Authors: Niobia Bryant
Cyrus, the town gossip, was holding court and talking animatedly with his usual crew listening intently. He was telling somebody’s business, Devon knew. Unfortunately his voice carried over to where Devon sat.
“She
is
in town. I saw her for myself and Lawd, was she pretty. Y’all remember how cute Tessa was as a young woman, when we all sniffed around her skirts before Odis won her heart?”
The other older men all agreed. “Well her grandbaby is just as easy on the eyes.”
Devon’s food arrived, with an inviting smile from Poochie, which he ignored as he forced himself to tune out Cyrus and his friends’ conversation. The last thing he needed was to hear them fawn over Chloe Bolton. His whole intention for being there was to get away from the woman. With a sigh, he started to eat his meal.
Unfortunately, the food’s quality mirrored the interior. Everything was edible but not any comparison to his Nana Lil’s cooking. Donnie’s baked macaroni and cheese had way more macaroni than cheese. The collard greens were mostly stems and he could distinctively taste the burnt skin under the gravy of his smothered chicken. The diner catered mostly to the bachelors and widowers of the small town. It was easy to see why. They couldn’t do much better themselves.
“It can’t be that bad Dev ... or is it?”
He looked up from his plate to find his childhood friend and secretary, Alicia Jenkins. His frown turned to a reserved smile. “Worse.”
Devon stood up, waving a hand toward the empty booth seat across from him. She took the seat, sliding her petite, pear-shaped frame onto the booth. “I just came from Walterboro shopping and I saw your truck. Nana Lil ain’t sick is she, ’cause I know she throws down in the kitchen on Sundays?”
Devon pushed his plate away, resigned to not eating until he went home, and that would be well after he thought
she
was gone. “No, she’s not sick. I just felt . . . like . . . some . . . Donnie’s that’s all.”
The words were forced and Alicia knew her friend of nearly thirty years. “Word’s out that Chloe Bolton came into town today.”
A vision of her filled him at the mention of her name. He shook his head, as if to remove the image. “Yes, she did. First class in her convertible BMW. She’s out to the house now. Nana Lil invited her to dinner.”
“Oh,” was all Alicia said.
“Anyway, Shawn’s meeting with her after dinner.” He sipped from his glass of raspberry iced tea, the only good part of his meal.
Something was up and Alicia knew it. For one, Devon was having Sunday dinner at Donnie’s when she
knew
that Nana Lil had cooked. Two, the supermodel was finally in town and having dinner with Deshawn and Lil. Third and lastly, Devon was leaving a meeting to Deshawn alone, when he didn’t appear to be doing anything more important instead.
Something was definitely up.
Alicia was well aware of Devon’s less-than-complimentary opinion of the celebrity. On many occasions in the office, he had said how they were just a step above strippers, using their bodies to sell products. Deshawn, on the other hand, was like a kid in a candy store about the prospect of the grand Chloe Bolton moving down the road from him.
Alicia didn’t know how she felt. From a distance, she envied the beauty and fame of the supermodel. What woman wouldn’t? But seeing her face to face every day for any length of time was a different matter. Chloe Bolton. She’d seen her commercials, her face filled the fashion magazines, her beauty books were bestsellers, her life was detailed in the gossip rags and television shows. She was big time.
What did she want in a small town like Holtsville? Family or no family, Alicia couldn’t see herself being supa dupa rich and
moving to
Holtsville. Most young people were rushing to get away.
She looked down at his full, uneaten plate of food. “Look here, I know you’re hungry. Come to my place and I’ll make you something good to eat, friend.”
Devon looked at her. “Naw, that’s okay. You don’t have to cook for me.”
“Oh. Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” She scooted her ample bottom over on the seat and stood up, walking past him to leave the restaurant. Suddenly, she turned. “Chicken and dumplings?”
Devon jumped up and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table to handle his check and a tip. “It’s on.”
∞
“That was good Al. Thanks.”
Alicia stood, taking a mock bow, before picking up their plates from the small round kitchen table to sit in the sudsy water in the sink. She quickly washed up the few dishes before joining him in her pastel-colored living room. He sat slouched on her mint sofa, flipping through the channels of her nineteen-inch television. She smiled at the sight of him, big and muscular, crouched on the small piece of furniture.
