. My side was empty because I still had yet to unpack. But his side…

  Goodness, the man had so many gym shoes that it was safe to say that he may have something of a fetish. And they all looked brand new…Of course, there were a few pairs of Timberland’s sprinkled in there as well.

  My gaze roamed up his powerful body. The way he dressed fit him. I really couldn’t see him dressed any different. He looked good in his clothes too. His pants fit his muscled bowlegs very well, not too tight, but not too loose…just enough to show that he was an athlete.

  And his shirts…

  Shucks! Who was I kidding? It really wouldn’t matter what he wore on the top half of him, his superbly sculpted arms and chest will always be the star of the show.

  When my gaze made its way up his thick tattooed neck to his face, I jumped because he was staring at me…Too late I realized that he had asked me a question.

  “Mmmm, what was that?” I asked tucking the braid that had fallen in my face behind my ear to cover up my embarrassment at getting caught staring at the man red-handed.

  He chuckled… “I said, what is your landlord saying?”

  I waved my hand… “Please, that old bat won’t lift a finger.”

  The grin left his face and a frown replaced it. “I thought you said the fire happened because of old wiring?”

  “Well, yeah…it did.”

  “So, shouldn’t the landlord be the one repairing the damages?”

  I nodded. “In a perfect world…but some battles are just not worth the fight. I asked her and she said she wasn’t going to help, so now, I need to move on and just do it myself.”

  “Bullsh*t!” he growled.

  Something crashed in the kitchen. At the same time, he pulled out his phone and started texting. I hurried to check on Jessie, but I gestured for him to wait. I didn’t want him doing anything about this, I had it handl--

  “Jessie! What are you doing!?”

  Y’all, this child had climbed up on top of the freezer that was taller than Hitta and was trying to get into the cabinet I kept her treats in.

  “Sorry, Tee-Tee, I was trying to get my fruit snacks.”

  I exhaled angrily as I took her down. “Dang it, Jessie, you’re going to hurt yourself one of these days. You’re always climbing and trying to do everything yourself!”

  “I got to do everything myself at my house,” she muttered back.

  Her words made me stop. Closing my eyes, I got control over my anger. She was right, I pulled her into a hug.

  “You’re right, sweetheart. Tee-Tee sorry. Here, let me get your snacks for you.”

  I pulled my stepping-stool over and got the snacks out of the cabinet. After handing her a pack, I led her back to my office. There was a little couch and TV in here that I’d gotten just for her. Whenever Jessie came to the Tea Shop, I always had my hands full. Because she was incapable of sitting still, I had to keep a constant eye on her, which made my job extremely hard.

  “Are you going to sit in here and watch your shows?” I asked, sitting down on the couch next to her. One of the best ways I found to deal with her is to just stop and have a little chat with her.

  “How long we gon’ be here?”

  “Well…you know I don’t close till seven.”

  She exhaled and her little head fell back on her shoulder. “I got to sit in here that long?”

  I pulled her into my lap. Poor child was supposed to be in school. Of course, it was torture for her to be at the shop with me all day.

  “You can come out front w
hen the crowd dies down a bit, but only if you promise to sit at one of the tables and not bother any of the students on their computers.”

  Last time Jessie was here, she’d talked one of the students who was here studying for finals on her computer into turning on YouTube for her.

  “Okay, I’m gon’ be good,” she lied. I kissed her on her chubby cheeks and turned on the TV tuning in to the PBS channel. Their morning line up would keep her busy till around lunchtime and then the chase was on.

  When I made it back out front, Hitta had moved a piece of the plastic aside and was taking pictures of the hole.

  “What’s up?” I asked coming to stand next to him.

  “I’m sending these pictures to my assistant so that he can get somebody in here today to fix this.”

  “Oh… no, Hitta, please… that’s not necessary. I already have a guy coming out, it’s already paid for—”

  I squeaked when he grabbed a hold of my overalls and yanked me to him so close that my feet were barely touching the floor, our lips were only inches apart.

