Spin, p.13
Spin, page 13
As fine as she was, I knew that I wasn’t looking for anything from her, which is why when she came back to the parking lot, trying to get by, so that she could get inside of her car, I made our conversation really brief, shocking the fuck out of her because I knew that she was expecting me to ask her for her number, but I didn’t. Small ass world that I’d run into her again at the football event today. Even crazier how my son just naturally gravitated towards her because this little boy was every bit of me, which was that he wasn’t friendly, and he damn sure wasn’t going to be eager to invite somebody to lunch that he didn’t even know.
“Ion know. She probably changed her mind, or something. Why you so pressed for her to come to lunch with us?” I asked him, folding my arms, waiting for him to answer my question. He was sitting down, with the coloring kids menu that the waitress had given him, and he was focused on the word search, letting that keep his attention, but when I asked him the question, he paused from what he was doing, and he looked up at me.
“She pretty, daddy. Plus, she knows about football. When I went over there to get some Gatorade, she told me that I did good on the field. That’s when I asked her if she liked football, and she told me that she did. She named five football teams for me, plus their mascots. Ion know. I just think she cool. You don’t like her?” he asked, tilting his head to the side, genuinely looking at me like he was confused that I wasn’t as hyped up about having lunch with her as he was.
“Son, Ion know her,” I let him know.
“You think she pretty though?” he asked me, and I laughed.
“She fine as hell,” I responded in a way like I was talking to one of my niggas.
“If she come, you going to ask her for her number?” his lil ass wanted to know, and I just waved him off.
As we were talking, we were sitting right next to the window, so when I looked out, I could see her Range Rover sport pulling into the parking lot. I didn’t think that she was going to come because we’d sat down about ten minutes ago. I thought that she would beat us here, since she’d left the field before us.
By this time, my son had went back to his word search, and I wasn’t going to tell him that she was here. I would let him see if for himself when she walked inside of the restaurant. I kept stealing glances at the parking lot because I didn’t want to keep looking, and my son caught on, and he saw that she was here.
I watched her as she got out, and she was no longer wearing her hat on her head, but she was still in her clothes from earlier. She had a walk about her, like she knew that she was the baddest bitch in town, and I didn’t fault her for that because as a woman, she was supposed to feel that way. I loved to see a woman being confidant in themselves.
I could no longer see her in the parking lot, but in a matter of time, I saw where she was now in the restaurant, and she went over to the hostess table, and I read her lips, seeing where she was telling the hostess that she was meeting someone here. That’s when her eyes scanned, and they landed on me. She pointed at me with her finger to the hostess, and she let her know that she could go ahead and make her way over to us.
I didn’t even try to stop the glare that I had on her, and she didn’t try to stop the one that she had on me. Her scent made it to us before she did, and it was a sweet scent that she had. Because her keys were still in her hands, it was jiggling as she walked, and that’s what caused my son to turn his head around and look, and like the two of them went way back, he smiled brightly, and he quickly jumped up from the booth, and he walked over to her. It’s like he wanted to go in for a hug, but I could see the way that he caught himself, probably thinking that she was going to leave him hanging, and not hug him back, so he didn’t do it. It’s like she could pick up on that shit, and didn’t want him to feel like she didn’t want to hug him, so she was the one to initiate it, by putting her arm out, giving him a one-armed hug, as she smiled. Zayne was picking up good energy with her because this man was standing there cheesing, as he hugged her back, wrapping his small hand around her even smaller waist. I think what it was is that he had a crush on her. That had to be what it was.
“You came! I didn’t think you were going to come!” he beamed, once he let go.
“I had to stop and get gas. I’m true to my word. So, you got me here at your favorite spot. What you like to get from here?” she asked him, crossing her arms, and looking down at him. The two of them were still standing up at this point, and it was like my ass didn’t even exist. It didn’t matter though because I wanted to sit back and watch the way this shit played out.
