by Honey
“We’re here. Are you all right, JoJo?” Jeremiah asked from his brother’s right side. “You’ve been reading the same paragraph for the past ten minutes.”
“Yeah, I’m cool.”
The door of the limo opened, and the trio filed out with Jeremiah leading the way.
* * *
“Connor’s going to be with you this evening at the social, and Miss Gladys is on nanny duty. I figured since Gypsie has been spending so much time with the girls, she could use a break, so I’m going to take her out to dinner.” Wait for it. Wait for it, Jeremiah told himself silently with a smirk on his face. He waited patiently for Josiah’s response.
Josiah slowed his pace as they approached the elevator, and Jeremiah followed suit. “So you asked Gypsie out on a date? I thought I made it perfectly clear that you—”
“Yo, pump your brakes, JoJo.” Jeremiah waved both hands in front of his chest. “It ain’t no date. I just want to reward the girl for working so hard for you since you obviously don’t have the time to do it. If she keeps hanging out at your crib watching Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon with Gem and Treasure, she’ll soon forget how to relate to adults.”
“I guess Gypsie does need a break, although she never complains,” Josiah sighed. “Thanks, man. But no funny business, J. Gypsie is the most efficient assistant I’ve ever had at city hall and at the law practice. Don’t mess with her emotions.”
“I have no romantic interest in Gypsie, man. The chick is hotter than the July sun, but she’s too much of a lady for me. Plus, I’m not her type.”
When the elevator doors opened, the Bishop twins entered, and Jeremiah pressed the button to the private garage.
“So what is Gypsie’s type?” Josiah asked the moment the doors closed.
Bingo! Josiah’s interest was the confirmation Jeremiah had been seeking before moving forward with his plan. Now, all he had to do was cast the bait and reel his brother in.
“Gypsie’s attracted to older brothas, for sure,” Jeremiah explained after a pause. “But she likes the more reserved and sophisticated type.... Kind of like you. We may have the same DNA, degrees, and work together in two capacities, but you’ve got to admit that I’m the wild twin. There’s nothing reserved about me. I’m not polished like you. I consider myself a roughneck. Gypsie would never fall for a cat like me. If you weren’t married, you would be the perfect catch for her.”
“And you know that how?” Josiah exited the elevator.
“Gypsie and I have talked about her future and the type of man she hopes to marry. Yo, she loves kids, man. She wants to pop out a few someday. She’s young, so she’s got plenty of time. I just hope she finds a brotha that’s worthy of her.”
“Why doesn’t she date?”
“How the hell is she supposed to date if she’s always at your house?” Jeremiah walked Josiah to the limo where Nelson was waiting for him. He waved the older man off and opened the door for his brother. “I’ll see you in the morning, man.”
“Okay. Don’t forget—Gypsie is off-limits.”
“Get out of here, JoJo.”
* * *
As soon as Josiah got settled in the limo, he threw his head back to relax. Although he trusted Jeremiah to keep his word and not put the moves on Gypsie, he was still jealous that they were going out. He had no right to be, but he was, and it disturbed him deeply. His phone rang just as a vision of Gypsie floated through his psyche. He appreciated the distraction, so he immediately sat up and removed his phone from his breast pocket.
“This is Josiah Bishop.”
“JoJo, I want to come home. Please come and get me.”
“Mink?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Come and get me,” she slurred again. “I’m hungry and lonely. I miss you and the girls.”
“Mama bought groceries and delivered them to you last week. Where’s the food, Mink?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Somebody broke in here and stole it. I want to come home, JoJo. Come and get me. I’ll do anything you say if you let me come home.”
“You sound high right now, Mink. I don’t want you around the girls until you get yourself together. Go to detox. You’re still on my insurance. Use your card to sign yourself into a program.”
“I don’t want to go to no motherfucking detox! I need to be at home with my children. I’ll stay clean for them.”
“You need to get clean for yourself. Go to detox, please, Mink.”
