All she could think was, finally one of us is smart enough to show some signs of regret. Because goodness knows even though she had mustered up the strength to whisper her feigned indignation, she was having a hard time calling forth anything like regret or holding back the desire to kiss him again and then some.
He let out a sigh. “We’ll see, Jasmine.”
What the hell? We’ll see?
She knew she must have looked stunned. But she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what to say. He had lost his mind and she apparently wasn’t far behind.
She took a deep breath, all the while keeping eye contact with his deep stare.
She smiled. “I guess I can’t call you Stud anymore, huh?” She licked her lips, savoring the taste of him that still lingered. “I’ll have to upgrade you now.”
“Yeah?” He laughed. “What’s higher than number one?”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “You just moved from ‘Stud’ to ‘Hubby,’ or any form of that I might come up with. And I’m already thinking of a million ways to say it. Unless, of course, you’d like to start calling me Jazz as a wedding present.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, no can do, Jas mine.”
“Well, let’s go back to the hotel, then, Hubby.”
Chapter 4
Play on, player…
The move to Detroit was almost uneventful. Jazz had to cancel the lease on the apartment she was going to rent, because she was moving into Troy’s home for appearances’ sake. But she still questioned her own sanity about her decisions, everything from her decision to marry him to her decision to move in with him after he pretty much kissed her senseless on their wedding day.
Luckily they made it back from Vegas without doing anything else that could be considered crazy and reckless. As soon as they left the chapel they went back to the suite and retreated to their separate bedrooms.
She didn’t know about Troy, but she spent the night tossing and turning in heated, pent-up, passionate frustration. It was all she could do not to get up, knock on his door and offer him a wedding night he wouldn’t soon forget.
And now she was in his home…
After he picked her up from the airport and they grabbed a bite to eat, they were seated in his living room.
He lived in a Colonial Revival-style home in the Indian Village Historic District on the east side of Detroit. The neighborhood was quaint, and many of the older early-twentieth century homes had been renovated; like Troy’s, they were all well kept. A nice comfy-homey feeling overcame her as soon as they drove into the neighborhood, and it didn’t subside once they entered Troy’s house. He had the kind of home that people raised families in, and it went against every idea she had about him being a die-hard bachelor.
Compared to her sparsely decorated condo, Troy’s place looked like it had been professionally decorated. He clearly loved to surround himself with style and beauty. Everything had that well-put-together look, from the chic Italian leather furniture in the living room to the carefully selected artwork that graced the walls. The only thing that looked strangely out of place was this ugly brown plaid reclining chair that sat right in front of the television. When she asked him about it, he claimed it was his man chair and she wasn’t allowed to sit on it without permission.
Whatever.
Other than the eyesore of a chair, she immediately felt like she could actually live there for a while. That is, if Troy didn’t ask for a divorce when he found out about her job.
The rest of her clothing would arrive sometime during the week and the movers would be moving what little furniture she’d decided to keep to a storage unit.
The only thing she and Troy had yet to figure out was the sleeping arrangements, and she wondered how she could tactfully bring that up.
“So…I haven’t really thanked you for doing this…you know…marrying me and everything. I really want to thank you for that.”
Yes, that’s it. Start out with being nice… That’s a good segue to letting him know that there won’t be any repeats of that kiss and certainly no getting-of-the-goodies.
“You want to thank me?” His deep voice held a suggestive tone, and she frowned.
Leave it to Troy to take her from nice and friendly to evil and attitudinal in less than sixty seconds flat. She glared at him and twisted her lips to the side.
He chuckled. “What? One minute you want to thank me and the next you’re looking at me like you want to kill me.” He smiled. “You don’t have to thank me, Jasmine. You’re helping me, too. We do have to decide when we’re going to tell people. I’m pretty sure that Alicia and Darren are going to be upset when they find out we got married without telling anyone. And they won’t have anything on how my parents and my sister and brother-in-law are going to react. When do you want to tell everyone?”
She sighed.
Yet another layer of complication…
“I don’t know, Troy. I really hate the thought of lying to our friends and making them think we’re married.”
“Umm…hello…we are married.” He held up his hand and pulled up hers to show their platinum wedding bands. His was a wide band and hers was a dainty thin one.
“And before I forget, you should wear this, too, or no one in my family will believe that we are for real.”
He pulled a ring out of his pocket, a beautiful ring.
The antique art deco-style engagement ring was platinum with sapphires and had a bejeweled vaulted frame centered with a humongous bezel-set round diamond surrounded by eight silhouette spheres that were also bezel-set; they were interspersed with channel-set French-cut baguette sapphires.
“This was passed down to me from my grandmother, and it’s supposed—”
“It’s supposed to go to your wife! Oh, my God, Troy, I can’t take this. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely stunning and there is no way I can take this. We have the wedding bands and that should be enough.”
He took her hand and slid the ring on. It was a perfect fit. Her thin wedding band nestled perfectly against it and didn’t take away from the beauty of the ring.
She couldn’t help herself as she gazed at it like it was her long-lost friend. She had to say it. “I love it.”
