Romancing Her Protector

by Mallory Monroe

  “There’s my baby,” he said as she ran into his arms, causing him to lift her up and kiss her deeply.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “No reason to wake you. You’d already told me you didn’t have class until noon.

  You’ll make it back in plenty of time.”

  “On the train? You must be joking. And please don’t tell me you’re calling up the limousine again.”

  “No, no limousine.” He grabbed her by the hand. “Come with me,” he said and escorted her out of his home, down the first and then second flight of steps, to a brand new, pearl-white BMW convertible seated in front of those steps. He then handed her the keys.

  “What’s this?” she asked him.

  “Yours, my dear,” he said.

  Shay was floored. “Mine? You mean. . . But Dresden is small. I don’t need a car to get around, I catch the bus to go wherever I need to go.”

  The look on Matty’s face changed, and Shay could tell it was that stern look he used that probably made him the successful businessman he was today. “No woman of mine is catching anybody’s bus, okay?” he said to her.

  “But Matty,” she started, a worried look crossing her face.

  “Shay, you need a car.”

  “A car, yes. But this?”

  “Something nice, of course. What do you expect me to do? I’m not going to give you just any old thing. Not you.”

  Shay started to protest again, but then she remembered what Jordy had said . If he wants to treat you like his queen, dear heart, let him.

  She smiled. Looked at Matty. He really was one of the good guys. “Thank-you so much, Matty,” she said heartfelt, and then reached up and initiated a kiss for the first time in their short relationship.

  And the thought of it, of kissing her the way he wanted to again, of having her wiggling beneath him again, was too much for Matty.

  “Oh, damn,” he said, grabbed her by the hand, and then ran with her, in a near-sprint, her entire body shaking with laughter, back inside his home.

  SIX

  It took two weeks. Just two weeks after Shay drove onto the campus of Franklin University with her brand new BMW, before her roommate was trying to inject her wants and needs into Shay’s good fortune. First Jessica was uncharacteristically silent on the matter.

  Didn’t want to know anything at all about how a poor girl like Shay could end up with a car like that. Shay didn’t say anything, either, she was always private with her private life. But she knew Jessica too well. She knew it was just a matter of time before that opinionated, what’s in it for me roommate of hers would work out a way of getting in on the action, too.

  They were in their small dorm room, Shay and Jessica, with Hector, one of Jessica’s numerous boyfriends, seated beside Jessica on her twin bed. Shay was seated at the desk, attempting to study for her Investigative Journalism exam, an exam Matty had already told her she had better ace, and Jessica and Hector were nagging her no end.

  “No,” she said again when their insistence would not let up. But they continued at it.

  Jessica, the Drama major, was into her overacting big time, with her head bobbing and her hand snatching at air as if she were demonstrating some odd sign language. When she was like this, Shay knew there was no reasoning with her. So she didn’t try. She just made clear, when she finished, that her answer was still no.

  “But why not Shay?” Jessica asked, her pretty face a mask of puzzlement. “He’s rich, you said so yourself.”

  “You are such a liar, Jess. I never said any such thing!”

  “You didn’t have to say it,” Jessica said, correcting herself without admitting ever being wrong, “but it’s obvious he is. What poor man you know pick a girl up in a limo and then buys same girl a spanking brand new BMW? I don’t know why you would accept that kind of a gift, personally, and from a white man at that, but hey, that’s you. That’s your conscience.” Shay looked at Jessica. “What does his race have to do with anything?”

  “What you think? It just smacks of slave mentality, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Slave mentality?”

