Up to No Good (21 page)

I left the restroom on a mission. I was ready to go tell Sandra that I wanted a committed relationship too. Hell, I would even burn my little black book if she asked me to.

I was so determined to get back to the table and deliver my news that I didn’t notice Louis coming toward the men’s room until I practically ran into him.

“Excu—Oh shit! James!” Louis exclaimed before he could stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

“Louis. Funny meeting you here. What are you doing all the way out on Long Island?” I asked, making no effort to conceal the suspicion in my voice.

“Oh … just working, you know.” He made a lame attempt at sounding nonchalant, but I could see the tension in his face.

“Really? Working at Louie’s, huh?” I asked, turning to look at the blonde, who had clearly been watching us but quickly looked away when she saw me checking her out. If that wasn’t a guilty move, I don’t know what is.

Louis saw me watching her, but he still tried to play it off. “Oh yeah, that’s Jeannette. She’s one of our best clients.”

“And she just happens to be out here with you for lunch, huh?”

“Yeah, we, uh, had to go over to a dealership in Glen Cove to check out this used Mercedes AMG. She’s
been asking us to get her one for a while, and I finally found one out here on Long Island.”

“Well, aren’t you a conscientious salesman,” I said sarcastically. “And lucky for her Glen Cove is right around the corner from this romantic little restaurant, huh?”

Louis was so nervous that sweat was dripping down his forehead. He might have been fooling Jamie, but now he was trying to lie to the master of sneaking around, and I think he was figuring out just how busted he was. All he could say was, “Yeah, lucky.”

“Hmmm … maybe you could bring Jamie here someday, Louis. What do you think about that? Good idea, right?”

He nodded, looking scared.

“Yeah, it’s a good idea, because we both know that my little girl deserves only the best, don’t we?”

He nodded again.

“So we understand each other, right?”

“Yes, sir.” He looked like he was about to pee on himself.

“Good. Because if my little girl gets hurt, it’s not gonna be pretty for you, Louis. I’m very good friends with the man who owns that dealership you work at. I actually sold him his house. We understand each other?”

He nodded. “I won’t hurt her, James. I love Jamie.”

“I’m glad to hear that. So whatever you got going on with Goldilocks over there, get it out of your system in a hurry. I won’t tell Jamie this time, but if I even think you might be stepping out on my little girl again, you won’t be
able
to love her, because I will rip your fuckin’ heart out your chest. You got that?”

I walked away to the sound of him stuttering some sort of response.

“You were gone quite a while,” Sandra said when I got back to the table. “Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah. Just ran into someone in the bar that I had to talk to for a minute.”

Luckily, she didn’t press for details. She probably figured I was lying anyway, just to stall for time.

“So, did you think about what I said?” she asked.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And I think you’re a very special woman.” I took her hand.

“And?”

Part of me was still not ready to deal with this and wished she’d never brought it up. But the expectant way she was staring at me now told me she wasn’t leaving this table without an answer.

“Sandra, just give me two weeks. That’s all I’m asking. I’ve gotta figure out a way to tell my kids.” It was the best I could give her. I was still too scared to give her a wholehearted “yes.” I really did need to think about how to tell them, but I was also buying myself a little more time to get used to the whole idea of being in a committed relationship.

She nodded. “I understand. But you should understand this: If you don’t make a decision in two weeks, I will.”

“Baby, I’m gonna miss the hell out of you.”

Louis pulled the covers back, kissing me on each breast as he stood next to our bed. I wriggled lower so that our lips met.

Things had been good between us recently, much better than should have been expected considering what I found in the briefcase in the basement. He hadn’t given me one reason to be jealous, not one suspicious phone call or text, so part of me had pushed the contents of the briefcase to the back of my mind. That was the part of me that wanted things between me and Louis to work out. I loved him so much, and I really wanted to believe that he wasn’t doing anything behind my back. So when things were good, I just went with the flow.

