Free Indeed

by Bailey West

  “You know me and you know my sensibilities. You knew how to approach me but you chose not to. Then you had a meeting with Bell. That was some underhanded, conniving, sneaky ass shit.”

  “Averie, I really was trying to help!”

  “You know what, Caroline? If that’s what you were really trying to do then time will tell. Now, if we don’t have anything else to discuss, I would really like to finish unpacking these boxes. We only have a few days before we start seeing clients again.”

  It was day four of our first week at the firm’s new location, and I called a meeting with everyone to go over some housekeeping items and to get their feedback on the new place. I gave everyone a chance to speak uninterrupted and voice any concerns they had. Everyone seemed to be very happy with the new location. I ordered lunch for everyone and was sitting at the table in the kitchen talking to Liddy when my cell phone beeped with a text message. I saw Samuel’s name in the notification and figured he was texting to find out how my day was going. It wasn’t a text; it was a picture. A picture of a long, brown, hard penis…Samuel’s penis. I almost dropped my phone as I quickly stood from the table. The caption under it read; “This has been happening all day.”

  I took in a deep breath.

  “Vee, is everything okay?” Liddy asked.

  “Huh,” I said while examining the photo. “Oh, yeah. Everything is fine.”

  As I was typing my reply, I got another text. This time it was video. I walked out of the kitchen to open it. The video showed Samuel’s hand stroking his erect penis causing me to lick my lips.

  Meet me at the car. We are going home. – Samuel

  OMW- I typed out excitedly.

  “Liddy,” I stuck my head back in the kitchen. “I’m stepping out. I might be back.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Do you need me to come with you?” Laila asked after following me out of the kitchen.

  “Naw, I’m just going home with Samuel. I may be a while,” I winked.

  “Got it!” She smiled.

  I grabbed my purse and hopped on the elevator to the garage level.

  The elevator doors opened in the garage and Samuel was standing there waiting on me. He reached for my hand and led me to his Wagen. He backed me up against the truck pressing his center into mine.

  “You feel that?”

  “Umm hum,” I said while rubbing him through his pants.

  “If it weren’t for these cameras I would take you right here.”

  My panties were saturated thinking of the possibility.

  “I would let you,” I said while tightening my grip on his dick.

  He groaned, “Did you tell them you were coming back?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. We are not leaving the house for the rest of the day.”

  As soon as we walked through the doors of my apartment, Samuel instructed Brick to drive us there because it was the closest, he had my back to the wall working to get my jeans unbuttoned while I worked on his belt buckle and pants. My heart was racing, and my hands were shaking as I tried to undress him. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I prayed in my head; God, please don’t let this be a fluke. Please let this situation be over. I pushed his pants down to his knees. He successfully got one of my legs out of my jeans and panties before lifting me up and entering me.

  “AHHHHH!” we both yelled.

  Samuel’s grip on my ass tightened as he started aggressively stroking me. It felt like it had been forever since we’d made love. I held on to his broad shoulders enjoying the confidence I had that he would hold me up no matter what.

  “Vee, you feel so damn good. I missed this, baby,” he moaned.

  “I missed this too.”

  He continued to stroke until I felt myself coming apart. His pace increased until he mumbled something inaudible and said my name into my neck.

  It wasn’t a fluke. He got hard over and over again. We made love until neither of us had enough energy to move.

  After a long nap, I was able to find us some food in the kitchen. I put it all on a tray and carried it back to the bedroom. We ate, drank some water and made love again.

  We didn’t wake up until the next day.

  Samuel

  I’d missed the last couple of months of baseball but my team, the Charlotte Stars, had made it to the divisional championship. That was a good thing for the team but a bad thing for our investment group. It meant that we would probably have to look at the numbers again. It’s one thing to buy a franchise that was mediocre. It was a totally different thing to buy a team that had gone to the playoffs. We would probably have to increase our offer.

  Averie and I were preparing to fly to Charlotte for the American League Championship Series. We were playing the Texas Rangers in the best of seven games. We would also travel to Arlington for the away games. The Stars should be able to make quick work of this series, but the Rangers had given us problems in the past.

  “Are you ready?” I asked after taking Averie’s luggage to the front door.

  “Yes,” she said while looking around the room.

  “Have I said thank you for taking the time to travel with me to these games?”

  “Yes, you said thank you all night last night. I feel appreciated,” she smiled. “Besides, I can get some work done and take a couple of meetings that I’d been putting off. So, it works for me.”

  “I will have some meetings as well, but I lined up a broker because I want us to look at some properties while we are in Charlotte. It would be smarter for us to invest in some land than to keep staying at the hotel when we visit. You down for that?”

  “I am.”

  “You are?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Because I usually have to convince you. Especially when it comes to spending money.”

  “I’m marrying a boss. I understand that for the purposes of business and convenience we will have to make some moves.”

  “Are you ready to take this journey with me?”

  “To the moon and back.”

  “To the moon and back,” I said while kissing her neck.

