by Mata Elliott
“Can you do my nails like last time?” Brandi asked.
Natasha pointed at her denim knapsack. “I’ve got my gear.”
Preparing a dish of fruit for Natasha, Cassidy questioned Trevor, “What’s going on?”
“Meet me outside in five,” was all he revealed, swiping a strawberry from Brandi’s plate.
“Hey!” Brandi objected.
“You can have one of mine,” Brittney offered him instead, an arm spiked and her head back so she could find his mouth.
Trevor plucked the berry from Brittney’s fingers with his front teeth. “Five,” he reminded Cassidy, gesturing the number with his hand while backing from the room.
Cassidy probed Natasha’s face for answers as she handed her a filled plate. The teenager shrugged. “Don’t ask me. He just showed up at my house and asked my parents if I could babysit tonight.”
“Where are we going?” Cassidy demanded as Trevor took Germantown Avenue into the Chestnut Hill section of the city.
“We’re almost there.”
“Where’s there?” she wanted to know.
He responded by cranking up the volume of the radio.
“This is it,” he said three minutes later, and parked the Expedition.
“This is a basketball court.” Wariness entered her voice. “A deserted one.”
His voice was easy. “Get out of the car, woman.”
Frowning but obeying, she inquired, “Why did you bring me out here?”
“To play ball,” he said as they sauntered toward the court. He tossed her the basketball he’d removed from the rear of the truck. She made no effort to catch it, and it rolled between her feet to center court. “I thought you said you knew how to play,” he bantered, running after the ball.
“You really expect me to play?”
He dribbled in place. “I really do.”
“In this skirt?”
“The skirt won’t matter”—he rotated the ball on the tip of his finger—“if you’re good.”
“I’m good. Perhaps a little rusty because it’s been a long time, but good.”
“Show me.” He passed her the ball. Her reflexes sharp, she seized the pumpkin-colored ball with open palms.
“Impressive. Show me more,” he challenged.
She began bouncing the ball, never taking her eyes off her opponent. Beneath the glow of the moon and court lights, they played, she in white canvas sneakers, a blouse, and a long loose skirt, and he in black leather Nikes, a baseball shirt, and blue jeans. He won the first game by so many points they stopped counting, and she the second, because he went easy on her. Trevor returned to his vehicle, snatched two bottles of water from a small cooler, and they retired to the bleachers.
“This is crazy,” she commented.
“What is?”
“Playing ball at this time of night.” She twisted the white cap off the bottle.
“It’s only nine-thirty.” He drank from his bottle.
“It seems later.”
He rested his elbows on the tiered bench behind. “It’s fun, though, isn’t it? Doing something you usually don’t. Experiencing it with someone you love.” He hit her with a sideways glance, then set aside the bottle and clamped the basketball between his hands. He stood and bounced the ball, then galloped to the net and made a layup. Cassidy squeezed her bottle, and it made a popping sound as Trevor charged to the basket with the ball again. It circled the rim and paused, as if deciding whether to fall through the hoop or not. The ball eventually rolled out, and Trevor caught it and jogged back to the bleachers. He placed the ball on the ground and knelt on the bench below her, flattening his hands on the metal to the left and right of her skirt. “Do you know when I started loving you?”
She shook her head no.
“The moment you crashed into my chest in that bathroom. All I wanted to do was protect you, keep you from falling and hurting yourself. I didn’t know how to express it then, but it bothered me when I saw how upset you were about that whole thing.”
“That’s why you were laughing at me.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you.” He grinned. “Well, maybe a little, but only because you were trying to be so tough.” Cassidy had folded her hands in her lap, and Trevor placed his hand over the clasp. “I’ve been praying about you and me,” he said. “What about you? Have you been praying?”
“Yes,” she answered gently. “I told you I would.” She stared into Trevor’s eyes. “I saw your heart that day we met in the bathroom. I saw how sincere you were about keeping me safe.”
“And what do you see now?”
