I'll Be Down for You: A Bay Area Saga (15 page)

I leaned down closer to his face. “Now who’s asleep, Dominic? That was for my Uncle DJ, bitch!
My muthafuckin’ uncle
…!” Then I watched as his very last breath was taken and his eyes had stopped trying to see life. They stared up at me as though trying to convey some sort of message. I smiled at his open eyelids, and when I was sure that his soul had left his body, I dismounted him, relieved him of the rubber and walked it into his master bathroom and flushed it down his fancy ass toilet. I swiped one of the hand towels that were a part of a set and ran it under hot water, then wrung it out and commenced to getting blood spatter from my chest, face, and hands.

After I exited the restroom, I grabbed the Pea coat that he’d word to dinner off his chair and set it aside. Once I was fully dressed, I threw the coat over my person and in the still of the night, I left Dominic’s house with all my belongings and headed to my car that was parked just a few blocks away. Once inside, I started the vehicle, drove away with my headlights on low until I reached a main street. About half way back to the Lafayette Park Hotel, I began to cry hysterically. I cried for victory. I cried for vengeance served. Dominic’s death wouldn’t bring my uncle back, but I felt so much better…way better than I thought I would have.

“I miss you so much, DJ…” I whispered, as my tears began to subside. “I wish you were here. But you’re not and now life might be able to start again for me.”

I took a long hot shower when I got back to my hotel room, and inside the shower, I crouched to the ceramic floor crying some more into my hands. I cried like a baby. I released tears that I’d held in for way too long. Of course I mourned, but the anger always came in and stopped my tears midway. Tonight was the first time I could cry without interruption and with a clear heart and mind. I felt like DJ was smiling down at me for a job well-done. And I felt like I had at least made the responsible person pay. I didn’t get to find out why Dominic did what he did, but the ‘why’ no longer mattered to me. All that mattered was that justice had been served.
Real justice
.

I exited the shower refreshed and feeling lighter emotionally. I looked in the mirror at the eyes that I rarely looked into anymore. I’d always loved the honey color of my eyes. As far as I knew, I was the only one in the family who had them. But it was DJ who acknowledged them to the world with my nickname. So, now I could look in them and smile. “Hey Honey,” I said into the mirror while pulling my hair up, up, and away to the top in a pile. I went to pick up the clothes that I’d walked out of as soon as I came into my room so that I could put them all into the bag I’d bought. I retrieved the oversized t-shirt that I’d brought to sleep in and then walked to the bed to plop down and watch television until I dozed off. But the minute my face hit the pillow, I heard a vibration. I knew it wasn’t my phone because I’d turned it off for the night. I got out of the bed and walked over to Dominic’s coat and felt around on the inside pockets until I came to the source of the noise—his cell phone.

I smiled realizing what a jewel I had in my possession.
Well, what do you know
? I thought. The call had stopped when I got to it, and I was too sleepy to worry about somebody looking for his ass, so I crawled back into bed and slept like a newborn. I’d go on a snooping mission tomorrow to see if all the loops had been closed…

Jazz was out here acting reckless and it was really starting to piss me off. I’d been calling her since last night and she hadn’t answered her phone. Now here it was damn near two o’clock, the next day, and I still hadn’t heard from her—text or even a returned voicemail. Then when I called Eva to see if she was out at the manor, she told me ‘no’ and that she hadn’t seen her. “I saw her yesterday morning though, so I’m sure she’s good,” were Eva’s words. “What’s that Desiree girl’s number that she kicks it with?” I asked her. And her response, after she giggled that shit off was, “Let her live a little, Khalil. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say y’all were in some damn lover’s quarrel or something,” she had teased.

But I wasn’t trying to hear that shit. Eva wasn’t in tune to what was going on like I was, and I knew that Jazz had her own agenda and now I had to be the one to worry about her muthafuckin’ ass when I had my own shit to deal with. I should’ve had Antonio watching her still, but I just kind of let that go. What the fuck for, I didn’t know, and now I was regretting that shit big time. While I was mid-thought and about to call her phone one more time before I headed out, Antonio rung my phone. Before I could even greet him, he blurted out, “We got a problem…”

An hour later I was rushing down 580, through the Altamont Pass doing like eighty at some points, and well into one-hundred at others. I was pissed. I couldn’t get to Tracy fast enough. I didn’t even bother calling before I went either. If Jazz wasn’t at the manor when I got there, then I was gonna be there when she did finally get her ass there. This shit was outta control. She thought she was pissed at me before—she was really gonna be pissed when I got done with her.

