The Choir Director 2 Page 6

  I smiled my thanks then gave her a very flat “I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do.” I watched her sashay away to the bar, purposely throwing a little extra something in her hips for my benefit. Like I said, I’d never really paid attention to her in the past, but now that I got a good look, I had to admit she had a really nice figure and an exceptionally nice ass.

  By the time I finished my burger and downed two Jack and Cokes, Jewel’s shift was over and she had taken up permanent residence in the seat next to me, holding two shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. She placed one glass in front of me and poured a shot. “You’re not going to let me drink alone, are you?”

  She picked up her glass, daring me to join her. I never was one to refuse a dare, so I downed the tequila without a second thought, and a drinking contest ensued. As we drank, Jewel let me know that she had just broken up with her boyfriend and, in her own words, wasn’t looking for anything complicated.

  “That’s fine,” I said, slurring my words a bit as the tequila did its job, “because I’m not looking for anything at all.”

  I thought that would be the end of it. Evidently I was wrong.

  “That’s even better. Men who are looking for things usually end up spending more than one night,” she said.

  “Whoa, girl. Slow down,” I warned her. “I’m not sure I’m ready for all that.”

  “Why? You don’t want me to be too fast? From everything you’ve told me, I’m thinking that you need just the opposite. You know what they say: If you fall off a horse, you have to get right back on another one.” She laughed.

  “Funny, my momma said something just like that earlier today.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want your momma to be a liar, would we?” She gave me a devilish smile as she slid closer to me. Next thing I knew, Jewel had unbuttoned my pants and had my jewels in her hands, massaging them like a pro. Girl had serious skills. I looked around at the other patrons, none of whom seemed to notice what was going on under our table. Thank God I’d chosen a booth in the corner.

  “Mmm!” I murmured, feeling my excitement grow. It had been so long and her hands felt so good. I felt like I might explode right then and there. “Maybe we should—”

  “Slow down?” She laughed. “We’re way past that.” I thought about kissing her, but before I could lean toward her, she did something unexpected. Jewel slid down under the table.

  “Uh, aren’t you afraid someone will see you? I mean, you do work here,” I asked, though I didn’t make a move to stop her.

  “Ain’t nobody paying attention to us. They’re all at the bar watching the game.” She slurped my entire dick into her wet mouth and I shut up.

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a few seconds, enjoying the sensation, until I heard someone say, “Hey, man.”

  My eyes popped open, and I saw Pippie and Ross standing beside the booth. Shit! I reached my hand under the table to stop Jewel, but I think she was trying to mess with my head, because I swear she started sucking me like a damn vacuum cleaner.

  “Where you been?” Ross asked.

  “Oh, you know, I been around,” I said, trying to act nonchalant.

  “Four shots?” Pippie said, noticing the tequila and glasses on the table.

  “Man, that’s a lot of alcohol for one person. Aren’t you usually a lightweight?” Of course Ross had to stick his nose in it.

  “They’re not all mine,” I said. “I’m drinking with someone, so maybe you two can just go away now, huh?”

  “Aw, hell no,” Pippie said. “We been looking for you everywhere and we finally found you. We ain’t going nowhere.” He slid into the booth before I could protest. I knew the second he bumped into Jewel, because she pulled her mouth off me in a hurry.

  “Ow!” she said from under the table.

  “What the—?” He leaned down and peered under there, his face screwed up in confusion for a second when he spotted Jewel.

  Jewel, in the meantime, was unfazed by the whole thing. She calmly put my penis back in my pants and zipped them up, then climbed back up into the seat next to me. “Sorry, baby. I’ll have to finish you off some other time. Your friend here was kicking me under the table.” She shot an indignant look at Ross and Pippie and then left us alone.

  As soon as she was gone, Pippie said, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Aaron? Have some respect for Tia if you don’t have any for yourself.” He looked like he wanted to wring my neck.