She slipped her hand from beneath his and laid it along his face. “A man in love with God . . . a man in love with me.” She spoke softly. “I love you, too.”
“Then marry me,” he whispered.
“Married?” Rave snorted. Kregg’s facts had to be wrong. “Where did you hear such an absurdity?”
Rave envisioned Kregg smiling as he said, “Straight from the mouth of the future groom. I’m going to be the best man.”
“Are you telling me Trevor asked Cassidy to marry him?”
“Yeah, babe, he proposed last week. Isn’t that great?”
Rave’s brain could barely keep up. “Cassidy’s not dating Dunbar?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” Rave said impatiently as vivid streaks of red marred her vision. She felt as if she’d been slapped in the face by the cold hand of betrayal, and standing there holding the phone to her ear, she was suddenly more sad than irate. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now?” Not that she could have done much here in Phoenix.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.” Kregg’s words were edgy. “Why haven’t you returned my calls?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy for our relationship?”
The question went unanswered. Rave was thinking about Trevor and wondering where she’d gone wrong. Why hadn’t Trevor wanted her? Every man she’d ever come on to had wanted her. Even dull Dunbar, although he had not taken her, had wanted her. The heat in his eyes had testified to that. Rave plopped on the edge of the king-size hotel bed. Kregg was talking, but she wasn’t listening, her mind a swirl of voices and memories that seemed only as far away as yesterday.
“Don’t be afraid, Rave baby,” her father mumbled as he slipped into bed with her. It was the first of his middle-of-the-night visits. She was nine.
“Don’t you tell nobody about this, Rave,” her father’s best friend whispered, holding her down on his lap. She was twelve then.
Following her parents’ divorce, her mother’s boyfriend came to her right before the start of her sweet-sixteen birthday party. “I want you, Rave,” he whispered, the stench of alcohol and tobacco on his breath. “I want to make you feel good.” Nothing he did to her that afternoon made her feel good.
“Hey, babe, you there?” Kregg’s deep voice rumbled.
Rave rolled her teary eyes. “I’m here.”
“How much longer will you be in Phoenix?”
“I don’t know.” Four weeks had already turned into more. “Nothing about this case has been predictable.”
“I want to see you. How about I fly out this week, stay a few days?”
“Sorry, Kregg, this week’s no good.” She switched the phone to the other ear. “I have to go. I’ll call you soon.”
Housekeeping had not been to her room, and Rave slid between the tousled bedding. She pulled the sheet above her head, banishing the light that reminded her it was a beautiful day outside. Her face down, she pumped her sorrow into a pillow. Wave upon wave of agony coursed through Rave, and she cried louder, longer moans in a desperate attempt to survive the pain, although she was unsure whether she wanted to live.
chapter thirty
The next months passed quickly, bringing autumn and winter. Spring arrived, and the following weeks were met with many dreary, rainy days, but Cassidy was too excited about her upcoming wedding to be b
othered by the weather. As night nestled in and today’s showers ended, cool dampness lingered in the April air. Cassidy hugged herself tighter, sponging warmth from the oversize sweatshirt she wore. She’d stepped outside while Trevor took Kendall McBride’s phone call. Cassidy had yet to meet Brittney and Brandi’s godmother. Since Kendall had been so close to Brenda and still had a bond with the children, Cassidy hoped that she and Kendall would become friends.
Trevor came out onto the deck and stood behind her. He looped his arms around her center, and Cassidy immediately leaned into him. “How’s Kendall?” she asked.
“She’s in the hospital.”
Cassidy frowned with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“She has pneumonia. She’ll be okay, but she won’t be coming to our wedding.”
“Oh, no,” she said in earnest. “I’m sorry. We’ll have to send her a DVD, then, all right?”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“I wish Aunt Odessa was here to see our wedding.” At times, it was difficult not to feel sad when she thought of her aunt. But she found comfort in remembering all the wonderful times she and Odessa had shared.
“She’ll be there . . . in our hearts,” Trevor said.
