The Reunion Show (13 page)

“Well, well, well,” Jonathan said as he pulled back the chair to take a seat. A smile was locked on his face. I could tell he was as happy to see me as I was to see him. “I must say, Sylvia, that you look spectacular.”

“Thank you. So do you, but I would never expect anything less.”

He searched into my eyes and rubbed his hands together. It appeared that he had something on his mind, but whatever it was, he switched his attention to the menu on the table. “Let's see,” he said. “What shall I order?”

“If my memory serves me correctly, I'll say you'll be ordering the stuffed chicken with broccoli and a garden salad with an extra piece of bread. You'll wash it all down with white wine, and for dessert, you'll consider the chocolate cake. But what you can really have is not on the menu. Personally, I think what is not on the menu may be much more fulfilling.”

He laid the menu down and swallowed. I guess he was surprised by my bluntness, but he shouldn't have been.

“That sounds exactly like what I would order, but in reference to what's not on the menu, I'm not interested in that anymore, especially since I recently heard some things about you that concern me.”

My brows shot up. “What exactly have you heard about me that concerns you? If your ex wife, Dana, has shared some things with you about me, that shouldn't concern you because you already know how she feels about me. I don't know who else could've said anything to you about me, because we do not share the same friends.”

He tapped his fingertips on the table and stared at me. “Interesting. I believe that if you think real hard, you may come up with a name. I'm not going to tell you his name, and you're right. He's my friend, not yours. And just so you know, I was highly disappointed to hear about your actions.”

Okay. Now I knew where he was going with this. Jonathan had to be talking about Jaylin. I couldn't believe he had already been in contact with Jonathan to tell him what had transpired between us. I bet he couldn't wait to call and make me look bad, and I bet he didn't tell Jonathan how aggressive he'd been with me.

“Jaylin Rogers, right?” I said. “I'm not surprised that he contacted you, but why does anything he said about me concern you?”

I could sense Jonathan's anger building, from looking at his eye twitch. “It does concern me. I didn't think you were the kind of woman to put yourself out there like that and open your legs up to anyone. Particularly, a good friend of mine who has had numerous sexual partners. Not that it matters, but he didn't call me. I reached out to him about a case I was working on. Your name happened to come up. I was shocked by what he'd told me, and was it necessary for you to go down on him?”

I almost choked on the water I was drinking, but I didn't. If anything, I wanted to get up and run. I couldn't believe Jaylin gave Jonathan specific details. This is not where I wanted our conversation to go. “To be honest, Jonathan, I don't care what Jaylin told you. I didn't come here to talk about him. I'm here to talk about us.”

He was blunt. “There is no us anymore, and even though you didn't come here to talk about Jaylin, I can't help but to wonder how many items you served him from your menu. I'm not happy about you having sex with him, Sylvia, and quite frankly, I think you did it out of spite.”

How dare he question me about this, especially when he was the one who had hurt me in the past. Not to mention that he was getting married. I crossed my legs and let him have it too. “No, Jonathan, I did it because I needed a good lay. I suspected that Jaylin would deliver, and bravo, he did. Now, I'll repeat myself again. I'm not here to talk about Jaylin. And while there is no more us anymore, you seem jealous. Is that why you brought your fiancée here tonight? To make me jealous?”

“I brought her here because I wanted you to meet her. I'm not jealous about what happened between you and Jaylin. Again, I'm just disappointed, as well as disgusted.”

“So disappointed and disgusted that you prefer we sit here all night to discuss it. If that's the case, maybe we should go. I'm sure you have other things to do with your time, and I must say that I do too.”

He was never the kind of man to keep up a bunch of nonsense, so I wasn't caught off-guard when he stood and dropped twenty dollars on the table. “You're right. I do have better things to do with my time tonight. I don't know why I came here, after knowing what you did with my friend. That was low, Sylvia. I never would have done anything like that to you, but I forgot about the kind of woman you really are.”

He walked away. I followed, only because I didn't appreciate his attitude about this thing with Jaylin. His words stung a bit too.

“It puzzles me that you still care about who I spend my time with,” I said while trailing behind him. He walked so fast that I could barely keep up. I was almost out of breath. “Our relationship has been over with for a while. I'm not the one getting married. You are, right?”

He swung around to face me. “Yeah, I am. And thank God the woman that I'm marrying is nothing like you.”

I almost tripped as I rushed out of the restaurant and tried to catch him. He was straight up tripping. How dare he try to throw his hideous-looking fiancée in my face and continue to diss me?

“By looking at your woman, I can tell she's nothing like me. What a shame that is, because I know what kind of woman excites you. I know what a woman must bring to the table to keep you happy. You have no one to blame if you're settling for someone who has nothing in common with me.”

He stopped next to his black BMW and placed his hand on the door handle. He remained calm as ever. “I don't do this anymore, Sylvia. Enough is enough. There's no need for us to have these kinds of confrontations, so do me a favor. Don't reach out to me again, okay? You have my word that I'm going to leave this conversation right here. I've said my piece and you've said yours.”

“Great. I have no problem not reaching out to you again, so goodbye and good luck.”

Taking the high road, Jonathan got in his car and sped off. My car was nearby, so I walked to it with disgust written all over my face. I visualized us having a decent dinner, laughing and talking about old times and then sealing our date with a kiss. Boy, was I wrong. It was odd to me that Jonathan and Jaylin had all of a sudden spoken to each other. I bet any amount of money that Jaylin had reached out to him. This was another thing that I added to my list of reasons why I despised Jaylin so much. He was the devil in disguise.