  Ross, on the other hand, was pissed for other reasons. “Do you realize someone could have seen you? Or even worse, they could have recorded you? This could be a PR nightmare,” he lectured. I reached for the bottle of tequila, but Pippie snatched it away.

  “I think you’ve had enough, man,” he said. “Look, I know you’re hurting over Tia, but this is out of control.”

  “I can’t believe you two,” I said. “Weren’t you the ones who told me I needed to cheer up and move on, stop wallowing in my sorrow? Now I’m out here having a little fun and y’all are acting all high and mighty.” I turned to Ross, who had some nerve to be talking about my behavior considering he wasn’t exactly a choirboy himself. “Aren’t you the one who said there’s no such thing as bad publicity?”

  “It was a figure of speech. I was trying to make light of a bad situation when the wedding didn’t go as planned. It certainly doesn’t apply to you getting a blow job under the table in a bar.”

  I looked across the room and saw that Jewel was standing by the bar, watching us. When I made eye contact with her, she raised her eyebrows and then tilted her head toward the door. She was offering to go home with me.

  “Well, gentlemen,” I said, “it’s been fun, but it looks like Jewel and I are going to continue our party somewhere a little more private. You two are welcome to the rest of the tequila.” I stood up to leave, but Pippie put a hand on my arm.

  “Aaron, don’t do this. There’s still a chance you can work things out with Tia,” he said in an attempt to change my mind.

  I yanked my arm away from him. “Tia sent me a text and told me, and I quote, she’s ‘not fucking interested.’ Does that sound like there’s a chance to you, Pippie?”

  “Come on, man,” Ross said, trying a different approach. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.” He looked over at Jewel, who waved at me. “That chick’s a cokehead, man. All she’s going to do is spend your money on drugs and alcohol.”

  “You forgot one thing,” I said. “She’s also going to screw my brains out, and considering I haven’t had any in over a year and a half, there ain’t nothing you could say to change my mind.”

  “Aaron.” Ross stood up to try to block my exit.

  “If you don’t get out my way, we really are going to have a PR nightmare,” I warned him. With a final exasperated sigh, he stepped aside and let me pass. I grabbed Jewel and headed for the door. “Oh, and for the record, the old Aaron Mackie is back and he’s planning on making up for lost time.”

  Ross

  8

  “Damn, I expected a lot of BS, but that?” Pippie served me a look as he opened the passenger door, shaking his head like he was trying to get the image of Jewel being freaky under the table out of his mind. Now, I’m not gonna pretend her body wasn’t on point, from her porn star–size breasts bursting out of her blouse to the taut, whittled waist to the full-size sister girl cake being held up by incredibly long legs. Still, Aaron should have had the good sense to turn her ass down. Aaron was the kind of guy who’d always had a nonstop pussy parade in his honor, with women eighteen to eighty, married, blind, crippled, and crazy ready to give up the kitty cat. Frankly, though, I thought he had moved past sex as a contact sport, especially after he rejected that big-booty stripper at his bachelor party.

  “I can’t believe him!” This kind of behavior in public frustrated me as his manager, but it also had me scared for my friend. My boy had tripped over to the dark side. Over the years, I’d seen enough people on the precipice of success
and then suddenly one bad decision sidelines their dreams for life. His out-of-control behavior threatened to ruin his saintly image. I could just see the headline on Bossip, the leading black gossip site: Choir director has his knob slobbed in public.

  “Our boy is in trouble,” Pippie lamented, never afraid to overstate the obvious.

  “It’s not just him. He’s the captain of the whole thing. He goes down, so does the choir, the bishop, and me. I have to figure out some way to get him back on track, and I don’t care what it takes.”

  “I don’t know, man. You know how Aaron can be. He’s stubborn as hell, and I’m telling you he ain’t getting in that choir loft anytime soon.” His words tightened the knot in my stomach, because as painful as they were to hear, they were true.

  “Not unless I give him something bigger than his pain.”

