Under Covers

by Rhonda Bowen

  Naomi smiled in spite of herself. What would she do without Natasha?

  “Okay,” Naomi got up and stepped forward. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The bat cracked against the ball, and sent it soaring. The hitter for the Yankees took off. He rounded first, second, third base and was about to go in for home plate. The fielders for Pittsburgh still chased the ball, which by all accounts was about to fall outside of their reach. It was a sure homerun for the Yankees. The crowd was on their feet. They went wild. Jordan sat in his field seat at Yankee Stadium, his feet propped up on the seat in front of him. The New York Yankees were his team. These were his season ticket seats after all. But he couldn’t muster the energy to get up and cheer. He had lost his excitement. He had lost his drive.

  Correction. Naomi had taken his drive and left him like this.

  He looked down at the half bag of popcorn sitting on his chest and popped a few cold kernels into his mouth.

  “Man, did you see that!” Malcolm yelled, still on his feet with the rest of the stadium. “That was amazing!”

  “Yeah,” Jordan murmured. He popped a few more kernels in his mouth. They tasted like cardboard.

  Malcolm scowled and dropped back into his seat beside Jordan. It was the seat Naomi usually sat in. Although, she did very little sitting when they would come to games together. She had a loud mouth on her, and she would cheer with the best of them. She usually made friends with those in their section. She was half the entertainment of going to a ball game.

  But there would be no more of that. No more of Naomi, his red haired beauty.

  “You know, if you’re this miserable, you might as well get back with her,” Malcolm said. “Forgive her for whatever happened in Trinidad already and move on. Cause this right here? This is pathetic.”

  “Shut up man,” Jordan warned. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t,” Malcolm wrinkled his nose. “And if this is what love looks like, I’d rather not. Have you even shaved in the last week?”

  “I’m fine,” Jordan rubbed a hand across his prickly jaw. “I look fine.”

  “About as fine as a grizzly,” Malcolm mumbled. “About as friendly too.”

  “Man, what do you expect? The woman I was about to spend my life with betrayed me. Turned out to be something she wasn’t.”

  “It is not that deep,” Malcolm said. “So she was married before. Big freakin’ deal. She wasn’t married when she met you. It was a youthful indiscretion. Who hasn’t had one or ten of those? And with the whole Trinidad thing, all she did was take care of her family the best way she knows how. At least you can be sure that when she’s committed to you, she’s in it for the long haul.”

  Jordan looked over at Malcolm, eyebrow raised. “Are you actually defending her?”

  “Listen man, I have dealt with more than my fair share of women in my thirty-six years. And if Naomi’s problems were the biggest problems any of them had, I would be married by now,” Malcolm said.

  “How am I supposed to trust her again?”

  “With time,” Malcolm said. “Who the heck told you it was going to be easy? You love her, but its gotta be about more than the feeling. You have to be willing to love her past her flaws. So she messed up with this. Show her that it’s okay to make mistakes; that you will still love her in spite of them. Cause if you start tripping over every mistake, all that’s going to happen is that it’s going to make her think twice about coming clean with you when other things happen.”

  “So, you’re seriously suggesting I get back into things with her,” Jordan said incredulously.

  “I don’t see that you have much of a choice,” Malcolm said. “Her little hot body friend has been shaking her assets in your face since the moment you and Naomi split but you haven’t even given her a second look. You’re clearly not interested in being with anyone else. Naomi has your heart on a chain around her neck. You might as well be where your vital organs are.”

  Jordan scowled but said nothing. He sunk low in his chair and took a long gulp from his soda. Malcolm was right. Five weeks had passed but he hadn’t stopped thinking about Naomi. He just couldn’t get past the fact that she had lied to him. What else was she hiding? How many more secrets were waiting in her past to come out and bite him? He might miss her like cray, but he wasn’t ready to put himself back into that chaos yet.

  “What?”

  “I thought you were going to try and work things out,” Malcolm said.

  “It’s not that simple, man,” Jordan shook his head. “I can’t just pretend like nothing happened. I need more time to think this through.”

  Malcolm nodded. “You’re right. And a noisy baseball stadium is not the place to do it.”

  Jordan’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “You have gots to go, bruh,” Malcolm said dryly. “You’re killing my baseball buzz.”

  “You’re kicking me out of my season ticket seats?”

  Malcolm shrugged. “It’s not like you’re actually paying attention to the game.”

  Jordan opened his mouth to argue but closed it. Malcolm was right. His head was definitely not in the game. And truthfully, this was the last place he wanted to be. At least if he was home he could try and get some work done.

  Jordan got up and grabbed his jacket. “You’re right man. I’m outta here.”

  Malcolm gave him a short wave. “Peace!”

  Peace. Jordan shook his head. That was exactly what he needed but it seemed a long way coming. As he suffered through traffic back to Manhattan, he could not help but think back over the four years he had known Naomi. No matter how he tried, he could not get past the image of the smart, beautiful, interesting woman he had come to fall in love with. He had always known that there were layers upon layers of Naomi that he had not scratched the surface of. Jordan had looked forward to spending the rest of his life pulling them back and getting to the heart of her. Now the unknown of her scared him.

