by Edwina Fort
“Hey, beautiful.” He whispered.
I smiled. “Hey, my King, how was work?”
“Outside having some computer issues, not too bad.” I frowned slightly.
“It would be nice if you and Rome got along better. He could probably help you. He always fixed our computers when they started acting up.” Jo chuckled before he gently swept my loc out of my face and behind my ear.
“You are probably right. Too bad indeed. How was your day?” The sound of Kyle clearing his throat behind us caused the room to abruptly come back into focus.
“Wow, how rude was I? I’m so sorry about that. Kyle, this is Jo—”
“I know exactly who he is.” Kyle interrupted me as he shot daggers at Jo. The hostility in his voice was shocking. “But I have to admit being surprised to see him here with you.” I frowned.
“What do you mean—”
“Kale, is it?” Jo asked cutting me off as he reached out his hand to Kyle.
Wait, did he just call him Kale?
“Kyle.” My friend who was now clearly insulted muttered, taking Jo’s hand in a not so friendly handshake. The energy in here was not right. “You don’t remember me.”
With that politician grin on his face, Jo blinked at Kyle as if he was insignificant.
“And why would I remember you?”
“My father owns Executive Delights Catering.” Jo’s eyebrows lifted in recognition of the company. “As you know we cater some of your parents’ events as well as many events for Chloe Anderson’s family.”
Jo’s eyes harden. Who in the world was Chloe Anderson?
“Who’s Chloe-“ I began, but Jo cut me off.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go and check on our other guests while Kale and I have a little chat?”
“Jo, his name is Kyle.” I softly admonished. I couldn’t believe he was acting like this. He smiled.
“Oh, right…Kyle.”
I was not buying that he couldn’t remember that. And now he wanted me to leave him and Kyle to talk alone. There was a dangerous energy about Jo right now. I eyeballed him, not sure me leaving was a good idea.
“Why don’t we all go check on the others?” I asked him in a hesitant voice.
His hand caressed my hair until it got to the back of my head. He gently took my locs in his fist, guiding my head to him until he had access to my lips. He kissed me in a way that made me forget Kyle was standing there watching. I moaned balling up the front of his shirt in my fist the same way he was doing my hair. The kiss was mind numbing.
He wrapped his other arm around my waist pulling my body flush against his as he scandalously sucked on my bottom lip before his tongue was invading my mouth again. Kyle who? By the time he pulled back from me, I only had one thing on the mind, the flush in my cheeks testified of it.
At this point, I was too embarrassed to look back at Kyle.
“Go ahead, baby, we’ll be down in a minute.” Jo whispered as he gently touched his lips to mine again. I nodded and quickly left the room. Oh man, that was savage what he’d just done in front of Kyle, and I was savage for participating in it.
Joseph
A wise man thinks before he acts. He deliberates the consequences of his actions. He knows that the feeling of rage doesn’t last and eventually the sound mind will return. Seeing this Kale guy smell Journey’s hair nearly blinded me with rage. It took all my years of practicing to control it to keep from ripping his damn throat out.
And now he stood before me with his chest inflated, working up the courage to try me.
“You know when I saw her with that baby I never would have imagined in a million years that it was yours.”
I bit down on my teeth. Hearing him call my beautiful baby girl that baby, like she was an it made the rage inside of me rev to life. This guy wanted Journey, but didn’t want to have nothing to do with Ayana.
“Does Journey know about your fianc—”
“You say her name one more time and so help me God, I will break your neck.” I didn’t yell my threat, as a matter a fact, my voice was barely over a whisper. I took a step closer to him. The polished refined Joseph had melted away and what was hidden underneath stood in its place.
“If I see you anywhere near her, I will make you disappear. Do you understand me?”
He sized me up, surprised at the change in me. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he pondered whether or not Journey was worth the risk. He flexed his fists. I smiled praying he gave me the slightest excuse to let go of what was bottled up inside me.
“She’s a good girl.” He muttered. Some of the heat had left his voice. “She doesn’t deserve the kind of life you are getting ready to put her through.” Wisely he didn’t say her name, but foolishly he continued. “Since you in all sense and purposes already have a wife, then that means you’ve made a queen…your whore.” He shook his head looking down at my boots.
“Maybe that’s worth going to war for. I would never make her my whore. Not ever!”
All this he said without looking up at me. I almost laughed. He was the poetic kind of brotha. He made sh*t sound good, but he didn’t have the balls to keep a queen as he said. Journey would run circles around this guy. Have him somewhere heartbroken and crying in his bed as he hugged the teddy bear he’d won her at the carnival.
“Trust me, Kale, you and your catering family ain’t ready to go to war with me. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen if you so much as speak a word to Journey again. She is my most valuable treasure and I will kill you and anybody else who tries to change that.” I took a step closer to him, because he still had it in him to fight for what is mine.
“Trust me! Think about all you stand to lose.” I shook my head, pleading with him with my eyes. I needed him to know that unlike him, I wasn’t reciting poetry, I meant every word I was about to say to him.
