DAMON
“Yes, I’m still coming by,” Patricia said, giggling into the phone, “Mrs. Blakely had a previous engagement, but I’m working on alternate arrangements. You’re not opening in the morning, right?”
“Nope, Ty’s got it. Don’t play me like you did last week though. Had my hopes and dick up only to let me down.”
“Oh my god, you’re not going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Nope!”
Patricia and I had settled into a nice little rotation over the past six weeks, seeing each other a few times a week thanks to her very accommodating neighbor and our insatiable appetites for one another. It was refreshing to deal with a woman who really meant it when she said she was okay with no strings attached sex. It was also jarring because I also felt a little bit sad each time she left. She’d given up on the sneaking out like a thief in the night; at least waking me if she was taking off in the middle of the night—we’d managed a few afternoons of delight over the past few weeks as well. I would have preferred that she at least stayed until I had to get up to begin prepping for the patisserie, but that would never happen because it was a thing she didn’t do. Patricia had an entire list of dos and don’ts for our arrangement. Some made sense; others were completely ridiculous. It was part of her charm though.
“I promise, I’ll be by later. Most likely after nine. So just leave the back door open. And be naked so I can just come right in and jump on that thang.”
I gasped in fake shock, “Why Miss Payne do you presume me to be some thot that’s sitting around ready to be ridden on your command?”
“You’re not? Oh…that’s what the contract specified, though,” she replied on a giggle.
“Well I never!”
“You are so silly. All right, I have to go. Tee’s giving me the wrap it up signal from the door. My appointment must be here. I’ll see you later.”
“Alright, babe. See you later.”
“Babe?” Patricia echoed.
I closed my eyes as I recalled rule number four: no pet names. Pet names meant an attachment beyond sex was being formed and were a recipe for disaster according to her. I tried to reason with her about pet names being akin to a level of comfort reached, but she was adamant that I was wrong. I’d been good at curbing my tongue around her for the most part, but this was a costly slip up.
“Don’t read too much into it, weirdo. I’ll see you later…Patricia.”
“Goodbye, Damon,” she said in a tone that I could tell was accompanied with an eye roll.
I was slipping; I definitely did not mean to call her babe out loud. And I would be sure to get an earful about that later…if she came by. Patricia had a way of retreating when things weren’t working in her favor and then blaming the circumstances of her life as justification. The last time she cancelled on me, I’d broached the idea of us doing more than getting together to fuck. I brought up the amazing time we had that first night we met and how I would like to recreate that sometime and she shut down on me, then disappeared for three days. When she reappeared, she gave some flimsy excuse about work being why she was incognegress for those days. It was cool though, I gave her space to be weird, but sooner or later that shit was going to have to come to an end.
I wouldn’t force her hand, but I certainly wasn’t in the space to do this long term. I meant what I said to my brothers that first night that we met. Something about Patricia affected me on a chemical level and I knew that whether or not she wanted to accept it right now, we were in this for the long haul. All I had to do was be patient and let her get used to the idea that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Boss Man, you got a minute?” Tyrel said, peeking his head into my office.
I waved him in. “What’s up, Ty?”
“We need to talk about Jami,” he sighed, while flopping into one of the chairs in front of my desk.
I sighed, running a hand over my head before resting both palms on my desk. I had a feeling this was what he popped in to talk about. He had been dropping hints all week about replacing her, but I’d dodged them. She had been acting strange for a bit, but had managed to straighten up after I’d had a talk with her.
“I thought she’s gotten better?”
“Nah, Dame. She toed the line for about a week before she was back to her erratic behavior. Now, even though I should not have, I’d been covering for her because she claimed she was going to get her shit together. But it’s been over a month and it’s progressively getting worse. I can’t keep making sacrifices in order to pick up the slack for when she’s falling short.”
“Look, I really appreciate you stepping up and covering when necessary, but you gotta stop enabling her, man. I’ll talk to her once again and try to get to the root of what’s going on. Otherwise, we’ll be looking for someone else to handle things up front. How are things going out there today?”
“Other than Jami not showing up at ten like she was supposed to? Everything is everything.”
“Wait…if she ain’t out there, who the hell is watching the front while we having this pow wow?”
Tyrel smiled a bit sheepishly, “I made a we’ll be back in fifteen minutes sign. It’s usually dead around this time anyway.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle and I saw his shoulders fall in release once the sound left my mouth. I’d been so caught up in trying to find an additional pastry chef to help out in back that I’d pretty much left all front of house responsibilities up to Ty. My trust in him was high, but I still needed to make sure that I was aware of everything going on in my spot at all times. The last thing I needed was for this to fail and for me to be on the hook with Dorian and Reema yet again.