I could already pick up from her that her ass knew how to code switch really well. Back on the field, she was talking shit to me, and I have a feeling that that was just the sample version of shit talking that I’d gotten from her. Something told me that if she was pushed, she could be worst, but, now that she was in front of my son, she was soft, and I could tell that that’s the trait that he liked about her.
“You like chicken wings? I normally get chicken wings from here, and curly fries. Sit next to me. Ima show you the menu,” his little ass said. Like the gentleman that I raised him to be, I watched him as he stepped out of the way, allowing her to go into the booth, sitting on the inside, while he sat on the outside. There were only two menus on the table, which was my menu, and his kids menu, but his little ass ended up taking my menu, so that he could put it in front of her.
“You like spicy chicken?” he asked her.
“I do. I probably won’t get chicken though. I may get spicy shrimp. Can you eat seafood?” she asked him.
“Yeah. I can eat it. It’s not my favorite though,” he responded.
“Oh yeah. What about daddy? He likes seafood?” she wanted to know, taking her eyes off him for a second, so that she could look at me.
“Daddy likes seafood too. He eats everything,” he stretched, and she giggled. Before she could say anything to him, two girls walked past, and they looked to have been in their early twenties. They paused at the table, and they looked at the three of us, smiled, but their attention was mainly on Toni.
“Hi Dr. McCall,” they announced. I didn’t know her occupation, but from the way that they’d just greeted her, I was going to take a wild guess and say that she was probably a doctor.
“Aww. Hey Melody, and Ashley,” she responded back. They let us know to enjoy our outing, and then they left.
“You’re a doctor?” my son asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
“I’m actually a college professor. I went to school, and I got my Ph.D., so that’s why they called me Dr,” she informed him. That was sexy to me. I’d prejudged her. In Miami, it’s so common to see a woman with a pretty face, and a nice body, but that was usually all that they had to offer. I liked a women that was ambitious and wasn’t the type to sit on her ass all day, and think because she was pretty, she didn’t have to work. Don’t get me wrong, if I ever get into anything serious again, where we’re locked in, and married, I had no problem with my wife working, and pocketing her money, while I used mine to pay the bills. That’s how it was in my marriage with Sapphire. I paid all the bills, but Sapphire was the type where she wanted to contribute to something too, so every blue moon, she would pay the electricity bill, or the water bill, but she knew that she didn’t have to.
“Okay. Ima go to college too. I wanna be a professional football player, or a boxer. I’m good at both. You gotta come to one of my games, so that you can watch me play. I have another game in two weeks. You going to be available?” his little ass asked. He really was sitting here, making all kinds of plans with her, and from the moment she came to the table, my presence didn’t mean shit to him. He wasn’t even trying to include me in their conversation.
“You have to ask your daddy if it’s okay for me to come,” she told him, and he laughed, and he turned to look at me. His lil ass had the nerve to look me in my eyes, and there was a threatening look that he was giving me, like he would be ready to fight if I told him no.
“She can come to my football game, right daddy? You don’t mind?” he asked me.
“We already sitting here, having lunch with her, so she might as well come to the football game too,” I added in, and instead of looking at my son, I was looking at her. Her eyes were on me, too. Those green eyes that she had were beautiful. I don’t think that I have ever in my life saw a woman that could rock a short cut better than Nia Long did back in the 90’s, but Toni had showed that she could. With the sleeveless, tennis polo shirt that she was wearing, I could see her arms, and because I was a man that worked out, and had been in the gym damn near my entire life, I could look at the tone of her arms and tell that she was in the gym as well. It showed in her legs, and her thighs too.
