She swung her hips defiantly when she walked away. Andrew caught me looking and glared at me. I went back to my food.
“I’m having a barbecue Saturday,” he said. “You should come.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I spent every second I could talking to Haylie and teasing her. When it was time to say goodbye, I felt like I was leaving something behind. I wanted children, and I wanted a woman in my life, but I had to be pragmatic. I wasn’t that kind of guy. It hurt that Andrew felt like he had to rub it in. He knew that he was getting to me, but that’s the way he worked. When he wanted something, he pushed people until they cracked.
The scrutiny was unacceptable. I didn’t say a word about what my family did in the bedroom. I didn’t even want to think about it, and I definitely wasn’t about to go around gossiping about my love life. It was time to shut them up.
I called Tony on my way home. “What up?” he sounded drowsy, but I knew it was because he’d been smoking.
“Hey.”
“Back for more? I’ll bet you hit that shit good, huh?”
I didn’t want to confirm or deny anything about my sex life to him. I never did. So I kept quiet.
“I got this tight ass brunette. Just came in yesterday. Perfect Ds, and she’s got her tongue pierced too.”
“Nice. I was hoping you could send out Maria tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you know you liked it.” I couldn’t think of a single redeeming factor he had.
“You think you could send her by early, like 10 o’clock?” I asked.
“Yeah, man. That’s cool. Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Have I ever said yes to that question?”
“A’ight, man. I got you. Ten o’clock.”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
Chapter 10
Mercedes
When Tony called me, I wanted to throw my phone out the window. It was my day off, so I set his ringtone on silent, but he was persistent. I got six messages and four calls, all of which I ignored. I knew I had to get back to him, but I didn’t want to hear the sound of his voice, and I knew he was going to make a pass at me.
Finally, I sat down on the couch and took out my phone to call him. “Hey, baby. I’ve been trying to call you. What happened?”
“Sorry, I was in the shower.” I shouldn’t have said that. I just admitted to being naked.
“Nice,” he drew the word out. “You ready for another session? Heard you got it good the last time.”
“Yeah?” If he said a word to that freak, I was going to kill him.
“Yup. He wants you there tomorrow early.”
“Great, I’ll be there.” I hung up and started to turn my phone off.
“Nope,” I said to myself. “She is not getting away with this.”
I called Loren. She hit the ignore button on the third ring. I called again, and she ignored me again. It took six calls to get through to her.
“What do you want?” she answered.
“I’m going to kill you. Expect me.” I hung up and held my phone out. She called back almost immediately. I let it go for a second just to tease her a little before I ignored the call. On the second call, I ignored it right away to make it look like I’d blocked her number, and I ignored each subsequent call after that until she started texting. I didn’t read any of her messages. I just waited until they kept coming, one after the other, faster and faster, like popcorn in a microwave. Then, I called her back.