“If you need to reach me, send me a text and I will call as soon as I possibly can.” He sipped at the wine, while continuing to explain what his next few weeks entailed.
“Also, I need a deposit slip for your account.” She slowly moved to her purse and handed him her checkbook.
“You think one or three will be enough to hold you,” he asked as he snapped a quick photo of the slip.
“You had best make it five just in case, I need to pay the rent,” she responded.
Gawain only nodded. “The money should be in your account in the morning.”
He sneezed, sniffled, and decided he needed to head back to bed and kissed the top of her head before making his way to the bedroom. She joined him there a few hours later and sprawled out on her back. He rested his head on her breast as she stroked his hair and his back. Gawain could feel the weight of the missing three days of his life leave his shoulders and he relaxed his entire body against the curviness of hers. Thirty minutes later, in the quiet of the room, she called his name. He refused to answer for fear of all the ugly things in the world that could penetrate this peaceful moment.
Shontae nudged him but again he refused to move. It could only be assumed that she thought he was sleeping because she started a private conversation with the top of his head. Her words were soothing and melodic as she thanked him for not walking away when she asked him out. She told his hair that she was the luckiest woman in the world to share this moment with him, “I am grateful that this isn’t a dream because I could not bear this being some kind of sick joke at my expense.”
She sighed deeply, “I know it has only been three months, but I am so in love with you.” Gawain slowly lifted his head, and even in the dark she knew he was looking down at her face. His fingers lightly stroked her jawline and he only said, “My beautiful Shontae,” as he kissed her cheek and began to undress them both.
Her body responded so readily to his touch, and within minutes she was ready for him. Gently and slowly he entered her. With each deliberate stroke, he told her how much he adored her, valued her, and cherished every moment in her presence. Gawain whispered how special she was to him and how he could not wait to be near her side. Too bad she could not understand a word of what he said because it was all said in Portuguese.
With a chest full of phlegm, he could not risk getting too worked up for he knew it would start a bout of coughing. He could feel her tighten around him and he rolled to his back leaving her straddled atop him. She began to do that hip wiggle thing with that finger trick that she used on him the first night as she twisted his left nipple. He could feel his toes curling.
“Ahh shit, not again!” were the only words he could get out as she brought them both to climax and the tears started to roll from his eyes. How she managed to tap into his emotions he was uncertain, but one thing he knew: he was finally starting to understand what it felt like to truly be loved by a woman.
Over breakfast the next morning, he asked, “Will you check your account to make sure the deposit is there before I leave?” Shontae yelled at the top of her lungs, shocked to find that he had deposited $5,000.
“When I asked for five, I thought you mean $500! You could have bought me a car with that.”
He continued to eat his eggs. “I did,” he said as she sputtered out her orange juice. “It should be arriving in a few minutes.”
She twisted her lips with a “yeah right” look on her face. “Shit, you should have paid the rent too since you were feeling so generous!”
He bit into his toast. “I did,” he told her as he left the table to grab an apple from the fridge.
“I gave Mr. Kriskey? Is that his name?” he asked as crunched into the apple, “a check for the rent. I covered it for 6 months. After that time you should be ready to move into something a bit bigger with cable and internet access.”
She thought he was kidding until she heard a knock at the door. Uncertain, cautious and bit frightened, she answered the door to find a delivery guy there. “I have a delivery for a Shontae Jackson.” She looked over the guy’s shoulder and, sure enough, there was a green Subaru wagon in her assigned parking space. “No fucking way!” She screamed her excitement as Gawain moved away from the cold coming through the door to prepare for his flight to Arizona.
Gawain wanted to believe that his motives were completely altruistic, but he knew that if he needed her to come and get him from the airport, that she would be able to do so. He also was not comfortable with her taking the L into this neighborhood at night. At least with the car she could take her mother to the store and pick up her nephew from daycare. The little Subaru was four years old and had all wheel drive. He added some new tires, got a tune up, and had a satellite radio installed in the little gem. Shontae was full of laughter as she drove her cute little car to drop him off at the airport. The chatter was nonstop and he hear only a fraction of what she said. Although he was completely bundled up, he still careful not to exchange fluids and told her he would text her when he was settled and would see her in a few weeks.
“How much is this car payment going to be? I am on a tight budget,” she asked him. She was torn with seeing him go, but excited about the cash in her account, the upgrades she would add to her apartment while he was gone, and most of all her car.
“No payments, it is yours. The title will arrive soon and it is in your name,” he told her with no expression on his face. He wanted to kiss her but couldn’t. “I will talk to you soon.” And he walked into the doors of the airport.
I own a car. The initial paperwork said so and it is in my name. She grabbed her cell and called her hairdresser. There was a lot to do and short time to get it all done.
6
Jousting About
What have I done?
