Full Figured 12

by La Jill Hunt

  “But look at you now. Don’t ever let anyone else’s thoughts of you affect the way you feel about yourself. You are amazing in all aspects, Keelan Metoy. Don’ ever forget that.”

  “What would I do without you?” Keelan smiled down into her pretty face. “Do you want something to drink from the liquor table?”

  “A sex on the beach, if they have one. I’m about to go use the little girls’ room while you do that. I’ll be right back.”

  They both stood up from the table and left Sandy in deep conversation with a lady from the HR department. Teeka walked past many people who asked if she and Keelan were an item. She told them she would give them an answer once she emptied her bladder. Well, she didn’t say it exactly like that, but it was similar. When she reached the hallway that led to the bathroom at the end of the hall, she felt relief. It was like swimming through a sea of nosey sharks, and she was happy that the hallway was pretty much empty.

  When she got to the women’s restroom, she rushed to get into the biggest stall and relieve herself. After she was done, she hurried to wipe and flush so that she could wash her hands. She didn’t want Keelan to be waiting too long for her. As she opened the stall, someone else came into the bathroom. She didn’t pay them any attention as she continued to wash her hands. The woman came and stood right next to Teeka so she could refresh her makeup.

  “Nice dress. And I have always loved your hair.”

  The voice froze Teeka’s heart, because it was one that she recognized. When she whipped her head, she saw Alecia standing next to her. She was dressed for the event in a long silver dress that shone in the lighting of the bathroom. Her makeup was flawless as usual, and her hair was pinned neatly back with a bang.

  “I–I thought you were back in Milwaukee.”

  “Oh, I was.” Alecia applied a little lip gloss before putting it back in her Chanel clutch. “But then I came back for the banquet. I mean, I was invited after all.”

  “Oh, okay,” Teeka said, drying her hands with a paper towel. “Look, Alecia. My intentions were never to steal Keelan from you. I’m sorry for whatever pain this whole thing might have caused you.”

  “I’m glad you said that.” Alecia gave Teeka a sinister smile through the mirror. “Because I plan to steal him back tonight.”

  Teeka would never have expected what happened next to be reality. Alecia pulled a small handgun from her clutch before she turned around and pointed it at Teeka. Teeka gasped and took a step back out of instinct. Her eyes went to the door of the bathroom as she wondered if she could make a run for it.

  “Don’t even try it,” Alecia said, reading her mind. “If you move, I’ll put one in that fat stomach of yours.”

  “Alecia, think about what you’re doing for a second.” Teeka spoke evenly and put her hands in the air.

  “Did you think before you got into bed with an engaged man? Huh, Teeka? Did you think about me while you were sucking his dick?”

  “I didn’t know about you, Alecia. I swear. If I did, I would have never dealt with Keelan.” She thought it to be a bad time to throw in that the two of them were split up when she met Keelan.

  “But what about when you found out? You couldn’t just leave him alone, could you? You had me looking like a complete fool in the office!”

  “We tried, Alecia. We tried to cut it off. We really did, but it didn’t work. Keelan loves me.”

  “No!” Alecia shook her head violently. “He can’t love you, because he loves me, you see. I’m the one who’s been here through it all. I’m the one who pushed him to finish school and make something of himself. Me! I’m the one who should be on his arm tonight and every night after. Don’t you see? Can’t you see how you’re in the way?”

  “Alecia, put the gun down and we can talk, okay?”

  “No! You bitch! You may have Keelan wrapped around your finger, but not me! Soon he will see that it’s me that he wants. Not you. Did you know that the hallway that leads to this bathroom is the only one in the entire building without a camera? I found that out on my many visits here to see my man.

  “So, here’s what’s about to happen. I’m going to shoot you in your chest and leave. When they find your body, no one will know what happened to you. But don’t worry. I’ll be here to take care of Keelan.”

  “No!” Teeka screamed

  She didn’t know what had overcome her, but listening to Alecia explain to her how she was going to kill her and take Keelan pissed her off. She lunged at Alecia and grabbed at the hand that held the gun. The sudden jerk upward caused the gun to go off and shoot the ceiling.

  “Get off of me, you big bitch!” Alecia huffed as the two women tussled over the gun.

  “He will never be yours, Alecia!” Teeka shouted in her face. “Do you hear me? He doesn’t want you anymore. You’re being crazy!”

