The Countdown to Thirty (22 page)

So I took another sip.

He got closer to me and rested his arm across my stomach. He
looked me in the eyes and asked the question I hated being asked simply because
the answer wasn’t simple, “So why are you single? Why hasn’t anybody scooped
you up yet?”

Looking up at him as I lay on my back I studied his thick
eyebrows and took in his scent. It was the same spicy cinnamon scent I smelled
the day at CVS. He smelled good,
why hadn’t anybody scooped him up yet?

“That’s a whole nother sitchenario.” I replied giggling
before I corrected myself, “I mean situation. I mean scenario. Well you know
what I mean.” I laughed again fully aware that the wine had taken over my
system.

 He chuckled, “Is it now? Why don’t you tell me about it.
When I look at you sometimes I see so much strength in you, but I also see
fear. What are you so afraid of?”

Okay, even thoguh I was buzzed I realized he was going into
dangerous territory now. If I revealed that I was afraid of relationships and
love I’d have to tell him why and that meant exposing my past with Lamont. I’ve
never talked about Lamont to a man. And with everything going on in the media
about him there couldn’tve been a worse time. How do I explain to a man that
the love of my life loved me so little he’d be willing to kill me? It wasn’t
appealing at all or romantic, it was just embarassing.

“Tell me about you,” I said in an effort to change the
subject while stroking his beautiful face.

“What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”

I took his dreads in each of my hands and flirtatiously
twirled them between my fingers.

“Well for starters, how long did it take you grow these?” I
asked…finally.

“Seven years. You like em?” He flirted placing a kiss on my
lips.

“Yes. Very much so.” I said kissing him back.

“Next question.”

“How did you get all this?” I said looking around the house,
“A twenty-seven year old guy with this nice house and an apartment complex. Are
you into anything illegal?” I giggled.

I watched him stiffen a bit then move his fingers through
his dreads until they uniformly fell to the right side of his face. Whatever
the answer, it looked difficult for him to talk about.

Oh God was he into something illegal? Is Kyle a criminal!

“No, nothing illegal. My mother, she died eight months
ago…she had cancer.” He paused for a moment. I could tell by the batting of his
eyes he was trying to withold his tears.

This was obviously still hard for him to talk about. God if
only I knew I would have never brought it up...
shit
.

He took a deep breath and tried to gather himself before
continuing.

“Me and my older sister, we didn’t even know until it was
too late. So we moved out here to be with her before she passed. Two weeks
later we got a check for her life insurance policy. We didn’t even know she had
one. But I bought this house and invested the rest in my building. My sister
bought a house for her and her kids. So to answer your question again, I’m not
in to anything illegal, but I’d give anything to have her back. I’d trade it
all in.”

Now I knew what he meant. I didn’t expect that and I wasn’t
prepared for it. I looked into his eyes and all I saw was honesty. I no longer
saw a guy who I’d been playing a game of cat and mouse with, a guy I thought
was truly only interested in sex, or a guy who would end up breaking my heart. I
looked deeper and saw a man in pain.

“Kyle I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean –“

“Shh,” he said, “You didn’t know it’s okay. But anyway,” He
sighed before he continued and twirled his dread between his fingers as I had
done, “I promised her that I’d be the man she wanted me to be. No more hanging
out, fast women…no more wasting time. She wanted me to settle down and be a
good influence for my niece and nephews since their dad ain’t much of a man. I
have to be there for them, and my sister.”

I understood why he wanted to get to know me now. Since Kyle
had been so open with me about his mother, something painful for him to talk
about, I opened up to him and told him about Lamont. The full truth. He was
more upset about the pain Lamont inflicted on me than shocked that I dated a
breaking news headliner. He said any man who was lucky enough to have me as the
mother of their child and didn’t appreciate it had to be crazy.

We went up to his room and instead of having sex that night
we instead laid in bed and pillow talked until we fell asleep. I haven’t fallen
to sleep and woken up with a man since…well, it’s been a long time.