  “What did I tell you about lying to me, Teacup?”

  I stared at him with wide eyes, how in the world did he know I was lying? But then I remembered his threat to punish me for lying to him the other day outside of the gym and I swallowed. Because I couldn’t take his intense gaze, mine lowered to the tattoo on the side of his neck that was thanking God for subduing his enemies under him.

  “Ummmm…you said…ummm.”

  “Look at me, baby…” His words were low. My gaze came back to his. “I see you remembered what I told you.”

  I nodded…

  “Then why are you lying to me?”

  “You’ve already done so much for me. I just don’t want you to have to pay for this too.” It was true. Just this morning I’d tried to give him back the credit card he had given me, but he told me to keep it and use it for whatever I needed it for. I told him I didn’t need it because I had my own.

  “You have a black card?” He’d asked.

  “Well…no, I don’t have a black card. But I have a really nice blue one.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Keep the card.”

  I’d opened my mouth to argue with him, but the look he gave me shut it down. So, I put the card in my wallet, although I will never use it.

  “Oh! You misunderstood…Yo’ landlady gon’ pay me back.” He said bringing me back to the present.

  I frowned… “She won’t… I already tried to talk to her.”

  His head lowered to mine and he gently kissed my lips. “That’s where you and me differ, baye. I’m not going to try and talk to her…I’m going to let Wayne talk to her, he really has an amazing ability to get folks to see things his way. And if he can’t get through to her, which I really doubt, then I’m sure Kennedy will.”

  “Who’s Wayne?”

  “My assistant…”

  “And Kennedy?”

  The grin that came to his face gave me a bad feeling.

  “My lawyer.”

  I clutched his arms… “Aww, Hitta…don’t make no trouble for me. She already don’t like me much and my lease is up for renewal in a couple of months. I can’t lose the shop…it’s the best thing I’ve ever don—” He leaned in and kissed me again.

  But this kiss was different from the last…this was one of those drugging kisses that had my hands traveling up his strong arms to wrap around his neck. When he drew back, I’d forgotten what the hell I was saying.

  “Do you trust me, baby?”

  I didn’t even think before I nodded…and I realized it was true. Thanks to the dreams I’d been having of him, I trusted him very much.

  “I know how much the shop mean to you. My word, I’ll never let nothing or nobody take it from you. But I ain’t got it in me to let no slumlord take advantage of you either. So just let me handle this and you go ahead and get the door.”

  Frowning, I looked over at the door and sure enough, my pastry boy was pulling his load out of the backseat of his car. My gaze went back to Hitta’s. How in the world had he seen him? And how in the world did he know he was coming for me?

  “How did you even see him?”

  He chuckled just as his phone began to ring… “I see everything, shawty… Yo…” He said into the phone walking back toward the back of the shop.

  After my pastry guy left, I took the receipt to my office, Hitta was sitting at my desk watching Sesame Street with Jessie. Of course, she had climbed up my desk and was now sitting on the front of it telling him about something Oscar the Grouch had just done.

  “Excuse me,” I told him as I pulled the drawer opened and tossed the receipt in it.

  “Damn, Teacup…is this how you keep your records?” he asked pulling the drawer out farther to get a better look at the chaos inside.

  "Of course not!" I told him before I pulled out the other drawers that were also full of crumpled up receipts. "I'm not a complete imbecile.”

  His stunned gaze came up to me to see if I was serious. I bit my cheek to keep a straight face.

  He looked back down at the receipts in horror. “Where are your books?”

  I blinked down at him. “Books? What do you mean, books?”

  His gaze shot back to mine. “Teacup…tell me you keep books.” Oh, my goodness! It was taking everything within me not to laugh at the look on his face.

  I gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. “Okay, I keep books…”

  He began to shake his head slowly at me, still looking at me with stunned eyes. And I couldn’t hold it any longer. I erupted in laughter…

  He exhaled… “Damn, baye, you scared me. I thought you was in this mutha f**** running a business without keeping books. I was getting ready to say, no wonder you was short on cash.”