Our food eventually came, and they continued their conversation, leaving me out of it, like they had been doing. My son could hardly eat his food because he was too busy playing 21 questions with Toni. I didn’t mind it because everything that he would ask her, I would leave a mental note of it. His lil ass asked her about her age, what school she worked at, if she had any children, her parents, siblings, and shit like that. It felt like he was the one that was on the damn date. It was just shocking to see my son in this kind of element because all that talkative, friendly shit, that really wasn’t him at all. For whatever reason, it’s like he was clinging onto Toni, and once we left the restaurant, there was an arcade that was right next door, and I wasn’t surprised when he asked to go because every time that we came to this Hooters, he wanted to go to the arcade. He all but pulled Toni into the arcade once I told him that we could go for a little bit.
Now, we were inside, where I purchased him a game card, loaded some funds on it for him, and he took off, forgetting about the home girl that he just made because it just left the two of us together. My son knew not to run off, and talk to strangers, so when we came here, I would let him do his thing, while I found me a table, and just watched him from a distance. Toni sat on the same bench as I did, sitting a few inches away from me, and she crossed her right leg over her left, and the purse that she had, she sat it down in the middle of us. From where we were sitting, we could see Zayne, so she looked over at him for a little bit, and then I felt her eyes on me.
“You have a special little boy on your hands. Very flattering too, and his handsome self knows what he has to say to get his way. I see now why you told me that you aren’t in the business of telling him no because it’s hard to do it. Arcades are not my thing at all. I think about all the germs that’s running around this place, yet, here I am,” she.
I sat with my arms folded, and my legs were parted just a little bit. Because of our height difference, even with us sitting down, I sat up higher, so when I turned to look at her, I had to look down.
“Yeah, he spoiled. Spoiled by damn near everybody in his life. I’m at the top of the list, then my mama, my pops, and everybody else be giving in to him. My son don’t give me any problems though. He’s a well-behaved kid, always does good in school, he’s a beasts in sports, so he makes it so easy to spoil him,” I let her know, and there was a smile on her face, and then she nodded. After that, we sat here in silence for about five more minutes, and then she cleared her throat.
“I’m sure you probably get tired of hearing this, and I don’t want to be that person to bring it up, while you’re out, but I feel like it would make me rude if I didn’t acknowledge it. I just wanted to offer my condolences to you on what happened with your wife,” she said.
“It’s cool. I appreciate it,” I replied, not wanting to linger on that topic any longer, which is why I responded in a way that was final.
“Are you always this quiet?” she wanted to know.
“Shit, it depends. We don’t really know each other, so you won’t see that side of me yet where I can talk for hours at a time,” I voiced.
“I feel like you’re not trying to get to know me though,” she hit me with, and I took my eyes off Zayne, who was standing at one of those vending machines, and it was filled with plush bears, and he was trying to win something. I took my eyes off him, so that I could give Toni my undivided attention.
“I feel like my son asked you all of the important questions,” I let her know.
“He asked the basics. I feel like there’s questions that are much deeper for you to know the answers to, but you’re not asking them. You don’t want to know if I have a man at home, or if I’m dating someone? Like, you aren’t afraid that I might be dealing with someone that could walk in here right now, see me with you, and try and fight you?” she asked me, and I’m not sure if that was supposed to make me laugh, but I looked at her with a straight face.
“Does anything about me give you the impression that I would give a fuck if a nigga your dealing with walked in here, and tried to fight me? I’m sure that your highly aware of my credentials, love. Any nigga even thinks about swinging on me, and I’ll have his ass on his back before he can even get his fist up. I know you don’t have a man at home though. That’s why I didn’t ask,” I shot, and that made her roll her eyes.
“What about me gave that I don’t have a man?” she wanted to know.
“The fact that your sitting right here. Plus, Zayne said that you didn’t have a boyfriend,” I added, and she nodded her head.
“Maybe you should ask your son to share some of his personality with you because you lack in that department,” she snapped, and then she raised up out of the seat, and she put her purse over her shoulder. My eyes went up, looking at her.
“Yeah, aight,” was all I said back to her, and then she walked away.
I thought that she was going to be so upset to the point that she just walked out of the doors without saying goodbye to Zayne, but the fact that she went to find him, so that she could say bye to him, spoke volumes.
