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It was an hour after Justin had called, and Yancey's stylist, Laila, was almost finished styling her hair. The salon was buzzing with gossip and the usual complaints about homelife.
"Damn, who is that?! I know I would look good in that tight-ass ride!" Leigha Drakes, LySandra's receptionist and resident snoop, exclaimed suddenly. She got up from her chair and moved to the big window by the door.
"Girl, what you looking at?" Patrysha, LySandra's owner, left her customer to go stand beside Leigha. "Y'all, it's a Escalade. Black, tinted windows. Look like they on Sprees. Somebody should tell whoever that is that brothers is gettin' killed over them thangs."
"Aw, damn!" Leigha and Patrysha yelled together. When Leigha started laughing and tears began trickling out of the corners of her eyes, Patrysha explained on the walk back to her station. "Y'all, a white boy just got out. Hmm, he kinda cute. For a white boy, anyway."
"Well, shit, why can't he just be cute? Why he gotta be cute 'for a white boy'?"
Yancey raised her hand for a high five from Laila, who had spoken. "For real."
Leigha rolled her eyes at Laila's words, then turned back to the window, pressing down on the blinds to get a better look. "Hey, he kinda look like Justin Timberlake."
"Aw, shit! That's my man!" a teenaged girl said excitedly from her chair. She was about to get up but Patrysha, her stylist, pressed firm hands onto the girl's shoulders.
"And watch your damn mouth, Ameera," the older woman admonished sternly.
Yancey tried to remain calm. Why did he get out of the truck? He could have just parked and waited. I'm overreacting, she thought. It's not like he's going to come in and sit in the waiting room until I'm finished.
"Look like he's walking this way, y'all," Leigha informed the salon. She rushed back to her seat and tried to appear as if she hadn't been standing at the window tracking his every move.
Yancey groaned inwardly when she saw his figure appear at the door. He was trying to embarrass her. LySandra's had acquired all new employees since Yancey had been away, except Laila and Patrysha, but no one knew that she and Justin had been romantically involved. She wanted to keep it that way for the time being.
"Good afternoon, everybody," he said when he stepped inside.
"Can I help you, sir?" Patrysha asked cordially, straining to keep Ameera from sliding out of her seat.
"Um, I'm just waiting on someone. I just wanted to make sure she knows I'm here." Justin looked around the spacious area designated for stations only and caught Yancey's gaze before she averted her eyes.
"There's nothing at all we could do for you?" Patrysha persisted.
"No, thank you. Maybe some other time. See you all later." Justin flashed a charming, million-watt smile and ducked back outside to wait in his truck.
"Yeah.... he was fine," Laila said finally to no one in particular while the other patrons and stylists exchanged glances and nods. "Ameera, how you doing over there?"
"I swear I love that man," Ameera sighed. The ladies in the shop sent up a round of laughter. Her light-skinned face was red from wanting to cry. Justin Timberlake had been less than five feet from her and she hadn't been able to even say hello. "I'm for real. I've always wanted to meet him. When he was here for two dates back in March, on his last tour, I went both times, hoping to get backstage. I did the same thing for his first tour last year. I have both of his albums, and I have imported versions, too, that have the songs that didn't make the US album. I tape his television appearances... I can't explain it. I just love him."
"I can introduce you two," Yancey offered. She could admit she knew Justin. The folks in the shop couldn't come up with four if they only had one two, right?
"Oh, my God!" Ameera grinned and clapped her hands. "You know him? He was here to see you?"
"Yeah, he's a friend of mine. I've known him a long time."
"This is so great. I will love you forever." Ameera squirmed in her seat in the anticipation of meeting her favorite male singer.
"Ameera, you need to be still before I burn you," Patrysha ordered, wielding a small-barrelled curling iron. Ameera had her hair cut low, and she came in to get it curled and combed out.
"That's it, Yancey, you're all done," Laila declared, undoing the smock around Yancey's neck.
