Authors: Sherrod Story
“Fiona.”
She opened her eyes. Daney was standing in front of the window. She immediately began to smile. Then her heart fell. There was a man’s arm around her. She turned, her eyes landed on Tino’s sleeping face. Jesus H. Christ.
“Daney,” she began, but he held up a
hand and moved toward the door.
“I just wante
d you to know I was here.”
Tino chose that moment to groan and roll over. He caught the door closing behind Daney, looked at Fiona, and
cursed explosively.
“You
planned this.”
“What? No!”
“You fuckin’ planned this,” she said again, trying to swallow the sadness threatening to cut off her breath.
“Fiona. You’re upset.”
Her face crumpled. “Yes. I’m upset, you prick. Get out of my house.”
“Fiona
. I didn’t, you know I never –”
“You did! You did. How many times have I told you not to sleep in my bed? Get out of my fucking house!” she screamed, tears rolling faster than cars at Nascar. She
fell out of bed with a thud and lay on the floor sobbing.
Netty and Cleo burst
in. Sugar was in the basement working.
“What the fuck did you do?” Cleo asked Tino who was st
uffing his legs into his jeans.
“I did nothing! I wake up and
this! I gotta go.” And he left.
“What happened?” Netty as
ked. “What? What happened?”
“Daney,” Fiona gasped out. “Daney.” She was sobbing too
hard to get anything else out.
“Daney was here?” Cleo gasped.
“While Tino was in your bed?” Netty asked.
Fiona collapsed against her fr
iend in a fresh shower of sobs.
“Jesus,” Cleo said.
“Why did you fuck Tino?”
“Netty!”
“I didn’t!” Fiona said, voice cracking like dry tinder.
“He crawled in with her because he doesn’t like sleeping
alone on the couch,” Cleo said. “Jesus. What a fucking mess.”
“Fiona.”
The crying had not abated one bit.
“Fiona!”
“Netty! Don’t fuckin’ scream at her like that. What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s gonna choke to death. You with your co-dependent bull
shit. Fiona! Stop that fuckin’ cryin’ before you make yourself sick.” Her voice softened as she dragged her oldest friend up from the floor. Netty wiped watery eyes with the hem of her nightie. “He’ll come back.”
There was a noticeable reduction in the crying. Fiona
sniffled pitifully. “He won’t.”
Netty shook her hea
d and smiled. “They always do.”
Cleo laughed. “Yeah. Call him and tell him
it wasn’t what it looked like.”
“No,” Fiona said, jumping up. She swiped her snotty nose on the back of her hand and headed for the bath
room. “I’m goin’ to his house.”
Netty had a short, strapless ivory mini dress with a flared hem waiting when she got out of the shower. She paired it with a pair of gold ballerina flats, a bronze bag and a shitload of gold jewelry. Fiona’s natural was gilded with a thick
gold band. She wore no makeup.
“You’re trying to make a statem
ent,” Netty said. “Gloss only.”
“And glowing skin,” Cleo added, handing her cousin a piece of cotton
and a bottle of Sugar’s toner.
Fiona
toned her face and prayed in the cab ride over to Daney’s spot near River North. Unlike his home near Park Avenue in New York, where he told her he had to do everything but show his teeth and balls to get in, this spacious loft belonged to a friend who often traveled.
Now she stood on Daney’s friend’s stoop, face hidden behind a huge pair of cream sunglasses and forced herself to ring his buzzer. No one answered but the door hummed
quietly, and Buck opened the door.
“Hey
.”
“What happ
ened?”
Fiona shook her head and walked through the living and dining room
and kitchen to Daney’s bedroom.
She knocked gently.
“I’m sleeping.”
She opened the door. He was l
ying bare chested over his bed. He rose angrily when he saw it was her. She closed the door behind her and locked it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Fiona, right now I’m so fucking angry, there’s no point in talking. I saw you in bed with another man. There’s
nothing to say. Just leave.”
“You can’t ev
en hear me out?”
“No!
I feel like beating the shit out of you, not listening to you try to explain why that slick bastard was laying in my goddamn spot!”
Fiona sighed shakily. “I didn’t cheat on you, Daney. I’ve never even kissed Tino outside of work. He’s just a spoiled brat who’s too pampered to sleep on the couch.”
He stared. “Are you for real with this bull shit?”
“Tino is a big baby,” she repeated. “Who no one ever tells no. Think of him like the prince and the pea, the child star who managed to have a hot career into adulthood and only be mildly dysfunctional. And underneath my couch, where he loves to sit, smoke copious amounts of weed and drink beer until he passes out, there’s an invisible but very uncomfortable
pea. I tell him to go home. I’ve told him repeatedly about crashing other people’s beds while they’re still in them in my house. He’s done it to Netty and Sugar too, but when someone is spoiled they usually only do what they want.”
“You’re tryna run game on me,” he laughed,
the short bark of sound relaying more anger and disgust than humor. “I don’t fuckin’ believe this.”
“I am not,” her voice broke. “I’m, I’m telling you,” she began to cry and sat down on the
bed with her face in her hands.
“Stop it.”
Fiona cried louder.
“Fuckin’ stop it, Fiona.”
She shook her head wildly.
“I mean it. Please,” he said, sitting
beside her. “This is bull shit, you know? You cheat on me and you come here to make me feel like shit? The fuck’s goin’ on?” His accent had gotten attractively thick with his anger.
“I, I” she began to hiccup. “I’m, I’m telling, you the t
ruth!” she managed to yell out.
“All right,” he said,
pulling her close. “All right.”
“We were happy,” she whispered into his neck. “Just a little while ago,
we were.”
His hands fell away.