I thought I was gonna have something with her. I really did. All those years of being attracted to her, but not wanting to disrespect the family in any kind of way, and then finally being with her and seeing the possibility of what could be. But nah, she was on some bullshit and I didn’t need, nor want a woman in my life that acted without thinking about consequences. She was wild for no muthafuckin’ reason, and that’s not how I lived my life. I damn sure wasn’t gonna have somebody in it who brought the bullshit.
Hell naw!
I pounded the steering wheel as I drove. Several times I tried talking myself down because I didn’t want to get over there amped to a million and that’s where I was—for more reasons than one.

When I got to the front gate, and accessed it with my card key, I saw Jazz’s car in the driveway next to Eva’s once I made the incline. That pissed me off even more because it meant that she’d gotten my calls and my text messages, and that she had already heard from Eva that I’d tried to reach her and she still didn’t respond. Yeah, okay. We about to see what’s good for real.

When I burst through the front door, the first voice I heard was Eva’s. “Khalil!” she exclaimed from across the sunken living room. Jazz, who was seated on the sofa next to her, looked over at me and then turned back toward the big screen. “What you doin’ out here?” Eva continued. “Came to check on your girls? That’s too cute. We appreciate that!”

“Hey Eva,” I greeted dryly. My hands were in my pockets and I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. “Let me holler at you real quick, Jazz,” I suggested. My tone wasn’t friendly, and I knew that she sensed it.

“Nah, I’m watching this
Orange is the New Black
episode that I missed,” she responded, without looking at me.

“That shit is on Netflix. Hit the pause or the record, and come on.”

“Y’all got something goin’ on, don’t y’all?!” Eva teased, looking from one of us to the other. “You comin’ all in here on some caveman shit about to snatch the girl out her seat.”

“Not a good time, Eva. Like, for real.
Jazz!
For real, man, get up!” I demanded.

“Khalil, what’s the problem?” Eva asked, this time her smile gone. “You good?
Y’all good
?”

“I’m cool,” I lied.

“Me too,” Jazz said, finally raising from her spot and walking out the room ahead of me and headed upstairs. But I grabbed her arm.

“Get your shoes. We need to take a ride.”

“What’s the problem, Khalil?” she asked, as we drove through the gates.

“Why haven’t you been answering my calls? Why was ya’ phone off last night?”

“I was busy and your message didn’t sound urgent. I was gonna call when the show went off.”

I shot a look over at her and mean mugged her for a few seconds, but had to get back to the road. “You pissin’ me off, dude. In real life though. You on some bullshit. Some real bullshit.”

“Pissin’ you off how? And where the fuck are we goin’?”

Without answering her question, I pulled into the parking lot of the Golden Corral, and put the car in park, but left the motor idling.

“Why we here?”

“Because I needed to be out of the house so Eva wouldn’t hear what we were talking about.”

“Why? Because you finally wanna fill me in on some shit? Is that why? Because you been holding information close, Khalil. What the fuck you wanna get all candid now for?”

“You tryin’ to lose your life, Jazz? Is that what’s up? You got a death wish? You feeling like you ain’t got shit to live for or some shit?”

“I just know this ain’t a threat…”

“Nah, nigga, it’s a muthafuckin question!”

“Naw, I ain’t got no damn death wish,” she said, smacking her lips and turning to look out of her window. I took that opportunity to get out the car and walked around to her side and opened the door, pulling her out. I held her by her arms and pinned her to the side of the vehicle.

“Khalil! Stop!” she protested, trying her best to wriggle free.