Yancey briefly admired the style, a simple rollerwrap, in Laila's mirror before handing Laila her money. "Mo' hair."
"Grow hair," Laila responded automatically after pocketing the money.
"You're done, too, Ameera. Get up out my chair before I have to hurt you."
"Mo' hair, Aunt Pat!" she called before bouncing out of the salon behind Yancey.
They approached Justin's truck from the side, Ameera chatting nervously, more to herself than to Yancey. "Hey," Yancey greeted him with a smile, poking his shoulder with a finger. He was bobbing his head to a song on the radio.
He completed a line of the song before turning to smile back. "Hey." As corny as it seemed, even to him, he'd heard the smile in her voice when she spoke to him. He took that as a good sign of things to come.
"We were wondering if you could give my girl here an autograph."
His eyes sparkled in crystal-clear, beautiful, blue amusement as they watched hers dare him to say no. His tongue darted out to swipe across his lips. Damn, she was sexy... "Sure. Got anything for me to sign?"
Ameera immediately thrust forward a small picture printed on photo paper of a shirtless Justin laughing, wearing faded, low-riding jeans. "I keep it on me just in case I ever got to meet you," she explained sheepishly. She handed him the permanent marker she also kept handy.
He laughed, waving the picture at her. "I remember this shoot. So what's your name, sweetheart?"
"Ameera. A-M-E-E-R-A," she spelled carefully, grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
Justin finished signing his name with a flourish and a wink for the girl just as a red Oldsmobile Alero pulled alongside them. The passenger in the car leaned out of the window. "Ameera!"
"Rats, my ride is here. It was nice meeting you, Justin. Bye, Yancey! Thanks!" Ameera called, getting into the backseat. The car backed up and drove away, Ameera waving through the back window.
"That was very sweet of you. You probably made her day." Yancey leaned into Justin's window. "So what's up witcha?"
"Dang, you already forgot you were mad at me an hour ago? Your hair looks great, by the way."
"Thank you. Well, you know I wanted to be mad, but I couldn't really get mad, so I said forget it. So... what? Are you ready to talk to me now? Work this thing out?"
"Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go."
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"Oh, my God, Justin. This place is beautiful."
He closed the front door, made from a solid oak frame and panes of beveled glass, behind her, tilting his head slightly to admire the way her jeans clung to her hips and the way it accentuated what he loved most on a woman. "Thanks," he remembered to say.
"Who did the decorating?"
"My mother and some guy. I can't really tell you too much about it. I just signed the check," he shrugged.
She admired the foyer and the study that was immediately to her left. Both were painted a strong, dark brown color. It had a soothing effect on her senses, and she felt rather safe standing there. Yancey pointed to the ceiling. "Whose idea was the ivory-colored trimming up there?"
He shrugged again. She shook her head at him and made a slow three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn in the study. His furniture was to die for. "Oh, wow. I love this desk. And these chairs! Is that mahogany?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he growled exasperatedly. He grabbed her hands and dragged her back through the open double doors, away from his study, into the kitchen down the hall. He pulled out a chair for her at the glass-topped, wrought-iron kitchen table in the breakfast nook. Justin tugged the blue and cream placemat towards his place at the table and out of her way, just in case she wanted somewhere to put her hands. He straightened the heavy, navy blue ceramic plate the placemat held and its matching saucer and soup cup stacked atop the plate while he talked. "Unless you want to sit somewhere else."
"No, this is fine. Thank you." She sat and studied her surroundings while he also took a seat. Lynn had impeccable taste. Yancey had seen nice kitchens before, but this one really--
"Can you look at me, please?"
She hesistantly looked from the cream-colored marble kitchen counters to find that Justin was becoming slightly agitated. "What?"
"I want to talk to you, remember? And not about this house."
"Hmph." She folded her arms across her chest. "So talk."
"Okay. Well, I want to apologize for the way I acted Monday. Like I said before, I know I can't keep walking out and sulking when I don't like what you're saying. I want to help you raise our child and we've got to at least be on the same page if we're not going to be together, which I, uh, I think--okay, I'm trying to be more mature about this because we do have to reach some understanding about how we're gonna do this."