Kaia

Something was wrong.

The worsening feeling that started off as worry a week ago
was now morphing into fear. I sat at my desk incapable of concentrating on any
work at all. I used all my strength to fight back tears and sniffles as I text
Christian once again and prayed that he’d respond. But after fifteen minutes
went by he still hadn’t.

“What could I have done wrong?” I asked myself as I rejected
the temptation to lay my head down on the desk and wallow in bewilderment.

I didn’t want to cause a scene so instead I composed a few
much needed emails to distract me from the fact that Christian’s been ignoring
me for the past week. I hate love and relationships. I completely get why Sonya
distances herself from them.

What was going on? Has he met someone else? Is he
rethinking our relationship? Was everything he said to me a lie?

All of the questions endlessly spinning around in my head
were beginning to give me a migraine. I feared if I didn’t get answers and get
them quickly I was bound to explode from frustration. I decided to solve at
least one of my problems when I stood and headed for the second floor break
room. I briskly walked past my fellow co-workers in their dress shirts and ties
towards the mid-sized break room we nicknamed “The Hive” (basically because of
all the gossip usually buzzing around there at lunch time). They all looked
equally as strained as me. If they felt anything like me then they were also
ready to call it a night just to start the rigmarole again tomorrow.

“Nevertheless, I still enjoy my career path. I love my job,
I love my job.” I thought as I retrieved the bottle of Ibuprofen we kept
stashed in the cabinet for moments of high stress like I was experiencing now.
After swallowing four of them whole with a cold bottle of water from the break
room refrigerator I stood there a moment and tried to gather myself. I tried to
find my
happy
place
and think of something funny Sonya said that
cracked me up but it wasn’t working. Not only was I concerned about Christian
but I was still pissed and hurt by what Malcolm said.

Upon returning back to my cubicle I frantically picked up my
black desk phone and dialed the number eight for an outside line then punched
in Christian’s phone number hoping to get an answer. But once again his phone
went to voicemail after a few rings. It took everything in me not to slam the
phone against the receiver. I was infuriated. Like I said earlier, something
was wrong. I thought of the worst possible explanation as to why he’s been
silent as the grave then dispelled the thought as quickly as it’d come. There
was no way he was dead or injured. I would have heard something from his mother
by now.

Maybe he lost his phone and the person who’d found it was
the one ignoring my calls.

As much as I wanted to believe that it still didn’t fit into
the puzzle quite right. If he’d lost his phone he would have come over by now
and told me so.

Was this whole thing with me just some sort of game? Was he
just using me to play out some immature fantasy he had of me as a teenager? Had
I disappointed him because we haven’t slept together yet?

My mind tousled with irrepressible thoughts as my cell phone
began to ring. I took hold of it quickly answering within a second of the first
ring, “Christian!” I said in a low tone of excitement.

“Actually it’s Joanna, how are you Kaia? Did you get a
chance to review the latest properties I sent you today?”

It took a moment for it to sink in that it wasn’t Christian
on the other end of the line but instead my realtor. I muffled a sigh of
disappointment.

“Sorry about that. Umm, yes I did. I looked at them first
thing this morning.”

“And, what did you think? I personally love the tri-level on
Mountain Glitter Lane. It’s so you don’t you think?”

For the first time her “It’s so you” sales technique
actually made sense. Judging from the pictures, the house wasn’t in a new
development and it needed a little TLC but nothing drastic. It had over
three-thousand square feet, four bedrooms and an amazing view of the strip. So
it was a little over the max of my original budget of two forty-five, but for
the right house it would be worth it.

“It looks like it just might be. How soon can I see it?”

“Well, if you’re interested I can set something up for
tomorrow morning. This house just hit the market and from what I was told the
couple who lived there just went through a nasty, nasty divorce and can’t wait
to get rid of it. Neither one of them want to live in the house anymore so
their selling it well below market value to divvy up the profits and call it a
wrap. I’ll call you back once I have everything set-up okay?”

