Crazy In Love

by Yoshe

  “Wow, Miss Thang,” Mrs. Pritchard began, looking over her rimless glasses. “You must got somebody whipped!”

  Brandi smiled. Mrs. Pritchard made her day with that comment. “These are for me, huh?” Brandi asked as she took the bouquet out of the older woman’s shaky hands. “They are gorgeous!”

  Mrs. Pritchard continued to stand in the small office, waiting for Brandi to open the enclosed envelope. “Hurry up, child! I’m waitin’ for you to open the letter!” Brandi chuckled and hurriedly opened the small envelope.

  “A woman like you deserves something that’s just as beautiful as you are, Kisses, Sean,” Brandi read.

  Mrs. Pritchard clapped while looking over her eyeglasses. “Brandi, who is this sendin’ you the beautiful arrangement? It looks like it cost them some money!”

  Brandi smiled and held the note. “Someone very special to me, Mrs. Pritchard.”

  “Hmm, that’s obvious. He sounds like he’s worth keepin’. Maybe he could help take your mind off Shamari.” Mrs. Pritchard walked toward the door and turned around. “Um, helllooo! I don’t see you makin’ that ‘thank you’ phone call!”

  Mrs. Pritchard walked out of office and closed the door. Brandi giggled, while she hurriedly picked up the phone to call Sean. She couldn’t even stay angry with Sean for long. She looked at the clock and realized he was still at work so she just left a seductive voicemail instead.

  “Hey, Sean,” Brandi began. “I received your flower arrangement and I would love to thank you in person, you know, to show you some real appreciation,” she said, in a seductive whisper. “Call me back, baby.”

  Later on that afternoon, Sean listened to his voicemails and instantly got a hard-on after hearing Brandi’s voice. He knew that she would love the bouquet of roses that he had delivered to her job. What he really wanted to do was go straight to her house and work that pussy over real good, but he couldn’t do that yet, he didn’t want to seem too eager to have sex with her. He was leaving it up to her to suggest that. He picked up the phone to call Brandi.

  “Hello?” she answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, cutie, wassup?” Sean asked. “Oh, yeah, I got your message.”

  “I hope you did,” Brandi said. Sean got the joke and laughed.

  “I know that I’ve been apologizin’ a lot and I wanted to make it up to you. I need to talk to you in person about what’s goin’ on so, if you wasn’t busy, you wanna come out tonight?”

  “Out where? To your house?”

  “Nah, girl! Slow down! I’m goin’ to meet my man, Unique, at Brown Sugar’s tonight, you know, kick it and have a couple of drinks and what not. You wanna meet me over there?”

  “Sure. Can I bring my friend, Sheba?”

  “No doubt. As long as I don’t have to do the match-makin’ thing, especially since I’m tryin’ to get with your sexy ass. Ain’t nobody fuckin’ up my chances with you!”

  “Sweetie, nobody is gonna mess up your chances of getting with me!”

  “Hmmph. I hope you mean that, ma. I hope you really mean that,” Sean replied, thinking about his situation with Yadi. He wanted to meet with Brandi to tell her about Yadi before things got serious. Sean didn’t want anything or anyone to come between him and Brandi, especially some love-struck drama queen like Cruz.

  He realized that he was already taking a chance on being involved with Brandi because Shamari was locked up in the jail and he was a correction officer. The wrong person, which was Yadi, had gotten wind of Brandi, and his career could be on the line.

  “So Brown Sugar is on Marcus Garvey, right off of Fulton Street, right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there at 9:30. See you then.”

  Brandi hung up with Sean and called Sheba. “What’s up, girl? Get dressed, we’re going out for a little while.” Brandi moved the phone away from her ear, as Sheba yelled into her ear about why she didn’t call her earlier and how she would have gotten her hair done and so on. Brandi had forgotten how vain her friend was.

  “Sheba, just get dressed! Damn, it’s only a freaking lounge bar! You’re fly, girl! Get creative and I’ll be over to pick you up in an hour!”

  Brandi laughed and hung up the phone. Same old Sheba, she thought while shaking her head.

