Real Love 7 (Love Knows No Bounds)

by H. H. Fowler

  “Wait…” Sasha curbed her steps at the entrance of the kitchen. “You forgot to take your breakfast!”

  The front door slammed shut, leaving Sasha alone to face the silence. If the truth be told, Drake’s actions were beginning to make her feel extremely uncomfortable. God forbid that he may have already found out about the incident that took place between her and Levi in the boys’ locker room. Because it would certainly explain a lot, especially about Drake’s avoidance of discussing certain subjects. What else could she do? The man had shut her down for every round. With a morose sigh, Sasha turned away to make ready to meet Hunter at the Shale.

  Chapter Seven

  The Shale

  It was considered the premier coffee house in Devin’s Cay, but Sasha and Hunter hadn’t agreed to meet there to simply enjoy coffee or any of the establishment’s exotic concoctions. Sasha desperately needed to empty her burdens on someone and since Hunter had always been the one to pick up the pieces, Sasha felt compelled to share everything with her. Hunter was her best friend, after all and being there for one another was what best friends did. It turned out to be a good thing that Hunter had ordered two espressos, despite Sasha protesting against it. The warm liquid was doing a superb job of relaxing Sasha’s nerves. For the moment, though, the focus of the conversation had switched to Hunter.

  “It looks as if marriage will agree with you,” Sasha said between sips.

  Hunter playfully rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell me that because you think I’m glowing. Because you will be the third person who has told me that since I got back from Tampa.”

  “But it’s true, Hunter; you are glowing. I can see that Kevin makes you happy.”

  “Honestly, he does make me happy. However, this marriage that is about to happen between Kevin and me wouldn’t have seen the light of day had it not been for the Big Man upstairs. About two weeks ago, we were at a place where we’d almost called it quits.”

  “Oh yeah? You never told me what happened.”

  Hunter waved Sasha off. “It’s all water under the bridge now.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Naw…I don’t see the necessity in rehashing it. Besides, Kevin has made certain that his past flings stay away from our path.”

  Past flings? As in more than one? That doesn’t sound too good, Sasha wanted to say, but she opted for a less abrasive response. “How so?”

  “For starters, he has dissolved his partnership with Briers and Co. and decided to move back to Devin’s Cay.”

  “I heard as much,” Sasha said. “And that he is currently looking for a spot to open up his own accounting practice. But I thought Kevin moved back to Devin’s Cay because he wanted to be close to you. I didn’t know it was related to him trying to distance himself from his past.”

  Hunter tried not to show her distaste for Sasha’s tactless comment. “Well, it is all part of Kevin’s decision to move back home…the important thing is: I trust him. I wouldn’t be marrying him if I didn’t. But if indeed I am glowing…” Hunter used her index finger to point upwards. “It has everything to do with Him. He has completely changed my outlook on life.”

  Despite her surly mood, Sasha gave Hunter a lively look. “You are serious about getting to know the Lord, aren’t you? Forget all that I’ve been complaining about…this is way more interesting.”

  Hunter laughed, happy to see the anguish had disappeared from Sasha’s eyes, if only for a moment. “I’ve learned so much about the Lord already. I dropped on my knees last night and prayed the “Sinner’s prayer,” inviting the Lord to come into my heart. My only regret is that I wish I’d paid attention to Him much sooner.”

  “Wow,” Sasha exclaimed. “I don’t know any new convert to Christianity who hasn’t said that. I am so excited to know you’ve made such an important step in your life.”

  “It’s been long overdue. And I believe God used you and Drake to plant seeds of faith within my heart, even though at the time it appeared as if I wasn’t taking in all of what you guys were saying to me.”

  Sasha grew silent when she heard that, because for so long she’d been under the oppression of trying to ‘save’ her marriage that she had forgotten one of her primary roles of being a Christian – which was to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d really sat down and studied the Holy Scriptures. Hunter’s unexpected conversion to Christianity was a sharp rebuke to Sasha’s conscience. She had allowed the cares of life to weigh her down to the point where soul winning had taken a back seat in her walk with God.