It showed that that hour long conversation that she had at Hooters meant something to her. She found him, and I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I knew she was telling him that she was leaving. I could see the disappointment all in his eyes. His little hand went up, telling her to wait, and then he went back to the vending machine, where she stood on the side of him, and he kept playing, until he eventually won something. Once he had it, he handed it to her, and she smiled, thanking him, and she bent down to hug him. When they pulled apart, there was a sad look in his eyes, as he waved goodbye to her, and she did the same, and she eventually left.
Moments later, he came over to me, his eyes were watery, and the second he sat down next to me, tears started falling.
“What you said to her? Why did she leave?” he wanted to know. His lil ass looked visibly heartbroken that Toni had left, and no lie, that shit made me feel bad.
“I didn’t say nothing. She was ready to go,” I had to lie to him.
“You got her phone number?” he asked.
“Nah,” I told him the truth, and that only had him crying even more.
“If you didn’t get her number, then how she supposed to come to my game in two weeks? Daddy, your trippin,” he cried to me, about to stand up, and walk away from me, but I grabbed him by his arm, and I lifted him up, putting him in my lap. I used my hand to wipe away his tears, and although he did stop crying, there was a look in his eyes that still showed how sad he was.
“What’s going on? Talk to me. Why you sweating her so hard?” I had to know. It took him a few seconds to answer the question, but he eventually looked up at me, prepared to answer.
“Ion know. I just felt that that’s what it would have felt like to have a mom. That’s it,” his voice cracked as he said it, and that shit really did make me feel bad. My son was very in tune with his emotions because I never made him feel that boys couldn’t cry, so he had a moment, and I didn’t say anything because I felt like there wasn’t anything that I could say in this moment to make him feel better. However, I did help him calm down, and once he was done, I kissed his forehead, let him know that I loved him, and he went back to play.
I had to find a way to find that damn girl again. He already had it made up in his mind that she was going to be at his football game, so I had to make it happen. I had to learn to let my guard down, and stop being mean to people, pushing them away. Toni looked like she could be the perfect woman and probably checked off all the boxes of a good woman, but ya’ll already know how I felt about spinning again. I was scared to spin the block of love again, and I fuck around, and get my heart broken again. I know they call me Steel, and that I could handle a lot, but I couldn’t take another heart break like that again. I just couldn’t.
SEVEN
TONI MCCALL
“Let’s get a round of shots for the table. My sexy friend, Ms. Fine ass Toni has won ‘The professor of the year’ again for the second time in a row. We must take a drink to that for my girl,” Brandy called out to the waitress the second she come over to our table, wanting to know what we wanted to drink.
One thing about this friend group, we were going to celebrate you, and it didn’t matter how big or small the achievement was. When each of us did something that we should be proud of within our careers, or when us single women in the group would meet a good man, and make it to the second round of dating, or when we purchased our homes, we would make it our business to head out, put on something sexy, while we sat at the table, eating good food, and having good drinks, celebrating whoever we were out to celebrate that night.
I’d gotten the email this afternoon at work that I’d won the professor of the year award again for the second time, and the second I got the email, I forwarded it to my girls, and they each were in a rush to call me, screaming on the line, letting me know how proud of me they were. Our group chat started jumping immediately after, wanting to know what I wanted to do to celebrate. Initially, I told them that we didn’t have to do anything, since I’d already won last year, and we did something big, plus I had homework to grade, but they weren’t trying to hear any of that. Leave it up to me, and I would have celebrated with a bowl of ice cream in the house tonight, a glass of wine, while homework was flooded across my bed, waiting for me to grade. With the women not taking no for an answer, I stepped out, and I chose for us to go to this rooftop bar spot out in Miami, and it was called Rosa Sky. It was a sexy spot and was very fitting for tonight’s celebration. Brooklyn was with my mom, and she would be with her until I came back over tomorrow afternoon to get her.