“I can’t wait to see Oliver Toby.” Cassidy smiled. The professor was flying in from Denver to walk her down the aisle next Saturday.
“Maybe we’ll be going to his wedding next.”
Cassidy giggled. Oliver Toby was doing fine in his new home and had become good friends with his elderly neighbor, a widow named Ramona.
Cassidy rubbed Trevor’s arm. “You know what I was thinking before you came out here?”
“What’s that?”
She pointed to a space some thirty feet away, adjacent to a wall of trees that separated Trevor’s property from his neighbor’s. “I’m going to put an herb garden there.” She’d observed enough of Odessa’s green-thumbing over the years to feel confident she would be successful at managing something small.
“I think you’d look sexy in a straw hat and overalls, out there tilling the land.”
Cassidy nudged him in the rib cage, and Trevor tightened the embrace.
“I love you so much, Sky,” he said, the husky whisper gently buffeting her neck.
She smiled. “You still haven’t told me what that nickname is all about.”
He placed his lips against her cheek, and she felt him smile. “Your blue bathrobe reminds me of the sky at dusk. And like the sky, you’re beautiful . . . and expansive . . . and limitless.”
“Expansive and limitless,” she repeated with an air of question.
“You’re expansive,” he explained, “because you have a lot of love in your heart. And you’re always showing it to your students”—he pecked her cheek—“and to the seniors at the center”—another peck—“and to me and the girls.”
Consciously floating on his cloud of flattery, she grinned wider. “And limitless?”
“I see you as a limitless woman. One that can reach any dream she climbs toward.”
“Tell me more,” she purposely cooed.
“Whenever I see you in your robe, it just makes me want to . . .” He whispered the remainder of the sentiment in her ear. Cassidy’s mouth fell open, and she turned and gave him a featherweight punch in the chest. Trevor drew her closer, their bodies becoming a solid line, and she shut her eyes, reveling in some of the fun memories they’d made since Trevor proposed to her last summer.
They’d attended twelve premarital counseling sessions and planned a church wedding. They had their first Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter dinners together. And they’d refashioned the master bedroom from corner to corner. Early on, Cassidy had reservations about moving into the home Trevor and Brenda had shared for the second half of their marriage. Cassidy thought it would be best if they started out fresh, bought a new house, a place of their own. Trevor had no objections. He was the one who initially broached the subject by asking if she wanted to purchase something new. He was even willing to move into her house, if that’s what she wanted. They had spent several weeks looking at real estate options, but they hadn’t found anything as elegant as Trevor’s titanic vintage home. And when it all came down to it, neither she nor Trevor wanted to relocate too far away from the girls’ school, his place of business, or the church they loved. So Cassidy decided she’d be okay moving in with Trevor and the children. Trevor had made it easy for her to come to that decision by giving her the clearance to redecorate the house as she pleased.
She leaned back and looked up at him, glimpsing the starless sky. He placed a mild kiss on her mouth. Ready for more, she molded a hand to the back of his neck, rose up on her toes, and reached for another kiss as he pulled back and whispered, “I want you to go home.”
Her heart echoing her wish to remain close, she leaned forward and nibbled at his throat. He clutched her shoulders and with the lightest touch, pushed her away. The warmth of passion became replaced with the chill of confusion until Cassidy looked into the amorous depths of Trevor’s eyes. Instantly, she realized he wanted to kiss as much as she did, and he wasn’t refusing her because he didn’t desire her . . . but because of how much he did. He dusted his hand along the length of her face. “Just eight more days, and we won’t have to say good night.”
With the same flirtatiousness she’d been feeling all evening, she tilted her chin up and rasped, “Then I can have all the kisses I want.”
“Wherever you want,” he added, and she blushed, but inside her heart, like every bride-to-be, she looked forward to the unbridled intimacy she would share with her new husband. They would be honeymooning in Jamaica, but their flight wasn’t until Sunday morning, so they decided to spend their first night at home. Trevor had been sweet enough to sleep in one of the extra bedrooms so that they could christen their new room—and bed—together. Cassidy knew exactly what she was going to wear on her wedding night. At her bridal shower, Lena had given her a lacy-at-the-top, sheer-at-the-bottom nightgown. It was delicate yet sexy, and Cassidy was sure Trevor would think the same.
