Hot Holiday Love

by Germaine Solomon

  “You have exactly thirty-three minutes before you’re expected to take the stage for the countdown, sir.”

  I looked up at Selig standing above me with a wide grin on his face. Judging from his glossy eyes, I would guess he’d had one too many shots of Wodka Gorbatschow. He wasn’t sloppy drunk, but he clearly had a vodka buzz. My dear friend was enjoying the festivities, and it amused me. I checked my watch to confirm his time estimation and discovered he was correct.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here. You know I’m not much of a clubber.”

  “I know, but all work and no play makes Viper a very grumpy boy. Live it up, sir! The night is still young.” He did a sweeping motion with his hand. “Look at all of these lovely ladies assembled in one place, sir. You could have your pick or two or three. My God, you’re Viper Drachenberg. You could have them all .”

  “Yes, the ladies look nice, but I only have eyes for one lady, and she’s not here, my friend.”

  “I understand, sir. A cluster of cherries can never replace an apple.”

  I nodded in agreement to Selig’s analogy and watched him walk away. I finished off my beer and signaled for a server to bring me another one. My eyes roamed around the room, taking in faces while I tapped my foot to live music from a local rock band. The sound of a bottle touching down on the table got my attention. But when I turned around to thank my server, my nerves were rattled by the person I saw standing above my private table in the reserved section of the club.

  “Stalking is against the law in Frankfurt, Ms. Göbel.”

  “I’m not stalking you at all, my love. I’m here working.” She took a seat in the chair opposite me. “Why do you insist on calling me Ms. Göbel? It’s so formal. We share very personal history. No one knows Ilsa like you do.”

  “You’re right. I know you well. You’re the woman who will do anything for money and popularity. There is no bottom you won’t sink to in order to get whatever you want.”

  “Is that all you can remember about me? What a shame because we shared so much. Yes, I was ambitious, hungry even. I wanted to make my mark in journalism. Sometimes it’s hard for a woman to earn her just due in a man’s world. So, I did what I had to do and we both benefitted from it. I landed a job with a much bigger and more widely distributed media network in Berlin, and you gained millions of fans even before you became the football star I always knew you would be.”

  “Yeah, you exploited me. You used personal information about my life, things you were privy to only because I was your younger lover, and sold the story for money and your professional advancement.”

  “That was so long ago, my love. Let us not dwell on the past. We are here right now. I am divorced with no children, and you are obviously unattached. You’re much more mature now, and I have nothing more to prove in journalism. It is a good time for us to start over and rekindle what we once had. Second chances are always good, eh?”

  I stood and lowered my head to whisper in Ilsa’s ear. “I’m very much attached to a woman that you can only aspire to be like many years from now. And if I were an unattached

  man, I wouldn’t want the likes of you. You’re all washed up. I doubt if you can even count the number of cocks you’ve sucked to make it to the top. So, I decline your offer to start over with you. Happy New Year, Ms. Göbel.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have exactly thirty seconds until the New Year’s countdown. Are you ready?!” I shouted.

  The crowd cheered and applauded rowdily. Electricity was in the air all around the nightclub, causing the atmosphere to sizzle. There were other celebrities on the stage along with Edgar, the band, and me. Media cameras and lights were front and center. Selig had fallen asleep in a chair at my table in the reserved section of the club. I had promised Tilda that I would take him to my condo immediately after the countdown.

  “Everyone grab a drink and get close to someone with kissable lips. The countdown is about to start! Here we go! Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!”

  A set of lips crushed mine in an aggressive kiss as two thin arms wrapped around my neck. I turned my head away, shoving and wiggling my way out of the unwanted embrace. My rage shot through the roof when I realized Ilsa was the person who had kissed me. I sputtered and wiped my lips with the sleeve of my jacket.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

  I wanted to slap that sardonic smile off her face. Her red lipstick had smeared across her cheeks and chin as a result of the kiss she’d stolen from me.