  “Yes, slave mentality. Slavery times! Remember that bit of history of ours? When we black women were expected to be the white man’s hoe, slut, trick, whatever they wanted us to be? I don’t know about you and your values, but that’s what your so-called relationship feels like to me. Because, unlike you, I can take care of myself. I can take care of this here. I don’t want no white man buying nothing for me. I can buy my own car, thank-you. I’m a strong, black, independent woman who don’t want that kind of help, and especially not from no crusty butt man who only got one thing on his mind. Nobody owns this here.” Shay stared at her roommate. She was one of the most judgmental people she’d ever met, somebody who always talk a good talk about being tough and strong and how she can’t stand weak women and how every woman needs to stand up to these men and fight the good fight and be all tough and strong all the time and it sounded like foolishness to Shay. It sounded as if Jessica expected every woman to be just like her and if they weren’t then they somehow fell short, or weren’t authentic women.

  But Shay was nothing like her roommate. She was no alpha-female and didn’t want to be. She wanted the man to be the man, and if that man proved willing to help her, and she was willing to accept the terms of that help, then she didn’t see where that was anybody’s business but her and that man’s. And if that made her morally corrupt in the eyes of judgmental females like Jessica, or that made her weak and stupid, then weak and stupid she was. She’d been poor all of her life, had to struggle all of her life. Now she was finally getting a little help, just a little helping hand, from a man she actually liked, until she got out of college and was able to handle that end of her business herself, and Saint Jessica here figures she should turn it all down. Because, according to Jess, it smacked of the kind of assistance ladies of ill-repute would accept. This coming from a woman juggling four different boyfriends at one time. Where did she get off, Shay wanted to say.

  “The point I’m making,” Jessica went on, “is that this Matty person has got to be rolling in the dough, that’s all I’m saying. And I don’t see why you can’t ask him to help out Heck’s career. We ain’t asking him to give us nothing. It’ll be an investment because when Hector becomes the Hispanic Lil’ Wayne, then he’ll get paid back tenfold.” It sounded like a hand-out to Shay, but who was she to judge? “No,” she said.

  “Why you keep saying no?”

  “Because Matty is a businessman, Jess, not a rap music producer!”

  “I produce my own stuff, know what I’m saying?” Hector spoke up. He was an almost-chubby, twenty-something who always wore a bandana around his head and a gold grill in his mouth. “I just need help with the financial backing, know what I’m saying?”

  “No,” Shay said again. She liked Hector, he had always shown nothing but kindness towards her, but this was going too far.

  Jessica stared at Shay with that same hateful look Shay had seen the night Matty’s limousine picked her up. “I didn’t want to go there,” Jessica said, “but you leave me no choice. You owe me, Shanita Cooper. Remember when you first came to this university, and you hadn’t found a job yet and couldn’t even feed yourself yet, remember what I did for you?”

  How could Shay forget it? Every time Jessica wanted a favor, she began by saying , I didn’t want to go there , and then she’d go there with flourish. But it was true. Shay did feel she still owed her roommate big time because of the undeniable friendship she showed her when she first arrived at Franklin without a dime to her name. Her plan was to get a job quickly, because her scholarship took care of her tuition, books, and dorm room, but it didn’t cover any of her day to day living expenses.

  But Shay couldn’t get a job anywhere. It was Jessica who fed her for nearly three months, who took her out with her, who treated her like a blood sister, and who was able to convince the former assistant manager at Stop Gap, a youn
g man Jessica was dating at the time, to take Shay on.

  So Shay would always feel beholden to Jessica, and would always do all she could to help her out. But helping Hector’s music career wasn’t the same, to Shay, as helping Jessica.

  And that was why Shay still said no. She owed Jessica, yes, but she didn’t owe some guy who was certain to be one of Jessica’s numerous ex-boyfriends within the next few months, a darn thing. And especially when that favor didn’t just involve Shay, but Matty as well.

  It took several more no’s on Shay’s part, however, before Hector finally got the point.

  He was wasting his time. Then suddenly his disappointment turned to anger and he actually got into Shay’s face. Shay stood to her feet, toe to toe with him. “So what you gonna do?” she kept asking him, daring him to try something.

  It was Jessica who got in between them. “That’s enough, Hector,” she said, pushing her boyfriend back.