  “And the best part about this whole thing,” Hunter beamed, alerting Sasha back to the moment at hand. “Is that Kevin has decided to give his heart to the Lord as well. He may have even done so already. He told me he has been praying more since coming back home to Devin’s Cay. In any event, I hope we can both go public with our faith on Sunday. Do you think Drake would do the honors of affirming us in front of the congregation?”

  “I don’t think that is necessary…but if that is what you want, of course! Drake would be ecstatic to know that you guys are now part of the family of God.”

  “Bless your heart, honey. That would mean so much to me.”

  Sasha shook her head in amazement. Who would have thought that her best friend, Hunter Rose would have fallen head over heels in love with the Lord? Certainly that glow on Hunter’s face had much to do with her spending time in the presence of the Lord. Suddenly, Sasha was provoked to jealousy. Maybe it was time for her to get back to cultivating her relationship with God, instead of fretting over the next invention Levi would come up with to destroy her marriage.

  “Hearing your testimony gives me great hope for my situation,” she admitted to Hunter. “I just wish I hadn’t walked off my job the way I did. It just peeved the heck out of me to know that the principal of the school was blackmailing me.”

  Hunter held up her hand. “Stop right there, honey. You knew for a while that that woman never liked you and was doing everything in her power to get rid of you. At least you won’t have to put up with her foolishness anymore. However, the good news is: you and your husband have inherited millions. You hear me? Millions! Finding or losing a job shouldn’t be a concern for you.”

  “It’s not about the money, Hunter. Teaching is my calling.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Open up your own school; you certainly have enough money to do it.”

  “I never thought about that.”

  “Maybe God has been preparing you all along for this big moment and I think you should gladly embrace it. You and Drake will be fine. What don’t fit; don’t force. If Drake doesn’t want to know about the blackmail, leave it alone, because you know how one situation can lead to another.”

  “But what if –”

  Hunter quieted Sasha with a gentle interruption. “You repeatedly told me to leave my cares in God’s hands. Now I’m returning the favor. Trust the Lord to work out the details.” She raised her Styrofoam cup, half-filled with lukewarm espresso. “Sorry this place doesn’t sell apple cider to give a traditional toast, nonetheless this will work. To a fresh start, for the both of us.”

  Sasha smiled, as a feeling of peace began to settle into her heart. She lifted her Styrofoam cup and tapped it against Hunter’s. “To a fresh start…the Lord knows I need one.”

  About two booths down across from the women, Raffie lowered the newspaper from his eyes. He positioned his Canon digital camera at the edge of his table and subtly snapped a series of shots in the direction of the women. He pulled out his cell phone from the inside of his coat pocket and put through a call to Shiloh. He wished he knew her last name, which would make it easier to track her down, if he needed to. Today Raffie was wearing a wrinkle-free grey single-breasted suit, a crisp white shirt in between that was open at the collar. He was debonair in every sense of the word.

  “Should I approach her now with the business proposition?” he asked the flirtatious feline.

  “I�
��m assuming she’s within reach,” Shiloh said. “A pale white whore with blonde hair and blue eyes?”

  Raffie smirked at Shiloh’s description. She was obviously jealous of the woman. “That’s her, but she’s far prettier than I imagined.” Even prettier than you…

  Shiloh grunted. “That doesn’t mean she’s any good for Kevin. Her jewelry collection is the only thing she has going for her. When I’m done picking her to pieces, she won’t know how to find her head from her foot.”

  “Your father is a billionaire and has placed you in charge of dozens of jewelry stores around the world. What are you going to do with another one?”

  “I’m paying you to do a job,” Shiloh spat, “not to question my motives.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me why you want what you want. I was only asking.”

  “Well stop asking stupid questions and just do what I’m paying you to do! If that whore doesn’t submit to the terms, then get rid of her. Kevin will come around then.”

