Playthang

by Janine A. Morris

  “Jordan, I know you are mad at me, and I don’t blame you,” Jayon began.

  “Get the hell out of my house,” Jordan said as soon as she heard him start his speech. She was still standing with the door open and her hand on the knob. It didn’t take much to snap her out of her shock and bring her back to reality. Not only did she have absolutely nothing to say to Jayon, she was expectingMarcus at any minute. Not that either one of them meant a great deal to her, but she didn’t feel like the awkward moment or having to spend any time with Marcus answering questions about Jayon.

  “No, Jordan, hear me out. I’m not leaving until you at least listen to me.”

  “You don’t call the shots, Jayon. You’re leaving now. I don’t want to hear shit you have to say,” Jordan said as she pointed through her open doorway.

  “No, I’m not. This is getting ridiculous. We at least owe each other to sit down and talk this through. Even if you don’t forgive me, we need to talk.”

  Jordan started laughing. “Owe each other? Are you kidding me?”

  From the look on Jayon’s face, you could tell he knew he used the wrong choice of words.

  “I don’t owe you shit,” Jordan said.

  “Listen, I get your point. I know that I fucked up.”

  “Jayon, what do you want?”

  “I just want us to sit down and talk about this, clear some stuff up and just ... just ... talk for two seconds.”

  Jayon’s stuttering let Jordan know that he had a lot on his mind and it was taking a lot for him to come over and make this bold move. Jordan felt herself getting slightly weak and tempted to hear what he actually had to say, but before she could respond, a noise from behind startled her. When she looked back, it was Marcus coming up to the doorway.

  “Damn,” Jordan said aloud, even though she meant to keep that to herself.

  “Is everything OK?” Marcus asked.

  Before Jordan could respond, Marcus had stepped through the doorway and seen Jayon standing a few feet away.

  “Everything is fine,” Jordan responded. “Jayon was just leaving,”she said.

  It killed Jordan inside to make Jayon feel the way he must have felt at that very moment, but she knew that he deserved it. Besides, it didn’t compare to how she felt when she found out about Randi or when she read that damn e-mail she wrote her. Jordan expected prideful Jayon to just walk out on that note and give up before things got any more discouraging, but it seemed Jayon felt he’d come too far to leave now.

  “How you doing?” Jayon said to Marcus as he reached out to shake his hand.

  As they shook hands, Jayon introduced himself by giving his name.

  “Marcus,” Marcus replied.

  “Listen, Marcus, I’m sorry to interrupt y’all evening, and I mean no disrespect by being here, but I really need to talk to Jordan, and it technically can’t wait.”

  “No problem, brother, I can respect that.”

  “Nuh-uh: What the hell do you think this is?” Jordan said, looking at Jayon in disbelief that he was really trying to dismiss her company.

  Then she looked at Marcus with the same disbelief for gracefully bowing out so easily.

  “Marcus, pay this no mind. Like I said, Jayon was just leaving.”

  Marcus looked like he didn’t want to get involved with what was going on. He could tell that Jordan was not in any danger, but that there was something pretty deep or emotional at hand, and he didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

  “Jordan, I need to talk to you.”

  “There is nothing to talk—” Jordan started before she was interrupted by Marcus.

  “How about I will just wait in the living room until you guys are through?” Marcus suggested.

  “That’s cool,” Jayon said, answering before Jordan could.

  Marcus began heading toward the living room, and Jayon waited for him to be out of hearing range. Jordan was fuming mad at this point. She didn’t want Marcus all up in the mix of this drama, and she didn’t want to talk to Jayon, especially not with Marcus in the next room. She couldn’t expect Marcus to kick Jayon’s butt or anything—besides she wouldn’t let it get to that anyway—but she still wasn’t feeling how he was respectingJayon’s feelings more than hers.

  “Jayon, I’m going to ask you one more time to please leave my house,” Jordan said in a calm manner.

  “Jordan, I’m going to ask you one more time to please listento me.”

