Page 21 of Made to Love Ya
I stared at him for several seconds. A part of me knew his ass was lying, but I also knew that she refused to change her number. Why was she still accepting his calls? Had she told him to come by? After all, she hadn’t expected me home as early as I had been.
It hadn’t been too long since I returned from the office. By the time I got here, Talia was already in her room talking on the phone to somebody. But I was gonna call this nigga’s bluff rather than believe that she would do some stupid shit like that.
“Lying ass nigga. You think I believe that shit?”
“Don’t matter what you believe. You can ask her for yourself.”
“Walk down these muthafuckin’ steps,” I ordered through clenched teeth.
He walked down the steps, but just before we cleared the exit, I made him turn left to go to the basement level. Every apartment came with a washer and dryer hookup, but they also had a laundry room for those who didn’t have a washer and dryer.
The laundry room in this building was seldom used. We stopped just outside of the laundry room door where I knew there were no cameras.
“You wanna pop that shit you was talking again, nigga?”
He thrust his chin out. “You can run me up outta here, but that ain’t gone stop her from missing my tongue in her pussy and my dick in her ass. Remember that when you’re fucking her. It’s me she’s thinking about.”
I laughed and turned to walk away from him. Just as his ass got confident, I turned back around and busted him in his shit with my gun. He staggered backward, and I beat that nigga like he stole something. I felt a pair of hands pull me back.
“Aye, nigga. Chill. You ’bout to murk this nigga,” Tahj stated in a serious tone.
“I’on give a fuck!” I roared.
“Aye. Chill ya ass out. This my sister’s shit we up in,” Tahj reminded, mugging me.
His words brought me back to reality like a cold glass of iced water tossed on me. I had let that nigga’s taunts get to me, and I knew better than that shit. Being around Talia was fucking me up, and I was quickly losing my cool. There was no way I would ever be able to explain that shit to Tahj. I glanced at Ricky’s ass lying on the floor again.
“Tired of that nigga’s disrespect. I don’t want him to fuck around and do some shit to her. He’s on that old stalker shit, T,” I lied.
“Yeah, nigga. I know.” He put his phone to his ear.
“Who you calling?”
“Them boys to come out here and clean this shit up. Send his ass home where he belongs,” he informed as he stepped away.
TALIA:
I toweled my body off and applied lotion and oil as I sang Snoh Aalegra’s “I Want You Around.”
Izael had been MIA lately, working longer days and then heading off to house hunt. I hadn’t seen him as often as I would have liked because he was usually gone when I dragged myself out of bed at eight or nine to get my morning coffee before I sat down at my laptop and plugged away with my writing.
My blog,T’s Tasty Temptations, was getting more hits than usual lately as the nominations for the James Beard award had been listed. People wanted to know what I had to say about several of the nominees, and I was using it to my advantage.
As a former sous chef at the Atlanta restaurant Pearls & Swine,I leveraged that knowledge in my side hustle as a professional foodie and restaurant critic. When I left Atlanta after I learned about Ricky and Roshanda, I left with minimal regret.
I enjoyed my career, but I had been at the restaurant since I’d done my six-week externship at the end of my academic career at Archambeau Culinary Institute. I loved the staff, but it was time for a change anyway.
I hadn’t wanted to leave Chef Caesar in a bind, so although I had left right after seeing Roshanda and Ricky together, I had driven back up there three days later for my next scheduled shift. I stayed in a hotel for the two weeks it took for him and me to train my replacement.
After I showered, I called Eve to chat with her for a while. I wanted to space things out between Izael and me after that heated moment on my bed.
We started with a playful food fight in the kitchen, but in my bedroom, it turned into something more. I wanted Izael to kiss me, and I could feel his erection between my thighs. But I knew men got horny off anything, and I didn’t want to be Izael’sanything.
An hour had passed before I was ready to go back out and face him. I was ready to talk about what was going on between us. I couldn’t keep running from it. I had just pulled on the cornflower blue crop top of my loungewear when I heard angry voices coming from my living room.
I frowned, wondering what was going on as I quickly grabbed the high-waisted drawstring pants and slid into them. If it was only Izael out there, I might have walked out as I was, but considering there was another voice, I grabbed the long cardigan and pulled it over myself to cover up. After slipping my feet into my shoes, I pulled my bedroom door open, stepped into the hallway, and made it quickly to the living room.
“…have to put a bullet in that ass,” Izael was saying when I walked into the living room.