“You’re all good, Ty. And hey…thank you for stepping up like you have, man. I know I’ve been leaning on you heavy, but you shoulder it with no complaints.”
“Hey, I’m just grateful you took a chance on me, man.”
“We took a chance on each other, bruh. You had no way of knowing whether or not this place would stay open past week one before taking this job. Now look at us, damn near six months in and flourishing. I owe a lot of that to you!”
Ty bowed his head, shaking it briefly.
“Aight, I’ma get back up front.”
Before he got past the threshold I called out and let him know that he could leave at the scheduled time and to not stick around trying to cover for Jami if she never showed. I had no plans until way later in the evening, so it would be nothing for me to man the front of the house and get some face time with customers. When I first opened the patisserie, I thought I would get a lot more of that than I did currently. I was too consumed with a lot of the behind the scenes baking action that I rarely went up front. Today, I’d finally gotten some good leads on a couple of chefs I was going to be interviewing to come on and help out. I hoped they panned out and I wouldn’t have another Jami situation on my hands.
***
I collapsed next to Patricia, a thin sheen of sweat across my brow evidence of the vigorous workout in which we’d just engaged. Rolling in her direction, I threw an arm around her waist, pressing a series of kisses to the back of her neck and silently counting down from five until she opened her mouth to say…
“You know spooning is against the rules, right?”
I rolled my eyes and dragged myself out of bed, heading toward the bathroom to rid myself of the condom and relieve myself.
“You know, a man could really start to get a complex about how you treatin’ him out here,” I yelled to her from the bathroom.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she replied, her voice awfully close.
I looked over to see her leaned against the doorway, smiling.
“You booking it already?” I asked, moving past, allowing her into the bathroom to take care of her business.
She shook her head, “I got a little time. PJ’s spending the night with Cel and she’s gonna drop him off in the morning, so…”
“So, you’re hanging out?”
“Well right now I’m showering, but…we’ll see…”
Patricia walked over to start the shower and just as she was hopping in, I doubled back, squeezing into the tiny stall with her, citing water conservation efforts.
After a tiny bit of play, we did end up showering and now were sitting on my couch, munching on a new recipe I had tried out earlier in the evening. I’d been toying with the idea of having a Sweet Thang exclusive macaron, but couldn’t decide on the flavor. I’d gone through six different flavor combos until I decided on this one tonight—honey lavender. The pale purple coloring of the lavender buds used in the shells was a perfect complement to the color scheme of the logo for Sweet Thang. And if the sounds Patricia was making as she bit into the first one were any indication, it looked like I had a hit on my hands.
“Oh my god,” she moaned, “You know it’s kind of unfair?”
“What’s unfair?” I asked.
“You look like that. Can do amazing things with your tongue and dick, and then have the nerve to be able to make decadent shit like this with no problem. You know…if I were the type of girl who wifed dudes? You might could get got,” she laughed.
“I could get wifed? Wow, that’s hella problematic. I believe the proper term is husbanded. Respect my agency, Patricia.”
She looked over at me trying to gauge my level of seriousness. I could barely hold in my laughter, as she looked a little contrite.
“You ain’t shit, you know,” Patricia said, pouting.
I reached over and tugged her bottom lip between my teeth before soothing the bite with my tongue and drawing her into a kiss.
“But you like me anyway.”
“Jury’s out on you. Your dick and these cookies though…”
“You’re wild! I’m glad you liked them though. I could use a win after the hell that was today,” I said, leaning back and resting my head on the back of the couch. Jami never showed up so I ended up having to close the patisserie this evening. I called her home and cell phone numbers, but both were out of service. I drove past her place when I went to make the bank drop, but there were no lights on in her apartment and no one answered when I knocked on the door. I’d hoped like hell there was nothing wrong with her, but this erratic behavior couldn’t be tolerated anymore.
“What happened today?” Patricia asked.
I brought her up to speed about everything that had been going on with Jami and her odd behavior over the past few weeks. She listened, letting me get everything out before asking a few questions. Patricia offered keen insights about being in charge and having to make tough decisions. I loved hearing her speak about her job, her passion for helping kids was evident as she spoke about some of the obstacles she’d had to overcome to obtain her current position. Plus it was like another one of the bricks of that wall she had up was falling tonight.
“So you think I should just act like she no longer works here and find someone to fill in? What if she shows back up?”
