Sunday was the perfect day for a drive. Actually Sunday would be a perfect day for a walk in the park. Cause Sunday drivers could drive the sanest person insane. All the slow driving old church going folks came out of their houses in throes (check sp and if this is the right word to use), taking up all the lanes and driving like tomorrow was guaranteed. Their driving led to the frustrations of the other drivers, who unlike me didn’t hesitate to throw up the finger cursing like the heathens they undoubtedly were.
The old folks and heathens weren’t the only ones out and about. The cops were out, tucked away in their various sneaky little hiding places, waiting to fill their ticket quota. Sunday was definitely the perfect day for it.
But despite the chaos that is often my Sunday afternoon drive, I found it calming. I just blocked out most everything, allowing my mind to wander over the things that I’d been trying to ignore. I used to always do these Sunday drives alone. But that was before Nate.
Nate, never the one to be excluded, insisted that I take him. And since the first time, he was always a permanent fixture in the passenger seat. Though he knew better than to try to start up idle small talk. Quiet. But never awkward.
Well if you’re wondering if he’s here beside me now. He’s not. He had Tamela issues to deal with today. Which is fine with me…as I said I prefer to go it alone anyway.
I was pretty sure I knew what Nate and Tam were doing right now. And it wasn't the fighting that you would think would occur after Nate caught her nuzzling up to another man.
Tam is pretty smooth, I'll give her that. When we walked up to her, she immediately put some distance put her and other guy. But she didn't jump away, giving away her guiltiness. She just simply stepped away from him and grinned at Nate, giving him a big hello and hug, letting him know that she was surprised to see him.
Nate didn't say anything. He didn't have too, Tam's mouth was running enough for the both of them. She made up some lame sounding excuse about how that guy was her cousin, and he'd just dropped by to see her before he went on the job interview which was the whole reason he was there in the first place.
Nate still hadn't said anything at that point, but he'd been staring at the other man the whole time. Staring him down and the other man, who stood at an impressive 6'5" merely stared back calmly, a small, barely there smile gracing the edges of his full rosy lips.
And while Tam continued to prattle on and Nate continued to say nothing and stare at the man, and the man continued to play along with Nate's staring contest...I stood on the sidelines, bored to tears.
Finally I just had to say enough was enough. Tam was talking about how great this job opportunity was her cousin, Ron (I think that's what she said his name was, I wasn't really listening by then) and that's when I grabbed Nate by the wrist and started to drag him back in the direction in which we'd came. Nate made a small grumble about being dragged off, Ron's bout with a smile ended when his lips conceded and finally fully gave way to the grin, and Tam who'd I thought would have been mad that I was dragging her man away, looked grateful.
Guess she was running out of lies.
Nate didn't say much on the walk back, which for a jabber jaw like him was a very bad sign. I thought about trying to scrape my brain for some kind of small talk, but I figured at that point he wasn't in the mood to have others trying to make him happy again. So instead, I walked slowly next to him glancing at him occasionally, just to make sure he was in fact still walking beside me.
It wasn't until we were a fourth of a block from home when he turned to me, stopped and said, "Do these pants make my ass look fat?"
I stared at him for several seconds, my eyes just blinking, my mouth too confused to speak.
Chuckling he said, "I think my fat ass needs some ice cream right about now."
"Mine too." I smiled, taking him by the hand again and forcing him to run the rest of the way back.
And you know what we did? We had a good old "relationships suck" party with chocolate ice cream, chocolate bars, and movies where couples always wound up together.
It wasn't until the middle of Love & Basketball that the realization of what was happening hit me. Turning to face Nate, who was lounging in his rattiest pair of pajamas pants that were more holy than Jesus, a grungy wife beater, some dirty fuzzy slippers and long pink bathrobe, I said, "You're such a girl." I smiled, shaking my head at him as I snatched away my box of Cheez-its that he'd been munching on. "And these are still mine."
"Can't you see I'm in pain over here?" He said, curling his bottom lip under as he tried to give me the puppy dog look.
Rolling my eyes, I said, "Men don't even know what true pain is."