  Sean and Unique sat at the bar in the Brown Sugar lounge, nursing some Hennesy and Coke. When Sean turned around, Brandi was standing behind him, along with her friend, Sheba. Sheba was an inch taller than Brandi, with long hair and just as fine as Brandi. Sheba looked so much like Brandi, they could pass for sisters. Happy that they were there and looking good, Sean immediately introduced the duo to Unique. They stood up and offered the women the bar stools that they were sitting on.

  Brandi was impressed by the gesture. “Thank you! You guys are such gentlemen,” she said.

  Sensing that Sean wanted to be alone with Brandi, Unique excused himself and walked toward the pool tables and beckoned Sheba to follow him. Sean and Brandi stayed put for a much-needed talk at the bar.

  “You look good, as usual,” Sean complimented, admiring Brandi’s tight-fitting Liberation jeans that hugged every curve of her body, and her low-cut blouse. “I’m real glad you came out tonight.”

  Brandi blushed. “Yeah, me too, Sean. I really wanted to see you, especially after you sent that bouquet to the office. That was really sweet of you.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. That’s only the beginning.” Sean paused and sipped on his drink. “Brandi, look, I needed to talk to you. I need to be up front about me and my coworker, Yadi Cruz.”

  She was silent. “Could you order me a drink first?”

  Sean ordered Brandi a cosmopolitan. Brandi was curious to hear his side of the story even though she felt that it probably was only the half truth.

  “Okay, where do I start?” Sean said, with a sigh. “Okay. Yadira Cruz was a friend, a coworker, and a woman that I found very attractive. She had a fight with her daughter’s father the week before last and she asked me if she could stay with me for a while, so I agreed to help a friend. I told her that she could stay for as long as she liked because I have that big house to myself and she needed a place to stay. The night that we hung out, I came home horny and she just happened to be waitin’ up for me. One thing led to another and we had sex.”

  “But that was no reason to have that kind of an argument. Why was she arguing with you?” Brandi asked, sweeping hair out of her eyes.

  “She was upset because when she came back to my crib to drop off my house key, she let herself in and overheard us havin’ sex with each other upstairs.”

  Brandi put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, shit! I would have felt like an idiot, too, but you know what it is? She got caught up in her feelings, Sean. You can’t get mad at that woman for that and why would she let herself in your house anyway?”

  “I asked her the same thing. But, damn, I never said I was gonna be with her and I never said that I’m her man. She just threw it at me,” Sean said.

  “And you caught it, didn’t you?” Brandi asked.

  Sean laughed. “Yeah, I ain’t gonna lie, I did,” he replied.

  “Mmmhmm, I thought you did. So now she’s acting all crazy, huh?”

  Sean sighed and sipped his Hennesy. “Yeah, she is. She’s just flipped on me for some reason.” Sean paused. “She even threw you in my face!”

  “Look, you knocked her boots because you wanted to and the opportunity was there. You know how you men are; guys are opportunists.” Brandi shrugged her shoulders and slurped on her cosmo. “Well, what can you do? It was the wrong place, wrong time with the wrong person.”

  They continued their conversation, switching it from subject to subject. Sean enjoyed talking to Brandi, who seemed mature and confident. Not accustomed to having a meaningful conversation with women, Brandi was like a breath of fresh air for him but how long would that last with Yadi in the picture?

  Chapter 24

  “Daddy, where we goin’?” Jada asked. She was strapped to her booster sea
t in the back of her father’s SUV.

  “We goin’ to Granny’s house,” he said, while driving down Hempstead Turnpike toward his mother’s house. “Don’t you wanna see Granny?”

  “Yay! We goin’ to Granny’s house!” Jada paused. “Why Mommy can’t come?”

  Devin rolled his eyes. “’Cause Mommy gotta work, baby girl. She gonna let you stay with Granny for a little while, okay?”

  Jada clapped. “Okay, Daddy. I like to stay at Granny’s house, anyway. She make me cookies!”

  “I know, baby. Granny got you a lot of cookies,” he replied, with a smirk on his face.

