I simply nodded. If I kept telling myself that, then maybe before the night was over I just might start believing it.
17
Candace
“Thanks, Mama. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You know there isn’t anything I won’t do for my granddaughter.”
Thank goodness I had Mama; otherwise, I don’t know what I would do when I needed a babysitter. It was enough my mother watched Miasha for me during the day and while I took classes at Kennedy King College two evenings a week, but every now and then Sylvia wanted to flex her balls and make us work overtime.
Tonight, my supervisor waited until four o’clock to tell us she needed the support staff to stay after work to purge files. We had to box up all the patient records that were more than five years old so they could be sent to a national archives company for electronic processing. It wasn’t our fault Sylvia waited until the last minute to get it done. Yet we had to bust our ass and stay late just because she wasn’t doing her job. I hung up the phone, then slipped off my shoes and reached for the first box just as Gloria stepped into the room.
“You want me to order a pizza or something?”
I shrugged. She can be nice when she wants to be. “Sure, might as well if we gotta be here.”
She picked up the phone and ordered a large pepperoni pizza, then took a seat beside me. “Okay, I wasn’t paying attention when Madame Witch explained. What are we supposed to do?”
She didn’t hear because she was too busy flirting with one of our physician assistants. I reached for the list on my desk. “Here are the items that need to be purged from the files of every patient who hasn’t been seen in the last five years and shredded. After we do that, we need to box up the records. They’re being sent to a contract company to be scanned for electronic recordkeeping.”
Gloria gave a long sigh and already looked bored. “I guess this whole paperless processing is for the birds.”
“Yeah, I agree. It would have helped if we had been doing this regularly instead of waiting five years to rush and do it before the medical board comes to visit our clinic at the end of the month.” We each reached for a file and got busy. The sooner we got started, the sooner we could get out of here. We were almost done with A-C when I looked up to find Sylvia standing in the doorway. She had the nerve to have her purse on her arm and a briefcase in her hand.
“I’m getting out of here. Just remember we need those records ready to be shipped in the morning. Catch y’all later.”
“Bitch,” Gloria mumbled under her breath the second the door slammed. We took one look at each other and started laughing. “She making us do all the work while her ass is going home. What’s up with that!”
“I know that’s right.” Gloria could be cool when she wanted to be as long as you weren’t trying to step on her toes. We worked on the files until they arrived with the pizza, then decided to take a ten-minute break.
Brenda peeked her head around the corner. “Ooh, is that pizza I smell?” she asked like she didn’t see the box on the counter.
“Help yourself. Although I shouldn’t let you have anything after trying to hook me up with your cousin,” I added with a playful roll of my eyes.
The LPN gave me an apologetic look. “I told you I’m sorry about that.” I’ll give it to her. She’d been telling me sorry ever since I recapped my experience with him and his tart breath.
“Cousin? What cousin?” I should have known Gloria’s man-crazy ass wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to meet someone.
“Brenda tried to hook me up with her cousin.”
Her brow rose. “What’s he look like?”
“Cute, single, and a medical student.”
I saw the dollar signs in her eyes. “Can a sistah get the hook up?”
“What happened to Pierre?” I asked between chews.
She cut her eyes in my direction. “He lost his job and I had to let that fool go. So can I have this dude’s number or what?”
I was about to warn her about Deon looking for a woman to take care of him, not to mention his bad breath, but thought better of it. “Brenda, I think he and Gloria might be a match made in heaven.”
“I agree. I’ll give you his number before we leave.” When she looked at me out the corner of her eyes, it took everything I had not to laugh. “I’m just about done getting patient records ready for clinic tomorrow. I don’t mind staying after and helping you with the files,” she offered between bites.
She’d been working late a lot lately. “Don’t you have a man at home waiting on you?”
She took a long, deep breath, shifting her body on the chair with agitation before speaking. “Puhleeze, I had to get rid of him. Too needy. There is nothing worse than a needy man.”
