Hitta's Tea Maker

by Edwina Fort

  Everything about these men said bad news. The few customers that were sitting enjoying their drinks and pastries must have thought so too because their eyes were now glued to them.

  "Until you tell me the truth about your foster father, one of my friends is going to be with you when I'm not able."

  I turned back to face him, horrified. “What do you mean? Like following me?”

  He looked up as they approached. “Maddox…Lannox, this is Angel. Angel, Maddox and Lannox.” His gaze fell back to me.

  “No, Teacup. They are going to be your bodyguards.”

  Chapter 11

  The Warning

  Angel

  I ran into Hitta’s office, shutting and locking the door behind me. Seconds later the loud pounding came. The metal door was being hit so hard I was afraid it was going to burst in off the hinges. Fighting back tears, I backed up as I stared at it in horror.

  No way was it going to be able to hold up under the pounding.

  “Open this f***ing door, Angel! Or so help me God, I’m going to tear this mutha f**** down!” Hitta roared from the other side.

  The tears began to flow. How did I get myself in this situation? How had I ignored all the signs…Including my Greatie’s warning?

  I’d allowed how he made my body feel to blind me to his true nature…A nature that I’d seen when I first met him and had sense enough back then to stay away from.

  “Just leave me alone!” I cried. “I want to go home! I want to get away from you!”

  “F*** that! Open the door!”

  I jumped from the vibration his angry roar sent through the floor.

  Dear God, help me!

  Hitta was a complete savage…This gym was full of them. I just wanted to go home, back to my apartment, back to my life before I’d been stupid enough to let him in.

  These weren’t my kind of people…I needed to get away from here!

  I know you guys feel lost right now and you’re wondering what happened since last we talked…

  Oh my goodness! So much has happened since last we talked that I don’t know where to begin…

  Trina is missing…It’s going on two weeks now and Jessie is still with me. Hitta may or may not have a baby on the way by his ex, who he was still financially supporting, but I won’t know for sure because she’s been knocked out cold and her body was lying in the middle of the gym while these….people cheered it on like that was decent behavior.

  Okay…

  Wait… let me breathe and try to gain control of my emotions so that I can pick up my story from where last we left off.

  I am so sorry about this; I know you guys are wondering what the heck is going on.

  Okay…

  Maddox and Lannox, the black twin Scottish bodyguards. I think that’s where we last left off.

  So, because I didn’t tell Hitta why I’d responded to Stan the way that I did that day in the tea shop, which by the way, I still haven’t told him, he brought in Maddax and Lannox to escort me everywhere I needed to go.

  Now granted, for the most part, it’s not horrible. The twins although clearly very dangerous men, were kind of cool. Maddox was a smooth talker and most of the time had very good conversation, and because they were so handsome, they were good for business. A lot of the college girls came around to chat with Maddox. They were taken with his good looks and thick Scottish accent.

  However, I think he was smitten with my new barista, Summer, a single mom of two, who sometimes had such a haunted look in her beautiful eyes, but was a very dependable employee.

  I’ve tried to talk to her and get in her head a bit to see what was troubling her, but she was really good at deflecting and covering up her pain with a smile. I know because I too was good at it. But I didn’t pry too much because I liked Summer and didn’t want to chase her away. She’d taken to blending the teas beautifully and my customers had accepted her quite well.

  So, the last thing I wanted to do was mess that up…

  And then there was Lannox… Lannox was a mysterious gem. I’d found out the day I met them that he couldn’t talk. According to Maddox, a priest had tried to kill Lannox when he was a bairn, lol…Bairn is how Maddox says baby. He has so many funny sayings…Like the college girls, I could listen to him talk all day. Hitta gets all jealous when I come home and tell him some of the crazy stuff Maddox says.

  “You know…just because he talks with a Scottish accent don’t mean he talkin about sh*t…it just mean he ain’t talkin about sh*t with a Scottish accent.”

  He is such a grouch…But up until today, I found his grouchiness adorable and now he was at the door scaring the hell out of me.

  Anyway…So Maddox says the priest thought Lannox was possessed by the devil and tried to kill him. He’d locked Maddox inside his room and then took Lannox in the woods in the back of the monastery and slit his throat leaving him for dead. But knowing his brother was in danger, Maddox had managed to slip out the window and get help in time enough to save him…

  Although Lannox survived, his voice box had been badly damaged, and he still had the terrible scar across his neck to remind him every day that he'd almost died at the hands of the Catholic priest.

  It hurts my heart to think that somebody could hurt a small child like that. And Lannox was a real sweetheart in a hitman kind of scary kind of way… If that makes any sense.

  The job of escorting Jessie back and forth to school had fallen on him and he was handling it like a champ. He even helped her with her homework. Because Jessie went to a school that also catered to the visually, hearing and speech impaired, all the children were taught sign language in kindergarten, so she could communicate quite well with Lannox. And if Maddox was not around, most times it was Jessie who told me what he was saying.

