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Lennox’s oral expression of desire was so fucking passionate. Without me touching her, she tasted around my mouth, stroked the side of my face, including my beard, shoulders, and chest like a virgin. She didn’t stop until she needed air so much, she heaved, chest caving and breathing loud as she stared at me.
That was the first wake up call to my obsession with this woman. I’d never respected one so much. I used restraint to keep her. Lennox’s situation was delicate. There was a child involved, and even I had to have compassion for their dilemma. But from that second on, she felt just as much mine as my own daughter, but more so because Elia would grow to have her own life to share with a knucklehead who, hopefully, wasn’t JuJu. If I had my chance at Lennox once again, she’d be by my side till death did us part.
“Is this the petite, light-skin fox with the wavy hair?” Coach L asked, brows in a straight line while blowing smoke into the air.
It was at aKingsvsPanthersNorth Carolina home game where I ran into her three years ago. She’d just started her current role at the hospital, and one of the executives invited her to the game to welcome her in. I stepped out during halftime to meet up with a friend of mine, Sheila, who just so happened to randomly text me that morning, asking if I would be in the building to see myKings. When I told her I would, she asked if I could meet her to say hello. I was game and kept my word.
The remix to my plans occurred when I hiked through a crowd of spirited patrons, but felt a magnetic, spiritual pull to my right. I say spiritual because I faintly heard her name as I stopped to see what the urge was about. The experience was transcendental. The crowd all around slowed and the rowdy sound blurred as my sights landed on a head of sandy blonde and brown curls, deep, trancing, cognac eyes rubbing her peach-colored lips together as she gazed to the left and right.
That rare moment in time began the period of pain and the teasing pleasure of hope for me.
I never saw Sheila that day.
“That’s her,” Raj answered for my subdued ass.
Launz’s connection to Lennox was, ironically, the next season, when he became the head coach of theKings. When they played theGiantsthat year, he did me a solid. He arranged for box seats for Lennox and her girls that homecoming on my dime, of course. But he’d also gotten a chance to meet her during halftime when she and I secretly met up in a private section near the locker rooms.
Launz wouldn’t let it go. “Yo, she still with Richardson?”
“You know that nigga’s brother got murked by his baby’s moms?”
“Murked?” Launz asked him.
Raj nodded. “Clipped, snatched, snuffed…”
“Oh.” Launz’s eyes blew up. “Ohhh!”
“I feel sorry for the young lady. She’s good peoples. Sweet girl,” Raj mumbled, glancing down at hisiPad. “She’s got me some fire hits, too. You ain’t never answer my question. When did you see Lennox?”
Here we were again with someone else believing I had a pattern of sorts to my behavior. Like Grams, Smite, and Elia, it was now Ragee.
“Let’s put it this way,” I finally spoke, “whatever you’re really interested in from what I sent you, let’s try those out tonight, because everything you leave behind will be pitched to Dale.”
Raj’s head popped up. “Dale?”
I nodded. “He’s setting up for a drop.”
“When?”
“Why you asking?” Raj asked Coach L.
Everyone found that funny except for Raj.
I finally answered with a shrug. “I don’t know the specifics. I don’t even know if I’m going to run with him. I just know I’m inspired, and I got shit to get off my chest.”
With a twisted mouth, Raj nodded. I knew him well enough to know this wasn’t the end of the “will you or won’t you work with him” conversation. R&B niggas could be as emotional as high-hormonal, pregnant women. There were times they wanted you the fuck out their faces, but when they needed you, their demands shook the earth. Raj and I happened to be personal friends, so my patience for him was enduring. I knew many of the demons he carried. Raj knew I had a general working knowledge of his traumatized brain. We joked about it from time to time.
Launz’s attention bounced between Raj and me, waiting.
Within seconds, Raj sat up in his chair, nodded again, and exhaled. “A’ight. Let’s hit this shit then.”
He was the first to leave the table for the keyboard on stage.
Daphne Taylor peered up from the stack of papers in front of her on the conference room table and pulled in a deep breath. She grabbed the papers, and dropped the bottoms of them onto the table as she exhaled visibly, staring me in the face.
The counselor-at-law was a middle-aged, mocha-skinned woman with locs and a bright smile. Her countenance could be read as cold and no-nonsense, but her tone for the past two hours had been gentle, professional, and compassionate.
“His team back then put in place a pretty iron-clad prenuptial agreement. I’ve seen several types in my day. This one screams ‘you leave with exactly what you brought in, and what was earned while in.’ He’s never intended on you getting anything, not even after a specified duration of the marriage. Funny how that’s turned out for him.” She shrugged.