Gloria laughed. “I know that’s right. I dated one for a while and all he talked about was I love you . . . I love you so much,” she mocked.
As I listened, I realized one thing I could say about Chauncey, there was nothing needy about him. He was confident, and that was one thing about him that attracted me most.
“What you smiling about?” Gloria asked.
“Nothing?”
She wasn’t buying it. “Yes, it is. What, you got a new man in your life?”
“Yeah, I do.” I was grinning so hard my face hurt.
“Well, don’t just sit there. Tell us all about him. Is he fine? Does he have a job?” Gloria had her skinny tail all up in my face, but for once I didn’t mind. I had to tell someone. I gazed up at the ceiling thinking about the last forty-eight hours.
“He’s all the above.” I took a deep breath. “Girrrrl, remember Shemar Moore in that Tyler Perry movie, Diary of a Mad Black Woman?”
Gloria reached for a slice of pizza, then nodded. “Oh sure. When he had his hair braided?”
I nodded. “Well, that’s how Chauncey looks, only better.”
Brenda’s eyes got really wide. “Ooh! His name even sounds sexy.” Brenda was “oohing” and “aahing,” but Gloria had gotten quiet and I could tell she was jealous.
She shucked pizza from between her teeth. “Shemar Moore ain’t all that. I thought you were going to say Jamie Foxx or somebody.” She was hating.
“Oh, but my man is. There ain’t nothing soft and pretty about him. He’s all man, and he knows how to work a sistah!”
Brenda sat there shaking her head. “Damn, you are so lucky. All I seem to find is someone else’s leftovers.”
I saw Gloria looking at me out the corner of her eyes before she got up to turn on the CD player. She hated that I had found someone. If she’d stop sleeping with every man she met on the first date, maybe they would respect her enough to call her again.
“What’s Deon look like?” she asked, changing the subject.
I shrugged. “He’s actually cute. He’s a black Dr. McDreamy.”
The smile returned to her lips.“Gorgeous and educated . . . I can’t wait to meet him. Brenda you really should call him for me and get that hooked up.”
“Okay.”
Gloria reached for her cell phone from her back pocket and dialed his number. The entire time she was talking to him, I couldn’t helping remembering how funky his breath was and lost my appetite.
I reached for another file and realized it had been misfiled in the E’s. I started to stick it with the other K’s when I noticed the name on the file folder and almost peed myself.
Kimbel King.
I quickly thumbed through the record, making sure it was the same Kimbel King who was engaged to my best friend, Tiffany. What I saw made me wanna dash to the phone and call her. Unfortunately, we had rules about privacy acts and patient confidentiality, and as much as I wanted to tell Tiffany, there was nothing I could do but toss his file in the box and reach for another. But as the evening progressed, I kept wondering if maybe she already knew and just hadn’t told me. It really wasn’t my business if he had. Maybe she loved him enough that it didn’t matter. But at the same ti
me, what if she didn’t know? While Gloria worked on getting herself a date for the weekend, I finished the E’s and tried to think of a way to ask Tiffany without her knowing that I already knew. She was my best friend, and there was no way I could just ignore something this vital. Tiffany was getting married in two weeks and could possibly be making the biggest mistake of her life.
18
Chauncey
I ran my hand down my girl’s back, not stopping until I reached her apple bottom.
Candace pulled back and stared up at me. “Did you just touch my ass?”
“Naw . . . I touched my ass.” I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. The last couple of weeks had been unbelievable and like nothing I’d experienced with any other female. But now I was ready to take our relationship to the next level.
We were in her living room slow dancing to the sounds of Mariah Carey. Miasha was sound asleep in her bed. I closed my arms around Candace and held her against my chest while she ran her hands down my back.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, and pressed my lips against her hair.
“I just wanted to show my baby I got skills,” she said, and looked pleased that I enjoyed her cooking dinner for me tonight. Smothered pork chops never tasted so good.
