Player Haters Read online

  “Okay…what kind of bad news, Jeanie?” I was trying to keep it together, not let my emotions get involved. It wasn’t easy. I had a family to take care of.

  “Well, Wil, I really don’t know how to tell you this. Especially since I know how much you hate change, but…”

  I stopped her because she was beating around the bush and that annoyed me. It was bad enough that the boys upstairs sent the lone sister to do their dirty work instead of coming to see me face to face like they do when a white manager is fired.

  “Just spit it out, Jeanie. I’m a man. I can take it.”

  “Okay. Marge fell in the parking lot on Friday and broke her arm. It looks like she’s gonna be out five to six weeks minimum. So I—”

  “Hold up,” I interrupted. “That’s the bad news you had to tell me?”

  “Yeah, what’d you think I came down here to do, fire you?” She let out a laugh but stopped it abruptly when I didn’t join in.

  “That’s exactly what I thought.” I gave her a serious look. “Jesus Christ, Jeanie, you know my department’s sales are down. You scared the shit outta me.”

  “I’m sorry, Wil. But you don’t have anything to worry about. The way things are going, your department’s doing better than everyone else.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “Have you seen the figures on Jonathan Goldsmith’s department? If anyone needs to get fired, it’s him. If you know what I’m saying.”

  We both laughed, because Jonathan Goldsmith was one of the executive vice president’s sons and we both knew he would never be fired. Transferred maybe, but never fired.

  “I’m not here to fire you. I’m just here to give you the bad news about Marge.”

  Her words finally sunk in, and I realized how important Marge, my secretary of five years, was to me. I’d been so damn paranoid when Jeanie first started talking I’d barely even thought about her real message. Poor Marge. She was in her early sixties, and I knew a broken bone was no joke for someone that age.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “From what I could tell over the phone, she’s fine.”

  “All right. I’m gonna have to give her a call after my sales meeting. See if there’s anything she needs.” I glanced at my watch, then shuffled all my reports into a folder. I walked around my desk and asked Jeanie, “So in the meantime, what am I gonna do for a secretary? You gonna transfer somebody over from another department?”

  I gestured toward the door and we headed out of my office.

  “Sorry, Wil. No one’s available right now. We’re gonna give you a temp until Marge gets back.”

  “A temp?” I stopped at the door and stared at her. “I don’t have time to break in a temp. We’re getting ready to go into the busy season. Why don’t you transfer somebody from another division?”

  “Wil, we just had a ten percent reduction of staff in every department. There is nobody we can transfer. You’re just gonna have to make do with a temp.”

  She walked out of my office. I followed, about to protest, but that’s when I noticed the large, very attractive sister sitting at Marge’s desk. She smiled at me, and I straightened my tie self-consciously. If her work was as good as her looks, my department was going to be in good shape, ’cause this woman was fine.

  “Wil Duncan, I’d like to introduce you to Maxine Graves. Maxine is going to be your secretary until Marge returns.”

  Maxine stood up, offering me a cup of coffee and a brownie. “Here you go, Mr. Duncan, light with three sugars, just the way you like it.” I took a sip of the coffee and smiled at her.

  “How’d you…?”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she answered before I could even finish my question, “but I took the liberty of calling Marge. I asked her to give me a few hints on how to make our transition as smooth as possible. I may only be a temp, but I take pride in my work. Now you need to run along or you’re gonna be late for your sales meeting.” She motioned with her hand like a mother shuffling her kids off to school. I glanced at Jeanie, who was grinning from ear to ear.

  “You heard the woman, Wil. You need to get going.” Jeanie picked up a brownie from the box on Maxine’s desk and laughed. So did I as I headed for my meeting. Ms. Maxine was going to do just fine.

  By the time I finished my sales meeting, it was just about lunchtime. I didn’t have any plans for lunch so I decided to grab a newspaper and head on over to one of the local restaurants. I liked to get away from the office crowd every once in a while, especially after tense sales meetings.

