Friends and Lovers (42 page)

“That shit hurt.”

I laughed. “Oooops, upside your head.”

“That’s all right, I’ll getcha back.”

“Try me.”

“Is that a dare?”

He was about to get his groove on, but I stopped him.

“I want you in me. Come hold me.”

My body became too limp to do me any good. Tyrel undressed, then eased his naked body into the bed. My right hand was on my breasts. Had to make sure my heart was beating. Yep. I was still alive.

I tried to hold him, but I was still twinging, experiencing subtle aftershocks of enjoyment. Damn. And that was just the foreplay. Two orgasms and he hadn’t even broken the skin.

“Shelby, why’re you giggling?”

“Why you think?”

My hand took a tour down his chest and between his legs. Held on to a memory.

He said, “You sure?”

“Yes, yes.” I whisper-moaned. “But hold on a second.”

I reached over to my jacket and pulled out a condom. Didn’t bother to check which one. When I’d run back into the Color of Comedy, I jetted into the crowded men’s room, surprised a few brothers who were tinkling at the urinals when I tapped them on the shoulder and
asked for change for a one-dollar bill, bought four condoms, just in case we ran out of words. One regular, one ribbed, one cherry flavored, one with kinky-kinky French ticklish things that glowed in the dark.

After I helped him roll on the latex poppa-stoppa, he put me back on my stomach, and a wicked smile came over my face. Another memory. We used to wake up like that in the morning. Most of the time I hated the a.m., but it wasn’t so bad when I met the break of day with him sleeping behind me.

With high hopes, I got on my knees, put my hands against the front of the bed. Felt him wiggling at my door. Then I was him and he was me. When his erection slid inside me, I shivered and made a sound like a newborn taking its first breath. Started gulping for air when he rubbed my butt and moved in and out with Mozart rhythms. Damn near pulled the headboard off when it became a slow, ambitious groove. We took the show on the road, to the floor, standing, then ended up on the other bed when I needed to feel a little more pressure.

I loved the way he listened to my body, how his movements complemented mine. It didn’t feel like I had to race and try to find my satisfaction before he found his.

There was another long, low groan, but that time I couldn’t tell if it was him or me. I was frenzied and reached down and pulled the condom off, took this to another level. Made my poppa-stoppa pills and diaphragm work O.T.

I wanted him to experience all I had to give. Wanted him to feel what my body had to say, listen to it say how much I’d missed him. Then I reached to the nightstand and turned on the light. Wanted him to see me, and I had to see him. Tyrel massaged my sweaty breasts, then licked his fingers. He moaned.

I sucked his neck. “You so nasty.”

“You were a good teacher.”

We were in the middle of the dance to end all dances, and I took his hand, sucked each finger, one by one. “You love me?” His words were smooth as he exquisitely
pulled out, then slowly eased his life back inside mine. Out. In. Again. Slow. Fast. Again. Slow.

“Yeah,” I mumbled with a giggling moan. “Hell, yeah.”

I forced Tyrel back down on the bed and sat on top of him. “I want to see your face when you come.”

My quick and sassy moves chased him into a new gratification. I sexy-smiled when he tensed up, wailed like he was made of thunder and lightning, then firmed his grip on me. His face was so damn serious. He made a bunch of erotic noises for a long time. Growled like he was trying to break free from the spanking I was putting on him. Forced his hips upward. The stronger his expression, the harder I threw down. I was gonna turn him every which-a-way but loose. He reached at me, but I shoved his butt back down and held his wrists like I was the warden of this prison. Then I felt him jerking inside me.

“Look at me, Tyrel, I want to see you, baby.”

When the buck in his hips eased up, I turned mine back on and rode my lover until I matched what he had just done. It wasn’t as big an explosion as my last one, but it was strong enough to bring the shudders back to life. And I rode that wave, moved with that ripple of sensations until it was all gone.

I collapsed on top of him. We shared a few soft laughs while I wrote my name in the sweat and hairs on his chest.

I murmured, “Told you I wanted to talk.”

He sounded hoarse, whipped. “I noticed.”

“You hear me?”

“Every word.”

Nothing in my life had ever felt so right. Where I was right now made me feel like I was the greatest gift to civilization. I gave up another long kiss. Some conversation.