“Okay perfect. Talk to you soon.” I replied before
disconnecting the call.

My excitement about the home only briefly forced me to
forget about my dilemma. But now that Joanna was off the phone and I was back
to work the grief began to build up again. I could feel myself losing it.

“Forget this, I’m out of here.”

I sent an email to HR letting them know I was feeling ill
and was using two hours of sick time to leave early. I figured if they had a
problem with it they could go to hell.

Obviously I wasn’t really sick but the mysteries of
Christian’s whereabouts were making me sick. I sped over the fifty MPH speed
limit as much as I could push it without being arrested for reckless driving as
I soared across the 215. Then something told me to get off early at Christian’s
exit and just continue forwards towards his place in search of answers. I blame
this recent spur-of-the-moment behavior on Ms. Olivia Pope. I was ready to
investigate and collect hard evidence if possible into his sketchy behavior,
his sudden betrayal and his quite loud passive aggressive demeanor.

I didn’t even notice I was having a full blown conversation
with myself until I was nearly there.

“If he thinks for one minute that he’s just gonna pump my
head up with dreams of how he’s going to treat me better than Malcolm and I’m
not gonna question things this time well he can just go to hell to.” I mumbled
in contempt.

Sonya was right, she was so right. For too long I’ve been
too easy going with the people in my life. That included Malcolm, my mother, my
sisters and sadly now even Christian. If these last few months only taught me
one thing to take with me into thirty, that one thing was to toughen the reigns
if I ever wanted to be a leader in my own life.

I stopped at the small metallic control box outside his
apartment complex. I typed in his personalized four digit code that commanded
the black iron gates to open and grant access to the desert utopic atmosphere
of El Dorado Cliffs. I drove round the roundabout driveway then head to the
back of the complex where he normally parked his black Navigator. And there it
was plain as day. It shined brightly even while under covered parking. This
told me he’d recently taken it to be washed and waxed, probably within the last
two days or so.

“Sooo, you can take your car to the car wash but you can’t
return my phone call?” I said shaking my head in aggravation while I spoke
through pierced lips, “Okay, I see.”

I parked my car and thought about my game plan before I got
out. But that was the problem, I didn’t have one! What was my approach? I’m
still an amateur in the
catch-your-man-cheating-then-kick-his-ass-then-kick-him-out department. My area
of expertise is graphic design and hot coffee, not graphically design his new
face with a pot of that hot coffee.

I called Sonya for advice. As soon as she answered I
confessed my sins about letting Malcolm sleep over the night after the birthday
party including the fight we had the next morning and how I finally felt good
about kicking him out of my life for good. After I assured her we had no sexual
contact she was relieved to hear I was done with Malcolm for good. Then I
explained that I was sitting in my car at Christian’s because he’s been
ignoring me for a week and I’m desperate to know what went wrong and where.

“I just don’t know what’s going on with him and I really
need some advice before I go up here. I feel wrong popping up at his place like
this.”

“You’re not wrong. You can always just say you wanted to do
a welfare check on him. You haven’t heard from him in a week, that’s not
unusual you know.”

“Yea, I guess Malcolm just had me trained so damn well that
I feel guilty popping up at anyone’s place unannounced.”

“Except mines.”

“This is no time for jokes Sonya, what do I do? This is
serious.”
 “Kaia, get up and walk yourself to his house, knock on his door and see what’s
going on. We don’t have time to second guess ourselves or stick around waiting
for someone to tell us what we could have found out on our own. Go talk to
him.” She urged along with some other comments that weren’t necessarily the
friendliest things I’ve heard her say but they did the trick and got me out of
the car.

By the time I reached the third floor I was sure I’d grew
the balls of steel Sonya suggested I do before she hung up. Perhaps that was
why I felt ten pounds heavier while standing on Christian’s doorstep ready to
make my move.