“If I go, will you let me come back home so you, Gem, Treasure, and I can be a family again?”
Josiah couldn’t readily respond to Mink’s question because he didn’t know the answer. He wanted more than anything to have his wife back home with him and the girls, but she needed to be off of the needle and alcohol first. Josiah still loved Mink very much, and he missed her, but he didn’t miss the drama of her addiction. He’d long since grown tired of the highs, lows, fears, and uncertainty. Josiah never wanted to experience any of that again. His home life was stable in Mink’s absence despite the constant ache in his heart from missing her. He wasn’t willing to give her another chance unless she went back to rehab and maintained a life free from drugs and alcohol for at least six months. And even then, he could make no guarantees that their marriage would be restored because he didn’t trust her.
“JoJo, are you coming?”
“No, I’m not coming, Mink. Go to detox and call me when you complete the program.”
* * *
“I’m glad Jeremiah invited me out tonight. A few hours away from the mayor’s house will help me unscramble my brain.”
Gypsie’s longtime friend, Tianji, laughed softly. “You’re human, girl. If I were joined at the hip with a man that damn sexy, successful, and fine for hours at a time, I would’ve jumped his bones by now. Stop beating yourself up because you’re attracted to your boss, Blackbird.”
“But it’s not right, TiTi,” Gypsie whined. “He’s married, and I’ve been all up in his wife’s face on many occasions. The woman trusts me. I shouldn’t be tossing and turning in her guest room while I’m having erotic dreams about her husband. I feel like a skank.”
“You’re hardly a skank. You, my friend, are a young woman with needs and desires. Those natural feelings have intensified because of your circumstances. You’re on mommy duty to two innocent, little girls with a missing mother and a daddy who is a politically powerful chocolate god. You didn’t notice how smooth and handsome he was until now because you weren’t in his personal space. Now that you’re playing mommy to his daughters, your body wants to play house with Daddy.”
“That’s not funny, TiTi.”
“But it’s true, boo. Now get your ass off my line and go enjoy dinner with Jeremiah. Holla at me tomorrow. Bye, Blackbird.”
“Goodbye.”
Chapter Fifteen
“So, whenever I used to go outside to play on the block, Brianna, the little brat, would run over and pull my hair and call me Pocahontas. I used to cringe whenever she called me Blackbird, my Menominee tribal name, given to me by my grandmother. She only did it to mock me. Sometimes she’d have the nerve to dance around me in a circle, patting her mouth with her hand and making noises like she was doing some rain dance. I hated her. She made me feel like my Native American heritage was a disease.”
Jeremiah laughed. “What did you do about it?”
“Nothing.” Gypsie shrugged her shoulders. “I wasn’t much of a fighter. Plus, I had tough skin and lots of friends. I didn’t care that one jealous girl in the entire neighborhood didn’t like me, so I ignored her insults and teasing. But my best friend, Tianji, stopped her from pulling my hair once and for all.”
“How?”
“She punched her in the nose one day while we were on the block jumping rope. Brianna crept up on me, yanked my ponytail, and made me fall. I skinned my knee pretty badly. I was so embarrassed. I cried, and it made Tianji go off. She was livid. She dropped the rope and reached back ten years and punched Brian
na square in the nose. Blood was everywhere! All of the other kids laughed and teased her before she ran home crying, but I felt sorry for her.”
Jeremiah took a sip of his drink and placed the glass on the table. “You’ve got a soft heart, Gypsie. You remind me of my brother. No matter how many times his wife hurt him and my precious nieces, he always forgave her and gave her another chance. But not this time.” Jeremiah shook his head slowly. “He’s done with her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he filed for divorce the day after the election. Nothing would make me happier. I want JoJo to move on and find a good woman to love him and hold him down. Of course, she’ll have to love Gem and Treasure and treat them as if she gave birth to them too. My brother and his daughters are a package deal.”