“What’s she like?” Alicia asked suddenly.
Devon glanced toward her before turning back to the television. “Who?”
“Who else? Chloe Bolton.”
“Exactly as I expected. Just imagine Elissa to the one hundredth degree.” He laughed shortly as Alicia made a face.
She remembered Elissa well from the few visits she made to Holtsville. The woman had been quick to criticize and even quicker to lift her finely arched brow in reproach. Elissa had not enjoyed her visits, except for the time she wasted trying to change Devon. Nana Lil loved everyone and even she had admitted to Alicia how she had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Elissa to climb off her horse, in less-than-favorable terms.
Alicia was willing to admit, to herself anyway, that her own reasons for not wanting Elissa around went far beyond the woman’s high saddity ways. Alicia had burned with jealousy of her. Not because she was going to college, nor because she was slender, pretty and well-dressed, but because Elissa had what Alicia wanted most in the world . . . Devon’s love and devotion.
His distant and aloof manner had attracted Alicia like a moth to a flame. Ever since she was old enough to recognize that boys were good for more than playing hide-and-seek and tag, she had loved Devon.
Even now as she watched him, her heart ached for his love and her center throbbed for a touch she had never experienced from him. Both he and Deshawn were her very best friends in the world, but she wanted Devon as her lover. She let her eyes caress him, because her hands could not. Secretly, she envisioned the physical loving they could bring each other. She dreamed of him spending the night in her bed, and not her couch, as he had in the past as a friend. They could share passion in her bed, and love in their hearts for each other for the rest of their lives.
“Chloe, there’s nothing like the Carolinas at night. Ain’t nothing can beat it!”
“Nothing Mama?”
"Unh-uhn. Not a thing.”
“Not even the smell of lilacs?” the little girl asked, knowing it was her mother’s most favorite thing in the world . . . besides her, of course!
“No, baby girl, not even lilacs.” She smiled down at her daughter, her treasure, with her head resting lightly on her lap as they sat on the fire escape to get away from the heat of their apartment. “Down south the night skies are shades of deep blues and purples with millions of stars that look like fireworks on the Fourth of July."
The little girl lifted her head from her mother’s lap to look up at the dark New York sky. “More stars than up there, Mama?”
Adell sucked her teeth. "Baby girl, that up there ain’t nothing compared to a starry Carolina night.”
She gently pushed her child’s head back down on her lap, using her finger to trace the zig-zag pattern of her tight braids. “At night the air fills up with crickets, frogs croaking and owls hooting
—"
“All that noise?" she giggled.
Adell laughed, and it resembled the light tinkling of a bell. “Ooh, you city kids are a mess. If you can sleep through the noise of this city, a few crickets and a 'hoot’ ain’t
gone block your sleep none.”
"Naw baby,” Adell sighed. "Ain’t nothing like the Carolinas at night. Not a thing!”
∞
“You were so right.” Chloe’s voice was like a husky echo into the night. As she looked up into the sky, the stars reflected and glistened in the depths of her eyes. Feeling near tears, Chloe purposely let her gaze fall down coming to rest on where she parked her car in the garage behind their house. She left the window where she stood and crossed the hardwood floor to climb onto the queen-sized bed. She enjoyed the feel of the cool crisp sheets against her naked skin. Her first night in “the Carolinas.” Not exactly what she expected, but pleasurable nonetheless.
What a day,
she thought, as she shifted to find comfort in the strange bed.
Nana Lil was a trip. She had kept Chloe and Deshawn laughing all through dinner. She made Chloe feel like a real family member when she called her “baby” and spoke of the close friendship she shared with Tessa.
And Deshawn was so charming and funny, a real ladies’ man who was a harmless flirt. She thought of the twenty-five dollars she won from him on a bet they made as they watched a WNBA game on television. The Houston Comets went on to beat the New York Liberty just as she predicted.
And Devon. Well, she really hadn’t spent enough time in his company to judge him, so she just pushed all thoughts of the brooding man from her mind. As long as he did his share to make sure her house was built as expected, then nothing else mattered.
With a sigh, she turned over in the bed and reached to turn on the lamp that sat on the night stand.
THUD!
Her hand accidentally knocked something onto the floor with a loud echoing noise. “Damn it!”