  “Tia? How you gonna do that?” Pippie asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think I could pull that off. No one even knows where she is. I’m thinking that I should meet with that Johnson Morris agent, Jackson Young. Put our heads together and come up with a strategy to elevate his career to the next level.” As much as I despised this guy on sight, even more so after he opened his mouth, I was willing to make a deal with the devil if it meant saving us all.

  I pulled up to Pippie’s place. “Do what you gotta do,” he said, fist-bumping me before he got out of the car.

  I really wished there were some other options, but no one else of Jackson’s stature had come calling before. If I could get him a deal, I could refocus Aaron’s attention on his work, the one area of his life where he actually had some control. As much as Jackson Young bugged me, I had to put Aaron’s needs first and set up a meeting.

  When I pulled into the driveway behind Selena’s car, I was glad to be home, though I wasn’t sure what awaited me behind the front door. Things had been a little intense lately, partly because my wife was pregnant and partly the normal stress of being married. I hadn’t always been the most well-behaved husband. Even though we’d been to therapy and I’d turned over a new leaf, there were still days that Selena liked to remind me of the dog I used to be. Right now, I was seriously hoping for a reprieve.

  I took a deep breath and got myself together before I approached the door. To my surprise, I entered to find my wife in a sexy lace negligee and high heels, just like I like it. Damn, she made pregnancy appear appetizing. She wore a huge smile as she lifted her dress to give me a flash of her sheer white thong.

  “I made you oxtails and pineapple upside-down cake,” she purred.

  “What? Why?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. It had been a long time since Selena had initiated anything sexual between us. And throwing in a meal too? Man, she certainly knew how to keep a brother guessing.

  “I kept thinking about Tia and Aaron,” she explained. “It made me realize how lucky I am, and how I haven’t been such a good wife to you lately.”

  I admit that it was nice not to hear her blaming everything on me for once, but I couldn’t let her accept all the responsibility for our marital issues. “No. Honey, you’re pregnant. It’s got to be hard giving your body over to a little alien.”

  “Having a baby is no reason to forget that I got a good man, and I need to make him feel appreciated. And that’s exactly what I plan to do from now on. Women need compliments, and men need sex. I want us to make it, not just because we’re married, but because we belong together.” She leaned in and gave me a kiss that let me know she meant business.

  In a perfect world, my body would have responded immediately to her touch, but unfortunately, I was so stressed and exhausted from worrying about Aaron that things weren’t working the way they should.

  Selena looked down at my unresponsive member then looked up into my eyes. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I’m just worried about Aaron. I’m afraid he’s going off the deep end.”

  She led me to the couch and sat down next to me. Taking my hand, she said, “Baby, he’ll be okay. He just needs some time to heal.”

  “I don’t know, Selena. If he keeps going in the direction he is now, his music career will be over. He’ll be left with nothing—and so will we.”

  Her eyes opened a little wider. She had given up her job to get ready for the baby, and if I lost my biggest client, we could be in a really bad situation.

  “Babe, what are you going to do? You have to get Aaron back on track,” she said.

  “I’m working on it,” I said, then told her about my idea to meet with Jackson Young.

  “So, you really think this guy can take Aaron to the next level?”

  “I do. He might be just what Aaron needs to take his mind off Tia.”

  She gave me a hug. “I’m proud of you, honey. If anyone can get Aaron back to work, it’s you. Everything is going to be fine. I just know it.”

  Her confidence in me felt good. If things with work were a little crazy right now, at least my home life was improved. Slowly but surely, the tension was leaving my body.

  Selena noticed it, and gave me a devilish smile. “Looks like you’re feeling better. Let’s see if I can help you relax some more,” she said as she slid to her knees and reached for my zipper.

  Damn, I love this woman, I thought, grateful as hell. Yep, despite how it had started, this turned out to be a great day for me.

  Tia

  9

  “Thank God,” I said, standing up to wipe the sweat off my forehead.

