Full Court Press (2 page)

My mind was racing. Was I really going to do this? I have to lie to Jack. I have to come up with a reason to be out. I’m not sure what to do. I’m just going to go see my girl Toya. I need advice. I want to see Mason. There is no need for me to lie to myself. I need to see him.
I never acknowledged his mother’s death or the fact that he had her lookout for my son Trey’s education and well-being.

I need
to see my girl Toya so she can check me. I need her to shake the shit out of me. I need her to give me a stern, bitch please!

Today
was Thursday.  Normally Jack’s son Caleb would come over on Friday and spend the weekend with us. This Friday he wouldn’t be coming. Jack’s wife was pissed for some reason and acting real ugly. Jack had visitation every other weekend. He could see his kids more often when his wife wasn’t being a vengeful scandalous bitch.

Tomorrow I could talk to
Toya, go see Mason and kill two birds with one stone. I was going to have to use Toya as my alibi. She was my girl. So I knew she would cover for me but please believe she wouldn’t like it and I was going to have to hear her mouth. It wasn’t that she was judgmental. She just kept it real. She never held her tongue. That’s what I liked about her.

I made dinner and tried to erase all lewd thoughts of Mason from my
mind. I sat across the dinner table and watched Jack eat. Trey was sitting with us but he was sleepy so he wasn’t being extra talkative like he normally is at dinner.

I was trying to act normal but these im
ages of Mason sucking my nipples and bouncing me up and down on the length of his dick were filling my mind up and making me gaze out into la-la land.

I told Jack I was tired and I hoped that was his cue to go to sleep without sex. I also wore a big sweatshirt and sweatpants. It worked. He didn’t try to have sex with me. I just couldn’t do it with him. I needed my head clear for the lies I had to cook up to get out the house tomorrow.

Jack fell asleep before me. I was just pretending to be sleep. Once he was out I turned my body to face him. He was asleep on his back. I never liked to be hugged up in bed and Jack respected that. He had his side of the bed and I had my side. Jack has a beautiful profile. His body was nice too, lean muscular and modelesque. He looked so good in a suit and tie.

Mason was different
in bed with me. He knew I needed my space but he didn’t care. He forced me to be wrapped up in his arms. He would drape his legs over me. He was always touching me, locking me into place, invading my space, making it impossible from me to be detached from him. I want to go to sleep and stopping thinking about it.

CHAPTER 2

Friday I arrived at Toya’s townhouse with some takeout Buffalo wings from Bar Louie. She told me her kids were spending the weekend at their grandmother’s house. Great, I can vent and just maybe she can give me a hard stern lecture on all that ails me. There was a time when Mason was what ailed me.

When Mason dumped me it was Toya
that came over. She tried to console me. I cried so hard I started throwing up. I hated feeling so internally distraught. I hated myself for being attracted to Mason, flirting with him, falling for him and fucking him like he was my man.

My mind was all over the place. I daydre
amed about Mason from the time I opened my eyes this morning. I don’t know why I agreed to see this man. Yeah I did, but for now I refuse to admit it. I need to stop all this foolishness and get it over with.

Instead of agreeing to this mess I should have knocked Karen off her Jimmy Choos. She reminded me of her brother and the need to please her kind of took me off guard.

After Toya and I made a mess of our fingers with the Buffalo wings we went into Toya’s living room. She put the dvd of season six Supernatural on the TV. Toya loved her some white men on the TV and movie screen but she only dated brothers in the flesh.

My
dating track record had always been mixed up. The only race I had never dated was Asians and Indians. There were a few Indians that looked like fine brothers with straight hair but I never flirted back with them. I’m not sure why.

I know one thing Mason better be nice to me or I will rip him a new asshole.

“Are you scared to see your old Boo?” Toya decided to address the obvious.

“Ah yeah.” I replied. She hit the n
ail on the dickhead. I was petri-freakin-fied. Mason was unpredictable. Sometimes he was cool and sometimes he was a motherfucker. One good thing about Mason was he made me feel beautiful even when my hair was long overdue for a perm. He never tried to change me, make me dress different, wear less make-up, or stop cussing. It’s rare for someone to like you the way you are. I had to go and find that quality in a man that wasn’t even mine.

Mason was and will always be special in my heart. He made me like the little things about myself that I was insecure about for years.
I hated my freckles and for some reason he loved them. He had a way of getting under my skin and chilling. He also had a way of getting inside my pussy and chilling. Well Damn! If I could stop thinking about sex I might be all right.

Toya broke into my thoughts.
“Girrrrrl look, I know you was in love with Mason but don’t fuck your new shit up.”

“I’m not.” I was hoping of course
that I wouldn’t mess up my good thing with Jack. Truth be told I still love Mason but I won’t share that with my girl. I’m already looking rightfully crazy falling for this married and unavailable man in the first place.

“Look chick, Mason had you messed up and miserable not too long ago. He was always trying to have one foot in and one foot out.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“I know you not in love with Jack
but Jack is deep in love with you. He got it bad. If you want to get married one day I would put my money on him.” Toya was right as rain. Jack was a sure thing when it came to my future. He had our life together mapped out. Now I’m the dumbass that can’t read the map.

“I
’m going to go see Mason this one last time. I just feel so weird about it.”

“Well at least y’all ended on good terms.”

“Yeah I guess so. He just let me go.”

“Don’t say it like that chick. You asked him too.”

“I did. Mason let me be in a relationship with Jack.” He let me. I sound dumb.

“Well not exactly. Remember when I talked to that fool
at the park. I said stay away from you. He took it upon himself to show up at your house and fuck the dog shit out of you.”