"How?" she repeated dumbly, confusion furrowing her brows. She rubbed the corner of her right eye with the back of her hand. "I figured I'd keep doing what I was doing."
"You were raising him without a father." Justin raised his eyebrows.
"Oh. Right. I mean, of course that's going to change," she corrected herself.
"But how are we going to do that? I can't lie... I want to be with you. I haven't been able to think about anybody else but you for a pretty good minute now. And before you even say anything, because I see your mouth opening--it's more than sexual. I've been living the wrong life for the past three years and I realized a while ago it's because you aren't in it."
"Justin," she started, shaking her head at what he was trying to say. She moved her chair back to get up.
His hand came out to stop her. "Hold on. We had the best thing ever three years ago," he continued. "You took an almost two-year-long relationship and ended it with a phone call. And why? Because you didn't have faith in us."
"For the last time--"
"Oh, right, my fault. Because you wanted me to accomplish my goals."
The sarcasm in his voice created a bitter taste in her mouth. She swallowed. "That's right--"
"Well, I have accomplished my goals. I'm making music and I'm reaching people with it. I'm making so much money I don't know where to spend it, so I have two houses, an expensive ass apartment, about nine cars, motorcycles. A bunch of nothing. You know what I really wanted to do with that money, Yance?"
"No, Justin," Yancey whispered, folding her hands on the placemat in front of her. She didn't like the course this conversation was taking. She felt the beginnings of a massive headache coming on. "No, I don't know."
"I wanted to spend it on my family. I wanted to spend it on you. Take you anywhere in this world you wanted to go, buy you anything you wanted. Because I loved you and because you deserved to know just how much I loved you."
"Is this why you wanted me to come here? So you could make me feel bad?" she choked out, turning her tearing brown eyes on him.
She knew that he had never been able to stand seeing tears in her eyes; he stretched a hand between them to wipe her eyes with a thumb. He was surprised when she didn't resist. "Don't cry, Yancey, please. This is hard enough as it is. You know I would never really try to make you feel bad. I wanted you here so we could work things out. We have a child to raise and he's our priority right now."
"Even with your career?"
"I'm talking about me, you, and EJ. Forget all about my career. I told you that I'm reconsidering that, and anyway, that's not what's important. What is important is that you tell me what I need to do to make you realize that I'm not playing games with you."
Her fingers traveled north to grasp the necklace she never took off, the one he'd watched her play with when she was nervous, which was, disturbingly, whenever they talked. "Didn't I give you that necklace?"
She dropped the plain gold chain and folded her hands in front of her again. "Yeah. I don't, uh, take it off too often."
Another good sign. "Why don't you want to try at another relationship with me?" he tried again.
What she was thinking made sense in her head, but what if she tried to vocalize it and it sounded completely foolish? She wanted to try being with him again. First, though, she wanted to lay everything out in front of him, just so he could make his own decisions. It'd be different this time around; she wouldn't make those decisions for him. They had been a team, but she'd decided at points that it would be the two of them featuring Yancey as the headlining, decision-making star. None of that ever again, she promised herself. "I do want to try."
He just knew he was hearing things. "What?"
"You heard me. I said," she grinned, "I do want to try."
"What changed your mind?" But who really cared? He wanted her, and she finally admitted she wanted him, too!
"First of all, I never wanted to break up with you. I let some stuff get to me that shouldn't have and I'm sorry for that. I'm also sorry for trying to make decisions for the both of us when I should have been asking you.
