Authors: Cheris Hodges

Betting On Love (31 page)

BOOK: Betting On Love

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NFL superstar Maurice Goings meets his match in

Let's Get It On

Available now wherever books are sold.

CHAPTER 1

Nine years ago:

Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, North Carolina

Kenya Taylor didn't like surprises, yet she was in for a big one as she walked across the lush green campus of Johnson C. Smith University. Despite the fact that it was late October, the sun beamed brightly, and the temperature had soared to around seventy degrees. She was tempted to pull off her soft leather jacket. But knowing her luck, it would be thirty-five degrees tomorrow, and then she'd be sick with the flu.

With her work-study check in her pocket and another A plus in her political science class, Kenya was ready to celebrate with her boyfriend, Maurice Goings. The high-school sweethearts had come to college together and beat the odds of most couples like them. They were still together. Most of the others had broken up a few months after arriving on campus. Not Maurice and Kenya.

At least, not yet.

She approached his dorm room, with a smile on her lips. Thoughts of the night they'd spent together simply holding each other made her happy, though moments like that were beginning to happen less frequently. She understood he had other things to do and didn't make a big fuss about it.

Maurice was a star football player, and every girl on campus wanted him, but Kenya trusted him and was confident that their love could withstand any temptation. Without knocking, as she'd done on several other occasions, Kenya walked into his dorm room.

“Baby,” she said. Then the rest of her words froze in her mouth. The sight before her was indescribable. Maurice wasn't doing this to her. This was a nightmare.

“Oh, yeah, big daddy,” Lauryn Michaels screamed as she rode Maurice as if he were a prized stallion.

Grasping the wall, Kenya swallowed the bitter bile rushing up her throat and settling in her mouth. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes. All she wanted to do was slip out of the room and forget what she'd seen. Holding on to the edge of the wall, she spun around to leave the room, but as she made her exit, she knocked over a stack of Maurice's books. The couple turned and looked toward the door. As tempted as she was to pounce on them, she didn't.

“How could you do this to me?” she said, shaking her head.

Maurice and Lauryn untangled their bodies, and he rose from the bed, stumbling to cover his nakedness.

“I didn't mean for you to find out like this, Kenya,” he said as he crossed over to her. Kenya shrank away from him as he reached out to touch her arm.

“You, you ...” Words failed Kenya as she looked at the smirk on Lauryn's face. “She doesn't care about you! She doesn't even know you! It's funny, now that you have NFL scouts looking at you, every skank on campus wants to latch on to you, and you're too blind to even see it.”

Maurice ran his hand over his face. “Kenya, I don't know how to tell you this, but I love Lauryn, and I want to be with her. I'm glad it's out in the open, because this sneaking around hasn't been fair to you, me, or her.”

“You love her? How can you even ...” With closed fists, Kenya pounded his sculpted chest, hoping to reach his heart and break it as he'd broken hers.

“Don't do this,” he said as he grabbed her wrists. “You're making a fool of yourself. People grow apart, babe, and that's what happened with us. What we had was high school andâ”

“He needed a real woman, not a little, fat girl,” Lauryn called out from the bed. “He has me, and you're dismissed.”

Maurice turned to Lauryn. “Stay out of this,” he said.

Kenya stepped away from him. “You know what? You two can have each other. I hope you're happy with your choice, Mo.”

Storming out of the room, Kenya refused to give either of them the satisfaction of seeing her tears. She'd only loved Maurice Goings since she was a freshman in high school. She'd only helped him study for exams that he had to pass so that he would be eligible to play for the Golden Bulls' football team. She'd only given him her heart and her virginity, and all she'd gotten in return was the ultimate betrayal.

Sorrow, anger, hurt, and disappointment flowed through her body like the blood in her veins.
Grown apart? Had we grown apart when I wrote your damned research paper? Had we grown apart when I stayed up all night, helping you grasp the concepts of calculus?
she thought bitterly.

Kenya rushed into her dorm room and flung herself across the bed. Her roommate and best friend, Imani, looked up from her computer.

“What's wrong,
chica?
” Imani asked, noticing her friend's tears.

“Nothing.”

“What are you crying about? Failed a quiz?” She laughed, then returned to typing, expecting a quirky comeback from her roommate.

“Leave me alone.” Kenya buried her face in her pillow.

Rising to her feet, Imani crossed over to her friend and sat on the edge of the bed. “Kenya, all jokes aside, what's going on? Did something serious happen?”

Kenya focused her teary-eyed gaze on Imani. “Remember when we met freshman year and I told you my boyfriend and I came here together and that we were so in love? I said that we'd probably walk down the aisle to get our degrees and then get married.”

Imani nodded. “And I said it wouldn't last past second semester, and look, we're about to graduate, and you two are still together. That wedding is probably going to happen soon.”

Kenya shook her head. “Never. It's not going to happen.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“What?”

Sniffing and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Kenya exhaled loudly. “Maurice and I broke up because he's sticking it to that slut Lauryn Michaels.”

Imani shook her head and pulled Kenya into a sisterly embrace. “Girl, forget him. You can do so much better than a low-down cheating dog. And if he's sleeping with Lauryn, he'll be in the clinic soon. There aren't too many guys on campus who haven't had the pleasure of her company. If he has a car and money to spend, you can guess who was in love with him.”

“But I still love Mo. It's not like I can turn off what I feel for him because he was in bed with
her.
I wish it worked that way. And as wrong as it is, I want to rip the weave right out of that girl's head. Instead, I just stood there, fighting back the tears.”