"Oh, here we go again." He groaned. "Where's the Midol when you need it?!"
But that's Nate for you. And knowing him, right now they were back to their old ways. Sex-tagging it up all over the apartment. God, I hope those freaks never went into my room.
My cell suddenly rang, the Luda "Pimpin' All Over The World" ring tone going off, reminding me that I really need to change that.
Speaking of freaks... "Hey Justin."
"How'd you know it was me?"
"I’d like to call it part of my magical powers. But the rest of y'all regular folk would probably call it something stupid like...reading. Since your name comes up when you call me."
"Whateva, stop trying to mess up the mood with all your thinking smarts." He laughed.
"What mood?"
"Didn't you get my texts?"
Texts, texts, texts...Oh, yeah, that IM thing for your phone. "Yeah," I nodded in recognition of the word 'texts.' "no..."
"Well, check and then hit me back."
"But..."
"Just check it."
"Why can't you..."
"Check!"
"...tell me?" I finished, to the sound of the phone line clicking dead on the other end.
As I came to a stop at the next red light, I glanced over my messages. The message read:
home alone,
Paging you
Wishing you'd come over, my place,
after a while, Let me know
We can just keep talkin 'bout the last time,
you were here
What we did,
Only bubble baths and back rubs
Hit me back
Girl I hope you hurry 'cause
I'm so anxious”
I just laughed at it, shaking my head. I loved Ginuwine and pretty much any song from him was a jam of mine, but texting me the lyrics wasn’t going to get me in the mood, if you know what I mean.
Two blocks later and my cell was humming, signaling that I had yet another text message coming in.
Did you get my message?
(Your expression is telling me that you've been thinkin' the
same thang)
The same thang I've been thinkin'
You say you're workin,
Well hit me just as soon as your shift is over
And I'll be waitin,
'cause I can't sleep for reminisce
Reminscin' about you and what we do,
Hit me back and hope you hurry”
Smiling to myself, I decided that maybe I could cut this Sunday drive a little short, clearly my man needed tending to. And I didn’t want to leave him hanging.
Literally.
As soon as I stepped inside the door, Justin was all over me. Hands everywhere, prying to get over, under, and in me.
“Whoa, whoa, baby. Hello to you too.” I laughed, breaking the breath-taking kiss he’d planted on me.
“Hello.” He said, barely taking the second it took to say that before his lips began to sweetly consume mine again.
“Justin,” I moaned, biting my lower lip as his mouth worked over my neck, making me weak in the knees.
“Mmm,” was his reply as he began to scoop me into his arms, his mind already in bedroom and his legs eager to follow suit.
“Baby, I…”
“Woman, can’t you see I’m busy right now?” He said, stopping his motions long enough to stare at me with mock frustration as his blue eyes sparkled mischievously.
“But, I mean, it’s just…” I trailed off, unable to find the words I wanted to say.
Yes, I wanted to be with him in every way, but it seemed like lately we’d both been consumed in our own worlds and now that we were together I wanted to talk to him but he didn’t seem to see any need for words. I wasn’t going to be played like some booty call here for his pleasure.
“Can’t we just talk for a moment, baby?” I asked, barely able to get that simple question out before he’d scooped me up into his arms, heading straight up the stairs and to his bedroom.
The red candles (which he liked to call his ‘love candles’) were already lit and set around, bathing the room in the flicker of their warm seductive glow.
Laying on my back, with him slowly crawling over me, between my legs, a sly grin plastered on his sweet, slightly kiss-swollen lips, I couldn’t remember why I had wanted to say no to this. It wasn’t until his hands began to wander below the belt that my thoughts were able to peek out of the sex haze long enough to remember one important fact: it was around that time of the month.
I couldn’t really remember for sure if it was or wasn’t though, because Justin’s lips and hands had all the days swirling together in my mind. “Ba-baby, maybe we should stop. Cause this might not be the best time of the month for this.” I said, my stare bouncing pointedly between his face and his wandering hand, as I tried to catch my breath and separate our tangled bodies.
“Doesn’t matter,” He said, blowing off my words and pulling me close to him again. “I got protection.”