Candace ran her hands along my back. Her fingertips slipped under my shirt. “Now I wanna show you my other skills.” I pressed my lips to hers. “I want you to make love to me.” She looked at me and was so sexy with her eyelids sensuously low. My heart was pounding so hard. The day had come when I could finally make love to my woman.
I reached up and unfastened the top button of her shirt. Her lips parted slightly. I unbuttoned the next few buttons slowly until I reached the bottom. The shirt fell open. I slid it over her shoulders, then tossed it across the room, not caring where it ended up. Candace unhooked her bra and it fell to the floor. I stepped back and took it all in.
“Damn, you are fine as hell.”
Her breasts were large and round, and her nipples were like dark Hershey kisses. I held one of them in my hand; the other hand I slipped down into the waistband of her jeans.
“Let me help you out.” She purred and unsnapped the button and pulled down her zipper. I slid them down over her hips and allowed them to fall onto the carpet. All I could do was stare at her in silk pink panties that left nothing to my imagination.
“Turn around,” I instructed, then watched my woman strut her stuff in front of me. “Damn, you are beautiful.”
Candace smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and licked her lips.
I couldn’t wait to have those lips wrapped around my dick, but that would have to wait. I needed to be inside something warm and wet. I hadn’t had any in almost six weeks. The longer it took, the more my dick throbbed with the need.
“Bend over,” I said, and realized my voice cracked. “I want to see you from behind.”
She kicked her panties away, then bent over the couch. Candace was wearing nothing but those sexy stilettos. Damn, she was a sight to see. I didn’t think my dick could get any harder. I moved up behind her and ran my hands over the smooth cheeks of her caramel ass.
“You got a fat ass.” My hands roamed over her skin and reached in front of her and fingered her nipples, and when I rolled them with my fingers, she pushed up against me.
“Com’ere girl.” As soon as she turned around, I scooped Candace in my arms and carried her down the hall to her room. Once she was on the bed, I pressed a kiss to her cheek, then pushed her back against the pillow. Reaching down, I slid my finger along her slippery folds. She was wet and ready for me. I plunged a finger deep into her, loving the way she felt warm and wet. I drew out slow, then in again and added another finger. Candace whimpered and pushed against me. I teased her until she was rubbing her clit against my finger, gasping and crying out my name until she couldn’t take it anymore. When she came, I pulled her by the hair and crushed my mouth to hers. “I want to be inside of you.” I sucked her lower lips. “Tell me you want me inside you.”
“Yes,” she said. “I want you inside me.”
I pulled off my jeans and boxers, then grabbed a condom from my wallet. I slipped it on, then spread her legs and moved inside. She wrapped her arms around me and thrust her hips forward and I slid in even deeper.
“Chauncey,” she whispered as I moved inside her body.
“Baby, I’m right here.” She pressed her warm and wet lips to my neck.
“Yesssss,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.”
I stroked her long and deep. She was so wet and open that I knew I wouldn’t last long. Not as good as she was feeling. I thrust harder and moved faster until she dug her fingernails into my butt.
“Yesssss, Chauncey . . . I’m coming!” she cried and rocked her hips, meeting my strokes with her own. I brought my lips to her and increased my speed until I cried out with the release I had been waiting weeks for. I wrapped her in my arms and dropped kisses along her face and neck.
“Chauncey, let me ask you a question.”
“Baby, you can ask me anything.” And I meant that. I didn’t want to have any secrets between us, which was why in the next few days we needed to have a long talk. I hadn’t told her yet about my incarceration or how I had gotten there. I knew I needed to tell her. The time just never seemed to be right. However, I knew if our relationship was going to continue, I was going to have to find a way to tell her. I just wish I felt confident about how she might handle it.
“What’s on your mind?”
She hesitated, almost as if she was afraid to speak. “If you knew something that might change your best friend’s life forever, would you tell him?”
