“I love the fuck out of you. You know that?” I asked as I leaned in to nip at her neck.
She lifted her head, fixing her drowsy eyes on my face. “I love you, too. I promise I do. I love you so much!” she whimpered before kissing me, her ride now a slow, torturously good grind.
I returned the kiss, my hands on her back, my nut threatening to rip through me at any moment. “Baby, I’m about to bust and I don’t think I can hold it!”
“Don’t hold it. Give it to me. I want every fucking drop,” she leaned in and said into my ear.
One
Ford
Now…
“Hello?” My eyes were focused on the building before me as I answered my phone.
“You got me on speaker?” Rapp, my teammate and fellow lineman, asked.
“Yeah, my phone is connected to my car. Why?”
“You alone?”
“It’s a good thing I am because you asking all the wrong questions.”
“My bad. Look, Yamille’s cousin wants you to call her.”
I frowned. “Who the fuck is Yamille?”
“Yamille! My girl!”
“Yamille…Yamille,” I mumbled. “The chick with the big ass and little thighs?”
“Fuck you, Ford,” he grunted.
“I’m being serious! You ain’t noticed her ass-to-thigh ratio is off? Like, waaaaay off?”
“Fuck you again.”
“Fuck me?!”
“Again.”
I laughed. “Yo, didn’t you just start seeing her like last week and she’s already your girl? Man, you are a serial monogamist. One good date and you all in! I thought you were saving yourself for Bianca Bambina.”
“Look, man…you want her number or not?”
“It depends. Do the cousin’s ass and thighs match?”
Click.
He hung up, and I howled laughing. Then I sent him a text message: Yeah, I want the number. I’m between women right now. I swear you and Jones are sensitive as hell.
I omitted the fact that I understood Jones’ sensitivity. Dude had a baddie for a wife.
You had one, too, I thought as Rapp’s response came through in the form of a middle finger emoji, followed by the phone number.
I shook that thought off as I opened the door to my Silverado and climbed out onto the parking lot. Sighing, I dragged a hand down my face, preparing myself for the feelings that assaulted me every time I came here to visit my son. Feelings, thoughts, regrets. I didn’t want the divorce. Yeah, I said I wanted it, but I didn’t mean that shit and Krystle, my ex-wife, knew it. Yet, she filed the papers anyway, and I didn’t fight it. I mean, I tried to reason with her, tried to get her to reconsider, but when she made it clear that she was absolutely done with our marriage, with me, I said fuck it and gave in, didn’t fight her on anything. Hell, I didn’t even get a lawyer. I just signed the damn papers and that was it. The love of my life was gone. The best thing that’d ever happened to me was over, and it was my own damn fault.
Mostly.
I think.
Shit.
It was early on a Saturday afternoon, my regular weekly visitation day with LaDarius. She had primary custody of him during the season since I worked so much. I kept him most of the off-season. She was good about being available so I could visit him, and I appreciated her for that. Then again, Krystle was never one to be unreasonable…until she was.
I crossed the parking lot, passing her little white BMW as I approached the front doors of the building, entering and heading straight for the elevator. Krystle lived in a condo on the fourth floor. I still lived in the apartment we moved into when I was first traded from the Predators to the Sires. Damn, we had some good times in that apartment.
Real good.
“Were you going to knock?”
I lifted my eyes from the carpeted floor outside her home to her face. I didn’t even remember exiting the elevator and walking to her door.
“I didn’t knock?” I asked absently.
“No, you didn’t. Uh…are you okay, Ford?” she asked, her initial annoyance seeming to melt away, leaving concern in its wake.
The real answer? No. Coming here, seeing her and her beauty, fucked with my head, made me wish for something I needed but would never have again. I felt hopeless and more than a little lost when I was forced to confront this part of my life.
Instead of sharing any of that, I said, “I’m good.”
She gave me a look that told me she knew I was lying before inviting me inside her place. Everything was just as neat as it always was. She had these huge-ass plants. She’d always loved plants…
My eyes fell to her tiny bare feet before shooting back up to her pretty face. “You been a’ight? I mean, you feeling okay?” I queried.
“I’m fine,” she replied, and then silence.
Agonizing silence.
“Uh…LaDarius in his room?” I inquired, needing to put some space between the two of us.
She nodded, shoving her hands into the hip pockets of her tight jeans, the chocolate skin of her tiny waist exposed in the short sweatshirt she wore. “Yep. He’s in there waiting for you.”
Swallowing, I replied, “Cool, I’ma head on back there then.”
“Okay,” she said to my back as I walked toward his bedroom.
Once inside, I smiled. “Hey, man! Daddy is so glad to see you!”
My boy turned his head and started doing this nodding thing he did when he was excited as I opened the door to his crib, placing my hand on the bottom of the entrance. Instantly, he climbed off a branch and slowly made his way up my arm to my shoulder.
“You missed me, huh?” I asked as I reached up and rubbed his back. “I missed you, too. I got you something.”
Me and my guy made it over to the easy chair that sat in his room before I pulled the grapes from my pocket and laid them on the floor. Dude jetted down my body to get his snack. Fruit was like candy to iguanas, and he didn’t get to eat it often. Krystle was strict about that, so I knew this was a special treat for him.
I watched him eat and laughed when he climbed up my leg, stopping on my thigh so that I could pet him. So, I did.
LaDarius was a gift for Krystle, who was an animal lover like me. That was one of the things that made us compatible. Anyway, I got him for her like a month or so before we separated. He was a tiny something back then. Now, he was damn near two feet long counting his tail.
I looked up at the huge glass enclosure Krystle had recently bought him, the heat lamps, the vegetation. My boy was living in style!
Me and him kicked it for thirty minutes before those feelings started to overwhelm me, feelings of wanting to stay, of wanting us to be a family again. Then I stood, put my son back in his little condo, and took a deep breath before leaving him, hoping Krystle would be in her bedroom so I could yell goodbye and sprint up out of there without seeing her again.
No such luck.
She was sitting in the living room, eyes glued to her cell phone.
“A’ight. I’m out. Thanks for letting me see him. He looks good,” I said.
Her eyes popped up to meet mine—almond-shaped, dark, thick lashes lifting and dropping as she blinked. “He does! I don’t give him fruit, so he stays pretty healthy.” She ended that statement with a smirk, adding, “What was it this time? Grapes or strawberries?”