Three weeks later, he sat at his brother’s table with his head in his hands and his hair sticking straight up on his head. He was staring into that same cup of coffee that Conchetta, his brother’s housekeeper, had poured him earlier. His stomach was churning and emotionally he felt a tad bit raw as if someone had scraped away a layer of dead skin. Wilfred walked in and immediately started laughing. “Who is she, and how much did it cost you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your hair. When you tug at your hair, it means you are stressing over money. Staring into the coffee cup means it’s a woman.”
“You know me well,” Gawain muttered into the cold cup of his favorite blend.
“Well how much did she cost you?”
Gawain groaned, dropped his head into his folded arms on the table. “About twenty five grand.”
Wilfred sat down. “Whoa, what the hell, man?”
Gawain lifted his eyes from his folded arms, “I know, I know … but she took care of me.”
Wilfred leaned forward. “Back up … start over….”
Gawain began to explain how he and Vanity, whom he called Mina, had left Paris. “She headed to LaGuardia, and I was trying to get home but there was a layover in Chicago.”
Conchetta came back into the kitchen and poured him a fresh cup of coffee. He thanked her, sipping at it, but still stared into the black pool of liquid. “I was so full of fever I called her, she said come on, and I thought I was there for a day or so.”
He looked forlornly at his brother, “I was out for three days!”
“Three days?” Wilfred repeated, concerned that his brother had been down and at the mercy of someone no one in the family even knew or knew about.
“She even took off on that Friday to stay home and take care of me.” He explained that on Monday, when he felt stronger, he had cleaned the apartment, cooked her dinner, and even did the laundry.
Wilfred’s mouth dropped, “You did the laundry?”
Gawain twisted his face a bit, “Well I called Mr. Chan, and he did the laundry.”
Wilfred laughed, “Well, what’s the problem?”
“She used the L word.” He started to shudder. “You know that word m
akes me all itchy.” He began to scratch at his neck like a druggy needing a fix.
Wilfred poured himself a cup of coffee and took a seat closer to his big brother. “Okay, but where does the money come into play and how did you spend … how much was it again?”
Peering over his crossed arms like a child being scolded, he slightly raised his head to view his brother’s expression when he answered the question. “Roughly, about twenty five grand.”
Wilfred let loose a string of expletives. “I have got to meet this woman!”
“Why do you say that?”
“She got your cheap ass to drop 25 large,” he said, smiling. “She must either be a hell of a cook, a sommelier or a demon in bed.”
“Oh shut up! And I’m not cheap!” Gawain caught his breath and sat up in the chair. “She went through my wallet and called our doctor, gave him my symptoms and trekked out in that snowy weather to get my prescription filled, bought stuff to make soup, she bought me a razor, and even washed my sweat-soaked drawers!”
Wilfred made a kissy face. “Well, that’s just sweet.”
Gawain didn’t think it was that sweet. “Dude, I even think I may have thrown up on her and she cleaned me up, all while sleeping on that tiny thing she calls a couch to keep from getting sick herself.”
“Okay I got that part, now what about the money?”
“Between my prescriptions, the razor, the soup, Gatorade and all that other stuff, she used up her money and I felt bad. She didn’t even take my credit card to buy the stuff I needed! But then the landlord came and said she was late with her rent. I paid it and I put some money in her account.”
“How much?”
Gawain was quiet.
Wilfred urged him again, “How much?”
“It was so cute, I asked if it was okay to make the deposit, and then I said two or three, and she thought I meant hundred, so she said if it wasn’t a strain, could I do five?” Gawain frowned, “I did five.”
“You still seem to be a twenty thousand shy….”
“When she found out I did five thousand, she said you could have bought me a car with that, and I told her I already had and that it was arriving that morning.”
“Hell I would have told you I loved you, too.” Wilfred paused. “As a matter of fact, Big Brother Daddy Warbucks, I do love you, can I have a new Jeep?”
Wilfred started to clap and jump up and down in the seat. “Ooh, ooh, no! Can you make it one of them fancy cars like a Mer-say-deez Benz and I want a unicorn!” He broke out into laughter.
“That’s the thing, Will, she told me she was falling in love with me before she knew how much I had put in the account or that I bought the car.”
Wilfred’s face became very serious, “Please, please, please tell me you handled this properly when she told you.”
“When she said it, she thought I was asleep, then I moved and she realized I wasn’t.”
“Dear God, big bro, what did you do? Please tell me you handled this well,” he repeated.
Gawain dropped his head again on his arms. “I went Tantric on her, well as much as I could with a chest full of phlegm.”
Wilfred cracked up laughing. “She tells you she’s falling in love with you and you have Tantric sex with her?”
“No, she said she was so in love with me. I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t going to lie and say it back!”
Wilfred leaned forward, “For once in your overdressed, over-prepared life, stop being an ass. If she wants to love you, let her.”
“I’m just afraid that she may be my Pygmalion.”
“You obviously feel something for her. You bought her a car, put five grand in her bank account, did her laundry, cooked her dinner…. Am I missing something?
“Don’t forget, I paid her rent for six months.” He dropped his head in shame.
“If she has gotten you to do all this for her in such a short period of time, she must be a hell of a woman. Shit, does she have a sister?”