After I went to the bathroom and soaped up some warm towels, I cleaned us, then we got in the other bed. Turned off the light and snuggled. Sleep was on me before I stopped sweating.

A few minutes later, Tyrel woke me up again.

* * *

The stupid phone rang before five in the a.m. Damn I hated that noise. Made me want to hurt somebody. I liked to gradually wake up, not be jarred back into somebody else’s reality. If that phone was an alarm clock, I would’ve slammed it into the wall. It was a whole hour before the wake-up call was due to roll in. Since I was the closest, and Tyrel was KO’d, I bitched, moaned, rolled over, and snatched the receiver off the hook before the next ring.

I looked at Tyrel. Still asleep. Still here. I smiled, pulled my hair from my face, tried to sound bright eyed and bushy tailed, but all I managed was a coarse, “Morning.”

Nobody said anything.

Maybe my voice scared them. I cleared my throat, “Yes?”

The fool hung up.

That was when I held the phone and frowned at Tyrel. My body felt like lead, but my mind was waking up. Maybe that was Tyrel’s girlfriend. Who else would call him, at a hotel, this early in the morning, then hang up when I answered? Kind of made me wonder who else knew he was back in town and had a hotel room.

I’d asked him if he was single. He said he was available. But that didn’t mean he was available for me. I know how some brothers are. They woo, then they walk. I had lied to him when telling the truth should’ve been easy. Why shouldn’t he return the favor? A little late-night sex was always the best revenge.

Regardless, I’d do last night over and over again. I gazed at him for a while, leaned over and kissed his dimple, then held the phone across my chest and lay back. My body ached. I was sore from head to toe. Throbbing from running and Tyrel. If I ever have sex with him again, I’m popping a handful of ibuprofen first.

Just when I was about to relax, I saw something glowing on top of the covers. I smiled and kicked the covers, made it flip off the bed onto the carpet.

Some more of that sleepy feeling rushed in. Felt myself fading. So tired I couldn’t remember why I was holding the stupid phone. I closed my eyes and held the receiver to my chest.

I woke and jumped to a loud irritating sound. The noise was in my ear. The oscillating frequencies and high-pitched noises the damn phone made when it had been left off the hook.

Shelby jumped up and looked around. Her eyes were wild and on fire, like she didn’t have any idea where she was. The phone dropped from her hand and rolled to the floor.

She put a hand across her breasts, leaned over, and scrambled to pick it up; I gripped her thigh to keep her from slipping out of the bed headfirst. She grabbed the phone, found her balance, slammed it down on the hook, then wiggled close to me.

“Were you on the phone?”

She put her head on my chest and mumbled something. The mumbles changed to snores and twitches. She was already asleep.

The phone rang again.

Shelby’s arm went straight up in the air, “Tyrel, phone.”

We changed sides of the bed and I answered, “Hello.”

“Did you kidnap Shelby?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why the hell didn’t you call somebody? I’ve got enough shit to worry about.”

“Sorry, Debra. We were going to get back before you got up.”

“For all I knew, you could’ve been in an accident.”

“You doing okay?”

“I am now. I expect absentminded crap from Shelby, but not from you, Tyrel.”

“You’re right. It’s not even five o’clock. What’re you doing up so early?”

“Baby was kicking, and I had to pee.” She yawned.

“You enjoy yourself last night?”

“Yeah. It was nice.”

“Good. Shelby asleep?”

I asked Shelby, “You sleep?”

Shelby kept her head under the pillow and reached for the phone. Whatever she said was muffled, she giggled, then handed me the phone and wrapped herself around me.

Debra sounded relieved. She said, “Alejandria is taking me to the funeral home later.”

“Everything taken care of?”

“Yeah. The programs look nice. What you wrote is excellent. I’m going to go sit a little while with Leonard. By myself. I need to make my peace with him.”

I said, “Okay.”

She held onto the phone and sighed.

“Debra?”

She sighed. “I was so mad at Leonard last night. I kept going to the door every time I thought I heard a car pulling up.”

I knew what she meant. Understood how she felt.

Debra said, “Bobby should still be here. He’s fixing the backdoor before it drives me crazy. Everybody else in the family should be here around noon. Be on time.”

“We’ll be on time.”

“Love you, Tyrel Anthony Williams.” Debra yawned. “Please, take care of my girl.”