She sat up straight in bed and successfully turned on the lamp, basking the attic room in hundred-watt brightness. Chloe sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the ceramic figurine on the floor. Luckily she hadn’t broken it.
She reached down to pick it up and place it back on the table. Her intention had been to check the time on her watch. It was after midnight. She lay back down in the bed, pulling the sheets over her. The smell of lilacs clung faintly to the material and Chloe felt a pang of grief as she thought of her mother.
∞
Devon pulled his truck into the yard and parked it in front of the house, not bothering to pull into the three-car garage in the back. As he passed the swing on the porch he thought briefly about his nightly ritual of lounging on it. It was his time to think and be in solitude, but he was tired and so he passed on the idea.
The house was quiet as he climbed the stairs in the darkness. He stopped at his Deshawn’s door but his brother’s lights were out and the distinct sound of a snore filtered through the oak. With a laugh, he jogged up the rest of the wooden stairs to his suite of rooms on the third floor. Not bothering to turn on the light in his bedroom, he undressed in the dark, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor before climbing into his unmade bed.
Alicia’s dumplings were laying heavy on his stomach and he kept tossing and turning to find comfort.
THUD!
Devon jumped up out of the king-sized bed.
What the hell was that?
He looked up to the ceiling, as if he could see through the wood and plaster to the attic above. He stood quietly, listening for another sound. Nothing. But he
knew
he heard something.
He reached back down into his discarded pile of clothes for his boxers and pulled them on. Not quite sure what he would find, if anything, Devon left his bedroom and turned right to walk the short distance to the stairs leading to the renovated attic room.
He flung the door open wide and flicked the light switch on the wall to bask the room in brightness. Shock widened his eyes at what he saw. The shock turned to a hot rush of desire.
Chloe sat up in the middle of the bed, clutching the cotton sheet to her obviously naked body. Once her eyes adjusted to the sudden light, she saw Devon, or was it Deshawn, standing in the doorway in nothing but his snug cotton boxers.
“What the hell are
you
doing up here?” he barked.
Devon. It was definitely Devon.
Chloe pulled the sheet up higher and eyed him. “I think the better question is what are
you
doing up here ... in those?”
She let her eyes fall meaningfully down to his Calvin Klein boxers, with a perfectly arched brow raised.
“I heard a noise and came to—” Devon stopped when he realized that he was explaining himself to her. “My head must be messed up because I thought this was
my
house.”
“Look Mr. Jamison. I’m sorry if I scared you—”
“You didn’t scare me,” he balked.
She raised her brow again, this time in disbelief. “Okay, whatever. Your family invited ... no insisted, that I stay here until the house is built. I appreciated the invitation and I accepted it. Of course I offered to pay for room and board—”
Devon laughed harshly, and shook his handsome head in amazement. “I
know
they didn’t agree to take money for you staying here! This isn’t a boarding house.”
Chloe rolled her eyes heavenward. “No, they refused my offer, I just—”
“If my family offered for you to stay here, it certainly wasn’t to bring in money.” His nostrils flared in anger.
She was really getting tired of him cutting her off, and she was confused by his anger. “Look, I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, I just—”
He slashed his hand across the air. “We’re not living off multimillion-dollar modeling contracts, but we hardly need to treat our home like a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.”
The sarcasm dripped from his words, and he said the word “modeling” as if it was vile.
Her confusion turned to white-hot anger. “Look, what’s your problem?”
He snorted in anger. “I don’t have a problem. The problem is when someone mistakes what we call hospitality in the South, for a chance to flash money.”
She watched in wide-eyed shock as he flicked the switch down, turning off the lights, and slammed the door behind him, leaving the room shaking in his quake.
“What the hell was that about?” she wondered aloud to herself, her voice whisper soft in the darkness.
“This isn't New York . . .”
“I know it’s not what you're used to, but we love it. It’s our home.’’
“Devon said you weren’t moving here permanently.”
“We don’t want to force Ms. Bolton to eat here.’’
“We’re not living off a multimillion-dollar modeling contract, but we hardly need to treat our home like a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.”
Comments Devon made swirled in her head, coming back to her at once as they ran together, colliding in her head.