  The thoughts continued to twist around in his mind as he shut off the car in his underground parking spot and headed up to the main floor of his condo building. A quick stop at his mailbox revealed that he had a lot to catch up on. As he took the elevator up, Jordan sifted through the piles of personal bills as well as business documents and invoices that he sometimes had sent to his home. He stepped off the elevator onto his floor and had just reached the bottom of the mail pile when he came across the padded envelope.

  He stopped dead in the middle of his ninth floor hallway as he stared at the return address. It was from Street Life, from Naomi.

  Part of him wanted to send it back without opening it. The other part wanted to drop everything and rip into it right away. It had been five weeks, two days and seven hours since he had last seen Naomi. Since he had walked out of her niece’s hospital room in Port of Spain and out of her life. But every bit of him ached for her. When Amanda gave him the engagement ring Naomi had returned to him through her, he had stormed out of the room in anger, partly because Naomi had returned the ring, and partly because she had done it through his sister and robbed him of the chance to see her. He should have been glad. He had been the one to call the whole thing off. At least he could take it back to the jeweler and get part of his money back. But he had been too much of a coward to take the ring back. Instead it sat in a corner of his sock drawer, feeding a hopeless dream that it might someday end up back on the finger of its original owner. And here he was, standing in the hallway, hoping that something in this envelope might undo all the wrong that had happened between him and Naomi.

  But life didn’t work like that. There was too much to be undone. It would take more than a padded envelope to change that.

  Jordan dug his keys out of his pocket and let himself into his condo. He dropped the mail on the side table and kicked off his shoes. He almost made it to the kitchen. But his curiosity and his hope pulled him back like an invisible cord. The rest of the mail sc
attered to the ground as he pulled out Naomi’s envelope and ripped it open. Inside were two faded clothbound notebooks held together with a well worn rubber band. He pulled out the note tucked in the front. He ran his fingers over her name, embossed on the top and realized just how pathetic he was before he began to read.

  Jordan:

  You were right. I did not give you a chance to know me. I was wrong for that. But maybe I can make it up right now. I don’t know what will happen with us, but whatever happens, I hope you can forgive me for hurting you. Despite what you might think, the real me loves the real you.

  Forever yours,

  Naomi

  Sliding the rubber band off the notebooks, Jordan opened the first one and started reading. An hour later, he still hadn’t moved.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Knock, Knock!”

  “Come in,” Jordan called without looking up from the sheet of paper in front of him.

  Kim slipped through the office door and laid a stack of documents on his growing to-do pile. “I have a few things to confirm befo- ”

  She stopped when Jordan held up a finger for her to wait as he scribbled. She smiled and sat down in a chair across from his desk and waited.

  It hadn’t been the first time he had kept her waiting. In fact, in the past couple of weeks, it had almost become a common occurrence. But the mail pick-up was at one p.m. and he wanted to make sure this particular note was in it when it came. Tomorrow would be too late.

  There was no hesitation in his words as he wrote. Not like the first time he penned a note, after he had finished the first two journals. Jordan still got a chill every time he thought about the night that he stood at his front door and read the first two of Naomi’s journals. They had shocked him to the core, so much so, that he needed to take the following day off from work just to regroup.

  It was almost as if he read about a stranger. The woman who had dealt with the mistreatment that Naomi had written about seemed miles away from the woman who had been by his side for the past few years. At first, he was confused about why she would ever hide the truth about what she had gone through with Garth from him. It would have explained so much - including why she had been so hesitant to commit to their relationship back when they first started dating. But the more he read, the more he knew that was exactly why she hadn’t shared it. She had spent so long putting on a show for others, keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself, that even when she wanted to, she didn’t know how to share them with someone else.

  But she had found a way to share it with him. And that glimmer of hope that had remained buried so deep in his heart began to shine through the darkness of his hurt and disappointment in tiny but visible rays.

  “You know if you want, I can always come back...” Kim offered.

  “Nope.” Jordan folded the note and stuffed it into a blue envelope from the stack in his drawer. “I’m done. Can you...”

  Kim smiled knowingly and took the sealed envelope from him. “Of course.”

  Jordan grinned. “Okay, what do you have for me?”

  “Henry from Starwood called. They want you to submit an RFP for their new Bahamas project; the building owners sent over a new contract for another five year lease on our offices; Ron called to confirm that the Thirty Under Thirty board can still use our meeting room next week and Jeff wants to know if you will be a plus one for his anniversary party.”

  Jordan shook his head. What Jeff really wanted to know was, what the situation was with him and Naomi.

  “Pull up the request for proposal we did for that Sheraton hotel in Hawaii and start modifying it based on the info we have about the Bahamas project; Jeff and I will discuss the lease at our meeting tomorrow morning and get back to the owners by the end of the week; and please call Ron and tell him the meeting is a go.”

  Kim nodded as she wrote. “And the anniversary party?”

  Jordan rubbed a hand over his face. Plus one versus going solo. A place to grab a late dinner when he found himself at work after hours. Company on a Saturday night. These were the things that had become issues for him since he and Naomi split. Funny the way your life changed when you found yourself suddenly single after four years. It wasn’t like there weren’t women he could go out with. There just weren’t any that he wanted to go out with.