“You don’t understand. The thought of you touching her…kissing her, f*cking—” My words came to a halt as I gritted my teeth fighting the urge to kill this man where he stood.
I balled up my fist. “I will never stop hunting you. I will never stop hunting your family. I will tie you all up so that you’re hugging each other, douse you in gasoline and then light a match. As your parents burn to death you can look in their eye and know that this all happened because you chose to trespass in another man’s garden, and the penalty for that was death.”
He blinked at me waiting for me to show the slightest hint that I was joking. But I wasn’t. Every word that I said to him was true. Welcome to my mind…
“Buu—but your father is a senator?” My frown deepened.
“And his son is a killer. Check my record. I will ghost your ass and not lose any sleep. Before I put on this suit, that’s what I did for a living. Guess what, Kale boy. I’m good at it.”
I saw when he made the connection and realized I spoke the truth.
“Now listen closely, because this is what I want you to do. You are to walk down these stairs and get the f*** out of my house. Don’t look to the left or the right. Just down the stairs and out the door. You speak to Journey again and I’m going to make your face look like ground beef. And that’s my word.”
Wisely he didn’t turn his back on me as he stumbled out the greenhouse and down the stairs. Like a good boy he walked out the front door without looking back. F**king poet!
Journey and Michelle rushed to the living room.
“Oh my God, Jo, what did you do?” She cried going to the window to look out.
I shrugged. “Kale realized he had somewhere else to be.” I pulled her away from the window wrapping my arm around her waist, I didn’t even want her looking out the window at that mutha f****. She twisted around in my arms to look up in my face trying to read me. I smiled down at her, bringing my finger up to gently rub her brow.
“Stop frowning, beautiful. He and I just came to a gentlemen’s agreement, that’s all.”
“Was that Kyle that left out the door?” Ben asked hu
rrying out of the kitchen. He and Michelle grabbed their coats as well as Kale’s from the coat rack.
“It was really nice meeting you in person. I hope we can get together some time and have lunch.” He said coming to shake my hand.
“Absolutely, just call my secretary and she’ll let you know what my schedule is like.” He smiled big as he hurried out the door behind the frightened poet.
Michelle, still eyeballing me gave Journey a hug. “I’ll call you a little later.” She told my lady before they shared a look. I chuckled. Journey wanted her to find out what happened with Kale and I.
When they were gone, I clapped my hands together turning to face my sweet little mother-in-law with a smile on my face.
“Mmmm…something smells mouthwatering?”
Journey
The three of us stared at Jo as he went to take a seat at the kitchen table. Me in horror, my mom in wonder, and Albert with a proud smirk on his face. As if to prove how he felt, he walk to Jo and patted his shoulder.
“That’s my boy!” He muttered before he took a seat in the chair opposite his.
Slowly my mother’s eyes came to mine. She now wore something of a smirk on her face as well, shrugging she went into the kitchen and informed the fellas dinner would be ready shortly. I still stood by the door looking like, what the hell just happened?
Jo looked at me from where he sat at the kitchen table. He tried to hide what he really was, but one’s eyes always told the truth. A killer looked back at me through Jo’s eyes. He grinned then and nodded slightly as if he could hear my thoughts.
“Come over here, baby and have a seat, you’ve had a long day.” He said as he patted the chair next to him.
As I eased down into the chair, I kept a wary eye on him. I know that Kyle is not the toughest guy on the block, but he’s not the tuck tail and run type either. So, what the world could Jo have said or done to him to make him tuck tail and run?
After dinner, Jo walked Albert out to his car while I helped my mom with the dishes. She and I quietly discussed what happened and she surprised me by saying she was glad Jo did what he did.
“Mom!” I admonished. She waved that away.
“Don’t mom me. I don’t like that Kale guy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kyle…his name is Kyle.”
“I don’t care what his name is. I don’t like him. He doesn’t like Ayana.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can tell. He never looked at her. And at the restaurant, he sat on the bench between you and her. Everybody knows that you don’t sit between a baby and their mother at a restaurant. Some men can’t deal with other men’s children and he’s one of them.”
Hmmm… I didn’t even think about that. I played over his actions tonight and yeah, my mom was right, he’d never looked at her, touched her, or even talked to her for that matter.
Wow…
“Still, that doesn’t give Joseph the right to be a caveman.”
She swatted me with the dish towel. “Hush now, he was protecting his family. He has a right to do that.”
Jo had a champion in my mom, I on the other hand continued to give him the side eye as he and I retired to our bedroom.
“Oh, come on now J, how long you going to give me the I- killed-your-dog look?” He said as he settled back in the bed in only his pajama bottoms looking like a yummy piece of chocolate.
I stood at the sink brushing my teeth. When I was done I slowly walked to the bed.
“Tell me what you said to Kyle.” This was my fourth time asking.
He exhaled. “Okay, come here and I’ll tell you what I said.”
I shook my head. The grin on his face let me know that if I came to him, it would be over, he had seduction on his mind.
“How about you stay there and I stand here, and you tell me.”
He chuckled shaking his head. “If you want to know what I told him, you’ll have to come here, non-negotiable.” He reached out his hand to me.