  “I can’t stand her!” Hector yelled. “Always parading around like she so superior to everybody else! Can’t fool with no regular dudes like us, no, not ShayShay. She gots to get her some rich white man!”

  “That ain’t got nothing to do with you,” Jessica said. “So you just need to step off.” And Hector did back off, because he knew Jessica didn’t play. But he still pointed a finger at Shay.

  “One day, little sister,” he said between clenched teeth, “somebody gonna cut you down to size!”

  “It ain’t gonna be you,” Shay assured him. “Bet that!”

  Hector tried to lurch at her again, but Jessica pulled him back again. “Outside, Hector!” she said. “You may not like her but she’s my roommate, so you’re crossing a line, buddy.

  Outside.” Then she got sassy when he didn’t move. “Now!” Hector looked at Shay longer, but then walked out.

  After he left, Jessica looked at her roommate. “You wrong for that, Shay,” she said.

  “Wrong for what? I’m not getting Matty involved in his crazy schemes. I ain’t down with Matty like that yet.”

  “Then you should have explained it to him that way. You didn’t have to be acting all superior just like he said. You wrong for that. You may be on top of that mountain now, but you may need people like Hector on your way back down.”

  “I doubt that,” Shay said. “And I don’t know what mountain you’re talking about.”

  “Just check yourself, that’s all I’m saying. These white men get these sisters all giddy, be at their beck and call, and they’ll toss those line-crossing sisters a bone or two, yeah, they’ll do that. But then the next thing you know, it’s wham, bam, thank-you ma’am, and they off and marry the white girl. Then those same line-crossers wanna cross back over here. They want their people back. You just better remember who your real sisters and brothers are.”

  “It’s not like that, Jess, all right?”

  “But you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, I hear what you’re saying, I just don’t agree with what you’re saying. My relationship with Matty isn’t like what you think. He’s just helping me out until I get out of school, that’s all. That’s it. I’m not expecting any marriage proposal or anything like that.

  Our relationship ain’t that serious.”

  Jessica looked at her friend as if she knew she didn’t’ mean a word of what she’d just said. And then she left.

  When she left, Shay laid her head on her desk, exhausted. She hated the way Jessica had looked at her, as if she could see right through her. And inwardly, all of that talk of not being that serious with Matty was as full of it as Jessica probably knew it was. Shay saw their relationship as serious, she was just too scared to admit it.

  She also hated the fact that she had turned Jessica down so decisively, even though it was a favor more for Hector than Jess, but she couldn’t take advantage of Matty’s position like that. But that didn’t mean it didn’t bother her. It did. She liked Jessica when she wasn’t into her judgmental mode. She was really the only close friend she’d ever had, and she wasn’t interested in losing that friendship.

  Then she thought about Matty. He’d already told her he wanted to meet her roommate. Not because of any interest in getting to know Jessica or anything like that, that man didn’t have time for that, but Shay suspected it was because he wanted to size Jessica up, to see if she was somehow worthy of Shay’s friendship. Matty was like that, Shay thought fondly as she pulled out her cell phone. He always seemed to want to look out for her best interest. If she could set up that meeting between the two, then it would be up to Jessica to do Hector’s bidding, if that was what she wanted. You never really knew with Jessica.

  Matty was in Chicago this week, in a busy conference room going over several forms with his staff, when his cell phone rang. When he saw that it was Shay, he smiled.

  “Hello, sweetie,” he said as soon as he answered.

  “Hi,” she said to the man who was quickly becoming the most important person in her life.

  “You okay?” Matty asked her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s great.”

  “Studying hard for that exam?”

  “Sure,” Shay said less confidently. She knew she had to pick up her grades, especially now that Matty was all into making sure she took full advantage of her education, but Jessica, with all of her various male friends, made concentration nearly impossible whenever she was at the dorm.

  “So what can I do you for?”

  “You still coming home tomorrow?”

