Like Slow Sweet Molasses

  Should she tell him she’d acted hastily after seeing them together in the mall? How could she after he just poured out his heart to her—as undeserving as she was. Her days in New Orleans were numbered. In all actuality, she had fewer than fourteen of them left. “There’s something you should know about me, Chance.” She tried clearing her conscience only to have him silence her with his earth-moving kiss. She made another attempt at honesty with the same results.

  “Say you love me,” he murmured against her mouth. When she wouldn’t, he pressed his lips into the hollow of her neck. “Say it.” Slated for a battle of wills, he teased her honeywell and heard her surprised intake of breath. “I’m waiting.”

  “That’s…not…fair,” she complained breathlessly, almost too weak to continue standing as his hand wreaked havoc. “I-I lo-ve you.”

  He wasn’t satisfied and refrained to continue his assault. “Now, look me in my eyes and say it just as I’m saying it to you.” He paused. “I love you so very much, Angela.”

  “I love you, too, Chance. More than I’m brave enough to admit.”

  “Then,” his kisses kept her flailing in anticipation of what might come next, “let me love you like I’ve never loved anyone else before.”

  “That’s too much to expect,” she breathed. “Just love me like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Angela’s arms lifted, painfully pulling at the sore spots all over her body, to let her intertwine her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. That way her kisses would melt any lingering mistrusts between them and fill the gap with reciprocated love. She got her secret wish when Chance picked her up while continuing his kiss all the way back to her bedroom where he sealed them off in their secret world.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Well, what did you think?” he asked, his words hushed to a whisper in the darkened cinema.

  The feature film’s credits, all ga-zillion of them, ran, or rather crept up the screen as Chance and Angela waited their turn to vacate the row. The late evening showing drew lots of movie-goers as attested by the difficulty in their finding two reasonably good seats together when they arrived. Chance, undaunted, asked a couple to move over one seat which cleared a pair for them. Even in the grayness of light castoff from the screen, the disapproving glances from some in the large audience punctured Angela’s sensitive skin. A lift of her chin brushed it off.

  The judgmental looks ricocheted off Chance’s tough hide.

  She no more enjoyed the surprise selection than she would a trip to the dentist office. But, she wouldn’t tell Chance that for anything in the world. He was enthused to know she trusted him to plan the activities for their second official date. He had no way of knowing his choice was one of those if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all type movie to her. The kind one might watch in the privacy of their own home, only after it came out on DVD and was on top of a mile-high stack in the sale bin, and accurately priced, FREE. The “booty-bobbing”, college life theme had some comic moments but missed its mark in the category of entertainment, as far as she was concerned.

  Angela one-stepped her way into the aisle with Chance breathing down her neck in anticipation of her answer. There had to be a diplomatic way to say it stunk without hurting his feelings. She settled for, “It was interesting,” as she gauged her footing for the next step since the lights outlining the balcony access barely threw off any illumination.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too. Sorry.” He held her elbow when he discerned her problem with the descent. “I hoped it was something light and inoffensive.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t offended, Chance. I’m not that big a prude.” She waved his concern aside.

  The lobby’s brightness put everyone on display and Chance admired the woman at his side, casually dressed in midnight-blue blue jeans, a snug fitting cowl neck sweater topped off with a bolero-cut jacket that accentuated her curvy figure, and her unaffected manner at being studied like a bug tacked to a board. He, too, could ignore most of the ill-mannered behavior, with the exception of the way some Black men issued him a challenge with their hostile expressions. Right then, he worried things would escalate into some sort of exchange, especially when a bold instigator crashed into Angela nearly knocking her off her bareback heels. The apology sounded right after, but, the words were hollow and blatantly insincere.

  Chance’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  Angela took his hand, he surmised, in support of him as the crowd loosened enough for them to walk side-by-side. The action was deficient for what he really wanted was to pummel the man for putting her safety in jeopardy. He squeezed her hand, instead. “Do you trust me for one more surprise?”