I extended my arm ready to knock when I heard a woman’s
laugh coming from inside. She sounded like one of the hyenas from The Lion
King.

Who’s in his house and why is she laughing? Is it
Desiree? Could it be one of his other so-called exes?

Fighting off the impulse to just pound on the door and get
everything out in the open, I used restraint and instead placed my ear to the
door listening for any clues as to what the hell was going on. I heard the
woman’s voice then Christian’s. It was low and muffled but whatever he said had
to be funny because the hyena started cackling again.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Knock! Knock! Knock!

I began beating on the door in short angry bursts until I
heard the cease of the cackling and heavy footsteps striding my way. This was
it. This moment was going to lead to the embarrassing confirmation I didn’t
want to believe. I’ve been cheated on twice within the same year – by two
different men! At this rate I’ll definitely be an old maid.

I ran my hands across my hair quickly and picked a few
pieces of lint from my black skirt as I heard the snapping twist of the lock. I
wanted to look my best if I was competing with some lunatic model. Come to
think of it, I don’t need to compete for anything. Christian can just kiss my
a-

In the middle of my bluster the door opened and for the
first time in over a week I laid my eyes on the light brown shade in
Christian’s. They looked calm but not necessarily happy to see me.

He stood at the entrance between the door and doorjamb as he
blocked my view into the apartment.

“Hey, what’s up?” He said nonchalantly like everything was
perfectly normal. Was I losing it or what? Had we broken up and only I didn’t
know about it?

“What’s going on? I’ve been calling and texting you all week
and you haven’t answered.” I attempted to look over his shoulder into the
apartment but he shifted his stance continuing to block my view. “What’s up?
Can I at least have a hug?” I asked trying to keep the peace before jumping to
conclusions about the woman.

He gave me the one arm hug, careful not to squeeze too tight
or have the embrace last longer than a second. Then stepping to the side he
removed himself from his obstructive view and held the door open, now boldly
inviting me in….something was off.

Sitting at his dining room table with a haughty grin on her
made up face was a woman in black. She definitely wasn’t Desiree but she was
equally as pretty. She looked at me like she knew just who I was but had no
reason to be ashamed. Sprawled across his mahogany table were two red casino
dice, a deck of cards and dollar bills. Rap music played softly in the
background I guess setting the semi-romantic and now peculiar mood in here. I
wasn’t about to put myself through this. How could this bastard be openly
cheating on me after a month?

I kept a safe amount of distance between me and the woman
and then with more authority in my voice I demanded, “I asked you what was going
on. If you have something to say then you need to just come out and say it.”

There was no need to be quiet and keep this conversation
solely between Christian and I. Obviously he wanted me to know about her and
based off the scowling look she was giving as she picked up the cards and began
to shuffle the deck, she clearly knew about me.

He closed the door and walked towards the table ignoring me
as he sat down and shook the dice between his hands. He and the woman began
carrying on some sort of whispered conversation and she released another cackle
like the one I’d heard outside the door. I shook my head in disbelief and
disgust. To think this was the man I loved as my brother for all these years.
I’ve experienced him being in a jerk but that was always in the brotherly type
of way. This new behavior from him, now that we’re on an intimate level made me
see him in a whole new light, and I hated it. He was breaking my heart just as
Malcolm had, he was no better than the accused.

I could feel uncontrollable fury rising in my throat and my
body began to tremble from anger. One minute I was standing in the middle of
the living room in shock then the next moment everything had gone black. When I
came to and “saw the light”, it was too late. I was already standing behind
Christian forcefully jabbing my fists away at his head like I was Floyd
Mayweather in the ring defending my title. I felt powerful and each stripe I
gave him against his rock hard noggin released a sense of vivacity in me.

I felt alive!

Well at least I did for the first three seconds until
Christian stood and quickly caught a hold of me while the unnamed woman
screeched and panicked. I twisted and turned trying get out the bear hold he
had me in but it was impossible.