  Devin had taken it upon himself to pick his daughter up early from her day care. He was surprised when they allowed him to leave the facility with his daughter in tow. Taking his name off the authorized list was obviously one of the things Yadi had forgotten to do. Even better, Jada was more than happy to leave with him, allowing him to go ahead with his plans of trying to keep her away from her psychotic mother. Yadi had been calling him with death threats. It was because of Jada he didn’t have her ass arrested for aggravated harassment.

  Devin was on the phone with his mother. He’d called her to let her know they were on their way to her house. The phone beeped and he rolled his eyes, seeing that it was Yadira’s cell phone number.

  “Listen, Ma, lemme call you back. Here she is now.” Devin clicked over. “Yeah, I got Jada. She’s goin’ to my mother’s house.”

  Yadi screamed into the phone. “Motherfucker, bring my daughter to me, right now! You took her outta school without my fuckin’ permission! I will kill your ass if you hurt her!”

  Devin looked at his phone. “Hurt her? Oh, Yadi, please. She’s mine, too! Ever since you left, you haven’t tried to let me see my daughter! So if you wanna see her, then come to my mother’s house to see her!”

  “That’s my mommy?” Jada yelled from the back seat. “I wanna speak to Mommy!”

  Devin looked in the rear view mirror at his daughter. “Mommy will talk to you later, Jay-Jay. She’s gotta go now.” Devin turned up the music in the rear of the truck. As Jada sang along with Ne-Yo, Devin spoke to Yadi.

  “You know you been pushin’ my buttons for a minute with all of your lies, Yadi. You got everybody thinkin’ you’re some goody-two-shoes and I’m just a piece of shit! Well, I’m not playin’ with you anymore! You wanna see your daughter, take me to fuckin’ court, I dare you! I will pull out those psychiatric papers quicker than you could spell your name! Does the judge need to know you tried to kill yourself?”

  “Yeah, but I tried to kill myself over you, you bastard! Now I’m tryin’ to figure out why! But I know one thing, I will kill you if you take my daughter from me! I will hunt you down and gut you like a fish, I swear. I want my daughter!”

  “Whatever, Yadi! You tried that killin’ yourself bullshit with every dude you was in love with and that was basically any that you dealt with. You know I know! Like I said, if you wanna see her, she’ll be at my mother’s house.” Devin hung up the phone and turned it off.

  When Yadira crawled into the bed, the tears started flowing. She felt as if she didn’t have any control over her anger anymore. Devin had taken Jada away from her and she was beginning to believe he had every right to. Sean was backing away from her and she couldn’t say that she blamed him, either. Yadira refused to call her family because they would only make her come home with them.

  Later that night, she finally managed to get out of the bed and look at the time. It was 11 P.M. She peeped out the window and saw Vanita’s car parked in the driveway. Yadi shrugged her shoulders and threw on a long down coat and some boots. She crept down the stairs and got into her car. She wanted to take a drive to clear her head.

  As Yadi traveled on the Conduit, she knew that she was heading to Sean’s house. She wanted to apologize for the way that she’d been acting toward him. Sean was a good catch, like Vanita told her, and it would be a shame if she allowed some other woman to get with him.

  When Yadi pulled up on Sean’s quiet block, she smiled when she saw his truck parked in front of his house. The house looked dark inside but Yadi was unfazed as she rang the bell. Little did he know, she made a spare key to his house, never knowing when it would come in handy. But she wasn’t going to use it this time. She rang the bell like a maniac and Sean came to the door, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, with a robe on. He swung the door open when he saw Yadira standing on the stoop.

  “You comin’ over here unannounced now?” Sean shouted. He stood there holding the door but didn’t bother to invite her in.

  “Sean, I ain’t come here to cause no problems. I just wanna talk to you for a moment,” Yadi said. “Can I come in?” she pleaded.

  Sean leaned against the door and sucked his teeth. If he let Yadi in, he knew that he was going to end up having sex with her. He couldn’t allow himself to think with his little head anymore. He had to get Yadi out of his area, for the last time.