“Oh
yes he did.” I couldn’t help but smile. I remember that day very clearly, the day he gave me three of the hardest hitting orgasms I had ever felt in my life. Whew!

“I mean he may be a l
ot of things but he definitely ain’t no punk. Just be cool, be careful and you’re grown so you’re going to do what you feel is right.”

Am I?
“Yeah I’m going to see if Karen was exaggerating. She made it seem like Mason was falling apart at the seams.”

“He might be. His mother died
and you said they were close.”

“Yeah, he told Mrs. Pyrcik, his mother
about me. So I think that’s real close. I would never tell my mother I was sleeping with a married man. Well she knows about Jack but please believe she knows he has a lawyer and he’s going to court to get a divorce. My mother will make you feel stupid in a minute. Her favorite line is
a man can make his mouth say anything
.” I realized I was imitating my mama’s voice.

“What time are you going to see your ex-Boo?”

“I’m going to leave in ten minutes after I get my shit together and my mind right. Jack knows I’m over here. He won’t call here but if he does--”

“I got you.
It’s deep cover up in here. Girl I done heard so many lies from dudes I can recycle that shit and open up a Lie Bar & Grill. You can in buy a lie and get a smoothie for free.”

I laughed. Not so much at her joke but at her
Westside delivery of the joke. Toya was like me. We could pop off at the mouth in a heartbeat; turn the ghetto off and on like a light switch.

I went to the bathroom, put a little powder on my shiny ass forehead
and put some Mac Touch, my favorite lipstick on. I grabbed my purse, got a drink of water, inhaled and exhaled about twenty times. Then at last I said goodbye to Toya and headed out to my car.

When I got in
my car I decided I needed some music to try to sike me out for this impromptu sneak visit to see Coach Rizza. For this odd reunion I think Lil Wayne aka Weezy aka Tunechi would be good. I put
No Worries
on repeat. Obviously if you looked me in my face I had plenty worries. I would pretend otherwise. Weezy’s song
Lollipop
was absolutely out the question. No licking songs for me, nothing that would remind me of sex with Mason. As if I ever needed to be reminded.

It only took me twenty minutes to get to the place that housed Mason’s construction business.
I wasn’t sure why I was so goddamn nervous. It was my Mason. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral but we were once close. I felt like this was my first date with a celebrity or something.

I hated I had to lie to Jack b
ut he would have never understood. He would have never let me leave to see my ex. Jack has had an extra hate for Mason ever since Mason fought him at Bar Louie. Jack is my new guy so I got to let him hate dude if he wants to. If I ever thought about taking up for Mason it would be a nuclear holocaust on 269 Somerset Court. I know when to shut up.

Jack
wasn’t as gangster as Mason but he let me know he was the boss in our relationship. Mason would forcibly get his way. Jack would make you see it his way with his words and actions.

Jack was
clever and slyly manipulative. It was subtle of course but he was cunning in a way and I had to watch out for him. He was a good talker. He was smooth. That’s how he got in my pants and in my house in two seconds flat. One minute we were on a date, next minute he’s moving his stuff in. Mason on the other hand would strong-arm rob the pussy. When he got that look in his eyes you had one of two choices, run or give up the pussy. That look in his blue eyes made me soaking wet. I always gave up the pussy. I’m going to try to give Mason a limited amount of eye contact. Fingers crossed.

I parked in
one of the many vacant spots in front of the one story brick building that housed Mason’s office. Mason’s car wasn’t parked out front. My Camry is the only car out here. Why did I wait so late to come here? That was real stupid. I’m out here at night, by myself, going to see my ex-lover. If I get murdered out here my little headline in the local suburban paper is going to make me look like an idiot, a slutty idiot.

The Rizza Construction office
was in a public area but the actual construction part was in the rear. It was fenced in with a tall barb-wired gate and some elaborate video surveillance equipment. There may even be guard dogs behind the gates but I wasn’t going to be the one to find out.

I got out my car and went straight to the office. The motion detector lamp came on as soon as I got up on the sidewalk. It was dark inside but I could see a reception desk and a little waiting room area.
I knocked on the glass door. I knocked again harder this time.

“Go away!” I heard Mason’s voice shout from the opposite side of the
glass door. I had come all this way and lied to Jack and even got Toya to cover for me. There was no way I was going to go away. I pulled the handle on the door and the door was unlocked. I opened the door enough for me to fit through. I was afraid that some high tech alarm was going to come on and scare the shit out of me. Then I thought the alarm is probably silent. I walked in the door and into the dimly lit office. The lights where off but there was a light on in the room behind the reception area that was bright. I closed the door behind me.

Mason stepped
out from the shadows with a gun pointed directly at me. Oh my heart. “Mason!”

“Kari! What the fuck!” He lowered the handgun and exhaled at the same time.
I heard the heaviness of the air as it escaped his lungs. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the lack of light just yet. The weapon was big black and shiny. I don’t know anything about guns so I couldn’t say what the hell it was but scary was what I would call it.

“Why do you have a gun?”
I finally regained my voice.

“I’m here alone, at night.”
Mason arched one eyebrow. “I need my Glock. It’s my new girlfriend.” He kissed the barrel of the gun.

“Maybe you should lock the door
and set the alarm.” I noticed the alarm keypad box on the side wall as soon as I walked in the door just a second before I noticed the gun pointed at me.

“I could do that but that would take the fun out of it.”

“Out of what?”

“It.”

Okay, he is acting stranger than I remember. “It’s dark in here.”

“Yeah, it’s dark in here but its light in here.” Mason pointed to the room behind him.
He looked me up and down and then up again. I felt naked and tingly.