“Love you too.”

“I’m serious.”

“I will.”

“Be careful out there, okay?”

Debra hung up. She didn’t know where we were until she called. So Shelby was on the phone, but she wasn’t talking to Debra. I knew Shelby’s situation before I
brought her here. I thought I could work some magic. Use my wand and cast a spell.

Maybe she was making her last rounds as a single woman, getting her groove on, draining the lust out of her system before she made up with Richard and jumped the broom. Saying her good-byes in a freaky kind of way.

She said she loved me. Those three words and six dollars would get me a fresh bean pie on Imperial. I had to stick with what was real. She said she loved me before, and that didn’t stop her from lying and leaving me then.

It was too early to be this early.

When the alarm clock buzzed, I did a Jackie Chan move and karate-chopped it until it shut up. The curtains were open. Sunrise was waking up the Saturn dealership, the cemetery on Slauson, and Pepperdine University. My hair and skin smelled like sweat, a blend of my Bijan and Tyrel’s Giorgio body lotion. I groaned and cursed the sleep off me, licked around the insides of my mouth and tasted how stale and chalky turkey and wine could get overnight.

I closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them up again, the sun was brighter and inside the room. I wiped my mouth and focused on the digital clock radio—8:14. Two hours had flown by in a wink and a slobber. Now I know how Rip Van Winkle must’ve felt. I tugged the heavy cover and blanket back up to my neck, spooned up to Tyrel, rubbed my breasts on his warm skin, started kissing him, ran my fingertips over his body. It was time to wake him so we could hit the road. I played with the hairs on his chest. He pulled me closer and kissed my lips.

Tyrel washed me and rubbed my shoulders while we showered. I told him my legs were sore; he lay me on the bed and massaged the pain while I moaned and yawned. I didn’t have to touch my head to know my hair was tangled. There was nothing on the dresser but hotel brochures, a room service menu, and most of our wrinkled clothes.

I asked, “You have a comb or a brush?”

“Nope.” Tyrel yawned. “Everything’s at the house.”

“Damn.” I pushed myself up on my hands and tried to peep in the dresser mirror. “I don’t have a damn thing to comb my hair with or makeup or lotion or nothing. We’re both tore-up from the floor up.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“You look broke-down too. We gonna walk out of here looking like two rusty, crusty, nappy-headed, dried-up African-Americans.”

“But we’ll be smiling. At least I will.”

“I will too. Hell, I bet I won’t be able to stop smiling all day. Glowing, crying, giggling. Emotions gonna be all over the place. Leonard and Debra’s folks are gonna think I’m crazy.”

“So?”

“Everybody is gonna look at us and know.”

“Know what?”

“Know.”

“Shamefaced?”

“No.” I blushed and put my hands over my face. “Well, maybe just a little.”

Agony and ecstasy lived in me while Tyrel kneaded my calves. I still felt him within me. His imprint was definitely there.

Tyrel said, “You know what I miss the most?”

“What?”

“Us being friends. I don’t know how good of a friend I was to you, but you were a great friend to me. Leonard was my boy, but you were my best friend in a different kind of way. I’ve missed that. Maybe that’s what makes you so special to me.”

“Maybe that’s why I can’t forget you, either. I wonder
what things would be like now between us if we—I mean, if I hadn’t left. If I hadn’t done what I did.”

“Oh, you’d probably hate me by now.”

“Probably.” I laughed through my yawn. I was beat and tired as hell. My body was getting heavier by the second, but I wasn’t so exhausted that sleep and rest couldn’t wait another day.

The funeral is day after tomorrow, I thought.

Tyrel rubbed my other leg. I arched my back and twisted my neck from side to side. He hadn’t said a word about my jacked-up neck. Had kissed all over what Richard the Rummager had left behind. I bit my dried-up lip and wondered what would happen when I went back home to San Diego.

I was surprised at the nothing I felt for Richard. No guilt for sleeping with Tyrel. No remorse from telling Richard off and kicking him to the curb. No regrets for waking with Tyrel and having a quickie before we hit the shower this morning. And if I wasn’t so worn out, I’d try to love him again before we left. Not because of lustful hormones, but because I didn’t know what kinda reality would exist between us when we raised up out of here. Wanted to seize the moment and make it last.