He laughed. “Great! Wear it.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was perfect and the bling was blinding. Finally she just mumbled. “Well…if you force me…I guess I’ll have to wear it.” She didn’t even bother trying to feign being put out by it. It wasn’t a hardship to have to rock a rock like that.
“Now, back to how you want to tell people. I’ve stayed away from folks all last week because I knew you wanted to make the announcement together and I knew they would ask about my ring—”
“You’ve been wearing your ring all week?”
“Umm…yeah… Haven’t you been wearing yours?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t really have anyone in Boston that I’m that tight with that I can’t just tell to mind their own business. You could have just taken the ring off and gone on about your business.”
His phone rang and he answered it. From the change in the pitch of his voice it was clearly a woman.
All of a sudden she felt herself getting a little heated. She had never been one to get overly possessive about any guy. But then she had never been married to one before.
She folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes as she listened to him.
“So, that’s not going to be able to work. I recently got married and… Well, we haven’t made any announcements… A week ago… I know I was single two weeks ago before I went to Barbados… Listen…uhh…Sheila, I knew that. I know who I’m talking to… Sheila, right…listen, I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially yours. But I’m not going to disrespect my wife or my marriage. So, you’ll have to stop calling me.”
There was some high-pitched screaming, yelling and cursing that Jazz could hear just sitting next to him. She wanted to
tell him to just hang up, but she bit her tongue for the moment.
A soon as he hung up the phone it rang again. He gave her an apologetic stare and she sucked her teeth.
“You need to tell them heffas you’re married now. In fact, you need to change the number, like yesterday.” She crossed her arms across her chest and huffed.
“I will. I’ll change the number as soon as I get off the phone.” He answered it. “Hello… Hey, what’s up, Darren?”
When he hung up the phone he had a big grin on his face. “Alicia had the baby. Our goddaughter has come into the world. I know you want to go the hospital.”
“You know I do!”
Her cell phone rang and she answered it. “Hey, Darren. Yes, I’m in Detroit. Of course I’m coming to the hospital. I was there for your firstborn and your second. There’s no way I’ll miss the third, especially not when you’re finally making me the god-mommy. I’ll see you guys in a few.”
“So it looks like at least two of our friends are about to find out we’re married.” Troy grinned and then he frowned. “I just hope that Alicia doesn’t get mad and decide that we can’t be the godparents of this little girl.”
Jazz frowned, too. She hadn’t even seen the little girl yet and she was already in love with her. She absolutely adored Alicia’s little boys. She loved Alicia’s children as if they were her own. She didn’t have a sister, and Alicia was the closest thing she’d ever had to one. Those kids were family to her no matter what.
“Oh, no. She had better not. She let your sister Sonya and Kendrick be the godparents of little Darren Jr. nine years ago.”
“Well, Darren and Alicia did get together after being bridesmaid and groomsman at Sonya and Kendrick’s wedding,” Troy reasoned.
“I know and I gave them that one—” Jazz agreed, even though back then she had been highly upset about that decision, since she had been the one who had made the trip to the drugstore to buy all those pregnancy tests and she had been the one to tell Alicia that she might be pregnant. Little DJ should have been her godson.
But she was over it…really she was…
“Yeah, but letting Flex Towns and Sweet Dee be the godparents of little Kyle Jonathan, that was just wrong!” Troy said with a hint of disgust.
“To be fair, Alicia was always a big fan of Sweet Dee when she was a rapper and then when Dee and Flex had little Fredrick Towns IV at around the same time that Alicia and Darren had Kyle and they asked Alicia and Darren to be the godparents to their child because Alicia’s meddling brought them together a little sooner—” Jazz started to reason.
“Whatever, Kyle should have been our godson!” Troy chuckled. “I claim them all anyway.”
“Me, too!” Jazz laughed, not at all surprised that she and Troy were so much alike when it came to their friends’ adorable kids. “And I think it’s wonderful that my little godbaby waited for me to get to town. Let’s hurry up. I can’t wait to see her.”
When they got to the hospital, they found the waiting room filled with Alicia and Darren’s family. Alicia’s parents were too busy scolding Jazz for not telling anyone that her mother had passed away so that one of them could have gone with her to the funeral to notice that she had come in with Troy.
It took about thirty minutes before someone realized that something was going on between Jazz and Troy.
In hindsight, she realized that the two of them weren’t sniping at each other, cracking jokes or using song lyrics to make subtle digs at one another the way they normally did whenever they were around one another. The silence between them alone was a big glaring warning sign.
But the clear giveaway had to be the wedding rings, and that announcement was thanks to Troy’s sister, Sonya. It was actually kind of shocking that it took her so long to notice the bling.
“Oh, my goodness,” Sonya shrieked at the top of her lungs. “You both have on wedding rings and that…” She grabbed Jazz’s hand. “That is my grandmother’s engagement ring. How did you… Oh. My. God. Troy and Jazz are married!”
It felt as if everyone had been dancing and partying and the record scratched, because the entire room went still and then everyone was talking at once.
“Yes, we got married. Surprise!” Jazz tried to make light of it. Then, thankfully, Darren’s parents came out of Alicia’s room.