  “Yes, that’ll work,” Matty responded to one of his aides. Then he said to Shay: “More like Friday, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh.” This surprised Shay. She was looking forward to seeing him again tomorrow.

  “What time Friday? I’m asking because I wanted you to meet my roommate.”

  “Yes, I want to meet her. But Friday won’t work, I’ll be tied up Friday and the weekend, too.” Friday night was the night of the annual ball, a ritzy get-together for power players at the college president’s house. Only it was always a weekend affair, not just one night, with the various events culminating in all of the invitees attending church together on Sunday, to show a united front. It certainly wasn’t how he wanted to spend his weekend, but he had promised Alex.

  He continued: “Could you bring your roommate by the office, say, Monday, after your Communications class?” Matty knew Shay’s school schedule almost as well as she knew it herself.

  “Monday?” Shay said. “But I thought. . .” She had thought they would spend the weekend together. She was certain that they would. “So you’re tied up this weekend too?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Work and more work?”

  “Something like that, yes.” Matty exhaled. If it had been anybody but Alex, he would have told them what they could do with their weekend retreat. But it was Alex. And she’d been dumped by lover boy football coach, a fact he knew hurt her more than she was willing to admit. She needed him.

  “But I thought you said we would hook up this weekend,” Shay said, “that you had tickets to the Kennedy Center and everything.”

  “I know. And I do. It’s just that something’s come up and I’ll need to take care of it.”

  “I don’t get that,” Shay said, a frown piercing her face.

  “You don’t get what?”

  She didn’t get how he could be so into her, as he claimed every night he phoned her while he’d been away, and how he couldn’t wait to see her again, only when he got in town he was going to be so busy that he couldn’t see her until the following week? “Yeah, whatever,” she said, refusing to allow herself to go down some emotional road. “I’ll see if I can make it Monday.”

  Matty hesitated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what I said. I’ll see if I can make it Monday. You’re tied up this weekend, I may be tied up Monday. I’m not as busy as you, but I do have a life. So I’ll see.”

  “What are you telling me, Shay? That y
ou may not be available next week?”

  “I might not be,” Shay said defensively. “I’m not going to always be at your beck and call, Matty, I’m not that hard up and I never will be.”

  “Hard up? Where did that come from?”

  “I just don’t play games, all right? I know good n’ well you aren’t working no twenty-four-seven all weekend, so don’t even try me like that. If you don’t wanna be with me, if you don’t wanna be bothered with me, then fine, just say that. But don’t play me for a fool.

  Don’t play me with this working all weekend bullcrap because I ain’t trying to hear that. I’ll never be that naïve.”

  Matty pinched the bridge of his nose. What hurt him most wasn’t the fact that she had it right on the money about him not being so busy that he had to work all weekend, but that she had it so wrong about him not wanting to see her again. He wanted to be with her above anybody else. It’s just that he still had Alex to consider . . .

  “Anyway,” Shay said, when he didn’t respond to her diatribe, “I know you’re a very busy man and I wouldn’t wanna waste another second of your precious time.” A look of regret, of pain, crossed over her face. “Bye, Matty,” she said as she flipped shut her cell.

  She leaned back in her chair as tears stained her eyes. Matty was the only human being on the face of this earth who had ever treated her as somebody special, and the idea of losing him would be hard for her to handle. But she’d handle it easily if it meant not becoming emotionally dependent on him. She’d handle it easily if it meant not playing the fool for him.

  She wasn’t the kind of female who could overlook red flags, and a man professing all this great interest in you, and then not bothering to see you for days after he return to town, was, for her, a serious red flag. Were there so many other women in his life that there just wasn’t enough hours in the day? Was that what this was about? Had being with her not changed his lifestyle at all?

  She had so many questions. But it wasn’t as if it mattered now, she thought, as she picked back up her school book. She didn’t like rollercoaster rides and wasn’t going on one with anyone. Not even Matty.