  Jordan closed the door and stepped back inside and sat on the chaise on her porch. She didn’t know what else to do. She knew that she could make a scene and yell and scream and kick Jayon out, but she really didn’t want Marcus to see all of that.

  “Jordan, I know you are justified to be mad at me and never want to speak to me again, but there is a lot that you have mistaken and a lot that you don’t understand.”

  At first, Jordan was subdued and was just listening to what he said. He was talking in a low tone, to keep from being heard by the man in the living room.

  “It is killing me right now to see another man in your livingroom, and I am doing everything inside of me to try to overlook that.”

  Why did Jayon say that? Why did he remind Jordan that she had yet another man in her living room that wasn’t her husband? Why did he remind her that it was supposed to be him in her living room, but he ruined all that? Why did he have to act as if he had a right to be upset about Marcus being in her living room? Why did he ruin his shot at talking to her, because now she no longer wanted to hear it?

  “It is killing you?” Jordan asked. “Let me share with you my slow death, then,” Jordan continued without an answer. Her voice got louder as she continued on. “Imagine how I felt going out with a friend one night to a work event and meetinga young lady who kept giving me dirty looks, and then slowly gave me hints that we had something in common. Then I come home and find out that you, who was supposed to be my man and best friend, had just spent the evening hanging out with her. Then later come to find out that you had been fucking her behind my back for who knows how long. Imaginethat. Then imagine having the bold bitch send me an e-mail weeks later telling me how easy you were to take from me, and how eager you were to disrespect me. Killing you? You don’t know how that shit feels, so please.”

  Jordan stood up, walked straight through the living room, passed Marcus, who made it quite obvious he heard every word of what she said, and headed upstairs. She couldn’t take it anymore,and she didn’t want Jayon or Marcus to see her breakdown.As soon as she reached the top of the stairs, she burst out in tears as she rushed to her bathroom.

  Jayon stepped inside the living room, unsure if Marcus was going to go up to console her, and he knew he didn’t want that, but he was hesitant to go himself. It was as if Jayon was just realizing how real this whole thing really was. He just assumedthat some time and talking would mend things back, but he was realizing that he had done some permanent damageto Jordan. Damage that he didn’t seem to have the touch to repair—not anymore at least.

  Jayon looked at Marcus; he just looked at him and shrugged his shoulders. Marcus wasn’t going to leave, at least not yet, not without making sure Jordan wanted him to. Jayon didn’t know what to do. All he wanted was to have Jordan hear him out, but it seemed no matter what he said he dragged up some feelings inside her and he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  “We were real good friends before we started messing around,” Jayon said.

  Marcus looked up at him, shocked that he was actually talking to him.

  “For like fifteen years or something like that. She is real good peoples.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus said, not knowing what to say back.

  “Shit happens sometimes, things get messed up, and it all happens so fast,” Jayon said.

  “Yeah, life happens.Ya know?” Marcus said as he stood up. He wasn’t about to sit there and be this dude’s counselor.

  “Let me go check on her,” Marcus said as he was about to head toward the staircase.

/>   “Nah, let me. I got to handle this,” Jayon said as he walked toward the staircase, which he was already closer to.

  Marcus was tempted to put an end to this charade. He was way more muscular than Jayon and knew that he could help Jordan gain control of this situation, but he didn’t want any problems up in Jordan’s house, and he figured if they had fifteenyears of friendship, Jordan would prefer that he not do anything to him. So Marcus sat back down.