  I’d been picking up rocks in my brother Kareem’s garden for almost ten minutes before I finally found the one that hid the key to his house. It was the same house we’d grown up in, and until a few years ago, we’d lived there together, big brother taking care of little sister. After he kicked his last girlfriend to the curb, he’d changed the locks. Luckily, he always left a key hidden in the garden just in case I needed to come home.

  “Kareem!” I called out to him as I walked through the door. The silence that followed was welcome, letting me know that I had the entire place to myself.

  I stood there in the foyer and looked around at this place that had always been my refuge, my safe haven; but not anymore, not since I saw him in the bar that night. Now, no place and no one felt safe—not this house, not Kareem, not even Aaron. I felt so raw inside, so violated. The image of his face invaded my thoughts almost constantly.

  I forced thoughts of the rapist out of my head as I checked my watch and realized I only had two hours to do what I needed to do and get out of there. I wanted to be gone before Kareem got home. I loved my brother, but I really wasn’t ready to play twenty questions with him about my whereabouts and my reasons for bolting from the wedding. He’d been nice enough to give me the benefit of the doubt when I told him I couldn’t go in the church and go through with the wedding; however, he’d been blowing up my phone almost as much as Aaron. I just couldn’t bring myself to face him, because I knew I’d be forced to lie, and I wanted to avoid that for as long as I could. My brother and I had always been close, and there was a good chance he’d see right through me.

  I headed down the hall to my old bedroom and opened the bottom dresser drawer, which still held some old jeans I hadn’t bothered to throw out when I left. I reached underneath the piles of pants expecting to find what I’d come for, but it wasn’t there. I pulled everything out of the drawer and threw it on the ground, and still I came up empty-handed. A search of the other drawers had the same result.

  What the fuck! Where the hell is it?

  Trying to remain calm, I turned to the closet and started pulling shoe boxes off the shelves. Maybe I’d put it in the closet and forgotten. There was nothing in the boxes, though, except for shoes I no longer wore. Leaving everything in total disarray, I headed for Kareem’s room, thinking that since he’d been the one to give it to me in the first place, maybe he’d taken it back.

  Stepping over piles of dirty clothes on his floor, I made a mental note to suggest to Kareem that he should get a cleaning lady. T
he mess in his room was ridiculous. I’d told him once that I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to bring women into this pit, but he just laughed. “Shit!” he’d said. “They ain’t coming to see how clean my place is.” And sure enough, that boy kept a steady stream of women, and none of them seemed to care what a pigsty he lived in.

  In spite of the mess, I was desperate to find what I’d come for, so I dove in and started digging through the clutter. I went through his dresser, searched under his bed, and pulled everything out of his closet. Nothing there.

  I stood in the middle of his room, which was now in even worse shape than before, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now. Kicking a pair of sneakers in frustration, I watched them land in the corner. That’s when I remembered the loose floorboard.

  I ran to the corner and dropped to my knees. Slipping my fingers along the edge, I was able to pry up the loose board. I was flooded with relief when I spotted the black box I’d been looking for hidden beneath the floor.

  The metal box required a three-digit combination to open the lock, so I put in the code I’d used to set it the last time I locked the box.

  “What the hell!” I shouted when the lock didn’t budge. Not only had the box been moved, but the combination had been changed. I was about two seconds away from going to find a hammer and busting the damn thing open. The contents inside were way too important to me.

  I leaned back against the wall, racking my brain to think of what Kareem could have changed the combination to. Taking a stab in the dark, I put in 317, and to my great relief, the box unlocked. “Of course he used Momma’s birthday,” I said out loud with a laugh. My brother was a straight-up momma’s boy. That was why he still hadn’t moved out of the last place we’d lived with our mother.

  For a second, I stared at the contents of the box—a .38 handgun my brother had given me a long time ago. Black Beauty. I picked it up and held it in my hand, feeling a sense of power and, even more important, a feeling of safety I hadn’t had ever since the night I saw him. I shoved the gun in my purse then closed the box and put it back under the floor. It was time to put the house back together. The trick would be to leave it no cleaner than I had found it. That would be a dead giveaway.