Against my better judgment I took it. “Okay, tell me.” I said as he brought me down to lie next to him. For a while he didn’t speak, he just stared down at me from where he leaned on his elbow. Very gently he moved my loc out of my face.
“I told him you are my most valuable treasure. And for you I’ll do anything.” I was drowning in his eyes as he whispered his words to me.
“If it’s poets that you like, then for you I’ll recite poetry.” He made a showing of clearing his throat. I couldn’t help but grin. Jo was no poet.
“Roses are red. Journey’s in my bed. Why are we talking about Kale, when we can be making love instead?”
See what I mean? I cried laughing at his proud look. He was really pleased with himself, like he was amazed he actually did it.
“Will you look at that?” he said stunned. “I am a damn poet after all.”
So, okay, Jo made me forget all about Kale—I mean Kyle, that night. Geesh! His bad habits are rubbing off on me. But first thing the next morning, I was on the phone with Michelle.
“Girl, I don’t know what happened. When we caught up with Kyle, he was half way home. He got in the car and didn’t speak to either of us. I tried to pull some info out him, nothing. He just said he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Wow!” Was all I could say.
“I think Jo hurt his manly pride.” Michelle purred.
Yeah, I do too.
Anyway, Jo continued to be absolutely amazing and I forgot all about what my mother and I had taken to calling the Kyle incident. My mom, who was only supposed to stay for a couple weeks ended up staying for a couple of months. Neither Jo nor I was complaining. My mom was awesome, people loved her. But I suspected she was still here because of one driver named Albert.
I think it was safe to say they were officially dating. If Albert wasn’t over here, then it was because he was taking her on a drive around town. The other day, he took her out to the movies and dinner. She came in glowing and laughing. It had been a while since I saw her looking that way, well before my father passed away.
She and I both agreed that it was best that we didn’t tell Rome. My brother would not take the news well. He believed it was okay for him and Rob to be with as many women as they liked, but growled whenever a man so much as looked at me or my mom. He was such a hypocrite.
Now do you guys remember when I told you I should have paid more attention to Jo’s interaction with Kyle? Remember when I told you the first situation was very mild compared to the second? Okay, well, let’s just say the happy bubble I was living in with Jo burst and it didn’t burst neatly. There was pain and yes, blood. I would soon find out that Jo was nothing like the man that was being sold to the public. When that agent had told me way back in Chicago that they had put a suit on a goon, you guys have no idea how true that statement would prove to be.
From this point on, the rest of my story is going to be a bit of a whirlwind. So, I’m going to warn you guys now to hold on, it’s getting ready to be a bumpy ride. A ride that all begun with a surprise visit from Alice Warren.
I was in my greenhouse transplanting some avocado seedlings to bigger pots when my mom called me downstairs. Using a towel to wipe some of the dirt off my hands as I came down, I came to a complete halt when I saw Jo’s mom sitting on my couch.
“You have a visitor, honey.” My mom said coming from the kitchen with a teacup for Alice. “Here you go, dear, I added honey instead of sugar.”
Alice took the cup smiling kindly. “Thank you.”
I stood there as my mind scrabbled to find a way to deal with this situation. I wanted to tell her to get the hell out of my house, but had to remember that this was Joseph’s mother and although he didn’t talk about her much, probably really loved her. I was so glad I had laid Ayana down for a nap.
“Why are you here?”
My mother jerked her head to stare at me surprised at my greeting. I’d never told her about my encounter with Alice. She didn’t know it was her fault all th
at drama took place back at the house. Alice smiled at me a little nervous.
“I’ve come to apologize.” Now it was my turn to be shocked. I sat down on the couch next to my mom and just stared at her with my mouth slightly agape.
She chuckled as she placed her cup on the table after taking a sip. “I didn’t know that Joseph loved you. I thought—” her words died off as she shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter what I thought. It was foolish. I’ve come because my husband and I want to be apart of Ayana’s life. We want to be apart of yours, if you will have us?” She spoke hesitantly, as if she feared I would reject her.
I was astonished. I didn’t know what to say. I turned to look at my mom, who was watching Alice, I’m sure now wondering what the woman was talking about. However, I couldn’t get past the fact that she said Joseph loved me. Although he never told me that, could he have told his mom? My heart swelled so full it felt as if it was going to burst. Tears came to my eyes as I nodded my head.
“I would like that very much.” I told her.
She smiled. “Oh wonderful, I was so afraid you were going to say no. Of course, it would be no more than I deserve.” The relief was evident in her voice.
“We’re having a casual little dinner party for Jo at the house tonight to celebrate his retirement from the Bureau, and it would be an honor if you would attend. It’s just going to be a few friends, nothing fancy. So, you don’t have to rush out to buy anything elaborate, I’m sure whatever you have in your closet will do just fine.”
Smiling, I nodded, thrilled that Jo’s mom was inviting me to their home. Jo has not even taken me back to his place. I mean, sure, he was always over here, but still, I was beginning to feel like he was hiding me or something.