Imani raised her eyebrows, because Kenya wasn't violent. She was always the one who helped her avoid conflict. “Don't do anything crazy. The last thing you need is to get suspended from school at this late juncture.”

Kenya groaned loudly. “Everybody's going to know. You know how this campus is. This story is going to grow into something else before it's all said and done.”

Imani nodded. “You two did have celebrity status. You were like Will and Jada, Denzel and Pauletta, Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee.”

Kenya glared at her. “Aren't you supposed to be comforting me?”

“Hey, I'm just being honest. If the rumors about Lauryn are true, this is going to be all over campus before dinner. She has a mouth like a motor, and if she can make herself look good, then she's going to spread the rumor. You can do better than Maurice, though. He walks around like his crap doesn't stink. Forget him.”

Kenya turned away from her friend. “I wish it were that easy.”

Imani shook her head and returned to her computer. “It's a shame he doesn't feel the same way. Seems like he's already forgotten you.”

Hugging her pillow and leaning against the wall, Kenya closed her eyes and cried silently.

Maurice sat on the edge of his bed, his head buried in his hands and his heart feeling as heavy as a lead brick. Though he'd wanted to end things with Kenya, he hadn't wanted to hurt her. Not after all she'd done for him. Before anything had ever happened romantically between them, Kenya had been his friend. Now she hated him; her eyes had told him that when she'd left the room. She had every right to, though.

“Baby,” Lauryn said as she wrapped herself around his torso, “you can't be sitting here thinking about
her
when I'm willing and waiting to do anything you want. I do believe we were in the middle of something before we were so rudely interrupted.”

He pushed her away. “I didn't want things to turn out this way,” Maurice said, rising to his feet and fishing his boxers out of their pile of discarded clothing. “I've got to find her and make things right.”

Lauryn frowned, then stood. “I know she was special to you, but what about me?” She ran her hand down the length of her sculpted body. Her years of cheerleading had given her a figure that was usually reserved for exotic dancers and adult entertainers. She had no qualms about using her perky breasts, small waist, and round bottom to get what she wanted. Right now, she wanted to keep Maurice in this room, and not because she desired him or even wanted to have sex with him. She just wanted to make sure she was in control of him.

So what if he and Kenya had grown up together and were high school sweethearts? This was college, and she wanted Maurice for herself. Why wouldn't any woman want him? He was the star of the Johnson C. Smith football team, and he had NFL written all over his awesome body.

Lauryn wouldn't call herself a gold digger, but she knew a golden opportunity when she saw one. Maurice was her ticket to the good life, and chubby Kenya wasn't going to stand in her way. She couldn't have planned the scene that had happened between them any better herself. Knowing Kenya the way she did, Lauryn knew there was no way she'd take Maurice back. Kenya was one of those “moral majority” chicks or a missionary girl, as Lauryn called it. Obviously, Kenya hadn't been taking care of home, and that was why it had been so easy to entice Maurice and make him hers. When the NFL money started rolling in, she was going to be the one on the receiving end of it, not Kenya.

She had to stop him from going to find Kenya. Leaping into action, Lauryn grabbed Maurice and pushed him down on the bed. Next, she took his manhood into her mouth and tried to suck him until all thoughts of Kenya disappeared from his mind. At first, he tried to push her away, but it didn't take long for Maurice to succumb to the pleasure of her oral sex.

Kenya who?
she thought as Maurice moaned in pleasure.

The next morning, Kenya wanted to skip class, but she'd worked too hard to let Maurice and his wayward penis threaten her future.

However, the moment she walked out of her dormitory, she realized that the story of her twisted triangle had not only spread across campus, but it had a life of its own. When she walked by a group of cheerleaders, she heard one of them whisper, “I heard she was in the hospital last night because she slit her wrists.”

Ignore them,
she thought as she trudged up the hill.

As she passed a group of football players, guys that she knew because of Maurice, she could see laughter in their eyes.

“Damn,” one of them called out. “You can cry on my shoulder, boo.”

“Fighting the urge to flip him the bird, Kenya continued on and prayed she could make it to the communication arts building without hearing anything else. But as soon as she opened the door to the building, Yvette Mason, the editor of the student paper, cornered her.

“Kenya, my God! I didn't expect to see you today. Are you all right? Will you be suspended? You're the best writer that we have on staff, and we have deadlines coming up. Have you turned in your articles?”

Kenya held her hand up. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Yvette looked around as if she was making sure there were no eavesdroppers around. “Rumor has it that you pulled a knife on Lauryn Michaels after you caught her and Maurice in bed together.”

“Get out of my face with that nonsense,” Kenya snapped.

“Kenya, I don't want to get all up in your business, but I have a responsibility to the paper, and so do you. If you're going to be suspended or even arrested, we have to get your articles.”

Exhaling loudly, Kenya took two steps closer to Yvette. “I didn't pull a knife on anyone, I didn't try to kill myself, and I don't give a damn about Lauryn or Maurice. Now, I'm going to class. As far as my articles go, you'll have them when they are due.”

As Kenya turned on her heels to head down to the basement, she saw Maurice walking into the building. She wanted to slap him, push him down the stairs, or break his neck, anything to make him feel the pain that she was feeling inside.

“Kenya, I-I ...”

“Save it,” she barked. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“We need to talk.”

“Go to hell,” she replied as she descended the stairs.

BOOK: Betting On Love

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