  “I don’t know.” Her laughter tinkled through the brisk night air as they came upon the car.

  “Come on. Give me another chance,” he pleaded his case.

  Angela leaned with her back to the door. “I don’t know,” she hedged, again. Chance caught the front of her short jacket pulling her into his chest for a sample kiss. She pushed back. “Oh, alright. This had better be good. Or else.”

  “Or else, what?” Her body gained momentum to lay on his as he repeated the move.

  “Or else,” she turned her face up to his, “you’re cut off,” and the cup of her hands on his jaws directed his lips to hers, “from this.” Angela rang his bell with her slow-burn of a kiss.

  “Perhaps, we can forget the other stop and go straight home.” She smiled at his suggestion. But, he meant every word.

  “You’re not going to get out of treating me to a good time that easily, Lieutenant.”

  “I figured as much.” He fell back doing a “Fred Sanford” to unlock the door and like the gentleman he was—waited until she situated herself before locking her in.

  “Where are we off to, now?” Angela asked as he pulled from the lot to travel a boulevard unfamiliar to her.

  “So as not to alarm you, I’ll tell you.” He hinted, “It’s somewhere we can have a steak, a drink and a dance.”

  “Uh-ugh.”

  “Relax,” he urged, leaving that street behind to catch a road not as well lit and sparsely traveled.

  “This is eerie.” The fact they rode parallel to the levee sent chills down her spine. She knew only one thing about the levees of New Orleans—they broke during Hurricane Katrina. “Are you sure it’s safe to be this close to the levees?”

  “I said relax, Angel. Believe that I would never put you in a position to compromise your well-being.” He tweaked her cheek. “I love you too much.”

  “I trust you, Chance.” Her voice held a smile. “I just don’t trust the levees.”

  He looked at her profile silhouetted by the dashboard lights. “And?”

  “And what you said,” Angela remarked with pseudo-disinterest.

  “And what did I say?” he asked to hear the words.

  “That you love me.” Angela taunted him with her refusal to admit her feelings about him.

  “You’re not going to say it?”

  “Say what?” The game was getting good to her, though, uncertainty laced his last question. She relented to assuage his bruised ego. “Of course, I’ll say I love you because it’s true.”

  His hand dwarfed hers long enough for them to play pinkie grab before he turned his attention to the upcoming, unmarked, potholed lane. Chance slowed to maneuver the Cobra across a narrow wooden bridge that appeared deceptively smaller than the car’s width. Angela gasped and he noticed how she leaned towards her window to check their progress. With no mishaps in accessing the rutted road, it was his turn to lean for a look at the black sky through the windshield. The mystical haze gathered above the treetops, signs the grill was still glowing. The S-curve led them to the gravel parking area packed with monster pickups, expensive sports cars, hip street rides and deranged motorcycles.

  “We’re here,” he alerted.

  “Where?” she asked warily, reading the oversized neon sign on the roof as Chance answered.

  “H.U.B.S.”
He parked and exited the vehicle.

  “HUBS?” she repeated.

  He elaborated. “House of United Brothers and Sisters.”

  The music was noticeable for what it was—a country song—while sitting in the car. She didn’t wait for him to let her out, choosing to mask her apprehension by attacking the problem head-on and doing it herself. Now, the tune vibrated the starry atmosphere. Chance treated her to one of his savory kisses that weakened her knees after he came to her side of the car. She used the pretense of styling the hair at his ears as an avenue of groping him closer for encouragement.

  Wrapping her up against the cold wind, he held her at arm’s length to read her sparkling eyes that opened to her inner soul, if you knew how to interpret the look. That was something he was improving at—deciphering her needs in spite of her counterfeit façade of aloofness. In them promises of never having a dull moment zinged him. Then, he looked again into their depths at the boundless rewards she harbored and was ready to bestow on him, if worthy. No one needed to tell Chance to count his lucky stars for he did so whenever his mind slipped in her direction, which was all the time.