  But now, get this…Maddox did not use sign language when talking to his brother. By some miracle, he was able to hear his brother’s thoughts and they communicated most times without saying a word to each other…

  Isn’t that amazing?

  Anyway, I've wandered off-topic. I was telling you guys how I got myself in my present situation.

  Carmen…

  So, because I was only about three years older than her, she and I had formed something of a friendship… She was my only friend if I was being honest. Well, …she and Summer. Summer was coming around, opening up to Carmen and me a little at a time. Whatever was going on with her it was seriously affecting her and her children. Although sweethearts, I recognized that traumatized look in their eyes.

  Okay, so back to Carmen…

  Her bold in-your-face personality was how she approached her job here at the shop. She'd already gotten all of my books in order. She’d organized my office…created spreadsheets that made taking inventory much easier and was already working out a business plan so that we could buy the space next to us and expand.

  I had several herb suppliers that I ordered my product from. Just because I loved the way one supplier grew their chamomile didn’t mean I cared for the way they grew their lavender. I was very meticulous with where my material came from.

  Thanks to Carmen’s new system she’d set up, even ordering my supplies had become easier. And not only that, because she was back of the house manager, she did all the ordering herself, refusing to let me do it, stating that it was her job.

  See what I mean? Bold take charge Carmen.

  And she was also a wealth of information when it came down to learning a little bit more about my grouchy new lover. She told me so much about him, I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.

  But the part that intrigued me the most was how much his mom and my mother had in common. Carmen said that Hitta’s mom, who was also her mom’s mom, was addicted to drugs so badly that she’d lost all four of her children, Hitta, who was the oldest to the streets, and the other three to the state, who separated them.

  She said although they were separated, they all had very violent natures that landed her mom and her younger uncle in
jail…and her youngest aunt in the grave. Her uncle was in jail on a life sentence for triple murder and her mom was there for thirty years for attempted murder. But Carmen was optimistic that she would be getting out in fifteen because of good behavior.

  Although they were locked up, Hitta made sure they kept money on their books. She said that she and her uncle went to see them three times a year. Now, when she told me about her youngest aunt, I got a very bad feeling in the pit of my belly. She said that her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend had gotten into a fistfight and when her aunt threatened to tell Hitta on him, he shot and killed her.

  Keep in mind, the whole time Carmen is telling me these violent stories about Hitta’s upbringing, I’m trying not to cringe. I may have had it bad living with a pervert, but that was where my suffering ended.

  I lived in a really good neighborhood, went to an amazing school…had fairly decent friends. I was born in the hood and lived there until I was seven years old, but that was my hood experience. I'd only just moved back to the hood because it was all I could afford at the time and believe it or not… don't laugh at me, I wanted to reconnect with my roots.

  But after listening to some of Carmen’s tales, I felt like a fish out of water. Hitta had come up rough, which would explain why he was so…. hmmm, what’s the word I’m looking for? Ferocious…

  Now get this…I asked Carmen what happened to her aunt’s boyfriend.

  She looked at me over her fire engine red glasses that matched her hair and nails and shook her head.

  “Naw, Angel…You too soft for all that information. Just know that he’s no longer with us.”

  I sat back floored. That night over dinner I studied Hitta and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of thoughts were going on in his head. How the world did he survive the things he’d been through? I didn’t understand his violent nature…and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t relate.

  That’s when the first wave of uncertainty washed over me. I wasn't made of the same stuff he was made of…I haven't experienced the same traumas. How long before he got tired of me or thought I was too boring or suburban?

  However, as if he could sense something was off with me, that night he made loved to me so gently and as he did, he whispered to me about how much he loved each part of my body and why. Then he said something that chased away all my doubts.

  “Everything about you calls to something deep down inside of me. I can’t explain it…but it’s like you quiet the roar inside of me. Only when you around do I feel grounded… You my calm, shawty…it’s like you a gift from God.”

  Sooooo…Yeah…

  Foolishly, I let down my guard again and started back fantasizing about all the things I and my big grouchy lover could be…

  And then Carmen told me that after her mom got locked up, she moved in with Hitta. At the time, he’d had a place with Shantell. Now, remember that name because we’re going to come back to her in a minute. It was because of her that I was in this mess now…

  So, Hitta and Shantell had a place, but Carmen said they were having trouble, he’d used Carmen coming to live with him as an excuse to move out and get another place since Carmen and Shantell did not get along anyway.

  Of course, I asked why they didn’t get along.

  “The b**** was jealous of me and my uncle’s relationship. And it’s like I told the ho, me and him been tight since I was a baby.” She held up her little fists. “It was him that taught me how to throw them thangs!”

  Carmen was a mess…

  But she went on to say that for the most part, her uncle stayed at the gym or with whatever woman who was entertaining him for the night. But then she caught herself and said…

  “I mean, with friends…You know…friends?”

  I chuckled and told her that was alright. I’d have to be a fool to think Hitta didn’t have women before me. He was handsome, rich, an alpha… Every woman’s dream man.

  “Yeah, but until you, I’ve never seen him in love. If he not at the gym, he home with you… He really like coming home to you. That mean something, you know.”