“You don’t believe me.”
He sighed.
“Daney, come on! We had all our clothes on. You don’t really believe that shit was anything, do you?”
“What the fuck does that mean,” he
said, tossing her from his lap to the bed and bounding to his feet.
“It means do I ever sleep i
n the bed in clothes with you?”
He glared at her.
“We be in the bed butt naked even when it get chilly and I want a gown. You don’t let me keep it on, do you? Don’t you remember how we wrap up together when it’s cold out?” she asked, soft fingers stroking the side of his face until he turned way. “The way we snuggle close until your stuff touches my stuff, and we can feel each other breathe?”
Her voice
grew even softer, more seductive, but for once Daney remained unmoved.
“You called my name,” she tried again. “You said Fiona, and your voice pulled me out of sleep. I moved away. I must have known that it wasn’t you. Do I
ever move away from your arm?”
“This is bu
ll shit.”
“It’s not fuckin’ bull
shit,” she said flatly and rose from the bed, anger stiffening her limbs. “This was fuckin’ nothing. Nothing. What you saw? Nothing. What happened? Nothing! He’s a fucking actor! I don’t give a shit about him. I only half like him, correction. I hate his ass now! Surely you have to have some feeling for someone to have sex with them.”
He turned away from her
beseeching face and an overwhelming urge to push her down on the bed and fuck her until he couldn’t see Tino snuggled up beside her like he belonged. Daney shook his head to dislodge the image. He couldn’t even stand to think about her near another man, and the answer to her statement was no, anyway. You don’t have to have feelings for someone in order to fuck them. But you had to have serious feelings to fuck with someone’s heart the way she’d done his.
“Are you seriously telling me that you’re dumping me over this?” she spoke so slowly, so disbelievingly, he
turned to look at her. “Is that what you’re saying? We’re having the time of our fuckin’ lives together, and you’d throw me over for some circumstantial bull shit? Without even talking about it? Just like that?”
He stared at her without spe
aking, then slowly turned away.
Fiona leaned back on her right leg and looked at him with her head cocked to the side. “That’s it?” He made no answer. “That’s it for me?” Her voice rose an octave. “You drop me just like that, after all this lovey-dovey mess, family bonding and every fuckin’ thing else. That’s it for me?” she asked again, voice cracking. “Over an asshole I didn’t even fuck.” She walked around and stood in his face. “All of a sudden y
ou don’t care that I love you?”
He didn’t respond.
“You can’t even hear me, can you?” she whispered.
There was an electric moment after she spoke, a thick, meaty paus
e that grew sharp with a palpable sadness. Then Fiona snatched up her purse. She shoved her feet in the shoes that had fallen off while she was crying in his arms.
“Fiona,” he said, softly.
She shook her head, jamming her sunglasses on her nose to hide the sheen taking over her eyes. He snatched at her arm, but Fiona could move fast when she wanted to. She was through the house, out the door, down the block and in a cab before he could even pick up his scattered wits.
Daney sat down and shook his head like a man waking up from a deep, deep sleep. What had just happened? She’d told him it wasn’t true. She’d been in his arms, smelling of Chloe Narcisse perfume and filling his hands with her soft flesh. He could still see her tearful face, could practically feel her full lips quiverin
g against his while she cried.
She’d seemed so sincere. Like her heart was breaking. What if, and he hated himself for even thinking it, but what if she was telling the truth? He
thought back to this morning.
He’d been whistling softly when he came in and put away the juice and rolls he’d picked up at a Mexican bakery. He’d been looking forward to crawling in bed beside her sweet warmth, and then crawling in between her soft thighs. Imagine his surprise to see his side of the bed already filled with that
fucking actor she was currently doing make out scenes with on HBO. The one everyone called his look-alike and insisted she was two-timing him with.
Fiona had always laughed off the rumors and innuendos, the suspicious pictures and well-meaning ‘friends’ who dropped sof
t, bitter little sound bites in their ears and those of the eager press. She’d also agreed to a pared down version of the infamous new love scene, arguing successfully that her image did not allow for that kind of short lived filth. He’d been proud of the way she’d handled it, refusing to knuckle under to a not inconsiderable amount of pressure, and more than a little pleased when she confided to him that she just didn’t want to get that close to another man.
“You know that shit’s fake as a three dollar bill. Besides, momma don’ want nobody else,” she’d
say of the rumors as she snuggled up to him. She’d lay down one of her hot, wet kisses, the ones she’d perfected to prime him in a hurry, and the moment would pass because he believed her.
“How many times have the papers reported some shit about you that wasn’t true?” she’d ask him
whenever they got wind of salacious gossip.
A lot. But every once in a while, his conscience reminded him now, what the papers reported was true. Goddamn it! He’d trusted her. It had taken her less than a moment to turn his life inside out. Seeing her snuggled up to that fucking bastard a few hours ago, he had fought the urge to puke. He’d fought the urge to reach out and strangle the prick for dar
ing to even touch what was his.
But then his anger had shifted. It grew cold as his hot eyes switched their focus. His clear green gaze ran almost mechanically over Fiona in sleeveless peach silk, the sheet bunched around her narrow waist w
here that asshole’s arm rested.
Had it really meant nothing? Could it? Had they just been fucked up and the bastard had crawled into bed with her?
He’d caught the distinct scent of weed clinging to her skin, which was unusual since she always cleaned up after smoking and seemed to indicate she’d passed out.
Lord knew he wanted to believe her. Since he walked out
of her place his guts had yet to stop churning. He was itching to go to her. It was ironic. He left her first, but she was the last to walk out. Now he rubbed his arms in an unconscious gesture of protection. They felt empty.