9
The hell is wrong with me? Sitting up there in that woman’s house staring at her like I had no control over my own eyes. It wasn’t like she was half-naked or something. She was sitting there in jeans and a t-shirt, her head covered with a black scarf. No make-up, just her pretty face wearing an interested look as I told her about my job, but still, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her no matter how hard I tried. It was like some kind of magnetic force or something. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what her sister looked like even if someone had a gun pointed at me demanding that I describe her. I barely glanced at her, because just like in that club, Ms. Strickland commanded and held my attention.
What the fuck?
Yeah, I was attracted to her, but she was fine, so it was a given that I’d be attracted to her. But this, this thing that was going on in my head when I was around her? It was more than attraction. Shit, it was bordering on obsession, because there I was, sitting in my temporary office with the door closed, paperwork covering my desk, my phone buzzing in my pocket, with my mind focused on her, and only her.
It had to be the fact that I’d deemed her off limits. The whole forbidden fruit thing must’ve been driving me crazy because of her proximity to me. It was one thing to dismiss her. It was another thing to dismiss her and still have to see her nearly every day—sitting on the front porch drinking her coffee, or walking past her living room window in her short pajamas with the blinds open, or walking to her car, or shit, me lying in my bed at night fully aware that she was just feet away from me in her bed.
Damn-it! I was losing my entire mind and I didn’t even really know this woman!
I rubbed my forehead and stared at the paperwork, then shook my head and pulled my phone from my pocket, relieved to see my friend, KC’s, name on the screen. If I couldn’t focus on the paperwork, I definitely wasn’t going to be able to focus on a business-related phone call.
“Hey…wassup, KC?” I mumbled into the phone after accepting the call.
“Damn, wassup with you? Why you sounding like you lost your last dollar or something?”
“Man, just got a lot on my mind…what’s up with you? How’s Sarita and the baby?”
“They’re good. I’ll tell her you asked about her. Hey, the project going bad or something? I mean, what’s going on?”
I sighed. “I don’t know…”
“Aw, hell naw! It’s a woman, isn’t it? The player done got played?”
“Be for real, man. You know better than that.”
“But it’s a woman that’s got your head all messed up, isn’t it?”
“Naw…”
“Bullshit! Come on, man. We been boys for how long now? And you think you can fool me? You’re messed up over some chick, and because you’ve never been messed up over one before, your ass is all perplexed and shit. Hell, you sound confused.”
I glanced at the closed office door and rested my elbows on my desk. “Okay, it’s a woman, but it’s not what you think. I mean, I’m not messing with her or anything.”
“But you want to?”
“Yeah…”
“But you’re not?”
“Right…”
“Why? She married?”
“No.”
“A lesbian?”
“Naw, I don’t think so.”
“Well, what then?”
“She’s my landlord.”
“Oh, and you think once you mess over her, she’ll kick you out of your place or something?”
“Yeah, or let me stay there and make my life a living hell. It’s a duplex apartment, and she lives in the other apartment attached to mine.”
KC let out a low whistle. “I see your point. She fine, though?”
“Man, let me tell you!”
“I don’t know. Ry. You gonna be able to hold out? I mean, I ain’t never known you to pass up on a fine woman.”
“I don’t even know. It’s hard, and she’s got this lame-ass boyfriend. He probably ain’t even hitting that right. The things I could do to her…”
“Same old Ryan. What if she doesn’t want you to do anything to her?”
“Are you serious?”
He laughed into the phone. “Man, you and that ego. That landlord just might be the one to shut your conceited ass down.”
I laughed. “Married life has messed your brain up. No woman has ever shut me down, and no woman ever will.”
“Okay, okay. Look, man, go ahead and get with her, just don’t mess up and you should be fine.”
“Don’t mess up? What am I supposed to do? Have an actual relationship with her? I’m only here for five more months, and you know I don’t do relationships. The thought of that shit alone suffocates me.”
“I don’t know. If she’s got you this messed up in the head, maybe she’s the one.”
“Oh, hell no! Now you’re trying to recruit me into that little bondage club you’re in just because you married Sarita and y’all got a kid now. Man, back up with that. I’ma be single until I die!”
“All right, man. Whatever. I gotta get on back in the office. My lunch break is over. Holler at you later.”
“Yeah.”
*****
She went on another date that Friday night. I know that, because she knocked on my door around 8:00 PM wearing a turquoise dress and heels, her thick hair pulled back in a bun. She was smiling, delivering some of my mail that ended up in her box to me. I smiled back, took the mail, and watched the sway of her ass as she walked away, the intoxicating floral scent of her perfume still occupying the air outside my door.
I was in a bad mood from that moment on, kept wondering if she was out with that lame-ass dude again. Then I started wondering why I was so mad about how she spent her time. After all, she wasn’t my woman.
Maybe she should be.
I shook my head, left my couch, and headed into my kitchen. I must’ve needed a damn drink if crazy stuff like that was just popping in my head.
I was out of the only liquor I had in my place, a bottle of bourbon.
Shit.
I slumped back onto the sofa and stared at the TV. I wasn’t in the mood to go to a liquor store. What I was in the mood for was sex, but I’d broken things off with Alexis, and by broke them off, I mean I stopped answering her calls. But right at that moment, I wanted to call her and set something up. Shoot, I was almost willing to give her my address if it meant I could get my mind off of Angela Strickland and those legs of hers. And her ass? It was the kind of ass that made white girls get silicone injections—firm, round…
Or maybe I could call Lori or Lorna or whatever her name was. We met at a coffee shop a couple of days after I last saw Alexis and hooked up that same night, but I lost interest in her after that and had been ignoring her calls, too. Then there was this chick I met on my first flight to Tennessee and screwed in her car in long-term parking, but I couldn’t remember her name and didn’t bother to get her number.
I sat up straight, blew out a frustrated breath, and let my eyes shift to the wall that our living rooms shared. If she had been home instead of out with whoever, I might have gone over there and made something happen. But as it stood, she was gone, and there I sat with her on my mind. And honestly, all that stuff about hooking up with Alexis again, or anyone else, was bullshit. I didn’t want any other woman…except for Ms. Strickland.
And I wanted her bad.