Tamika’s mouth was hanging open as he finished the tale. “Well, that was very nice of you to avoid hitting the dog, but taking your father’s car at fourteen—that’s bad, Anton.”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me. I look back on that day and wonder what the hell I was thinking about.”
“So why did your brother take the fall for you?” She bit into her slice of pizza.
“He said because I was his little brother, and…” His throat went tight. “He couldn’t save Ricky, but he wasn’t going to let shit happen to me. I was going to become a lawyer, and he didn’t want anything to jeopardize that.”
Tamika stopped chewing. “Wow,” she said quietly, around a mouthful of food.
“Yeah.” He’d never forgotten those words or how his brother had taken the fall for him. That day had cemented their bond forever.
“Where’s your brother now?”
“He lives in Florida. He’s married with two kids and drives trucks for a living.”
“Are you still close?”
“Yes.”
Tamika picked a piece of pepperoni off the pizza on her plate. “I don’t think I can top that,” she said demurely.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Anton said dryly. “You definitely have the air of someone who’s done some things. You showed up at my house with a baseball bat, remember?”
“True.” She laughed. “Okay, fine, I do have a story. I was fourteen, same age as you, when I found out my married neighbor, Mrs. Demp, was having an affair with the mailman.”
“The mailman? Come on.” Anton tipped the bottle of beer to his lips.
“I swear. I took pictures of him entering and leaving the house and started blackmailing her.”
Anton coughed and pounded his chest. “I was right about the blackmailing!”
“Hush!” Tamika covered her mouth and giggled again. “I know what I did was awful, but at the time there was this MAC makeup kit that I really wanted. My dad had said no and insisted I could get what I wanted at Wal-Mart, and I better be glad he was letting me wear makeup at fourteen.” She rolled her eyes. “I demanded Mrs. Demp buy the kit for me but felt really bad about it afterward. Well, not right after, but a couple of weeks later I did.”
“Your parents never questioned how you got the kit?”
“Mrs. Demp told them I’d helped her with some yard work and that was my reward. I’m not entirely sure my parents believed that story, but she was an adult and they didn’t have an alternative explanation, which meant they had no choice but to accept what she said.” She shrugged.
“Did her husband ever find out about the mailman?”
“Not that I know of, but she found out those long business trips he was taking were because he had another family.”
“Daaaamn. You’re making this up.”
Tamika lifted her right hand as if she was being sworn into court. “I promise you, I’m not. He had a whole other family.”
“Damn,” he said again.
“So in a way, it served him right that she was cheating on him.”
“At least you got a makeup kit out of it.”
They shared a laugh.
Wiping her fingertips on a napkin, Tamika said quietly, “She’s pretty. Melissa, I mean. What did you like about her?”
Anton shrugged, not really wanting to talk about Melissa. More than anything, his pride was hurt, thinking about her sending another man sexy pictures and sneaking around behind his back.
“She’s responsible and goal-oriented.”
“Wow, sounds exciting,” Tamika said dryly.
He chuckled. “Okay, Miss Smart Ass, what did you like about your man, Calvin?”
“He made me laugh, and… and he has a big dick and can fuck all night.” Anton stared at her, and she shrugged. The shift in the air was noticeable, becoming heavy with tension. “What can I say, his stamina was… wow.” She shivered, as if reliving a specific moment.
“Okay, I don’t want to hear anything else about your man’s dick. Or his stamina,” Anton muttered.
“He’s not my man anymore.”
“Your former man, then,” Anton said, annoyed. He ate his last slice of pizza and washed it down with beer.
“Do you think you’ll miss her?” Tamika asked.
“You like to talk, huh?”
“What tipped you off?”
Anton laughed and thought about the question for a moment. “Yes, I’ll probably miss her, to some degree, but not for long. Our relationship was essentially over. But I think with any breakup, there’s always a sense of loss of what you had, and what you could have had.”
Tamika nodded. “I get that. My relationship with Calvin wasn’t perfect, but we could have been so much more. I had this idealized idea of both of us being successful entrepreneurs and taking our businesses to the next level.” She huffed out a disappointed breath. “But after I found out he was cheating, I basically checked out. I guess he checked out, too, because he hasn’t tried to touch me in months.” She winced, as if saying the words out loud caused her pain.
“Calvin’s a damn fool. If you were my woman, I couldn’t go a day without touching you,” Anton said softly.
Sexual awareness thrummed the air between them.
“You’re just saying that,” Tamika said, her voice sounding strained.
“No, I’m not.”
She swallowed. “We should probably stop now.”
She still seemed uncertain, as if she didn’t believe him. Yet another reason to kick Calvin’s ass, because he made this sexy woman doubt her own appeal.
“We’re all done here, so I’ll clean up…” she continued. As Tamika closed the empty pizza box, he noticed her fingers were shaking.
She hopped up from the floor, and he followed her into the kitchen with the empty bottles of beer.
“You can put those in the recycling bin, over there,” she said, pointing.
Anton dropped them into the container and turned to face her. He didn’t say a word. Watching. Waiting.
Smoothing her hands down her hips, Tamika said, “Well, it’s late, so…”
Eyes locking with hers, Anton prowled closer. “Don’t tell me Tamika’s at a loss for words.”
“It’s rare, but it can happen,” she said in a soft voice, gazing up at him.
Anton lifted her chin higher with two fingers, angling her face so they looked directly into each other’s eyes. “I meant what I said. If you were mine, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you. And honestly, I’ve been thinking about getting you naked all night.”
He saw when the air left her lungs, her chest depressing and her breath whispering past her parted lips. As if the words brought her a sense of relief.
Then, in a low voice, she asked, “What are you waiting for?”