  “Maxine, I’m going to lu—” I never finished my sentence, because when I walked out of my office, I was too mesmerized by the shapely beauty of Maxine’s backside. She was bent over, picking up a file, and her tight black skirt was stretched across one of the finest asses I’d seen in years.

  “Did you say something, Mr. Duncan?” Maxine quickly stood to face me. When we made eye contact, my high-yellow face turned bright red. I’m sure she knew why I was blushing, too, because she tugged at her skirt, grinning as she sat down at her desk. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Duncan?”

  “Ah, no. I just wanted to let you know I was going to lunch. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  “Okay. Well, you enjoy your lunch. I’m about to have lunch myself.” She smiled, unwrapping what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “Maxine, is that what you’re having for lunch? Peanut butter and jelly?” I eyed the sandwich as she picked it up.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m having. I like peanut butter and jelly.” She took a bite of the sandwich, then dropped it on her desk. “Oh, who the hell am I fooling? To be honest, Mr. Duncan, my son is probably sitting at day care eating tuna salad and drinking Diet Coke right now.” She reached in her lunch bag and pulled out a container of chocolate milk with a disgusted look on her face. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “It’s not funny.” She pouted. “I was in such a rush to get to work on time I must have mixed up our lunches.”

  “Look, don’t get upset. Why don’t you have lunch with me? My treat. It’ll give us a chance to go over your responsibilities.”

  “But what about the phones? Who’s gonna answer them?”

  “We’ll forward them to voice mail. Come on. You don’t have to work nine hours straight. You’re entitled to a lunch.”

  She smiled, pushing the childish meal into a trash can beside her desk. “All right, let’s go.”

  Maxine and I ended up having lunch at Marino’s Italian restaurant in the Village. We spent most of our lunch going over her responsibilities and my expectations for her job. It was busy season, and I wanted her to know that we’d be doing quite a bit of overtime in the next few weeks. She didn’t seem to mind, and things were going remarkably well until she got up to go to the restroom. After that, things became a little uncomfortable. I had to struggle to keep my eyes from wandering down to her breasts. Don’t get me wrong. She was dressed very professionally. It’s just that a couple of the buttons on her blouse seemed to come loose after her trip to the potty, and from that point on, her cleavage was just begging me to take a peek. Thank God the conversation had moved from business to personal, because it was getting hard to concentrate.

  “I really wanna thank you for buying me lunch, Mr. Duncan.” Maxine smiled as she stabbed her salad with her fork.

  “No, problem,” I told her between bites of my lasagna. “So you said you have a son. Are you married?”

  “Who, me?” She shook her head and laughed. “No. I think I’m destined to be an eternal bridesmaid.”

  “Why is that? You’re a very attractive woman.”

  “Thank you.” She lowered her head and blushed. “But if you’ll excuse the expression, these niggas out here ain’t worth it. Every decent man I’ve run into is gay, married or white.”

  “Wow, you sound just like my sister. She made almost the same comment the other day.” I added, “So what about your son’s father? No future there?”

  “
Let’s not even talk about his sorry ass. He spends more time in jail than he does at home. And when he’s home, he’s drunk, and even worse, he’s…” Maxine bit her lip and covered her face with her hands. When she looked back up at me, she had composed herself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan. You don’t need to hear about my problems.”

  “It’s perfectly all right, Maxine.” I patted her hand. “I’m surprised Marge didn’t tell you that about me. I like to keep things pretty informal with my secretary. I find it makes for a more comfortable work environment.”

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up. “That’s nice. I’ve never had a boss treat me as much more than a servant.”

  I’m sure she was exaggerating, but I meant what I’d said. I knew a few guys in my office who were real assholes when it came to their secretaries. I’d learned a long time ago that the better you treat them, the better work they do. So if Maxine wanted to talk to me about her man problems, I didn’t mind listening for a while.

  “So, your son’s father, he’s not abusive or anything, is he?”