  Sean reluctantly let her inside, and as she was about to walk upstairs toward his bedroom, he stopped Yadi dead in her tracks.

  “Yo’! Where the fuck do you think you’re goin’?” he asked. “You have anything to say, you can say it right here at the bottom of these steps.”

  Yadira leaned against the banister of the staircase. “Sean,” she began, “I don’t wanna be your enemy. I want us to call a truce. I know that it’s been a rough two weeks and I understand that maybe I got a little outta control with everything but . . .”

  Sean rubbed his unkempt head. “But what? You want us to be friends again? How the fuck can I trust you, Yadira? I open the door for you and Jada and in return, you caused all this friction in my life? Not to mention, you’re harassin’ my friends and shit?”

  Yadi licked her lips. “I’m not causin’ nothin’ in your life, Sean and I damn sure ain’t harassin’ none of your friends. You’re the one that insist on playin’ games with me.”

  Sean hit the wall in frustration. “Playin’ games with you? I was never your man, though. We shacked up for a few days and you’re tellin’ me that I’m your man? How does that shit sound to you?”

  “Okay, but you can’t deny that you were feelin’ me at one point, right? You wanted to holler at me, didn’t you? And you had to be feelin’ me some kind of way if you’re gonna let me and my daughter stay in your house, right?”

  “Listen, you were a coworker and a friend, a friend that was in need. That’s it. Yeah, I wanted to holler at you at one time but you told me out of your own mouth that you was with Devin and you don’t creep on him. I respected that. Now when you stayed here, I’m not gonna lie, the physical attraction and the lust got to me and we had sex. That’s it. It was just sex!”

  “What is it, Sean? Is it that bitch, Brandi? This Brandi broad got you open, huh?”

  “Brandi? Why is Brandi even a part of this conversation? This is between me and you. She don’t know you, she’s not thinkin’ about you so why don’t you leave her name out of your mouth?”

  Yadira crossed her arms and stared at Sean with an earnest look on her face. She felt lost now that their friendship was officially over and she could not bear to see herself without him. Yadi walked up to Sean and hugged him. She could feel his body stiffen. There was no mistaking the erection under his robe, though. She smiled and loosened the embrace.

  “Hmmph. I see that I didn’t lose my touch, huh?” she proclaimed, while looking down at Sean’s stiffness.

  Sean looked down, too, without cracking a smile. “Yeah, but you know what? That down there has a mind of its own. This fuckin’ head on my shoulders says that I wouldn’t touch your crazy ass with a ten foot pole, in this case, my ten foot pole.”

  Yadi looked at Sean sideways and dropped to her knees. She attempted to pull his hard rod out of his boxers and he pushed her away from him. She fell on her back, with a stunned look on her face.

  “Do me a favor, Yadi, get your ass up off my fuckin’ floor and outta my crib! That shit ain’
t workin’ on me no more. Five minutes of pleasure ain’t worth a lifetime of aggravation!”

  Humiliated, Yadi got up and brushed herself off. She stood there for a few seconds and looked at Sean, who calmly guided her toward the front entranceway. Yadi felt the butterflies floating in her stomach as she opened the door to leave.

  “Sean, you gonna regret the fuckin’ day you ever lay eyes on me!” she exclaimed, with tears falling from her eyes.

  “Too late, bitch, I already regret it!” he replied, escorting her out the door. By the time Yadi turned around to say something else, his door was locked.

  Chapter 25

  Shamari walked out of the cell into the housing area. He rubbed his eyes and looked around for someone to play a game of cards with him but everyone was still asleep. The CO on post was chatting on the telephone and not paying him any attention. He stood up on a chair and turned on the television. It was Saturday morning and cartoons were in full effect. Shamari sat back and watched them, thinking back to his childhood and missing his father.

  Maleek lifted the four-year-old Shamari in the air, as the child laughed with delight. They were in Disney World and Shamari was happy because his father said he could have whatever he wanted while they were there.

  “Go ahead, Shaki,” Maleek said, as he nudged his son while standing in one of the many novelty shops. “What you want, li’l man?” Shamari’s young eyes widened as he watched his father pull out a knot of money.