  “That is the reason why I’m calling. When do you want me to approach –”

  Raffie heard that familiar click in his ear. As always, Shiloh had rudely hung up on him. He looked over at the booth where the women were sitting. They were gone. He stood to his feet and grabbed his digital camera from the table. He was going home to study Hunter’s pretty face – to make sure he was comfortable with it before approaching her in person. He had a tendency to stammer in the presence of beautiful women, which could be interpreted by Hunter as a sign of naïveté. And in this line of work that was a deal breaker. He had to ensure that he was as prepared as he could be.

  Well, it looks as if you get off the hook today, Ms. Hunter Rose. But I will be seeing you soon, though…

  Chapter Eight

  The Blue Marlin – 11:11 p.m.

  “Hey buddy, slip a couple of cold beers down here for me and the ladies.”

  Levi looked up briefly from the cocktail he was mixing for another patron. The request had come from a guy Levi had never seen before. Then again, Levi had missed several days of work during the last two weeks. So it was possible this wasn’t the guy’s first time in the Blue Marlin. With his huge gold chains hanging between an open silk shirt and his ‘pimpish-looking’ gait, the guy looked like a straight up drug dealer. And even though Levi knew that he was stereotyping because people rarely came in with neat appearances to easily recognize who they were, for the most part, Levi’s guesses were usually right on the money.

  However, the Blue Marlin with its burgeoning eccentrics was the last place Levi wanted to be tonight. The patrons’ voyeuristic fantasies didn’t move him like they once did. Animals they were, whose sole purpose was to feed off of each other’s lascivious remarks, hopeful to end the night in a drunken stupor and lavish in some of the vilest expressions of sex known to man. But Levi had certainly had his fill of the lustfully-induced crowd. And he would have emailed his resignation to his boss – the same way he’d done with Xavier High – and left Devin’s Cay behind for good had Yasmine not been acting ‘crazy’ all of a sudden.

  His mind had been made up to start a new life with her and the baby – even though the baby wasn’t his. But that wasn’t enough for Yasmine, who was constantly harping on his obsession for Sasha and how it would hinder Levi from truly loving any other woman. It was useless to fight against fate, Yasmine argued. She was convinced that in the long run, Levi would eventually end up with Sasha and no amount of trials, or manipulation of the heart’s emotions could prevent that from happening.

  However, according to Levi’s take on the situation, Yasmine’s assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. Sasha had had her chance and Levi saw no future between them. Did he care deeply about Yasmine, even to point of spending the rest of his life with her? Of course he did! But the woman refused to give their relationship a chance to bloom on its own. Even now, Levi could hear Yasmine’s voice ringing in his left ear…

  “I was depending on you to completely cut ties with Sasha,” Yasmine had fired. “How convenient your excuses appear to be all of a sudden.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “As if you didn’t know…you only took your old job back so that you could run into Sasha as often as you please and then come home complaining to me about it.”

  “Contrary to what you believe, my reasons for returning to Xavier High have nothing to do with Sasha. In fact, Sasha doesn’t even work there anymore.”

  The argument they’d had this morning about her fixation for Drake’s brother was their biggest argument to date…

  “You’re being duplicitous,” he’d told her. “Here you are breathing down my neck about Sasha, when you know full well you haven’t gotten over your obsession for Kevin.”

  “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. And even if that were the case, it’s not the same thing.”

  “So you’re telling me you don’t have any sort of amorous feelings for Kevin? And there’s no use in you trying to cover it up, because I saw the way your expression drooped when Drake mentioned that Kevin was getting married.”

  “Don’t you dare switch this around on me,” Yasmine yelled. “You were the one who suggested that we take a chance on getting together, knowing you weren’t ready to give up your obsession for Sasha.”

  “There you go again! It seems as if you’re more obsessed with Sasha than I am.”

  “I can’t reason with you when it comes to her. Is this how it would have been if I’d married you?”

