“Because you like everybody.”
“I do not like everybody”
“You cried when we fired the janitor,” I told Shelly as I rolled my eyes.
“His name was Kevin. He has four children and a pregnant wife at home.”
“His horny ass doesn’t have any business fucking somebody's daughter and knocking her up with that many children. No wonder he was stealing protein powder with his freaky ass.”
“He was struggling,” Shelly crossed her arms. “If he had gotten one more chance, maybe he could have changed.”
I chortled before replying, “People don’t change, they adapt. If we gave him another chance, he would have found a better way to steal.”
My phone vibrated before I could say another word. Based on what time it was, I didn’t have to look to know who it was. We had been at this for a year. I smiled before I could stop myself.
“There you go smiling again, that man better have some good dick, you are about to break your face,” Shelly threw shade.
“He doesn’t have good dick, he has amazing dick,” I whined.
“Well, don’t sound so down about it. Great dick is a good thing, right?” she questioned.
“Great dick is a disaster when it’s attached to the wrong nigga.” I told her honestly as I typed my password into the system and clocked out. Before she could reply, I grabbed my purse from beneath the desk, slung it over my shoulder, and pulled my phone from my bra.
“See you tomorrow I’m going to get my back cracked,” I cheered. She laughed loudly as I walked out of the gym and tomy car. The red Mercedes G-Wagon AMG 63 was being paid for by Shelton Ames, a dead man who used to be a faithful member of Brick & CO before he had a heart attack last year. Mercedes-Benz didn’t need to know that I was using a dead man’s credit. As long as they got paid, the extra particulars were none of their business. I got inside; hit the push start and put my purse in the seat next to me. I opened the text message, and it read:
MARRIOTT 4875, Wesley Dobbs. ROOM 817.
TWENTY MINUTES.
We’d usually meet at the Hyatt. I wondered what made him change the location as I put the address into my GPS and pulled onto the street. Midnight on a Tuesday had traffic as light as a feather. The GPS put me at the hotel in fifteen minutes. I turned on SZA’s song, "The Weekend" and put the volume on full blast.
It reminded me of him and me.
“The feelin' is reckless, knowin' it's selfish, knowin' I'm desperate,”I sang loud and off key as I thought about the way he stuck his tongue in and out of my pussy slowly. The man had a tongue like a Glock with a switch. He flicked it faster whenever he felt me cum and left me squirting all over the place.
“I don't care as long as you here by 10:30, no later than. Drop them drawers, give me what I want,”I yelled loudly as I humped the air and imagined I was riding his dick. I hadn't lied when I told Shelly that a great dick attached to the wrong nigga was a disaster. He wasn’t my man, and he wasn’t available. He served one purpose in my life. He was just fun, no expectations, no promises, and no feelings. Except lately my heart fluttered whenever he was near.
I’m cumin.I texted him back when I made it to a red light.
Three dots appeared immediately, and he replied.
You always come.
That smug bastard was right. The other niggas I was entertaining didn’t make me cum like he did, so I cut their assess off. We had been at this for a year, and his feelings hadn’t changed, but mine had grown.
Somewhere between the expensive hotels, late-night creeping, and the way he fucked me like he hated me and loved me, I had fallen in love with an unavailable man. I made myself available whenever he summoned me.
I hated loving him.
Life had taught me that love always costs more than you planned to spend. I thought about my mother and my heart sank. The first time I used someone else’s credit card information it was for her insulin. The card had come in the mail to our run-down apartment.
I was fourteen years old and I knew that the right thing to do was to cut it up and throw it away. I told myself that I would. I only put it in my pocket so I could remember to get rid of it. Then my mother sent me down to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine.
She was too tired to get out of bed. She worked two jobs to provide for us and pay her never-ending medical bills. She told me to get the money out of her purse. The only thing in her purse was a crumpled ten-dollar bill. I assumed that would be enough because I was fourteen and she knew I didn’t have any money.
I walked down to the pharmacy and went up to the counter. I gave the pharmacy tech her name, date of birth, and address. The clerk told me that the price of insulin had gone up and it would be forty-three dollars and thirty-five cents. I knewthat my mother didn’t have more money than what was in her wallet.
I felt the plastic poking me in my back pocket. I asked the tech if she had a phone I could use so I could call and tell my mother the medicine had gone up. She let me borrow her cell phone. I walked to the back of the store and called the card to activate it.