  Jayon walked up the stairs slowly. He really didn’t want to face it, but he damn sure couldn’t sit downstairs while some dude he didn’t know was upstairs consoling Jordan in her bedroom.He glanced in Jason’s bedroom as he passed by and walked through Jordan’s doorway across the hall. The bathroomdoor was locked inside her bedroom, and he knew she was in there. Jayon thought to call her name, but he didn’t. Instead,he just sat on the bed outside the bathroom door. He saw her lotion on the nightstand with the cap on and her towel thrown on the seat by the bathroom door. He figured she had just taken a shower and gotten ready for her guest that was downstairs. He knew because that’s what she usually left behindwhen she was getting ready for him to come by at night. The sight of it and the thought of what they may have been doing if he wasn’t there just made him feel even worse inside. He knew that Jordan didn’t take sex lightly, and if she was sleepingwith this dude, either she really liked him or she was really trying to forget about him. Either way, Jayon wished that he could change the way things were. The sight of Jordan’s face when she saw him sitting on the bed let him know that wasn’t possible.

  She had come out of the bathroom with a tissue in her hand, drying her face, and seen Jayon sitting on her bed. She immediately rolled her eyes and went to turn back around.

  “Jordan,” Jayon said as he jumped up before she could lock herself back in the bathroom.

  “Did I come over and sit on your bed when you were spending time with Randi?” Jordan said as she turned back around to head through her bedroom.

  “Can you please stop this, Jordan? Your stabs aren’t getting us anywhere.”

  Jordan stopped. “You talking to me isn’t getting us anywhere,either.Where we were going you messed up a long time ago. Technically, you messed it up the first time you cheated on me, but according to you, we weren’t officially a couple then. So this time, you nailed it. It’s done, Jayon, and there’s nothing to talk about.”

  When she was done, she turned around to get some lounge pants from her drawer. She didn’t feel comfortable in her short shorts in front of both her ex-boyfriend and her new friend downstairs.Before she could pull her pink-and-white-striped Victoria’sSecret pants out of the drawer, Jayon walked up behind her and put his arms around her. She tried to wiggle free, but he was holding on tight.

  “I’m so sorry, Jordan. I am truly so sorry.”

  Jordan stopped moving. She just sat there, remembering what it felt like for him to hold her. She closed her eyes and felt the moment, felt him, felt his apology, felt her love for him all over again. She dropped her head in disgust that this was even happening.

  “Jayon, I hear you. I hear and accept your apology, but I am not ready to forgive you,” she said as she began to break free from his hug. She walked toward her bedroom door, heading back downstairs to apologize to and sit with Marcus. Before she walked down the hallway, she turned to see if he was following,because she wanted him to leave.

  He just looked at her. He had given all he had, it looked like. Then again, so had Jordan. They were finally in the same place, realizing that it was over for good.

  27

  Jayon had walked by Jordan and Marcus sitting on the couch as he headed to the front door. In an attempt to save face, he gave a head nod to Marcus as he walked by. He walked past Marcus’s CLK that was parked directly in front of Jordan’s house and opened the door to his Audi across the street. He wasn’t happy with the way things happened, but he was quite clear that Jordan was in a different place from where he thought she was. He hadn’t seen her like that in all the years he knew her; he guessed it was as she used to say “when a woman’s fed up.” He never thought she would choose another man over him, but when he walked out the door and that handsomemuscular dude was still sitting on the couch, it was obviouswho she wanted to be there with her, or at least who she had chosen.

  Truth was, deep down inside, Jordan wanted Jayon there. She wanted him to lie beside her and tell her everything would be OK, and she wanted to believe him; but she knew that wouldn’t be possible. She didn’t want to allow some man she had only known a couple of months come before a man she knew damn near half her life, but she had been the good girl long enough.

  Jayon hadn’t made it two blocks before he called his boy Bill to tell him how terrible things had just gone. Billy was the one who told him he needed to put his pride aside, go talk to Jordan, and at any cost let her know how he felt. Billy didn’t tell him what to do in case there was another man on the way over. Billy didn’t pick up the phone, and Jayon left a voice mail.With the silence in the car, Jayon got to thinking about all that Jordan said, and he remembered the part when she said Randi had been hinting at stuff when she saw her, and the crazy stuff she said in the e-mail. Jayon got mad that he’d risked his relationship with such a dumb chick, but then he got even madder thinking about how she was trying to mess things up between him and Jordan by doing that. She knew he had a girl. Why all of a sudden was she acting like a woman scorned, he thought to himself. She knew the deal.