“It’s not funny, Will. I may be in some serious danger here!” Wilfred had never seen his brother this unsure of himself. For as long as he could remember, his overly successful, tremendously intelligent, multilingual, impeccably dressed brother was never scared.
His brother had been there for him and his twin sister, even through her silly name change to Vanity. Since she was Will’s twin, much of the family called her Willie. His big brother was the only one who called her Mina. He took care of them on a level their parents never could and made sure their businesses ran smoothly. Yet here he sat in need of help and guidance and Wilfred was not going to let him down.
“What is funny is that you are realizing you are human and are evolving. It’s time. You need a life and she seems to be part of it.”
“But she is not part of the plan. She is going to change my game,” Gawain said, almost feeling defeated.
“You game needs to be changed. Man, some people come into your life to help you through a certain part of your journey as you move towards your final goal. You need to make her a part of the plan, things may go better for you. Stop jousting about on a field where no one understands the game but you. You don’t need to be at mom and dad’s every month. Be with your woman. She is your woman, right?”
Wilfred noticed a mischievous look on Gawain’s face when he said “your woman.”
“What did you do?” Wilfred asked with a look on his face that told his brother, I know you did something stupid.
A sly grin came across his brother’s face. “The morning after our first night together, I put my stamp on her.”
Wilfred’s brows went up. Then back down ending with an almost comical grimace on his face, “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I went Kama Sutra. I put it on her to make sure she knew she was mine.”
“I do not need to hear this, Tantric and now Kama Sutra. Who is this woman?”
“That’s just it, Will! It was so fucking random. She kind of asked me to go dancing and we came back to her place. I honestly hadn’t intended to stay but the way she says my name when she wants me…”
Gawain went all moon-eyed and Wilfred drew back as if his brother had just sprouted horns and a fang. He was sincerely shocked at this change in his brother’s demeanor. “By the end of the night, I was covered in chocolate whipped cream, and my junk was shaved!”
Wilfred grabbed his coffee. “I’ve heard enough of this freaky shit.” On his way out the door, he said, “Dude, just remember to be yourself. You don’t need to be in a four thousand dollar suit every day. Throw on some jeans, a sweatshirt, and some boots and just be you.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Gawain said.
“I am right. And you need to talk to her. You don’t talk very much.”
Gawain scowled, “I talk all the time, what do you mean?”
“You talk to me and Willie, and to Dad. Anyone else you don’t think is as smart as you are, you don’t bother to talk to. You answer their questions in as few words as possible.”
“I do not!”
Wilfred’s eyebrows shot up, “Really? When was the last time you had a real conversation with Chuck?”
“Chuck’s an idiot!”
“My point exactly. He is still our cousin and you hired him, but you only talk to him when you have to. People can feel your perceptions of them.”
Gawain sat at the table taking in his brother’s words. Wilfred only added, “She loves you, fever, vomit, and Tantric, Karma, coochie stamping and all. Take good care of her and love her back.”
He stopped and looked at Gawain. “Well… however you plan to do whatever it is you do…. But put your wallet away. Show her how to save, invest, and let her buy those things she needs for herself.”
Gawain was about to respond when his phone chimed. It was her, sending a text message, “Please call.” Wilfred watched him get all moon-eyed again.
“Yeesh, she must be hell in bed,” Wilfred said to his brother’s bent head.
Gawain looked up, “Will, yes, the sex is so phenomenal. I mean toe curling, toes going numb phenomenal, but I can also talk to her. I mean, it’s not on high finance, but about life. She asks me questions and I just love looking at her when she talks to me. She is so different. She makes my skin feel all hot. She is my little Boo-Bear.” Wilfred rolled his eyes as seeing this side of his brother.
Gawain went soft again as he scratched at his neck, “I’m not in love with her or anything, but it feels good to be loved by somebody. To belong to someone again.” He lowered his head, almost whispering the words. “With her, I don’t feel so lonely.”
Gawain crinkled his nose as he looked up at his brother and Wilfred reached over and pinched him.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“Just making sure you weren’t replaced by aliens,” he said as he left the kitchen. “Call your woman, Your Boo-Bear , and tell her some of those things as well, it will change everything for you too.”
Gawain hit the button to return the call. She answered on the second ring. “It’s been three weeks. I figured you should be getting hungry.”
He laughed, “Actually, I am starving.”
“I’ll set my table for dinner.” She paused and he waited.
She was too quiet. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
A deep sigh was never good. “My brother is having a party on Friday night.”
He still waited. “He and my mother have seen the car, and some changes in me and the apartment, but they haven’t seen you.”
“Oh okay,” he sighed in relief, “what time and where?”
Shontae’s voice was filled with surprise. “Just like that?”
“Is it important to you that I be there and meet your family?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will be there.” He paused. “Why were you afraid to ask?”
“I don’t know what we are, and I wasn’t sure if it was too soon? Or if I had scared you off with that whole I’m in love with you thing, you know.”
Courting Guinevere (The Davonshire Series Book 1) Page 5