  Upon our arrival at the owner’s box, the other owners and their families were there. Averie dressed in the personalized jersey that I gave her before the first game we attended. I wore my jersey as well. It felt good being back in the ballpark after such a long absence.

  “Samuel,” Theo, the majority owner, said as he approached me with outstretched arms. We quickly embraced before he continued. “It’s so good to see you. You look great.”

  “Thank you, Theo, I feel good. Thank you for the calls, cards, and gifts. My family and I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I can’t imagine what everyone went through with that whole ordeal, but I am just glad you made it back. How is business?”

  “Business is better than ever. Gained some new clients, looking into some real estate ventures.”

  “I also heard that you are marrying this beautiful woman,” he said while looking at Averie.

  “Yeah. Luckily, she said yes.”

  “Lucky you!” he laughed. “Hey, you want a glass of cognac? We are celebrating early. I think we’ve got this one in the bag. Phillips came back from the injured reserve on fire. He has been unstoppable.”

  “I told you that he would.”

  “Yeah, thanks for working your magic with him and getting him to sign his contract. He’s the reason we are here today.”

  “He is.”

  “See it’s like I said at the meeting, we don’t have to throw a lot of money into the team, we just have to get players that work well together to form a team. A team is what wins championships.”

  I didn’t agree at all. The way to win and stay winning was to provide the players and staff with facilities that would help them perform at their highest levels. The Stars were still using equipment from the late nineties while other ball clubs had state of the art facilities. Theo didn’t get into baseball because he
loved the game. He saw an opportunity to make money and took it. He was cheap, lazy and knew nothing about building from the ground. His money was old money passed down from his ancestors. All my ancestors passed down was the will to survive, the drive to fight and the hopes of being better than they were. That drive made me a much better business man than him.

  “Hey, grab that cognac. I am going to go and talk with Orville his company is working on some new technology that I might invest in,” she said while placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “Will do. Thanks again, Theo.”

  “No problem, Sam.”

  “Did he just call you Sam?” Averie asked after he walked away.

  “He did. He’s already had too much to drink. Plus you know how they like to shorten names.”

  “Right. I had to force them in school to stop calling me Av. I was like my name is already one syllable it doesn’t need to be shortened!”

  We laughed and continued around the room speaking with everyone before we took our seats in preparation for the start of the game. Since it was a home game, the Rangers were up to bat first. The first two pitches were strikes. The batter hit the third pitch earning him a base hit. The same thing happened with the next two batters, each batter hit the ball advancing the runners to the next base. Initially, the crowd was rowdy, but this quick succession of hits had reduced the noise dramatically. The fourth batter came to the plate and anxiously swung at the first pitch. It was a strike. He didn’t swing at the second pitch. It was a strike. The next two pitches were low and to the right causing the umpire to rule those balls. The next perfectly thrown pitch connected with the bat and flew into the air over all the outfielder’s heads into the crowd. Grand slam home run. The room was quiet. I couldn’t believe this was happening. We had our best pitcher in the game. He’d never given up so many hits.

  “There’s still a lot of game to play, baby,” Averie soothed.

  By the bottom of the fifth inning of the game, we were down six runs. Our team hadn’t scored one run. They were playing like they were scared. Wesley had been to the plate twice, and each time he struck out. It was the Stars turn at bat again. The first two batters struck out. It was Wesley’s turn at the plate again. Andy Mineo’s “You Can’t Stop Me”, played throughout the stadium as Wesley walked to the plate. The first two pitches were strikes. It looked like he was going to strike out again, but the pitcher threw his third pitch and Wesley smacked the heck out of that ball. It flew to the left like it was going be a foul ball but turned slightly and went into the stands right near the foul line. He’d hit a home run. The crowd went crazy! Our room went crazy. That hit turned the tide of the game. By the bottom of the eighth inning, the Stars had pulled ahead, and we only needed to play the top of the ninth. We won.

  Averie

  “Whew! That was a nail biter, right?” I said to Samuel as we walked down to the clubhouse.

  “It was. I wasn’t sure they would pull it out, but they did.”

  Samuel spoke to all the players as they exited the locker area. Wesley appeared, and a beautiful woman ran into his arms. I thought he was dating Diamond, a popular Instagram model. The girl in his arms was not Diamond. Wesley walked over to Samuel, hand in hand with the woman. She and I were around the same height. She wore her curly hair in a high ponytail. Her caramel skin had a healthy glow. She wore a Stars jersey, some bootcut distressed jeans, and brown wooden platform shoes. She wore rings on all her fingers and had a left arm full of bangles. They made a good-looking couple.

  “Wes!” Samuel and Wesley embraced.

  “El! It’s good to see you. You look good man. You got a little bit of bulk up top,” Wesley smiled while squeezing Samuel’s arm.

  “I’ve been working on getting back healthy, man. You looked amazing out there tonight. You keep that up, and we will be in World Series for sure.”

  “That’s my goal,” Wesley smiled and ran his hand through his loose curls.

  “You remember my lady, well my fiancé, Averie,” Samuel said.