Jazz grabbed Troy’s hand and pulled him with her. “Well, we’ll answer all of your questions when we get back. We have to go and see our sweet goddaughter now.”
They barely escaped from one room full of questioning people to another that held only two people and a newborn baby girl but offered no reprieve from the questions.
“Jazz, I am very salty with you right now. Why didn’t you let us know that your mother died? I had to hear it from Sonya, who heard it from Troy.”
Jazz glared at Troy.
“I’m sorry, Alicia, I didn’t want to put any extra stress on you during the last stages of pregnancy while you were carrying my goddaughter. And look at her! She’s absolutely gorgeous. You’re going to have to buy a shotgun, Darren.” She reached over and took the baby from Alicia’s arms.
The little angel had a headful of glossy, black curly hair and alert hazel eyes like her mother’s. It was hard to tell if she would take after Darren’s honey complexion or Alicia’s milk chocolate skin tone, since she was looking kind of red at the moment.
“She’s beautiful. What are you guys going to name her?”
Alicia laughed. “Darren wants to name her Alicia, but there can be only one.”
Darren chuckled. “And we thank God for that.”
Alicia glared at her husband in feigned outrage, but love was clearly written all over her face. “So we decided to name her Ashley.”
“Hey, little Ashley. Hey, precious. It’s your god-mommy.” Jazz cooed at the little darling as she held her, and she felt a stirring that she had never felt when she held babies before. She wanted her own little bundle to hold and rock and coo to.
“And your god-daddy is here, too, little Ashley,” Troy chimed in.
Jazz looked at Troy and could tell he was beyond smitten with the little girl already, as was she. She decided to let him hold her for a bit, since they would have to share this little girl for the rest of their lives.
“Well, Alicia, you’re going to find this out anyway, and I want you to hear it from me.” Jazz held up her had. “Troy and I are married. We got married in Vegas last week. You know that he and I met up when we were both coming back from Barbados and well…” She affected her best Shug Avery from The Color Purple. “I’s married now. I say I’s married now.”
Alicia’s jaw dropped but no words came out. Jazz had never seen her friend speechless, ever. That had to be some kind of unnatural occurrence…a lot like Jazz actually getting married. She supposed if anything would shock her friend speechless that would be it.
“Say what? Get out of here. What happened to they-will-have-to-rip-my-player-card-from-my-cold-dead-hands and I-will-never-fall-victim-to-the-ball-and-chain?” Darren seemed shocked, too. But at least he found his voice enough to ask Troy questions.
Troy laughed, totally absorbed in little Ashley’s world. “Things just happen, man. What can I say?”
“Give me my baby.” Alicia had clearly found her voice and she didn’t sound very happy. “I can’t believe you got married without telling me, Jazz. That is just too much. We are supposed to be girls. I tell you everything. Everything.”
Troy glared at Jazz. She could tell that he knew what might come next if they didn’t appease Alicia quickly…
Godparent honors were going bye-bye.
“You’re right to be upset, Alicia. I’m a horrible person and an even worse friend. Charge my mind, not my heart. Since my mother passed, I have been out of it. Thank God for Troy. Having him has literally saved me. I don’t know what I would have done without him these past few weeks. He’s been my rock. And I have you and your attempt at matchmaking to thank for sending this wonderful ma
n into my life. If only I had known back then that I was meeting the only man I would ever trust enough to marry.”
Alicia’s face brightened just a little as she rocked little Ashley in her arms. The only thing that could soothe her know-it-all friend was the perfectly pitched I-was-wrong-and-you-were-right speech.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Alicia glowed, and it was more that that new-mother glow at work. “You two are perfect for each other. It’s about time you realized what I’ve known all along.”
“That’s because you’re so brilliant and the rest of us are a little slow,” Troy added.
Jazz smiled at him.
Good addition, Hubster!
“Mmmm… I don’t know about this. What happened exactly? Why did the two of you decide to get married instead of, oh, I don’t know, dating for a minute to see if you were really compatible?” Darren didn’t seem to be buying their story.
Jazz froze. Since when did Darren become all relationship savvy and aware? If he kept talking their flattery wouldn’t do a thing to appease Alicia. She had to think of a save…
Troy cleared his throat. “You know, Darren, there just comes a time when you have to man up. Seeing her again in the airport of all places, so similar to the place we first met… It just felt like déjà vu. Only this time I was prepared for her, you know.” He gazed into her eyes and she tried not to laugh.
“And I knew you and Kendrick would think I was crazy, but I knew we had to elope right then.” Troy shook his head. “Yeah, I never thought I’d be doing it this soon. But I’m a grown man now.” He placed his arms around Jazz and pulled her close. “And I have a winner this time. And all I knew was I didn’t want her for a one-night stand, or hit it and quit it, or even a girlfriend. I wanted her to be my wife.”
It was all Jazz could do not to roll her eyes. Troy’s words would have been perfect if he hadn’t paraphrased and stolen them from a Raheem DeVaughn song… He had better hope that neither Alicia nor Darren recognized the pieces of the lyrics that he had just copied.
At First Kiss Page 5