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Justin managed to get a flight from New York to Memphis Friday morning and was at home by noon after stopping by his mother's first. The first thing he had done was change into the appropriate clothes and grab his basketball for a shoot-around session in his backyard. He used sports as a way to relieve stress and to keep his mind off troubling situations. Then there were times when he used them to gain insight and formulate solutions to those same situations. He glanced at his cell phone, lying on the sidelines, after every other shot as if he expected it to ring. In reality he was debating whether to call Yancey's sister Angie for the numbers to Yancey's house and cell phone.
"Fuck it," he mumbled after his last three-point attempt went awry, bounced off the rim and into the grass. He watched it roll farther away before going over to pick up his phone and the pen he'd carried outside. He swiftly dialed Angie’s number.
“What’s up?” Angie chirped after picking up on the second ring.
“Hey, Ang, it's Justin. Nothing's up. Well, I need to get Yancey’s numbers from you. I’m trying to get this ‘Yancey and Justin' thing back on track.”
He grinned when Angie whooped in his ear. “Boy, I tell you something. You young folks like to take your time with this stuff, but I’m glad you’re getting it together now. I’m going to be so glad to see you two back together. You two weren’t the only ones miserable when y’all broke up.”
“Right now it’s just one-sided,” he reminded her. “We had a talk--she talked to me, actually--about some things that went down and we need to get all that crying and shouting out of the way before we move on, but I am confident that we can move on.”
“That’s the way I like to hear you talk! You'll be fine. Just work that Timberlake charm on her, all right?”
“All right,” Justin replied laughingly. He wrote the numbers on his hand as she relayed them to him. “Okay, thanks, Angie. Talk to you later.”
He programmed them into his phone while he walked back to his house, his mind also on how he was going to go about his conversation with Yancey. Do I start this up over the phone, or do I ask her to meet me?
Damn, I’m nervous.
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Yancey sat under a dryer at LySandra’s. She flipped through an old issue of Jet magazine, annoyed at the heat that pricked the back of her neck and ready to get out from under the hood. Several other issues sat in the seat of the dryer next to her, waiting to be read.
She was squinting at the picture of Kobe Bryant's then-fiancee, Vanessa Laine's, one-hundred thousand dollar engagement ring when her cell phone began vibrating, making her jump a little because it had managed to slide between her legs. She left the magazine open to her page and put it face down on the seat next to her. The number on her Caller ID was unfamiliar, but she answered it anyway. “Hello?”
“Yancey?”
“Justin?”
“Yeah.”
Both ends were silent. Finally, she asked, “Yeah? And?”
“Oh, uh, I was wondering if we could get together. I need to talk to you. I think we need to see each other.”
“Why? You already said everything you thought you needed to say Monday night,’ she responded with as much ice as she could muster, though her heart wasn't in it. She was careful not to talk too loudly; LySandra’s was full of snoops and nosy busybodies.
“I’ve had more time to think about it and I promise I’ll be more mature this time. I keep walking out on you when I don’t like what you’re saying and I’m really sorry about that.”
She hesitated. Should she go? “Okay... okay. I’ll meet you. I’m at LySandra’s right now, though. I had to do something with this hair.”
“You still go to LySandra's? So what are you doing to your hair?” he wanted to know.
“I got it cut--”
“What? Why?”
“Because I wanted to. It was just, like, one inch. Why do you care anyway?”
“I remembered how back in the day I liked to grab your hair when we would--”
“Don’t start with me,” she whispered into her phone. Yancey could feel the heat rushing through her face and down her neck. She remembered very well how much Justin liked to play in her hair while they had sex-- No, back then, it was love. They’d made love then.
“What?” Justin’s voice took on a feigned innocent tone. “You liked it too, girl, don’t play.”
“Nah, I won’t do that. I can’t play--but we’re not supposed to be talking like this.”
“Says who?” he retorted cheekily.
“Those days are behind us,” Yancey reminded him firmly. “Stop.”
“Aw, you took the fun out of a great conversation,” he complained.
She ignored his last comment and said, “Justin, it’s two o’clock right now. I’ll be here at least another hour or so. I’ll call you when I’m through. But where do you want to meet?”
“You can come to my house. I’ll even feed you after we straighten everything out,” Justin offered.
“How do I get to your house from here, though?”
“LySandra’s is still in the Bel-Air Plaza, right? In that area off George Washington Street?”
“Right.”
“I’ll be over there and you can follow me back.”
“What are you going to be doing over in Bel-Air Plaza?”
“Duh, girl. Waiting on you.”
How cute was he? "Okay, so be here in an hour. If I don't see you when I walk out of this shop I'm not going to wait on you to get here. You know that, don't you?"
"Sure, sexy, I know." He hung up the phone without waiting for a response.
Yancey smiled after she put the phone down and picked up her magazine again. She knew what he was trying to do; she kind of liked Justin's not-so-subtle advances.
Yancey stared at the open magazine, not reading but thinking. She'd spent the past few days going over their conversation and Yancey had to admit to herself that she had gone about the situation in the completely wrong manner. Her goal then had been to upset Justin. Any fool could see that Justin wanted another chance at a relationship with her and she would tell anyone who asked that she was scared of the prospect. Yancey knew she was still holding on to old memories and pieces of a Justin that she'd loved when she was a teenager. They were both older now; they weren't the same people. Yancey had previously thought that it would be most sensible if she pushed him away before he got too close and they both got their feelings hurt because they expected too much from each other, but she found that she was experiencing a change of heart. Justin was irritatingly determined to get close to her. Maybe she should let him.
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