“Not your responsibility, Damon. She went AWOL. No one has been able to get in contact with her and at this point? She’s a liability. I know you care about her wellbeing and I absolutely see no harm in you wanting to be sure that she is okay, but you also have to think about your business. You don’t want to overextend…what’s his name, again…Todd?”
“Ty,” I replied, chuckling.
“You know I’m bad with names. But yes, you don’t want Ty to feel like he’s being taken advantage of and eventually become resentful of you and Sweet Thang. It sounds like he’s a powerful asset and you don’t need to continually catch Ls unnecessarily,” she finished up.
“I get that. It just seems…harsh, you know? Like I didn’t even give her a chance to get better before tossing her aside.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you’d already spoken to her about these issues?”
“Well yeah, but it wasn’t like a formal, sit down or anything. Just a chat,” I said.
“But she was informed of her responsibilities and the consequences associated with not performing them in a satisfactory manner?”
I shrugged. I hated this part of it all, honestly. It was one of the main reasons I hated that Dor and Reem refused to not be silent partners. I didn’t want to deal with human resources, but that all came along with being an entrepreneur. I had to get over my complex of always being mister nice guy and start making some tough decisions. I’d relied on my parents and siblings to bail me out far too often and it was time to boss up.
“It isn’t easy,” Patricia said, “ Believe me…I’ve been here and it sucks, having to fire someone that you actually care about. But the bottom line is that she is harmful to your livelihood. So you have to ask yourself, how much are you willing to put yourself at risk just to ensure that someone has the opportunity to keep screwing you over?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
Patricia smiled smugly, “Yeah, I’m usually right at least ninety-nine percent of the time?”
“And the other one percent?”
“I’m on the way to being right, just haven’t fully gotten there,” she smirked.
Tired of talking about the nonsense with Jami, I picked Patricia up and took her back to my bedroom. We spent the rest of the night in various positions, some I’d never even thought to try before, but were pleasantly surprised by. The rest of the night was both exhilarating and exhausting…and it was also the first night I’d succeeded in getting Patricia to stay the whole night.
***
Another few weeks passed without us hearing a word from Jami. I reached out to a buddy of mine from high school that ran a staffing agency and we’d gotten a temp to come in and cover her shifts. So far this new woman was working out fantastically and I had hoped to extend a permanent offer to her soon. I was just waiting for the results of her background check to come back to make sure we were in the clear.
After doing some detective work, Ty found out a rather surprising fact about Jami that still had my head spinning. Apparently she had an on again, off again boyfriend who stayed in and out of jail. When he was in jail, her life was going fine, but when he was out? Her life was in shambles. The erratic behavior that Ty had mentioned was a direct effect of her relapsing, back to doing oxy with ol boy. The last anyone had seen of her, she was headed west—the boyfriend allegedly had a job waiting for him in Arizona and she was hot on his heels.
I’d also managed to find another assistant pastry chef, so between her, Ty, and myself we were cranking out all of the breakfast pastries, breads, and muffins in record time, leaving less of a stressful turnaround time for the rest of the sweet treats that we peddled in the afternoons and evenings. The new pastry chef, Kia, was a perfect fit into our company culture, too. Ty and I went back and forth talking shit all morning as we prepped and she jumped right on in on day one. It made me feel good to know she was that comfortable with us immediately. I wanted the culture of Sweet Thang to be grounded in comfort and lighthearted and so far so good.
I was in my office balancing my books when Ty peeked in saying there was a woman up front asking for me. I walked into the front of the house to see an unfamiliar woman chatting it up with our new cashier, Denise. I walked over and introduced myself.
“Dame Patterson, you requested to see me?” I said, extending a hand.
She met my hand with a firm grip, pumping it once, “Yes, Damon, we’ve spoken before, but I figured I’d come by in person to pin you down.”
As soon as I heard her voice, I smiled, shaking my head.
“Alisha, I promise I have not been avoiding you. It’s just been kind of crazy around here lately. I know I was hesitant about doing the profile initially, but I think I’m going to do it.”
“Damn!” she said, snapping her fingers, “You capitulated pretty quickly. I came all prepared with a song and dance about the necessity of this piece for the culture. I had a whole monologue about the important of the Black man entrepreneur within our society and the hashtag black boy joy of being a man who lives outside of conventional or societal norms and you were already in.”