“The mayor is a good man and an exceptional father. And Gem and Treasure are as close to perfect as children can be. There’re a lot of women in Atlanta and beyond who would jump at the opportunity to become the next Mrs. Josiah J. Bishop.”
“Would you?”
“W-would . . . would I w-what?” Gypsie asked, stammering over the three words.
“If my brother were no longer married, would you toss your hat in the ring for a chance to become First Lady Bishop?”
“Have you lost your damn mind, Jeremiah? The mayor is my boss. And I’m too close to the situation. Mrs. Bishop trusts me. If Mayor Bishop and I got together, it would be the biggest scandal ever to hit Atlanta. What would people think of me? Do you realize how much older—”
“Whoooa, baby girl.” Jeremiah reached across the table and took Gypsie’s hand into his. “Take a deep breath and calm down. I just asked you a simple question. It wasn’t a proposition. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” Gypsie snapped and snatched her hand free from Jeremiah’s grip.
He smirked. “Oh, you’re upset, sweetheart, and I think I know why.”
“Why am I not surprised? You think you know every damn thing. Please tell me what you think you know about me.”
“I know you’ve bonded with my brother on a more personal level since you’ve been spending the majority of your time in his home caring for my nieces.” Jeremiah leaned across the table and pinned Gypsie in place with his eyes. “You’ve tossed and turned in his guest room bed many nights, wondering what it would feel like to be underneath JoJo in his big ole bed making nasty, buck wild love to him.”
“You know what? You are even more disgusting than the women at city hall said.”
Gypsie grabbed her purse and stood. “I can’t believe you’re Mayor Bishop’s twin. The doctor obviously made a mistake. You’re not a man, Jeremiah. You are an animal!” She threw a glass of water in his face and stormed out of the restaurant.
Jeremiah wiped his face with a cloth napkin and laughed from deep within his belly. He ignored the dozens of pairs of curious eyes trained on him. He laughed harder, satisfied that he’d caused Gypsie to reveal her true feelings for Josiah. And she was so pissed about it that she’d left the restaurant before their entrées were served. How could he not laugh?
“I may be an animal, sweetheart, but you want JoJo, and I’m going to help you get him.”
* * *
Gypsie tiptoed past the den and hurried upstairs to the guest room. She was too emotional to face Gem, Treasure, and Miss Gladys. She heard them in the den laughing and talking with the TV blaring in the background, but she didn’t want to greet them with a stank-ass attitude. Why ruin their good time just because Jeremiah had pissed on hers?
It didn’t matter that his presumption of her feelings toward his brother was dead-on point. What bothered Gypsie more was that Jeremiah had suggested that she would act on her attraction. She wasn’t a whore or a home wrecker. Hell, she despised married men who whipped out their charm and money on other women. Her brief relationship with NBA superstar point guard Tshambi Moore had come to a screeching halt the moment Gypsie discovered he was engaged. All attached men, whether they were married, engaged, or in a long-term relationship, were like poison. She stayed clear of them.
Gypsie sat down on the bed and removed her shoes. Her hands were still shaking from anger and shock. She wondered how Jeremiah knew she had a crush on Josiah. She had been extra careful not to show her feelings, or so she’d thought. And her attraction to the mayor was relatively new. She hadn’t been chilling in the cut, praying for his marriage to fail or fantasizing about an affair with him. Sure, she realized that Mrs. Bishop was a drug addict many months ago. The indisputable evidence was there; even a blind man could’ve come to the same conclusion easily. But at the time, Gypsie’s heart went out to the woman because drug addiction was a dreadful disease. It destroyed lives and tore families apart.