  “So, you’re still talking about not getting married?”

  “The heck I am! A confused man is a dangerous man…”

  “Boss!” the man yelled, getting Levi’s attention. “Where are the beers I asked you for? These ladies are getting pretty antsy over here.”

  Just when Levi was about to yell back his response, the DJ blasted the room with one of Color Me Badd’s most provocative songs from the early nineties, “I Wanna Sex You Up.” The crowd went into a roar of excitement, gyrating with their partners toward the dance floor. Levi gestured with his hands instead to let the man know that he would take care of his request in a few minutes. But the man was more interested in the lyrics of the song than any beers at the moment. The three ladies that had been surrounding the guy were all over him, stroking his ego with every touch and with every kiss.

  Levi shook his head. The things he did to make a living even surprised him. Maybe it was time for him to settle down in a church and get his mind washed from the filth he’d endured these five years working at the club. Levi shook his head again, this time accompanied with a sigh. Church would do him no good at the moment. He didn’t like it before and he didn’t like it now. Too many fakes and too many bad examples. Drake would probably be the only one in Levi’s eyes, who was as genuine a Christian as Levi had seen.

  That was yet another reason why Levi wanted nothing to do with Sasha, who was the apple of Drake’s eye. He’d seen how Drake looked at Sasha and how he took care of her with such gentle affection. That was real love in its truest manifestation. So Drake didn’t deserve to be treated with such betrayal from his wife and from the man who used to be his best friend at one time. If Levi could take back that kiss that happened between him and Sasha in the locker room, he would. All to keep the peace between him and Drake.

  Half-way through the wild orgy on the dance floor, another patron entered through the doors of the Blue Marlin. It was another man Levi had never seen before. And Levi could tell that it was the man’s first time in the club by the way he looked around, as if trying to find somewhere comfortable to lounge. Levi studied the man’s appearance: He was dressed in a business-type suit, slick black hair that looked as if he’d permed it, and features that favored people from the Middle Eastern side of the world. Arab? Egyptian, perhaps? Levi couldn’t tell, but he knew for sure Devin’s Cay was not the man’s native land. Levi rotated his gaze when it looked as if the man had turned his attention to the bar.

  And as Levi h
ad suspected, the man walked up and took a seat. He greeted Levi with a half-focused smile, turning his attention to the dance floor. He seemed to be searching for someone and Levi would have asked the man if he needed assistance, but Levi had one rule when it came to other people’s business: He stayed out of it. It wasn’t long; however, before the man’s gaze locked on the guy with the three women, who were now groping so close to his groin, Levi knew they were trying to put on a show for everyone to watch. The man in the suit didn’t seem too happy about what he was looking at. He turned his attention back to Levi and asked Levi to fix him a stiff drink.

  The DJ began to hype the crowd, deftly switching the tune from Color Me Badd to Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” Sex, as always, was the theme of the evening. Such debauchery was expected at a club like the Blue Marlin. It was how the owner made his millions every year, catering mostly to high-end customers who would pay top dollar to experience the unforbidden. The guy with the three women spotted the man in the suit sitting at the bar. That was all it took for the guy on the dance floor to lose interest quickly in the women. He pushed their hungry fingers away from his groin and marched toward the man in the suit.

  “First time in the house, Raffie?” the man said in a menacing tone. “It means you got my message loud and clear.”

  Raffie took a sip of the bitter negroni Levi had not too long ago pushed into his grasp. The drink was not for the faint of heart, but Raffie felt as if he was about to faint, looking into the cold stare of one of the island’s main drug pushers. The fear he had for this man was not healthy at all. But when friends and family members suddenly went missing without a trace, it was reason enough to fear. Raffie knew his family would be next if he didn’t cough up the fifteen thousand he owed in drug money. Indeed, Waldo St. John was not one to meddle with.

  “I was hoping we could speak in private,” Raffie said.

  “No more talking,” Waldo spat over the music. “I wanna see action!”