  “Loosen up, my love. Happy New Year!”

  I was tempted to follow Ilsa off the stage and throw her out of the club, but I couldn’t allow my anger to cause me to act like an asshole in a building full of eyewitnesses. So, I walked over to Edgar and gave him the mic and said goodbye. On my way back to my table, I saw Ilsa interviewing club patrons with a photographer by her side. She cut her eyes at me and smiled. Still very much pissed by her actions, I turned my head and made my way to Selig. He was awake but heavily intoxicated.

  “Come on, my friend. It’s time for us to go. There’s a special lady in Atlanta, Georgia who wants to wish me a Happy New Year.

  “Raise your glass of champagne, babe, and I’ll raise my bottle of beer.”

  “For a cool dude with so much swag, you can be really corny sometimes, bae.”

  “Play along with me, sweetheart. Just because we aren’t together, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a New Year’s toast. Now, stop giving me grief and raise your glass.”

  Gorgeous as always, even through my laptop screen, Natalie rolled her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head before she raised her crystal champagne flute. “Okay, Mr. Corn Ball.”

  “Happy New Year. I hope this year will bring us closer together emotionally as well as in distance. I’ve never a met a woman like you, Natalie Taylor. You’re it for me. Here’s to our wonderful future together. Drink up, babe.” I raised the bottle of beer to my lips.

  “Wait! I have something to say too.”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead, sweetheart.”

  “Hayden, I didn’t go to the Blue Ridge Mountains expecting to meet you, but I thank God our paths crossed. You are an incredible man, and I’m glad you’re mine. I’m counting down the hours until I’ll be able to touch you again. Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year to you. I love you, Natalie.”

  “I love you too.”

  We spent an hour talking about all the things we wanted to do during her short visit to Munich in less than forty-eight hours before we ended our video call. I was wide awake afterwards, so I decided to take a warm shower. As I scrubbed my body, many thoughts crossed my mind. I was still very angry with Ilsa for reappearing in my life, but I didn’t want to waste precious time thinking about her foolishness.

  I quickly shifted my thoughts back to Natalie’s upcoming visit to Munich. Boy, was she in for a few surprises. First, she was going to be shocked once she learned she would be traveling on my private jet instead of a commercial airline. Selig and I had agreed that it would be best if I were to receive her at the private airstrip at the Munich airport. On the limousine ride to my estate, I would introduce Natalie to Viper Drachenberg. I would reveal all the secrets I’d planned to tell her before we had to leave Blue Ridge unexpectedly. So, by the time we reached my mansion, she would know everything about the man she’d fallen in love with and I believed she would reveal her truth to me.

  I left the shower and dried off with pleasant thoughts in my head. In a day and a half, my life would change for the better. I slid under the crisp, cool bed sheet, thinking about being reunited with the woman I loved. Sleep found me easily just moments later.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Natalie

  I entered my dressing room at Phillips Arena, eased out of my leather bomber jacket, and hung it on the back of a vanity chair. I had a little over three hours to kill before show time, so I decided to take a nap until my glam squad arrived. I walked p
ast Ravie who was sitting in a recliner devouring the hell out of a box of Popeye’s chicken and side items. Her eyes were glued to the TV, watching the Martin Lawrence Show on BET.

  “Hold up! What’chu got on, Eesh? That’s cute.”

  I smiled and did a little twirl. “It’s one of Hayden’s soccer jerseys. He loves himself some soccer, girl, especially this team. He’s got a whole rack of their gear, so I took a jersey and a pair of shorts to make me feel close to him even though we’re thousands of miles apart.”

  “Oh Lawd! That man got you gone over him. You strutting up in here rocking soccer jerseys and whatnot and you know you don’t know a damn thing about soccer.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ravie placed her chicken box on the end table next to her cell phone. “What’s the name of the team?”

  “Bayern Munich.” I stuck out my tongue at her.

  “Okay. Who’s the star of the team?”