“This isn’t New York ... I know it’s not what you’re used to, but we love it. It’s our home . . . Devon said you weren’t moving here permanently ... We don’t want to force Ms. Bolton to eat here . . . We’re not living off a multimillion-dollar modeling contract but, we hardly need to treat our home like a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn. . . This isn’t New York . . . I know it’s not what you’re used to, but we love it. It’s our home . . . Devon said you weren’t moving here permanently. . . We don’t want to force Ms. Bolton to eat here . . . We’re not living off a multimillion-dollar modeling contract but, we hardly need to treat our home like a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn."
He was moody and argumentative, high-minded, arrogant and . . . and . . . and fine! To see him half naked was to desire his muscled body. The strong masculine lines appeared to be sculptured in granite. His broad shoulders, hard chest and ridged stomach. The narrow hips and thick, strong and muscular thighs and calves. Her cheeks warmed thinking of how his maleness strained against the cotton material, large and daring even at rest.
Chloe sighed, the image of him clearly etched into her memory. She accounted it to hormones. It would take both hands and a couple of toes to count the months since she’d been intimate with a man. This very physical attraction she had for Devon was all because she needed to physically be with a man. That was all there was to it.
Then why didn’t she feel the same attraction for Deshawn? They
were
identical twins, and except for their temperaments, she couldn’t tell them apart physically.
She tried to force him out of her thoughts as she lay quietly still in the bed, letting the sounds of the Carolinas waft through the windows to lull her to sleep. But she was very aware that he lay in the room just beneath her.
∞
Devon flew back down the stairs, passing his own floor, to come to a halt in front of Deshawn’s closed door. It was late and his conscience said,
This can wait until morning, don’t wake him up.
Then he thought about how he had just argued with a beautiful woman in his boxer shorts. He opened the door. Deshawn lay in the middle of the bed on his stomach, his head buried under a pile of pillows. It was the exact same position Devon found himself in when he awoke in the mornings.
He placed his foot on the edge of the bed, pumping it up and down. They both slept light and Deshawn jumped up immediately, startled. “Dev, man are you crazy? What you wake me up for?” His voice was groggy and hoarse with sleep as he reached over to turn on the lamp on his nightstand.
Devon paced by the side of the bed. “What did you invite
her
to stay here with us for?”
A big goofy grin spread across Deshawn’s handsome face. “Did you think I would let the opportunity to have that heavenly body under this roof pass and not take it?”
At Devon’s unmoved attitude, his face became incredulous, as if to say,
Why don't you understand?
He sighed. “Anyway, Nana Lil invited her while I was in the office working on the draft for the Devane’s room addition.”
“Did you finish it?” Devon stopped pacing, immediately becoming focused on business. At his brother’s weary nod, he said, “Thanks, man. I meant to work on it today.”
“No problem.” Deshawn wiped the sleep from his eyes. “Look, I know you have your bad assumptions about her, but she’s a nice person. Nana Lil loves her and she can keep her company. She’s here now, so try to keep your judgments about her to yourself.”
Deshawn turned off the lamp and settled back down on the bed. “Oh, and shut the door on your way out. Night Dev.”
Devon did close the door on his way out, and he retraced his steps back upstairs to his bedroom. He stepped out of his boxers again and lay down on the bed. Sleep eluded him.
Visions of mocha skin contrasting with white cotton plagued him. The gentle curve of a full breast outlined in an erotic shadow behind the sheet. Smooth thin material following the contour of a shapely long leg.
Damn her!
The construction of her house would take at least another month and a half, if not two. During that time she would be living up above him in the attic. He groaned as he remembered that there wasn’t a bathroom up there. Since his was the closest, that meant she would have to use his.
He just knew she would spend hours enclosed in there. If she hung up wet silk stockings to dry he would explode, and he better not see one drop of makeup on his sink.
He growled in frustration. He felt foolish that a part of him was excited about knowing she was just up above him.
Damn!
∞
Chloe stretched lazily in the bed, feeling rested and renewed. Once she had finally settled into a sound sleep, it had been the best night of rest she had had in a long time. She felt like she had enough energy to run five miles.
Checking the time on her watch, she was stunned. It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Never had she slept past seven, even if she was ill or she got in late. Always she was up and awake before seven. Her mother was country born and bred, and it was her ritual of rising early that had been instilled in Chloe. It was her body’s natural alarm clock.