  Her dance started before they even reached the building as her heels sunk into the rocky ground. Angela tipped her way up to the country porch steps away from double roughhewn doors glad to set foot on the solid surface. Twisting her agile body to expose the damage done to her shoes brought a grimace at the dirt clumped around the caps, and caught Chance’s attention. The handkerchief from his back pocket made them as good as new without her removing either foot. An enormous crash against the door just as it swung outward notified them to act swiftly to avoid a major collision. Out tumbled a grizzly bear of a man, who from the way he landed, could have been a captive staked out in the desert.

  Angela obscured her vision of the unfolding altercation with both hands over her eyes, her body trying to become one with the log cabin wall. Timidly, she lowered them to a prayerful pose protecting her nose and mouth, eyes transfixed on the man lying inert on the dusty ground below. She had never in her life seen such brutish behavior.

  The doors opened again and a slip of a woman rushed out to stamp her booted foot on the mountain man’s throat to keep him motionless. “Say it,” she brazenly ordered.

  “I’ve had too much to drink,” he croaked.

  “Oh, hi, Chance,” she acknowledged him and nodded to Angela, then, resumed her attack. “I…didn’t…hear…you.”

  “Angel, it’s okay.” Chance eased her fear as the behemoth spoke.

  “I’m drunk,” he confessed. “You’ll have to drive home.”

  Chance gave a lop-sided grin and explained. “It’s not a fight.” Her bewildered look questioned his appraisal of what was going on. “Promise. That’s their usual exit.”

  They continued watching like it was a spectator sport.

  “That’s more like it.” The woman’s fingers grabbed a handful of his plaited beard as punishment. “Up you go.”

  Angela and Chance doubted he could get up, let alone go.

  “Lieutenant.” He sobered enough to stumble to his feet, his voice a deep southern drawl. “Ya’ll have made my wife a wild woman, for sure.”

  “Sorry, Bud. I can’t take the credit for that.” Chance chuckled as the duo weaved their way to one of the trucks on the lot where Bud climbed in, not into the cab, but, scrambled into the truck bed. “Goodnight, Linda.”

  “Night, Chance.”

  “I’m not so sure about this.” Her excitement withered to trepidation.

  “He’s a pussycat. She’s a hellion and one of the best cops on the force.” There was no doubt background on the married gladiators wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “We never have to come here, again, if you don’t feel comfortable.”

  He said we. We never have to come here, again. It would be selfish of her to make such a demand. “This is your unwinding spot. How would it look if I kept you from mingling with your friends?”

  “I’m confident that won’t happen,” he prophesied, steering her towards the doors before she raced for the car.

  She let Chance guide her and was practically blown away by the sheer size of the place, not to mention all the commotion going on inside. Chirpy, fresh-faced young women greeted them, taking their roles to heart, Angela could tell—in this instance—more for Chance’s benefit than hers. They showed their tolerance for her presence with hardly a glance. A charming smile accompanied his request.

  “A table for two, please, ladies. In the restaurant.”

  They put their heads together over the seating chart spread on the podium squabbling audibly about the next available table. The snaky grin sliding its way across the oldest looking of the bunch’s face when she replied to his request was a sock to Angela’s pride.

  “There’s a forty-five minute wait, Lieutenant Alexander. For you, I’ll work it to thirty.”

  Gag me with a spoon Angela recited silently with a perceptible flip of her own shoulder length hair.

  “Here’s your pager,” cheered another voice. “We’ll beep you when we’re ready for you.” Giggles burst forth.

  Chance spared Angela an embarrassed glance and obediently followed her to the platform’s edge. Her face disclosed none of what she felt though the slackness of her hand hold was a definite clue. The tightness around her mouth would have gone unnoticed except he had never seen those dimples before.

  “Angel?” If he didn’t know better, he would say she was jealous. His egotistical outlook rocketed his stock’s worth off the chart.