  “Heifer, I don’t know! But my bae must think number forty-five is the star because he’s got all his gear.” I turned my back to my cousin. “What name do you see above the number?”

  “Drach…Drach…” She scrunched up her face and sliced the air with her hand. “Hell, I don’t know how to pronounce it.” She reached for her cell phone, pressed a few keys, and scrolled through it.

  I took my tennis shoes off and stretched out on the black leather sofa while Ravie took a Google crash course on soccer. I didn’t need to know anything about the sport. My interest was in the man who enjoyed it, and seeing him again was the only thing on my mind. A girl was already packed and ready to leave tonight for Munich. This time tomorrow, I would be the happiest woman alive.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  I sat up on the sofa. “Ravie, what’s wrong?”

  She was staring at her phone, shaking her head so hard and fast that I thought her neck was going to break. “Eesh, you need to see this. Oh my God!”

  I jumped up, took her phone, and looked at its screen. The first thing I saw was a picture of Hayden wearing a soccer jersey identical to the one I had on. I was confused because the name underneath his picture wasn’t his.

  “Who the hell is Viper Drachenberg ?”

  “Eesh, Hayden is Viper Drachenberg! Don’t you get it?”

  The room suddenly turned real hot and it started spinning fast like a merry-go-round. I turned and stumbled back to the sofa and dropped down like a ragdoll. Ravie left the recliner, waddled to the sofa, and sat down next to me. She grabbed her phone from my hand and started scrolling through it, pointing out more pictures and articles about Hayden whose real name was Viper Drachenberg. Or was it the other way around? Shit, I didn’t know.

  “He lied to me. He’s not the man I thought he was.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Zyeshia ? Girl, bye! You and Hayden, the viper man, played each other. So, don’t you sit up here and try to act like little Miss Sunshine because you’re not the woman he thinks you are either.”

  “But I was going to tell him everything about me as soon as my plane touched down in Munich, Ravie.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I just needed to make sure he wanted me for me without the fame and the money first. I didn’t want another Tobias situation.”

  Wrapping her arm around my shoulders, Ravie softly said, “And now that you know the man ain’t nothing like broke-ass, washed-up Tobias, you’re going to slay this halftime performance, hop on that private redeye tonight, take your ass to Munich, and tell that fine-ass, German, soccer-playing viper man that you’re his singing, song-writing, piano-playing, dancing, and acting boo.”

  My cousin had been my best friend and confidant my entire life, and she had never steered me in the wrong direction. I may not have liked her snippets of advice over the years and sometimes, I didn’t even listen to her. But right now, as we stared into each other’s eyes, I knew what she’d just advised me to do was exactly what I needed to do.

  “Alright, girl. Let me get my shit together so I can go and see my man.”

  ♫Yeah, girl, you gotta give him that ugly love .♫

  Ugly love! Ugly love!

  Sometimes you just can’t be pretty with it!

  Put it down with that ugly love!

  Ugly love! Ugly love!

  Gotta do it real good, so he can feel it.

  Ugly love! Ugly love!

  Girls, ain’t nothing wrong with being cute, but when it comes to loving cute won’t do!

  So break him off some of that ugly love!

  Ugly love! Ugly love!

  Ugly love! Ugly love!

  ♫ Ugly love! Ugly love! ♫

  The capacity crowd of 21,000 roared with a standing ovation when my dancers and I froze for the last four-beat measure to end my halftime performance of my chart-topping hit, “Ugly Love.” Grammy rumors had been buzzing around the song since the day it dropped.

  “Thank you, Atlanta! I love you! Go Hawks!” I shouted over more cheers and applause.

  I ran from center court, waving to my fans and blowing kisses to them with my left hand while clutching a now cold cordless mic in the other one. Big Quad and Chip led the way, jogging in the direction of the tunnel that led to my dressing room. My heart was still pumping a million beats a minute as the familiar surge of performance adrenaline started to slowly fade.