  My laughter stopped as I looked at him. At first, I’d been joking about not knowing that I needed to do better with my books. But could he be right? Although the shop was doing quite well, was that why I always seemed to be short on cash?

  “Do you think that’s the reason?”

  “Do you really not keep books?”

  “I mean… I know I need to be. And I’m going to get to it, eventually…It’s why I have all my receipts in the drawer. My tax guy helped me get them in order last year when he did my taxes—”

  “Doing taxes is not keeping books, shawty. Plus, how the f*** do you know what he’s doing if you don’t keep yo’ own records? Do you trust him?”

  “Ummm…Kind of.”

  Damn it! I’ve been meaning to get these receipts in order. But it’s true, I absolutely hate doing the books. I’d rather dance on a bed of glass… barefoot. I am a Tea Maker…one day I pray to be a Tea Master like my Greatie.

  The only thing I want to do is be left alone to work with my teas! Why do I have to do painful things like keeping books and sorting receipts?

  “Kind of?” he chuckled. “Do you even keep up with your inventory, so that you’ll know if your income exceeds your expenditures?”

  Okay…

  So, let’s pause right here in the story…

  Did you guys hear the question the brute, thug, boxer just asked me? Now, by this point, I had figured out that Hitta was way smarter than I’d initially thought. But the question that he’d just asked told me something altogether different about his intelligence.

  This man was not what he appeared to be at first sight. I couldn’t believe I’ve been walking around for months turning my nose up at him as if he was in some way beneath me. I mean, I wasn’t a jerk or anything…I would never do that to anyone.

  It’s just that I had it in my mind that he was this big, scary…bad guy that killed and beat up people. This is the danger of rumors. None of that is probably true about him. My former next-door neighbor was probably lying about all of that. And I’d gone and judged this poor man by all that crap that she fed me.

  Well…That and the fact that he scared the heck out of me when we first met.

  I ex
haled… “Okay…You got me. I know I should be doing all of that. But the truth is, I’d rather eat gum from the bottom of a garbage can.”

  “Ewww!” Jessie said giving me the stinky face.

  “I’m a Tea Maker!” I told him putting my hand to my chest. “Why can’t I just be left alone to work with my teas?”

  He sat back in his chair and pulled me into his lap. “You can, baye…why don’t you hire a back of the house manager, whose job it is to do all that tedious boring stuff like keeping the books?”

  “I would love to hire someone like that, I just can’t afford it.”

  “Oh…you don’t get a lot of business?”

  “Quite the opposite. I have a steady flow of customers. I do really well actually. People love my teas.”

  “Well, if the business is doing so good, why can’t you afford to hire on some help?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me…”

  He smiled before he leaned in and gently kissed my lips. “You know why you don’t know?”

  I folded my arms and pressed my lips together, already knowing what he was getting at.

  “Come on, be a big girl and say it…”

  “Because I don’t keep my books…” I barely opened my mouth.

  He laughed. “What did you say, Teacup? I couldn’t hear you.”

  "I said… because I don't keep my books…" I still mumbled the last part.

  "That's right because you don't keep yo’ books. But you mine, so if you want to just focus on yo’ teas, then you just focus on yo’ teas…yo’ man gon’ handle the rest.”

  “Ummm…should I be afraid?” I muttered.

  My question made him laugh… “Probably…”

  Twenty minutes after I opened, Wayne showed up. Wayne was a multi-tasking, very handsome, smooth-talking, slender brotha, who was dressed to the nines in a three-piece suit. And I was quite convinced that he wasn’t human. The things this man could make happen was simply amazing.

  Apparently, he had been Hitta’s personal assistant since his boxing days and after he retired, stayed with him.

  “Nobody else will work with him, look at him…If I leave, he’ll fall back into being a caveman.” He shuttered. “God have mercy on the earth if that happens.”