  Jayon had been keeping his distance from Randi these past few weeks. Suddenly, she was a huge turnoff to him; she wasn’t as exciting now that he didn’t have his main girl. He had slept with her one time since him and Jordan broke up, like a few days after. He was still all messed up over it, and Randi had called saying all these things he needed and wanted to hear, and somehowhe ended up staying the night with her. That was the last time, though. Since then, he’d barely even spent twenty minutes on the phone with her. He had things on his mind other than going back and forth to check on her. That was before, though. Now he had a whole lot of stuff to say to her.

  Randi answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, hun,” she said.

  “Randi, why did you say all that to Jordan?” Jayon started out immediately.

  “Say all what?” Randi replied, losing her initial sweet tone.

  “All that stuff you put in an e-mail.”

  “She wrote me first, calling me a home wrecker and shit, so all I said was it wasn’t much of a strong foundation because it wasn’t hard to wreck.”

  “Randi, I don’t need you making the situation worse for me.You know things ain’t good right now, and you saying stuff and adding stuff that ain’t true isn’t making it any easier on me.”

  “Seriously, do you think I care about you and Jordan’s relationship?”

  “I know you don’t, or you would have never got with me, but that’s between me and you, so don’t go saying nothing to her.”

  “She says something to me, I’m going to respond. Besides, what did I lie to her about?”

  “She said you said we were together now or something like that,” Jayon said.

  “I didn’t tell her that. If you don’t want us speaking, then you tell her to leave me the hell alone. She’s the one that hit me up, like I owed her something. I didn’t.You did.”

  Hearing those words that he owed Jordan reminded him of what Jordan had just said at her house, that she didn’t owe him anything. It reminded him again that she was at her house with some dude, and all he wanted to do was go back there and kick him out of there. He knew he didn’t have any place to do that, but he was wishing he hadn’t known that Marcus was there with her. It was just making the whole thing worse.

  “I gotta go,” Jayon said before he hung up the phone. He couldn’t talk to her anymore; she was a part of the reason he was in this mess. She would tell him that he had never had anything like her before and say all this perverted stuff in texts to get him to give in to the tem
ptation. He knew that there was no excuse that he went ahead and went through with it, but she enticed him for at least a month before he gave in. She would tell him she wasn’t trying to come in between him and his girl; she just wanted them to have some good sex.When he tried to resist when they worked together she would lean over in front of him and say all this slick stuff. She knew what she was doing. Now, all of a sudden, she was this coldhearted chick that was just out for hers and talking like she could care less what happens to his relationship.

  Jayon hung up and drove back toward Jordan’s house; he wanted to see if Marcus’s car was still parked outside. As he was turning down the street that led to her block, he began to slow down, unsure if he should go through with it in case they were outside. Then he figured it was unlikely, so he turned down the block anyway. From the corner he could tell that Marcus’s car was still parked outside, and when he drove by the house he could see that the lights were still on. As he reached her corner,trying to peek back in his rearview mirror, his cell phone rang. It was Billy calling back.

  “Hey, man, you’re not going to believe how the whole thing went down,” Jayon said.

  “What happened?”

  “First I get there, she ain’t trying to hear me. Then when I almost get her to hear me out a little bit, some dude comes walking up to the door.”

  “What? Some dude? Who’s the dude?”

  “Some dude Marcus; I still don’t know what’s going on with that or where he came from.”

  “Damn, son, so what happened?”

  “Nothing. She asked me to leave. I asked him to leave.”

  “You asked him to leave?” Billy said, laughing.

  “In so many words, but Jordan wasn’t having that. So he went in the living room to wait. It was crazy. Then as I’m tryingto tell her that this whole thing is getting to me, I must’ve said the wrong words, because she got all upset talking about how bad I hurt her and how this bitch Randi e-mailed her telling her all kinds of stuff.”