Now, the other part of me was still working on a plan. I could have just confronted Louis about the driver’s license, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough. Even if he was busted, he would act just like any other man and come up with an innocent story, like it was an old fake ID or something. And me, loving him the way I did, might believe any flimsy excuse just because I
wanted it to be true. So, no, I wasn’t gonna give him a chance to lie to me. I would hold on to what I knew—that Louis got texts from a strange woman that made him run out of the house when we were about to get busy, and he had ID from Detroit, where he’d never mentioned living—until I knew for sure what it all meant. Then, if I discovered that he did indeed have another family or a whorish lifestyle, I ’d hit him over the head with it so hard it would knock him on his ass.

In the meantime, I kept quiet about things and enjoyed all the good loving Louis gave me. He’d been really attentive lately. The night before, he took me to Louie’s, a romantic seafood restaurant in Long Island. The food was delicious, and the service was great—he must have slipped the waiter some money or something, because I swear they treated us like we were regulars. This morning, he was getting ready to go away for a few days. This was his first business trip in a while, and I wanted to give him a little going-away present.

Our kiss became passionate. I slid my hand up his thigh, reaching for his penis as I attempted to seduce him back into bed.

“Uh-uh, no can do.” He backed out of my reach, shaking his head.

“Um, are you sure about that?” I asked, looking down at his stiff member, which told me something different.

“I’ve got to get going.”

“But he wants to play. And so do I.” I rubbed my hands over my erect nipples, where he’d been kissing just moments earlier. “Besides, you started this.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He placed the covers back on top of me.

I kicked them off and got into my best centerfold
pose. I dared him to walk away as I rolled over onto my stomach, arched my back, and turned so he could see all that I offered.

“Fuck!” He licked his lips, enjoying the view, and I hoped he was on the verge of doing something he knew he shouldn’t.

“No, fuck me,” I teased. He stepped closer and ran his hand over my ass. I reached up and began to stroke his dick.

“Babe,” he whined, glancing at the clock. “You gonna make me late.”

“No, I’m going to make you very late,” I promised as I lowered my lips onto his penis. I was ready to swallow him whole, and for a second I thought he was going to relax and let me do what I did best. But before I could really get going, he pulled himself out—and I wasn’t happy about it.

“You know I want to …”

“So do it.” I took a lick and he moaned.

“Mmm, this isn’t fair.”

I gave him another lick.

“Please, baby, I can’t.”

I stopped, holding him in my hand and looking up at him. “Yes, you can.”

“Really, I can’t. I have to go by the shop, and then I gotta get on the road.”

“You expect me to believe you can go three whole days without getting some?” I pouted. It wasn’t often that Louis turned down one of my patented blow jobs, and my radar was kicking in. Something wasn’t right.

“It’s only three days. Besides, I got some last night. And as good as you were, that should hold me a hell of a lot longer than three days.” He laughed and kissed me on the cheek.

What straight man in his right mind turns down oral
sex, no matter how much he got the night before? I was about to ask him that, but he darted into the bathroom almost like he was running away. I heard the shower running; I assumed it was a cold one.

I wasn’t used to Louis resisting me, and I wasn’t liking it at all. Hell, we were still in that honeymoon stage, or at least we should have been, yet here I was practically throwing myself at him, and he was more interested in getting to work on time. This was not a good sign.

I ’d seen my daddy turn down offers from some fine women over the years, and it usually meant only one thing: He had someone else offering something better. This one time, a lady from the church showed up, looking ready to get busy on the front stoop before Daddy even invited her inside. The fool had no idea I was sitting in the living room watching TV and saw the whole thing. She was rubbing all over my father’s chest, whispering in his ear, no doubt telling him all the nasty things she wanted to do to him. You should have seen the look on her face when Daddy basically said, “No, thanks,” and sent her on her way. Even I was a little shocked that he was telling her to leave, because this was one beautiful woman. But, of course, thirty minutes later, someone even hotter showed up, and it was obvious from the way he greeted her that he had been expecting her visit. He gave me money to take the bus to the mall, and then he escorted contestant number two back to his bedroom. So, with experience like that under my belt, I knew that it was never a good sign when a man turned down sex.