Not once since she’d discovered that Mrs. Bishop was a substance abuser had Gypsie thought of using the information to her advantage by trying to come on to her boss and ruin his marriage. Instead, she had done everything within her power to help the mayor, his wife, and their daughters through their hard times. And she prayed to God every day, asking Him to heal Mrs. Bishop from the awful disease that plagued her and to sustain the Bishop family. It was difficult to watch Gem and Treasure go through such an emotional ordeal at their tender ages. And although Josiah hid his feelings well from others, Gypsie could see through the façade. He was an emotional mess. She saw heartache in his beautiful eyes. He was suffering from the pain of being in love with a woman who was hooked on a powerful drug that had caused her to become emotionally detached from him and their children.
Gypsie removed her tan business suit and hung it in the closet. She avoided the mirror on the dresser because of guilt. Although she had no intention of ever acting on her blossoming affection for Josiah, she was ashamed of her attraction to him. Her heart had no right to hold romantic feelings for her married boss. She sat back down on the bed. Maybe it was time for her to resign from her position at city hall and help Jeremiah search for a new caretaker for Gem and Treasure in her departure. Damn you, Jeremiah! Gypsie screamed on the inside. This was his fault. It was his trifling ass that had confronted her about her feelings for her boss. She had never been angrier or more humiliated in her life. Jeremiah was now at the top of her shit list. She would never speak to him again. Gypsie decided to find the Bishop girls a new part-time nanny on her own. She would miss Gem and Treasure, but her actions were necessary.
“Miss Gypsie is home!” Treasure shouted.
Gem responded, “Yeah! Her light is on!”
“Knock be—”
Miss Gladys’s attempted warning came too late. The girls burst through Gypsie’s slightly cracked bedroom door and showered her with hugs and kisses, causing her to topple backward on the bed. She and the children giggled and exchanged open affection like they did all of the time. Gypsie’s heart squeezed, thinking about leaving them. They had already been through enough insanity because of their mother. She didn’t want to abandon them too.
“Where did you go, Miss Gypsie? Treasure and I missed you.”
“Miss Gladys made us eat spinach. I liked the chicken and rice, but the spinach was yucky.”
Gypsie giggled at Treasure’s frowning face. “Spinach is very good for you, darling. It makes you healthy and strong. I think I’ll have me some before I go to bed. I’m starving.”
In her rush to get away from Jeremiah, Gypsie had forgotten to stop at a fast-food joint to grab something to eat. All she could think about was putting as much distance between him and her as possible. She could still see him smirking at her as he told her the truth about her lustful bedtime thoughts featuring Josiah in living color. Whew! The things they did to each other in her dreams were quadruple X-rated. Gypsie had to fan her face and lick her dry lips when a vision flashed through her mind. Overheated, she snatched her mind out of the gutter and sat up on the bed.
“I’m going to the kitchen to find something to eat. You two, my brightest Gem and most valuable Treasure, can wait for me in the den. Okay?”
“Okay,” the gir
ls answered in unison before they followed Gypsie out of the room.
* * *
Josiah paused outside the door with his heart racing, contemplating on whether he should knock or not. He couldn’t come up with any good reason why he should except that he wanted to see Gypsie. And he wanted to know how her evening with Jeremiah had unfolded. He hadn’t been able to reach his twin brother. It was Friday night, and there was no telling what kind of mischief he was up to. More than likely, he’d hooked up with one of his hotties immediately after he and Gypsie parted ways.
Unable to resist temptation, Josiah tapped lightly on the door. A moment or two later, the door opened slowly, and Gypsie appeared in a red University of Georgia tee and black oversized sweatpants. Her hair pulled up in a messy bun at the crown of her head made her appear even more youthful than 24. There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, but she was a natural beauty who didn’t need cosmetics anyway.
“Yes, Mayor Bishop?”
“I saw your light on when I pulled up. Why are you still awake?”
“I was responding to some of your emails. You’ve been invited to quite a few events. I carefully selected the ones that I think you should attend. Of course, you’ll have the final say, but—”
“I’m sure the ones you chose are in my best political interest,” he said, cutting her off.
Gypsie nodded. “I hope you don’t mind that I told Miss Gladys she could go home. I returned from dinner early, and I didn’t see a need for both of us to be here.”