  “Tell Jeff I’ll get back to him.”

  “How about you get back to me now?”

  The booming voice caught both Jordan and Kim’s attention. They looked up. Kim hid a smile as she rose from her chair and slipped past Jeff to exit the office. Jordan stared at the tall wide-shouldered man, who still carried the linebacker frame that had served him well in his three years in the NFL. He dropped his two hundred and twenty pounds into the seat Kim had vacated and squinted at Jordan.

  “What’s with the stalling, Lennox? I know Candy dropped off that invitation about two months ago. She’s chewing my ear off about your RSVP.”

  Only because Naomi probably hadn’t returned any of Candy’s calls. It was amazing how many relationships were affected when two people parted ways.

  Jordan leaned back in his chair. “A lot has changed in two months. But you can go ahead and tell Candy I’ll be flying solo.”

  Jeff scowled. “So you telling me you and Naomi won’t be making it to the end zone?”

  Jordan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Not because of Jeff’s scowl - that he had become used to in the two decades he had known the man. He didn’t know how to answer the question. The truth was when it came to Naomi, he didn’t know the answers to anything. One moment he was optimistic about them, the next moment he felt like it was a lost cause.

  “So what is this, the twenty-fifth anniversary?” Jordan dodged his business partner’s question. “Feels like you and Candy have been married forever.”

  Jeff grunted. “Some days it feels like forever.”

  “But it’s gotta be worth it,” Jordan said thoughtfully. “I mean, you guys got married almost right out of high school, survived your NFL career and three kids...seems like a miracle.”

  “Not a miracle, Lennox,” Jeff said. “Just hard work. Something I find you young bucks aren’t willing to put in nowadays when it comes to a relationship.”

  Jordan took his friend’s crack at him head on without flinching. It was easy for Jeff to judge him. He didn’t know what Naomi had done. Or rather - what she hadn’t told him she had done. And as much as her past explained a lot of it, it didn’t excuse her hiding it from him.

  “Did you ever feel like...” Jordan slowly spun his chair sideways and glanced out the window. “Like chucking the whole thing?”

  “You mean did I ever feel like leaving my wife?” Jeff asked bluntly. “Of course I have. Candy may be cute and sweet, but she can be a pain in the butt when she wants to be. And there are times when she’s driven me straight up the wall. I’ve had to walk out of my own house to keep myself from ending up in handcuffs. But I always came back. I stood before God and committed to be with her until one of us kicked the bucket and I don’t mess with God.”

  Jeff cracked the slightest smile. “Besides, she may be crazy, but she’s my crazy woman and I love her. I’ll fight the whole world before I let anyone hurt her.”

  Jordan shook his head. “You guys don’t look like you ever fight.”

  “Don’t be fooled,” Jeff said with a raised eyebrow. “We get into it sometimes. She does stupid stuff, but so do I. We’re just willing to work through it, that’s all.”

  “But aren’t there some things that are too much for any relationship to handle?”

  “Maybe,” Jeff said. “But my willingness to forgive hasn’t encountered any yet.”

  Jordan squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  Jeff sat forward. “Look Lennox, if you want me to tell you that it’s gonna be easy, I can’t. If you think Naomi did you dirty and it’s too bad for you to forgive her, then do what you have to do. But if you think you’re gonna find a woman who’s not gonna bring
you something you have to forgive her for then you’re fooling yourself. Nobody’s perfect. And if she looks perfect, then she’s lying. But if she’s showed you who she is then at least you know what you’re getting into, and you’ll know how to love her.”

  “Why does it have to be this hard?” Jordan asked.

  “If it were easy, would it really be worth it?”

  Jeff stood without waiting for Jordan’s answer. “I’ll give Candy your answer. And by the way, you should get some rest. You look like crap.”

  Jordan didn’t need a mirror to confirm that Jeff was right. With the number of sleepless nights he’d had in the past few weeks, he knew the bags under his eyes were large enough to store his winter wardrobe. No matter how much he thought breaking his engagement with Naomi had been the right thing to do, he still didn’t feel at ease. In his heart, he had forgiven Naomi and was still in love with her. But in his mind, he wasn’t sure he could trust her again.

  He put his head back and closed his eyes. He needed some peace. And the only way that was going to happen was if he got both his heart and his mind to be in the same place. If only that were an easy thing to do. But the truth was, nothing looked easy anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “He’s here!”

  Naomi scrambled away from the window where she had been watching for the postman and ran out her office towards the stairs.

  “Geez, Naomi, slow down! You are going to break your neck on those stairs.”

  Despite Natasha’s caution, Naomi continued her trot down the stairs, but managed to keep her pace to a brisk walk through the office to the entrance instead of a run like she wanted to. She got there just in time for the elevator doors to open.

  “Ms. Savoy...”

  “Hey Harold. How’s it going? Those for us?” Naomi asked reaching for the bundle of mail in his hands.

  The balding gentleman smirked as he released the mail to her. “Expecting something?”