I headed to the bathroom, determined to give Louis one more chance to make me think differently. I climbed into the shower behind him.

“Can you pass me the soap?”

Louis handed me the soap, but he didn’t seem interested in me being in there with him, naked, slippery, and ready for action. He picked up the shampoo and lathered up his hair. I slipped my hands between his legs and massaged him until he started to grow. The whole time, he just finished washing his hair and rinsing the soap bubbles off.

“Jamie, I got to go.” He moved my hand away, did a final rinse, and stepped out of the shower, leaving me in there feeling like a fool.

A few minutes later, as I watched him get dressed, I said, “Hey, why don’t I go with you?”

If he had nothing to hide, there was no reason I couldn’t go with him. His answer didn’t help ease my worries one bit.

“I got so much work to do, you’d be lonely. Besides, that crappy motel I’m staying at is no place for a bona fide princess. You’d hate it.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Jamie, you think Red Lobster is slumming it. There ain’t no way you’d enjoy it.”

“I could deal with it.”

“But I don’t want you to ‘deal with it.’ Besides, I’ll be home before you know it. Three days isn’t a long time.”

“I don’t like being away from you even for a day.”

“Don’t you have a hair appointment tomorrow anyway?”

I ’d had a standing appointment for the past five years and he knew it, but he also knew I didn’t let it hold me hostage. My hairdresser would always fit me in another day if I had to reschedule. Besides, what man in his right mind cares about a woman’s hair anyway? This was some bullshit excuse.

“Please,” I whined. “I’d much rather go with you.”

“Next time, honey.” I kept pushing, and he kept refusing. We were at a standstill. “We’ll go away as soon as this is over.”

“As soon as what’s over?”

“Just all this work.” He kissed me gently on the lips and walked toward the door. Why did I keep getting the feeling that as soon as he didn’t like where the conversation was going, he would just run away? It was time for me to get serious about finding some answers.

As soon as Louis’s car pulled out of the driveway, I opened my computer. Thank God for the information superhighway. I went to one of those search engines where you can type in a person’s name and get their vital information, like addresses, phone numbers, and any known relatives. If he was telling me the truth, then a search on Louis would reveal no known relatives.

What I discovered after putting his name into several different search engines was that not only did he have no known relatives, but also Louis Kennedy of Jamaica, Queens, had only one known address—the one we were living at together. There were no records of him ever having lived anywhere else. I checked the names of a few other people, including myself and Darnel, to test my theory: Anyone who has ever had a credit card statement or a phone bill mailed to them will have that address show up on their search records. Most people move a few times in their lives, and their records will show at least a few different addresses. This was true for me and my brother, as well as for my father and Crystal, but not for Louis. Basically, this search engine made it look like Louis didn’t even exist before he
moved into Jamaica, Queens. What the hell was going on?

I typed in a search for Rashid Jensen. I had an inkling of what I would find, and my stomach was in knots as I pushed ENTER. Just as I had feared, there were in fact records of a Rashid Jensen in Detroit.

I typed in my credit card number and paid to get the information on Rashid Jensen. And there it was in black and white: the same address that was on the driver’s license in the basement and a phone number to go with it.

With shaking hands, I dialed the number. I don’t know what I expected to hear, but best-case scenario would have been a recording saying the number had been disconnected. That’s not at all what I got.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice, with lots of talking and laughing in the background, like she had a full house.

It took me a moment to get my thoughts together to ask, “Um, do you know a Rashid Jensen?”

I heard the woman say, “Somebody’s calling for Rashid,” in a muffled voice, like she’d placed a hand over the receiver. The background noise became silent.

She spoke to me again. “Yeah, I know him. Why? Who is this?”

She had the nerve to ask me that! Who the hell was she? “This is his woman, that’s who this is!” I shouted to make sure she knew that I wasn’t just some ho on the side. If anyone was on the side, it was her.