  “Very.” Maxine’s eyes reflected her anger and hurt, and she abruptly changed the subject. “So, what about you, Mr. Duncan, are you married?”

  I should be ashamed to admit this, but instead of just telling her, Yes, I’m married, I silently avoided the question. Unfortunately, as I remained silent, Maxine leaned a little closer, waiting for my answer. And the closer she leaned, the larger and more mesmerizing her breasts seemed to get.

  “Mr. Duncan, you still there?”

  “Ah, yeah. I’m still here.” I forced myself to lift my eyes from her breasts to her face as I continued to avoid her marriage question. “Maxine, can you do me a favor? If we’re gonna work together, don’t call me Mr. Duncan. Everyone at the office calls me Wil.”

  “Okay, Wil, but everyone calls me Mimi.”

  “All right. Mimi it is.” We both smiled and got back to our meals. For the time being, the issue of my marriage remained an unanswered question. That is, until my wandering eyes got me in trouble again.

  “Um, Wil, is something wrong with my blouse? Do I have a spot on it or something? ’Cause you keep staring at it pretty hard.” She reached up and closed the top two buttons of her blouse. My face immediately turned bright red, and it took a few seconds before I could reply.

  “Ah, no, actually I was admiring your blouse,” I lied, hoping that a compliment might defuse the situation. “I’d love to pick up something like that for my wife. You have excellent taste in clothes.”

  “You think so?” Now she was blushing, but the smirk on her face said, I knew you were married. “I picked this up at Ashley Stewart’s in Green Acres Mall. They have the most phenomenal plus-size clothes in there. A girl could go broke in there.” She stopped herself. “Oh, my goodness. I’m sorry. Your wife is probably a size six. I don’t even know why I mentioned a plus-size shop.”

  “Size six,” I laughed. “What would make you think that? For your information, my wife is a size sixteen, and she’s been big ever since I met her,” I stated with pride.

  “Sixteen! That’s my size.” Mimi was grinning like she’d hit the lottery. “I must say, Wil, I’m impressed. Usually handsome men like you aren’t attracted to us big-boned women. Y’all usually want them toothpick sisters that are always showing off their stomachs.”

  “Please, ain’t nothin’ a skinny woman can do for me but introduce me to her big friend,” I joked. “I’m two hundred and seventy-three pounds, Mimi. How I look getting on top of somebody a hundred and twenty pounds? I might kill her ass. I need a woman with some meat on her bones.”

  Mimi waved her hand, grinning from ear to ear. “Wil, you are a mess. So how long you been married?”

  “Ten years in three months,” I finally confessed.

  Mimi seemed to straighten up in her chair when she heard that.

  “Wow, ten years with the same woman. These days, that’s impressive. So, do you cheat?” The words came out her mouth so nonchalantly I wasn’t sure if it was an invitation to fool around or an honest question.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I asked if you cheat on your wife.” She looked me straight in the eye.

  “No, I do not cheat on my wife, Mimi.” I put some attitude in my voice for emphasis. She didn’t know it, but after the incident with the stripper photos, cheating was a very sensitive subject in my marriage.

  She lifted her hands passively. “Don’t get offended. I had to ask you that if I’m going to be an effective secretary. I got fired from my last job because I called the wife by the mistress’s name.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, because I ain’t got no mistress.”

  “Hmm, well I’m certainly glad to hear that.” Mimi smirked naughtily to herself as if she’d just heard a private joke. I was just hoping the joke wasn’t on me.

  “Maxine! I knew that was you.” A short, stocky man with schoolboy glasses and a receding hairline was now standing next to our table. How he got that close without either of us noticing him is beyond me. I guess we both must have really been into our conversation.

  “Antoine!” Mimi jumped up and wrapped her arms around the man. She kissed him flush on the lips, and I think I actually felt a momentary twinge of jealousy. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. I told Keisha that was you sitting over here in the dark.”

  “Keisha’s here?” Maxine’s smile became a look of concern.