"And secondly, I've been holding back because I read a lot of magazines and everybody had you as something like a playboy, with countless women in every city you visited--"Justin winced at her words, wondering if she had any idea how close to home she was hitting, but Yancey didn't notice his expression and continued her confession--"I didn't want to believe that because I knew you weren't like that, then I had to ask myself if I knew Justin Timberlake the twenty-one-year-old superstar who went around with women throwing themselves at him, or if I knew Justin Timberlake the sixteen-year-old boy who kept showing up at my parents' house every single day for two straight weeks after I first met him so he could ask a fifteen-year-old me out on a date. And I felt bad because I knew the answer. That's why I've been so hard-headed about this whole thing. I feel like I don't know you anymore. Justin, it's been so long..."
Here was that sensitive shit again. "That's bullshit, Yancey. You do still know me. I haven't changed! Circumstances, situations, all that has changed, I'll give you that, but I'm the same person. I am older now, but I'm the same man who wants to wake up every morning and be able to look at you sleeping next to me, just like I did when I was sixteen, when I was seventeen, eighteen, ninete--"
"I get it, Justin," she interrupted. She looked over at him, wearing a half-smile on her lips. "Some things never change. You're still a damn romantic."
"You're right. I am. I believe in love, and I always will. But you loved it. Don't lie." Justin held his hands out so she would put hers in his.
"I did," she nodded, complying with his silent request.
"So... What does this mean for us?"
"This means we're officially... courting. Again. I'll tell you right now that I am scared."
He understood her fear; hell, he was a little scared himself. There were going to be people who would rather the world implode than see Justin and Yancey together, and all for selfish, immature reasons.
Justin stood and pulled her up from her seat. After quickly pecking her on the lips with his own, he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and she responded by hugging his neck, resting her forehead on his chest. They stood that way in his kitchen for a long time, not speaking, until Justin interrupted the moment. His blue eyes caught her brown eyes and held her complete attention. "If it's love that you're running from, there's no hiding place. Love has problems, I know, but they're problems we'll just have to face. If you just put your hand in mine, we're gonna leave all our troubles behind. Keep on walking, and don't look back," he recited softly.
"Justin Timberlake, I swear you are the shit," she declared, hugging him again and turning her face up for yet another kiss. Her smile was bright but hinted at something sadder bubbling under the surface. She wanted to damn her emotions--and Justin--because she was close to crying again. She hadn't shed this many tears in a while; Yancey was convinced it was because of him. "You know that's always been one of my favorite songs."
"I thought you might like that."
"Of course," she affirmed in a low tone. "Hey, sing something for me. I wanna dance with you."
"Here, in my kitchen?"
"Yes! So sing."
Justin racked his brain for a song they could dance to and came up with another song he knew she loved. His version had 'Justin' stamped all over it although he hadn't strayed too far from the original; he'd risked his reputation as a singer on his very first album because he'd wanted to record it, as a message to her. There had been times when he listened to his album and came across that track and wondered if she had heard it, what she thought of it, if she knew why he'd remade the song. The version he'd used as his inspiration was done as a male-female duet and he had stayed true to the formula on his own rendition, so Justin started the song at the male part. "How can I forget, when each face that I see, brings back memories of being with you. I just can't go on living life as I do, comparing each girl with you. No, and they just won't do; they're not you. You are everything... and everything is you..."
The imaginary music swirled contentedly above them, Justin's soft voice floating to meet it as the reunited couple slow-danced in his kitchen, cheek to cheek, both uncertain of what was to come but determined that this time around they would face it together.
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A/N: That's it. It's over. Ain't no more of Undecided, lol. I know it feels incomplete, but like I said before, I was trying to start small and get through that one objective (get Justin and Yancey back together). Who knows, maybe to satisfy my own urges to know more about them, I may write a sequel or something like that. I already have something in mind, actually.
A little trivia:
The name of the song Justin quoted is called Don't Look Back, performed by the Temptations (written by Smokey Robinson and Ronnie White of the Miracles). If you're a fan of soul music--or even if you're not, really--I recommend giving it a listen. And yes, my email address, dontlookback63@yahoo.com, did come from that song. That's how much I love it, lol. ; )
The second song he sang is called You Are Everything, the version I mentioned performed by Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross (written by Thom Bell and Linda Bell).
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