I stroked her arm as I spoke. “I guess it depends on if it’s something that he would wanna know or not.”
“I think he would want to know this.”
“Then I would tell him.”
She raised up on her elbows and stared down at me. “Even if it means losing your job?”
“I can always find another job. True friends are hard to come by.”
She blew out a long breath and looked so relieved for a second I thought she was about to cry. “Thank you, baby.”
“You’re welcome.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
Candace drifted off to sleep in my arms and I lay there with my eyes closed, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was thinking about my girl, because Candace was most definitely that. What she had said about knowing something about someone had me thinking. She could have easily been talking about us.
I was crazy about Candace. Our relationship had reached a level that I never expected to reach with a female. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize what we had, and that’s why I tried to keep it real with her. But I wasn’t being completely honest with her and that ain’t right. The problem is, I didn’t know how to tell her about my past. Sometimes I felt maybe it was best to just leave the past in the past and focus on the future, and that’s what I have been doing each and every day since Candace walked into my life.
My eyelids started to get heavy about the same time I heard a knock at the door. I tapped Candace on her shoulder. “Baby, someone’s at the door.”
She mumbled something I didn’t understand, so I got up, slipped back on my boxers, and went to answer the door. I turned the lock and looked outside and some tall nigga was standing there. I looked him up and down. “Whassup?”
He got all in my face. “I should be asking you that. Who the fuck are you?” he asked, and balled his fist. Homeboy don’t want none of this.
“I’m Candy’s man,” I replied, and waited for him to take a swing at me or something that would make me dust the floor with his ass. “Whassup?”
His nostrils flared. “I’m Miasha’s daddy. Where’s Candy?” he demanded.
I gave him a smirk. “She’s asleep.” I didn’t have to say a word, but the look on his face said he knew the deal. His business was now my business.
He took a step forward like he was about to bum-rush
a muthafucka, but I blocked the doorway. “I said she’s asleep.”
“Man . . . fuck you!” he growled.
“Naw, fuck you. This may be your daughter’s house, but you’re gonna show her and Candace some respect. Next time you wanna come by . . . you need to call first.” With that I slammed the door in his face. He could take that shit up with Candace tomorrow; in the meantime, I went back to the room and climbed under the covers with my boo.
“Who was that?” Candace mumbled. I could tell she was half asleep.
“Nobody,” I replied, then curled up close to her naked warm body. I was here to stay, and her baby daddy had no choice but to get used to the idea.
19
Tiffany
Candace asked me to meet her at T.G.I. Friday’s for lunch, which was fine since I was scheduled to go to the bridal shop up the road this afternoon so I could try on my wedding gown. It was still hard to believe that in one week, I would finally be Mrs. Kimbel King.
The last couple of weeks had been so mind-boggling, I couldn’t keep my secret to myself anymore and I had to let Candace know I had finally crossed over and gotten me some. Now I knew what all the girls had been going on and on about. Sex was wonderful! I couldn’t get enough of Kimbel and, apparently, he couldn’t get enough of me. I woke up this morning with him sliding deep inside of me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and allowed him to stroke me long and fast until he spilled his seed inside. It was amazing the way the two of us came together. After he was done, I took a long, hot shower and found myself thinking about our future together. It was going to be wonderful. I was ready to be a good wife and mother to our children. I had already made up my mind. While we’re on our honeymoon, I planned to toss my birth control pills in the trash. I’d started taking them two weeks after Kimbel proposed so I would be prepared on our wedding night. As far as I was concerned, the sooner we started a family the better. I adored my goddaughter, Miasha, and couldn’t wait to have a child of my own.
I spotted Candace moving into the restaurant looking fabulous in a jean mini and a midriff Baby Phat shirt that showed off her firm stomach. Dang, my girl was fierce! I hoped to look just as good after I gave birth to Kimbel Jr. “What’s up, hooker?” I greeted her playfully the second she moved up to my booth.
Suspicions Page 14