  I tried to play it off like her words didn’t have me doing a little dance on the inside.

  “Really? What about Shantell? He loved her, didn’t he?”

  “Hell no… my uncle used to cheat on her like crazy. He was never at home. That was another reason they was always fighting.”

  I shook my head.

  “What?” she asked with a frown on her face.

  “That’s bad that he cheated on her. She didn’t deserve that.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes… “Girl, please, Shantell a** the biggest gold digger on the westside of Chicago. My uncle had this b**** ridin in a Benz. She was rocking Prada, Fendi, Versace… getting her hair and nails laid every week. And then went out and got that expensive a** apartment on the Lake Front just so she could bring her friends around and rub sh*t in they face.”

  She shook her head. “I told Unc to get rid of that thot when she first started coming around. But then all of sudden, she pregnant by him.”

  “Oh my God! Hitta has kids?”

  “Hell naw, she was lying. But she told him she lost the baby…and was feeling all depressed, so he kept her thot a** around. But he wasn’t feeling her…he could see through all her shenanigans, which is why he barely came home to her. She used to call my phone every night like…You seen Hitta?" That she said in a whiny voice.

  I was surprised by her words. It sounded like she was describing a different man. I’d come to look at him as something of a home body. Most of the time by the time I got home from the Tea Shop he and Jessie were there waiting for me with dinner.

  He watched a lot of boxing on TV, but he mostly did that downstairs in the living room where he’d set up his gaming systems. Sometimes I watched with him, especially highlights of his fights, but most of the time when I wasn’t with him, I was organizing my herb pantry or working in the rose garden.

  Shucks, I guess I am a home body too…LOL

  “But see, the thot didn’t like me ‘cause I used to tell her broke a** to get a job!” Carmen said drawing my attention back to her.

  “Oh my goodness! You did not tell your uncle’s girlfriend to get a job…” She put her hand on her hip and lifted an eyebrow.

  “I used to tell her that sh*t every day without fail…sometimes twice. I don’t like to see nobody trying to take advantage of my uncle.” The only thing I could do was shake my head.

  So yeah…That’s Carmen for you… She was crazy, but the girl had a business head on her that was out of this world. Because Hitta was rarely at the apartment he’d gotten for them two and she basically had the place to herself, she decided to go live on campus when she started college because it was something she’d always wanted to do.

  Now on a side note, I’ve also learned a bit more about Carmen and Wayne’s situation, but I won’t be sharing that with y’all. It seems as if Carmen is going to be sharing her own story with you guys, so my lips are sealed.

  Moving on… Before I tell you guys about Shantell and Trina and all that drama… I want to first tell you about the warning because it plays a very important role in this whole thing. And had I listened to my Greatie, I would have never been in this situation to begin with.

  With my shop being closed down for the Sabbath Day, on the first Saturday at my new home, I took time to unpack my things and do a little exploring because up until that point, I hadn’t had time. After finding out that I didn’t work on the Sabbath, Hitta decided to stay home with me.

  So, he, Jessie and I ended up having a real chill day that will forever stay in my memory. It was just one of those perfect days. He helped me unpack and arrange things in the house to my liking. And no matter how many times I asked him to move the couch or the bed, he never lost patience with me…Just moved it three feet to the left and then an inch back to the right…and in some cases, all the way to the other side of the room because I’d thought it would look good in this spot,
but the lighting just wasn’t right.

  After lunch, Jessie fell asleep in the den watching some crazy cartoon on TV. Hitta had gone down into the basement and started doing whatever he did down there…And I decided to explore the back yard… another thing I had been dying to do.

  And that’s when I found the true treasure of the place. Whoever owned this home before us was really into roses. I found a secret rose garden at the back of the property. Because it hadn’t been taken care of, the roses were overgrown with weeds and quite wild but were still very beautiful.

  Next to it was an old charming garden shed that still had a lot of tools in it…I grabbed a pair of shears and dived in trying to tame some of the bushes and vines and before I knew it, time had flown by. When Hitta found me, I was down on my knees trying to wrestle a stubborn weed out of the ground. I nearly jumped out of my skin when his vein-ridden muscled arm came down next to me, taking hold of the weed pulling it out effortlessly.

  Somebody that big should make a sound when they walked. Anyhow, I’d discovered a new use for him, I put him on weed pulling duty immediately…Some of the weeds back here had been growing so long they’d become young trees.

  Now, we didn’t get far before his freaky tendencies got in the way. It was there in that secret rose garden that he taught me what a quickie was, only for us to go in and teach me what it was like to be made love to in the shower.

  Needless to say, that day would go down in history as one of the best days of my life. Maybe it was because of that day and the fact that I felt So in Love (in my Al Green voice), Greatie showed up the next morning.

  Sunday morning, like the previous mornings before, I woke up clinging to Hitta’s back. I think I figured out why that was happening. It had something to do with him appearing in my dream every night. Not only did he make an appearance…but in every dream, he’s leading me out of hell…

  I think that was why I clung to his back like that…I don’t know…