She lifted her eyes to his. She was the center of Trevor’s attention, and she blushed as if he could see what she’d been thinking. “I should get going.” She scooped her purse from a celery-green patio table, a match to four chairs and a recliner. Trevor reached for her hand and laced their fingers, and they walked to her car, sitting in a driveway that curved around the back of the house to a one-car garage.
“Call me when you get to Lena’s so I know you’re in safely,” he said.
Cassidy had sold the house she’d inherited from Odessa and moved in with Lena two months ago. “Don’t forget—have Brittney and Brandi ready by ten.” The sisters would be their flower girls, and they had a final fitting with the seamstress in the morning along with bridesmaids Portia, Shevelle, and Penny and maid of honor Lena.
“They’ll be ready.”
“What time are you picking up Herbie?” she asked. Trevor was taking their ring bearer shopping for shoes tomorrow. Her question seeping into the silence, about to go unanswered, Cassidy gently called, “Trevor,” her hand balled as she tapped him on the forehead. “Where’d you go?”
He blinked abruptly, as if he’d landed back on earth from a fantasy. “I was thinking about Kendall. I wish she could make the wedding.” He smiled. “When you and Kendall do finally meet, I’m sure you’re going to like each other.”
Cassidy couldn’t determine why, but a crumb of uneasiness suddenly fell into her prewedding happiness. She fished the unwelcome tidbit out before it could settle, and smiled up at Trevor.
A tower of empty pizza boxes, twenty deep, sat against the wall in the recreation room of Kregg’s town house. The trash can was full of soda cans and dirty paper plates. The speakers pumped out a steady thump of urban praise while an intense pool match progressed between Clement and a twenty-five-year-old named Linwood. All the other men were standing around, quiet as a surveillance team, eager to see if the unbeatable Linwo
od would finally be brought down by the pastor.
A few minutes later, Linwood emerged undefeated, and the pastor asked the men to join him upstairs in the living room. Some of the thirty-five men in attendance seated themselves in the burgundy-wine leather sectional and matching chairs. Others sat on folding chairs that had been borrowed from the church, on stools carried in from the kitchen, or on the carpeted floor. Kregg came over and gave Trevor, seated on a leather chair, a white envelope. He gripped Trevor’s shoulder. “Congratulations from all of us, man,” was all he said, and stepped away.
Trevor pulled out a brochure and read the bold writing on the front flap aloud. “Welcome to the Pocono Mountains.”
“We all chipped in,” Houston said, “and got you and the soon-to-be missus an all-expense-paid week at one of them all-inclusive resorts. It’s good for three years.”
“Thanks.” Trevor smiled and took another glance at the brochure. “I appreciate it. I appreciate this entire afternoon.” Trevor thought he was coming over to help Kregg and Hulk install new flooring in the kitchen. Instead, he found this bunch. Nearly all of them were members of Charity Community’s Men Movement—Men of Purpose. They usually met two days a month, one for biblical exploration and fellowship, the other for community service. Last month the men put their time, talent, and money together and painted fifteen units of a homeless shelter. Later this month they would sponsor an indoor fair for the children’s wing of a hospital. A back-to-work clinic for former prison inmates would be hosted by Men of Purpose next month. With gratefulness in his eyes, Trevor regarded his bachelor party participants. “Thanks,” he verbalized again.
“Well, we’re not done yet,” Clement said.
“Time for the stripper,” Durante Jackson called out, and everyone laughed.
“Here’s something from me and Vivaca.” Clement gave Trevor a large box wrapped with gold paper and tied with white string that met at the top, forming an artistic puff that resembled a flower. “Vivaca insisted on all the frills,” he said, backing away and shaking his head.