  “Yeah.” He pointed toward a woman headed our way. Whoever she was, she was definitely related to Maxine, because except for the fact that the woman was a couple of shades darker than Maxine, the family resemblance was unmistakable. Not to mention the fact that the woman had the same phenomenal full figure.

  “Girl, what are you doin’ here? I thought you was supposed to start work today.” The woman, an obvious motormouth, glanced at her watch. “Lord, I hope you ain’t got fired on the first day because you was out here flirting with some man.” She glared at me as if she were Maxine’s mother.

  “I ain’t got fired, Keisha. Matter of fact, I’m having lunch with my boss.” She turned her attention to me. “Wil Duncan, this my sister Keisha, who thinks she’s my momma. And this is my incredibly handsome brother-in-law, Antoine.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I told them as we politely shook hands.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Wil. So what’s up with you and my sister?”

  Maxine gave her sister a don’t-go-there stare, but her sister ignored it. Keisha placed her hand on her hip and waited for my answer. When I made eye contact with Antoine, he just looked away.

  “Nothing,” I replied, trying to remain polite. “This is your sister’s first day at work, and I asked her to lunch to discuss her responsibilities around the office. Completely professional, you see?”

  “Yeah, but for how long? Handsome man like you. I bet she’ll have you in bed by the end of the night.”

  “Keisha!” Antoine yelled, grabbing her by the arm. “Look, we need to go back to our table.”

  I was in shock as I watched them hurry away from our table. I turned to Maxine and said, “I think it’s about time we got back to the office.”

  Maxine glanced at me, then angrily in the direction of her sister. “I’m sorry, Wil. Sometimes my sister gets a little out of hand.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I have a brother who acts the same way.”

  6

  Melanie

  Prince pulled in front of my building, and I reluctantly let go of his sculpted waist as I stepped down from his motorcycle. When we left Manhattan Proper we went and had a late-night breakfast at a diner. Then he took me on the most romantic ride down Ocean Parkway in Long Island. I hadn’t had that much fun since my high school prom. We sat and talked on the beach for what seemed like forever. I took my helmet off and set it on the back of his bike.

  “Shit,” I cursed softly as I glanced at my watch.

  “Wh
at’s wrong? You got a curfew or something?” He pulled his helmet back and flashed a gorgeous smile at me.

  “No, I just never expected to get home at seven o’clock in the morning. I gotta be at work in two hours.”

  “So take the day off. We can go back to my place. Spend the day together.” He smiled as he gestured for me to get back on the bike. “The night doesn’t have to end like this, Melanie.”

  I took a step toward him, then stopped dead in my tracks. His words, although enticing, had just made this the most awkward moment of the night. Awkward because for the entire night, we hadn’t so much as kissed. Now was the moment I had to decide whether I was gonna be a lady and take my ass upstairs to my apartment, or be a slut and go home with him. I was seriously leaning toward the slut scenario, especially after snuggling up next to him on that vibrating motorcycle for five hours. The only problem was, I liked Prince. I liked him a lot. He was funny and smart. He was the kind of guy I wanted to be with five years down the road. So acting like a slut was probably not the best way to guarantee a long-term relationship with him.

  “Maybe some other time, Prince. I really need to get to work.” I held my breath as I stepped back.

  “You sure? I was thinking we could ride down to Atlantic City. A friend of mine works at Bally’s Grand. I could get us a room overlooking the ocean.”

  “That sounds great, but I think I better take a rain check.” I also better take my ass upstairs before I change my mind, I thought.

  “Aw’ight.” He sighed. I could see the disappointment on his face. “So what’s up? You think I can get your number?”

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” I reached in my bag for a pen and paper, then I jotted down my cell phone number for him. When I handed it to him, he leaned over and kissed me. No tongue, just a kiss. But what a kiss it was. I felt like I was floating. He had the most incredibly soft lips I’d ever felt, and by the time our lips parted, I was inches away from jumping back on that motorcycle.