  “You can call me whatever you want!” Alecia shouted back and scratched the side of Teeka’s face with her sharp nails. “But after tonight, it won’t matter. Teeka will be no more!”

  Teeka’s face stung, but she couldn’t stop fighting. She pulled her head back and brought it forward with as much force as she possibly could. The blow broke Alecia’s nose on impact, but that only enraged her more.

  “My nose!” Alecia shouted and backhanded Teeka with the strength of a man. “Do you know how much this thing cost? You’re going to pay for that!”

  Alecia’s hit was powerful, but not powerful enough for Teeka to let go of the gun. They were in a power struggle, trying to point the gun in each other’s direction. Their grunts filled the bathroom until finally, Alecia backed Teeka against the tile wall and pressed the gun between them.

  “He will never be yours,” Teeka said, staring into the other woman’s eyes. “Even if he and I aren’t together, he would never choose you. He doesn’t want you, Alecia.”

  “Well, he doesn’t have a choice,” Alecia whispered. “Good-bye, Teeka.”

  Boom!

  Both women stared at each other in shock when the gun went off. When the initial shock went away, the pain set in. It was coming from Teeka’s side, and it felt like she was on fire.

  “Y–you shot me,” Teeka said, and Alecia backed away from her.

  Teeka’s hands flew to the side of her dress and touched the spot where she felt the pain. When she brought her fingertips up, she saw the bright red blood on them. Gasping, she slid to the floor and tried to apply pressure to the wound. It was no use, however. Her blood just seeped through her fingers.

  “See what you made me do?” Alecia said and put the side of the gun to her head in a distraught manner. “You made me shoot you. All you had to do was leave him alone, Teeka. All you had to do was let us be a family. I even pushed my wedding back to appease this man, but no! He didn’t want to marry me anymore because of you!”

  As she was rambling on, Teeka’s entire life was flashing right before her. Her mind fell on Keelan’s face, his handsome face, and a single tear fell from her eye.

  Is this the price to pay for love? she thought as she felt herself growing weaker by the minute.

  Knock! Knock!

  “Is anybody in there? The door is locked, and I have to pee!”

  “Yeah, me too! Open up!”

  The voices outside of the bathroom must have brought Alecia back down to earth. She inhaled sharply and looked at the gun in her hands. She did a full three-sixty spin while hitting herself in the head.

  “I hear somebody in there. Hey! Open the door! We really need to go.”

  “Screw this! I have had too much tequila! I’m about to go and find security. This is just ridiculous!”

  “What have I done? I can’t go to jail. Not after everything. Oh my God, my future!” Alecia stopped spinning when she was facing Teeka. “This is all your fault. Don’t you see? If you weren’t such a slut, I would have never done this.”

  Blinded by rage, she held the gun up, that time aiming for Teeka’s head. If she was going to get caught, then she might as well finish th
e job. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, the door busted open with a loud bang.

  Right before the world around her faded to black, Teeka could have sworn she saw a man who resembled Keelan tackle Alecia to the ground. Then everything went blank.

  Epilogue

  Keelan

  One Year Later

  If there was one thing that Keelan learned about life, it was that taking it for granted could cost a pretty penny. He stood in his third-floor office overlooking the city Chicago. It was summertime, so there was a lot of traffic in the downtown streets. He enjoyed watching them—the people, that is. It was like, for a split second, he had a glimpse of their lives.

  He smirked and stepped away from the tall window and went back to his desk. Just as Steve had promised, he got a new office to go along with his fancy new nametag. The only thing was, nothing at the office was the same. Ever since Teeka had been gone, things were out of order. Reluctantly, Steve had ended up hiring a new secretary, but it was different. No one could keep the office running as smoothly as Teeka did, but that was something everyone would have to get used to.

  Keelan sighed deeply and thought back to the night that had changed his life a year before. His heart tugged, because he knew that it was his fault that Teeka had been put in that position. He never once thought to question Alecia’s mental state after the breakup, but he for sure never thought that she would do anything as crazy as attacking Teeka.