  “Fiancé? Congratulations! Averie it’s good to see you again,” Wesley leaned in for a quick hug.

  “It’s good to see you too, Wesley.”

  “This is my fiancé, Charlene.”

  “Fiancé?” El said.

  “Yes, Charlene is the one I told you about when we had dinner,” Wesley recounted.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Charlene,” El extending his hand.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I hug you. Wes speaks so highly of you. You feel like family,” Charlene said.

  Samuel extended his arms, and they embraced. Then she turned and hugged me too. She smelled like lavender and fresh laundry. Her hug was brief but great. She had an aura that exuded tranquility.

  “I know it’s late, but we should have dinner together,” Wesley said. “Are you free for dinner?”

  Samuel looked at me. I nodded.

  “Sure, where do you want to go?”

  “I will have my chef prepare us something. You can meet us at my house in about an hour and a half.”

  “Sounds good. We will be there,” Samuel replied.

  Both Samuel and I changed for dinner. He changed into a pair of black slacks and a black shirt that he wore partially open. He wore his black Gucci brogues. I put on an oversized black sweater, black leggings, and my red thigh high boots.

  “Where did these come from?” Samuel said looking down at my boots.

  “My closet. You like ‘em?” I asked turning around.

  “I like them a lot.”

  “Good, I wore them for you.”

  “Don’t play with me. We will have dinner right here,” he said while pulling me to him by my waist.

  “Don’t worry. I got you covered tonight,” I winked.

  “And keep those boots on,” Samuel added.

  After a short drive, we arrived at a gated neighborhood. We were buzzed in and proceeded through the gate. The houses were massive with perfectly manicured lawns and ambient lighting around them. There weren’t many cars in front of the houses, but the few that I saw were expensive.

  “You like this neighborhood?” Samuel asked while Brick pulled up to the front of a Tudor style brick house.

  “I like the security for sure. I would like to see it in the daylight.”

  We were greeted at the door by Charlene who had changed into a long African print skirt with a crop top. She was still sporting the bangles and the rings, but she didn’t have on any shoes. She looked comfortable.

  “Come in and welcome,” she said stepping to the side.

  “Do we need to take off our shoes?” Samuel asked.

  “No, absolutely not. I don’t mind if you do but it’s not a requirement,” Charlene smiled.

  “We brought wine,” I said while offering her the bottle of wine we ordered from room service before coming.

  “Thank you,” she smiled. “Follow me.”

  We followed her past a double staircase to the back of the house. Where Wesley was in the kitchen with another man whom I assumed was the chef.

  “You made it,” Wesley smiled. “Come on into the dining room while Chef finishes up.”

  Wesley was dressed in a pair of jeans that rode low on his waist with a white v-neck t-shirt tucked in. I had a slight flashback to him on the cover of the sports magazine. We followed them into the dining room that was decorated with silver and white striped wallpaper and white furniture. It reminded me a lot of my office’s color scheme.

  “So are you going to tell me the story of how I saw you a few months ago and now you are engaged?” Samuel said while he and I occupied seats across from Wesley and Charlene.

  “You know I went home to convalesce after the surgery. Well, Charli was there, and after some begging and pleading on my part, she gave me another chance,” Wesley said smiling at Charlene.

  “Wesley and I dated in high school and then broke up in college,” Charlene clarified, “I went through a very amicable divorce, and he’d broken up
with his previous thing, so we gave it a try.”

  “But I had to beg. Don’t let this docile creature fool you. She made me work for it,” Wesley smiled.

  “You are living in Ragston, Charlene?” Samuel asked.

  “It’s Charli, please and yes. I moved back there from Arizona after the divorce. My family is in Ragston. I also have an inn that I am opening after the World Series is over. It was slated to open earlier, but I can’t have a grand opening without Wes.”

  “After the World Series, huh?” Samuel said.

  “Yes. We’ve made it this far. I believe we are going all the way. I will speak it until it’s a reality,” Charli smiled.

  “Tell me about your inn. I love cozy hotels.”

  “Winterborne is an old house that all the people in town were scared of for years. Wes and I fell in love with the house and the property saying one day we wanted to own it. I got the opportunity to purchase it so I did. The house was built by a former slave for his family who still owned it until I purchased it. It has seven guest rooms.”

  “Wow, congratulations.”

  “Thank you. I went through several months of renovations changing it enough to make it nice but not taking away from the original charm. My father in law, Big Wes and Wesley were both so supportive during the process. I thought seeing the completed result would be the best part, but the best part was getting my love back,” she smiled at Wes.

  I watched Samuel. He was engaged in the conversation, but he wasn’t connected.

  “Dinner is served,” the chef announced when he entered the room.

  We feasted on the dinner of swordfish and fresh vegetables. It was delicious. After dinner, Wesley and Charli cleared the table, leaving El and me alone for a few minutes.

  “What’s bothering you? She seems nice.”

  “She is very nice. That bothers me. The last time I saw him he was still tinkering around with Diamond and then the next time we see each other, he’s engaged? I just don’t want him out here making reckless moves and hurting people.”