  Angela batted to disperse the upset filtering behind her eyeballs at the affects of the disrespectful double entendre. In the subdued lighting, even with her misty focus, she zoomed in on a dark spot or two or three that looked like her. Regrettably, and as was usually the case, they were all male.

  “What do you think so far?” he butted in on her introspection.

  “It’s unlike anyplace I’ve ever been before,” she replied honestly. So much snagged her attention: bodies of all proportions hunched over the double line of pool tables in one area, while jeers went up at the mechanical bull’s success in dethroning a female rider, to the syncopated lights of the dance floor where a raucous line dance came up an even match for the traditional-black-family-gathering Bus Stop dance.

  “We have thirty minutes on the clock.” He saw her interest in the rocking dancers. “Let’s kick up our heels.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Her hand slipped from his when he tugged her down the steps to the main floor.

  “You can do it.”

  “I know. I just don’t want to give away any of my secret moves.”

  The matter was out of her hands as he towed her to the elbow-bumping dance floor, showed her his pearly whites and literally kicked his right heel behind to tap his left hand, falling right in step with the flow.

  “It’s easy.”

  Dancing them to a less crowded area to slow his moves down for her to catch on, Chance deciphered some of the looks his colleagues cast their way as mere curiosity. The heated intensity of others echoed the direction of their silent thoughts signifying to him to make his intent clear. So, he gently encircled her waist, an apropos action declaring his infatuation for all to see.

  Angela, stumbling along, thrown off by the timing of it all because her soul showed through, let go of her self-consciousness to master the dance. Before long, she giggled as she dipped, wiggled and shook, out cowboying the cowboys and girls whooping it up on the floor. The fun she never expected to have shone brightly in her laughing eyes that enveloped him. The music dropped to a softer level, simultaneously slowing the tempo and Chance crushed her to his chest in response.

  “You never cease to amaze me.” His warm mouth dotted from her forehead, to her eyes, to her nose, and to her mouth before finally nipping her bottom lip with his teeth.

  The tests to the longevity of their association cropped up all in one evening to allay the concerns they had about the differences in their skin
color. It turned out that the problem, if there was one, wasn’t theirs.

  They swayed to the music playing in their hearts for the song ended but their dance did not. Not until pressed into awareness by the flurry of activity around them did Chance escort her over to take a stool at the bar.

  “The usual, Chance?” asked the bartender, pulling a bottled draft from the cooler, his eyes as sharp as tacks and his pate shinier than the glass he held.

  “Iced and frosty, Sam,” he responded.

  Sam inquired, “And the lady?” looking straight into Angela’s eyes.

  “The same, please.” She refused the tall beer glass he produced in favor of sipping from the long neck.

  “Haven’t seen you in here before.”

  “Do you remember everyone who sets foot in here?” It was a stupid question because he probably could rattle off the number of Blacks that danced on that floor over the last six months and still have fingers left over.

  “Sam’s the owner, Angel, and a retired police officer who notices these things.” To smooth over what he believed Angela’s answer intimated, he explained, “It’s her first time here.”

  “What’s your impression?”

  The pager lights blinked red before the buzzing started pre-empting her answer.

  Sam repeated the question.

  “I’ll reserve final analysis until after I’ve eaten my steak.” His bushy eyebrows slid into one. “But, so far—so good.” Her head tilted back as she laughed at the anxious masks shielding their faces.

  “I like her, Chance.” He let loose a howl of laughter. “Ya’ll come back,” he invited, leaving more chuckles behind as he moved on to satisfy his other patrons and they headed off to the restaurant.

  They rode in companionable silence all the way back to the city full as ticks from the most palatable and tender rib-eye steaks ever enjoyed. The oldies station he tuned to had an affinity for Motown during this hour, loading the airwaves with smooth, easy-listening music. Chance approached Angela’s neighborhood from an alternate direction giving her an idea for the perfect end to the perfect evening. As he turned off the main thoroughfare, she coddled the hand manipulating the shift luring his eyes to hers.