My high-rise apartment was only a few blocks away. I parked my car in the parking garage, and since my feet were killing me, I removed my high heels and carried them in my hand. With a frown on my face, I waited for the elevator to open. When it did, I got inside. My head hung low, but the moment I lifted it, I saw a man's hand grab the elevator door, as it began to close. Within a second, Jonathan appeared. A blank expression covered his face and he stepped forward. The elevator closed behind him and started to go up.

“I was wrong,” he said in a whisper. “So were you, Sylvia. Regardless, I didn't meet with you tonight to argue. I wanted to meet with you so I could look you in the eyes and do this.”

He inched forward and reached out to hold my face. His thumbs rubbed my cheeks, as our eyes locked together. Mine were filled with tears. The moment his lips touched mine, a slow tear rolled down my face. I sucked in a deep breath, causing my breasts to rise against his chest. There were no words to describe how I felt as our tongues danced together. There were no words to utter as I felt my pussy throbbing. I couldn't say one word as his hands roamed my body and squeezed me in all the right places. But the one thing that I could say was Jonathan's marriage would never happen if things were left up to me. This night belonged to us, and I was ready to make every single moment count.

The day that I'd gotten a call from Jeff about Jada winning Hell House, I was in the middle of something and had to call him back. I slammed the phone down to see what the fuck was going on.

“Everybody, on the floor. Now!” the man shouted as I peeked at him through the door in my tiny, corner office. This made the third time within two weeks that some fool done came up in my laundromat robbing my customers. Business had already been suffering because of it. It pissed me off that every time somebody black in the hood tried to run a business, the niggas around here would do their best to shut it down with bullshit like this.

“I want all you bitches to slowly stand up and put your purses over here on the table. Anybody caught trippin' will be dealt with.”

Mostly all of the women got off the floor and placed their purses on the table. One lady, however, was tending to her baby and to her son who were both crying. The robber appeared irritated. He scratched his head and rubbed across his crusty lips. Crack-head fool was written all over him, and as I plotted my next move, I was sure I could take him down.

“Shut that goddamn baby up!” he shouted. “And hurry the fuck up with yo purse!”

“I'm sorry, but I can't quiet a baby who's hungry. And my son is afraid. Don't you see that he's afraid of you?”

“Either you shut them up or I'll settle this problem myself! You got one minute to do it or you gon' be lyin' yo fat ass in a pool of their blood.”

The crazy nigga rushed over to the table. He picked up the women's purses and dropped them into a huge garbage bag that he carried. Obviously, he came prepared, or at least he thought he did.

I removed the Glock 9 from behind me and held it in my hand. My sidekick, Poetry, touched my shoulder and pulled on it.

“Be careful, Prince” she whispered. “You see that he got a gun too, so be real careful, baby.”

“I will, but I need you to stay back. I know how you are, Poetry, but I want you to stay right here so you don't get hurt.”

She nodded.

As I made my way out of my office, ol' boy had his back to me. I was able to tiptoe my way close to him. What made him turn around was another little boy in the laundromat who was lying on the floor with his sister. He shouted to the man, “You'd better watch your back!”

With everyone's eyes shifting in my direction, the man turned around. He aimed his gun at me; my gun was aimed at him. While my face displayed a cold stare, he was all smiles, showing his stained, broken teeth.

“Back the fuck up, li'l nigga,” he said. “I didn't come here to hurt nobody, but I will if I have to.”

“I don't want to hurt you either, but you picked the wrong place to do this shit. I'mma need for you to lay those purses on the table and get the fuck out of here, man.”

“Shoot that muthafucka, Prince!” one of my neighbors shouted. “We got yo back!”

The man snapped his head to the side to see who had spoken. That was when I rushed up to him. He was so frail and weak that it was easy for me to wrestle the gun from his hand.

“Move back,” he said, trying to shove me away. “What you gon' do now? Kill me?”

I tucked his gun behind me and kept my gun aimed at his head. “I should blow yo brains out, but consider this yo lucky day. Then again, not so much. Ruthie, Paige and Carmen, handle this nigga. Make sure that he never comes back in here again.”

The chicks from my hood, who were also my regular customers, rushed up from the floor and charged at the man fists first. As they waled on his ass, he crouched down and eventually fell to one knee. By the time the other ladies got off the floor to beat his ass, he was flat on the floor. They wore him out, hitting him with everything from their fists to shoes to containers of detergent.

“You dumb-ass fool!” one lady shouted as she stomped the man with her heel.

“How you gon' come in here and try to take our shit?” another woman yelled as she poured bleach on the man.

All I did was watch. Poetry had gotten in on the action too. She used one of my black leather belts to spank that ass like the man had stolen something from her.

“If y'all niggas think this is where y'all need to come to rob somebody, rethink that plan! Be sure to tell yo friends what will happen, if y'all make this move again! You gon' tell them for me, right?” Poetry said.

Ol' boy didn't respond. He was in a cradled position, whimpering like a baby. The ladies weren't backing off of him, and about three to five minutes later, that was when I intervened again.

“All right, y'all, I think he got the message. Let him get up so he can make a move out of here.”

Many of the chicks backed away, but the one with the crying baby kept smacking her house shoe against the back of the dope fiend's head.

“One more for my baby and another for my son!”

Whack! Whack!

Finally, she backed away. The frightful man shamefully blinked as he looked around at everyone. “I…I said I was sorry. Damn!”

“Too late for sorry,” I said. “Get up and get out.”