  When Chauncey asked him which girl was his date, it had thrown him for a loop. Chauncey proceeded to tell him that he could have sworn he’d seen Alecia step into the banquet, but Keelan told him that he had to be tripping. Alecia was all the way back in Milwaukee. However, when Teeka was gone for almost ten minutes in the restroom, he began to grow alarmed. He went off looking for her, only to find a line outside of the women’s room. He heard some women complaining about the door being locked and another swear that she’d heard tussling inside. He leaped into action without thinking and kicked open the wooden door just in time to stop Alecia from shooting Teeka.

  But he was too late; Teeka had already been shot. He would never be able to rid his mind of the image of her leaned against the bathroom floor, surrounded by a pool of her own blood. It was like it was he who had been shot, because he felt an electric shock to his heart. He remembered watching the stretcher roll her body away, and how all the breath had left his body. Why hadn’t he been there for her? She needed him, and he wasn’t there. He’d promised her that he would never hurt her again, and he had broken that promise.

  Knock! Knock!

  The sudden sound of a knocking on his office door jerked him from his thoughts and back to reality. He sat down on top of his desk and cleared his throat.

  “Come in!”

  “Hello, Mr. Metoy.” Ava, the middle-aged secretary entered his office. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but there is something wrong with my phone. I’ve been trying to tell Mr. O’Brian to fix it, but he has been so wrapped up in meetings all day that he hasn’t been much help. Ava was a sweet woman, but once you got her going, it was hard to get her to stop. The lady was a chatterbox and could talk an ear off from there to China.

  Keelan smiled and let her ramble on about her broken phone for a minute before he interrupted her. “It’s okay, Ava. I don’t mind you coming up here,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Your twelve o’clock is here,” she said with a smile.

  She stepped out of the way so someone could enter the room, and her arms flew out like a protective mother to make sure they got in without an issue.

  “Thank you, Ava.” Teeka’s voice was pleasant, and she smiled genuinely at the woman. “I appreciate all of your help, but you really didn’t have to come with me up the elevator.”

  “The hell I didn’t! Your mama isn’t about to fuss at me if you fall and go into early labor.”

  Keelan grinned, thinking about how his future mother-in-law had definitely made an impression on the secretary. Whenever Ava saw Teeka in the office, she was making sure that Teeka didn’t need any help, since she was in her third trimester.

  “Thank you, Miss Ava,” Teeka said before the woman excused herself from the office. “Hi, baby. Why are you all holed up in here on this beautiful day?”

  “I was just thinking,” Keelan said and opened his arms for Teeka to fall into.

  “Oh, really,” Teeka said and gave him a peck on the lips. “Thinking about what?”

  “About you, and how lucky I am to have you in my life.”

  And that he was. Teeka had arrived just in time to the hospital to receive medical attention. They were able to remove the bullet, since it was just a flesh wound, but she had lost so much blood they kept her for a few days. In those few days, Keelan realized that he had almost lost her twice in one month. The second time was almost permanently. It was then that he could see a wedding in his future, except this one would be with the right woman.

  Of course, his plans changed a few months after Teeka was all healed up. She told him that she was pregnant and that he was going to be a father. Although it didn’t happen in the order that he would have liked, he was ecstatic. They were going to be a family, and with Alecia in prison for attempted murder, there wasn’t anyone who could get in their way.

  “Yes, you are,” she said and placed her hand on his chest. “You ready to go? Your son is kicking my ass because he wants a burger.”

  “He wants a burger, or you do?”

  “Same thing.” She shrugged and stepped away from him. “Come on, honey. If we hurry up, we can get a quickie going in the car.”

  “In the car?” Keelan raised his eyebrow and grabbed his car keys. “Are you sure that’s good for the kid?”

  “I’m thirty-eight weeks today. The doctor said sex is good for labor, and I want him to come on his due date, so I need you to do your fiancé duties and give me some dick.”

  “Oh, really?” He laughed and took her by the hand. “If those are my duties, I can definitely get used to them.”

  He squeezed her hand before leading her out of his office. She was so beautiful, and he didn’t understand how he had gotten so lucky. In his mind, he was still earning her love, but he planned to show her how worthy of it he was every day.

  “I love you, Teeka Metoy,” he told her, calling her by his last name.

  “And I love you too, Keelan Metoy. More than you’ll ever know.”

  The two of them shared one last kiss before Keelan flicked off the lights. Hand in hand, they walked out of the office to continue another day in their forever love story.