  Lil’ D greeted me as soon as I entered the dressing room. “You killed it, Eesh!”

  I closed my eyes when he wrapped his arms around me. At eleven years old, he was already taller than me, but he was still my baby brother, and I would commit homicide for his little annoying ass. I loved him just that much.

  “Thanks, baby boy.”

  Big Quad and Chip left the room so I could change clothes, and Ravie got up from the recliner and gave me a hug.

  “You slayed as usual,” she said flatly.

  I shot her a curious look. Something was off. I could tell by the way she was nervously rubbing her big belly and gnawing on her bottom lip. Before I had left the room to perform, Ravie was happy and damn near bouncing off the walls. She was so excited about my trip to Munich and relieved that Hayden was a successful athlete who had fallen in love with plain ole Natalie Taylor and not Zyeshia, the music icon. I wondered what the hell had happened during my eight-minute performance that caused her to fall into a mysterious funk.

  “Hey, Lil’ D, why don’t you go and catch up with Big Quad and Chip? Ravie is about to help me get out of this sweaty outfit.”

  “Okay, Eesh.”

  As soon as my little brother exited the room, I locked the door and pressed my back against it. “What’s wrong with you? Are you feeling okay?”

  Ravie slowly shook her head from side to side. And she was clearly avoiding direct eye contact with me. “Come sit down with me, cuz. I need to tell you something.” She carefully lowered her pregnant body down on the sofa and picked up her cell phone from the end table.

  “I don’t want to sit down. Something ain’t right. I can feel it floating all through the air. My stomach is all twisted in knots and my heart is pounding like crazy. Just spit it out, Ravie. Stop stalling and just tell me what the hell is going on!”

  “Sit down, Eesh,” she repeated and patted the empty space next to her on the sofa. “I need to show you something.”

  Reluctantly, I walked over and sat down next to Ravie. She handed her cell phone to me. Then she closed her eyes and started rubbing her belly again while I stared at her. After a moment, I focused on the screen, which was on Google search. There were sooo many headline links about Hayden that I didn’t know which one to read first. So, I decided to scroll through them.

  The Viper Returns to Football after Brief Suspension for Illegal Drug Use… Does Viper Drachenberg Have a Secret Injury? The Viper Makes a New Year’s Eve Appearance at Club Mirage… Drachenberg Reunites with Bayern Munich and Former Lover, Ilsa Göbel…

  The last headline caused a warning bell to ring inside my head. It seemed like something was suckin
g up all the air in the room. I was struggling to take in the smallest amount of oxygen just so I wouldn’t faint. My hand was shaking something terrible as I pressed the link with my index finger. Instantly, in vivid color, a picture of Hayden kissing some skinny, blonde chick in the mouth, surrounded by a huge crowd of people, appeared before my very eyes.

  “Oh nooo! Not again!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Natalie

  My mom leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Your daddy and I will come back and check on you again tomorrow.”

  I nodded my head against my pillow and sunk deeper under the covers.

  “Nah, what I should do is get my frat bruhs together and fly over to Germany so we can stomp another hole in his ass! Where’re my purple boots with the gold laces, Shavetta? Are they in the attic?”

  “Come on here, Dale. Your ass is too damn old to fight anybody.” She pulled my daddy by the arm.

  “Okay,” he mumbled in defeat and cast eyes on his only niece. “Take care of my baby girl, Ravie. And you take care of both of them, Big Quad.”

  “I got her, Unc.”

  “Yes, sir,” Big Quad assured Daddy before following him and Mom out of my bedroom and down the stairs.

  “Eesh, I know that picture looked like Hayden was fooling around with that blonde chick, but I still think you should make the trip. It just don’t make sense to me. I mean, don’t no dude send for a girl on a private jet to come and spend time with him at his crib if he ain’t feeling her. I almost pissed in my panties when I checked your email and found out you were flying boss style. And didn’t you tell me that he wants you to meet his parents and the whole damn German gang?”