We both laughed after her grand declaration and I invited her back to the office so we could talk through the particulars. I needed to know more about how she was crafting this profile—what she needed access to, who she’d want to talk to, and how soon I could expect for it to be out in the world for public consumption. I knew that it was an amazing opportunity for free publicity for Sweet Thang; so saying yes was a foregone conclusion. I had to be comfortable, however, with how I was going to be portrayed. After speaking with Alisha for more than an hour about her vision for the piece, I was left completely satisfied with the fact that this collaboration would work out perfectly.
After Alisha left, I headed out myself, leaving Ty and Denise to close up shop. In addition to my standing date dinner date with Dorian, Reema, and DJ, I’d also added Danny and Leila into my rotation. Look…I could make all the desserts in the world, but my cooking left a lot to be desired. I had to rely on my sisters in law for home cooked meals whenever they were willing to let me come by. The life of a bachelor…
I pulled up to Danny and Leila’s to see the boys outside playing basketball in the driveway. In addition to JR, Danny and Lei had four more kids. I stopped by their house less frequently because while I loved every single one of my nieces and nephews, their place was a constant hubbub of activity with no quiet moments to be found. I don’t know how they survived, honestly. They must have loved it, however because every time I turned around Leila had another bun in the oven. Though, that could also be the result of my brother loving the act of making those babies a little too much. I exited the car, walking straight through the kids’ game and stripping the ball from JR mid dribble. Immediately he and another kid that I recognized as Patricia’s son came over to try and get steal the ball back. A little fancy footwork and quick ball handling, gave me a clear path to the hoop, where I stuffed it while yelling, “In y’alls face!”
“Nobody likes a showoff, Uncle Dame,” my niece Tatianna said from the sidelines where she sat in a huge pile of dirt, ruining the dress that I was sure Leila forced her into. Tati was a tomboy to the fullest, preferring tree climbing and playing rough and tumble with her brothers to being the delicate pinnacle of femininity that her mother seemed hell bent on turning her into. That’s the hazard of growing up in a house full of boys, I guess. I ruffled her hair as I passed.
“Nobody likes a know-it-all, either, Lil Bit.”
Danny was barbecuing tonight, so instead of going into the house I walked straight into the backyard where he stood over the grill with an amused look on his face.
“You see ya stepson out there?” Daniel teased.
“Chill,” I said, looking back over my shoulder making sure no one heard him and his nonsense, “Your brother talks too much, man. Ain’t nobody tell him to tell you my business?”
“Wait…what are you talking about? You just told your own business. Remember the night of the opening, talmbout she finna be your wife. You actually shot the J?”
Ah shit…I just assumed that Dorian had told him that Patricia and I were seeing each other, completely forgetting about what I’d told him and Nico the first night we met. I lifted a hand to scratch my head, trying to think of a way to clean up my reaction and coming up short as a sheepish grin spread across my face.
“Nothing like that, man. We just…coolin’.”
“You fucked?”
“Yoooo, chill. We are not having this discussion right now. What the hell is going on on this grill, though? Why you out here frontin’ like you can really que?”
“Negro please. You know I’m the Grill Master.”
We went back and forth talking shit while he grilled and then once everything was done, rounded up the tribe and sat down at their outdoor table to grub. Leila’s line sisters were over tonight as well so it was a full house between them, me, Danny, Lei, their kids, and PJ. I was kinda surprised to see him over here as Patricia hadn’t indicated he’d be hanging out with my fam tonight. Not that she had to run anything by me, after all these kids knew each other before I even knew she existed, but I just found it curious that she hadn’t mentioned anything.
As we sat down, I wound up next to PJ who was a nonstop chatterbox. That boy talked about everything from the girl he had a crush on to the fact that his mom went out to dinner with an old friend tonight and luckily allowed him to come hang out with JR and crew instead of being stuck at home with his normal old neighbor who watched him whenever his mother went out. He was just being a kid, speaking freely without a filter, but a part of me was getting a little upset. Not that I had any claims on Patricia—her doing, certainly not mine. And she wasn’t duty bound to inform me of every move in her life, but this information from her son had me feeling a bit off center. I thought our little groove we had going was progressing nicely and hoped I wasn’t about to get my face broken messing around with her.
I pulled out my phone to shoot Patricia a text.
We still on for tonight?
My phone pinged instantly. I’d barely hit send before her reply came back.
Absolutely. And as always, I need you buck nekkid, ready for me to climb aboard. – Fine Ass Patricia
You got it, I replied, with a smirk on my face. Whatever old friend she was out with couldn’t have been anybody important, otherwise she wouldn’t have responded to me so quickly.