“So you a killa now? You fuckin’ niggas and slashing throats?! Huh?!” Her eyes widened and she stopped struggling when she realized that I knew what she’d done. She closed her eyes to keep from seeing the glare I had on her. “You would risk what we could have and go fuckin’ on niggas for revenge instead of coming to me and telling me what you know?!”

“Kh—”

“Khalil,
what?!
You fucked him!”

At those words, she finally let down the cool and calm exterior she had going on. “It was the only way I could get to him, Khalil!” she cried.

“It wasn’t the only way though, Jazz! If you wanted to be there, I woulda let you see the nigga take his last breath! I woulda let you see that shit!”

When a couple came from the restaurant eyeing us curiously, I lowered my voice and nudged her to get back inside. I opened the back door and got in the backseat behind her.

We sat in silence for a few long seconds before Jazz spoke just above a whisper. “You wouldn’t have let me be there, Khalil. You barely even told me anything. You probably woulda just gotten rid of him and never even let me know.” She turned around to look at me in the backseat with tears in her eyes. “You knew way more than you told me! You knew that this shit was all connected and didn’t say shit! How did I know that you would even include me! DJ’s all I had, Khalil!
He was all I had!
I couldn’t let that nigga take him from me and not suffer! I couldn’t do it!”

“You don’t think I get that shit, Jazz?!
I get it!
We got the same passion running through our veins about this shit!
It’s the same!
But you fuckin’ this nigga…! Nah, that shit took it too far!”

She lowered her eyes and turned back toward the front of the car, and commenced to sobbing hysterically. I wanted to console her, but I couldn’t find the empathy. “Khalil…I’m sorry…but I’m not sorry. Not yet. I can’t be. I didn’t even feel myself having sex with that man. All I saw was how it would all end and that was what drove me. I think you’re seeing it like I was all into it and we were all up on each other. It wasn’t like that at all. My entire goal was to get him to a point where he was too caught up to even see me coming. That was my only goal.” She paused for a minute, and then continued. “Seeing him die felt good. It felt too good…for me to get caught up on how I got him there.”

The silence loomed once again. I replayed her words in my head. I replayed the last few weeks in my head. I saw us making love, I saw the times I was in conversations with her and she zoned out. I saw DJ’s closed casket that we couldn’t have open because he was too badly disfigured. I saw it all. And yeah a few times, I came across visuals of her riding that nigga Dom. But her words affected me.

“Come here, Jazz.”

“Huh…?”

“Come here,” I repeated. When she opened the passenger side door and got out, I opened the back door to allow her in then moved over. As soon as she closed the door, I pulled her face to mine and kissed her. I felt her hand wrap around my arm, and she kissed me back with just as much passion. I missed her lips, and missed having her close. “I feel where you’re coming from. I don’t like what you did, and I hate thinking about that nigga’s hands on you, and the fact that he coulda gotten the upper hand and
did you
before you could
do him
. That shit woulda done me in. Losing
you and DJ?
That shit woulda done a nigga all the way in.”

She looked up into my eyes and then slowly climbed on top of my lap, where she took my face into her hands and proceeded to slide her tongue across my lips.

“I miss you, Khalil,” she whispered. “I miss you a lot.”

“You feel
goooood
, baby.
Soooo
good,” I moaned, as Khalil slid his dick in and out of me with unpredictable strokes. Each one felt good as fuck, but no two movements mirrored the last.

I didn’t remember how we got from the parking lot back to my bed without me wetting my panties, but we did; and now I had him in my bed where he was fucking me senseless. It felt like we were having sex for the very first time because there was so much more emotion in the bed with us now. I gave him everything and held nothing back. My eagle wings were spread wide so that Khalil would know that he had full access. My pussy was warm against his cock and the assault was so beautiful that I swore I was going numb down there.

After Khalil deposited his seed inside of me, he kissed me so soft and so slow, and before I could make a move, he slid out of me and in one fell swoop was between my legs with his face, his lips, and his tongue, seductively violating my folds. My outer lips were a hot spot and when his tongue lifted my lips and slid beneath the lining, my entire pelvis clenched in reaction to the sensation, and my body convulsed in light thrusts against his face. And as he licked the underlining of both lips, I saw tiny white stars through wide open eyes and before I knew it, I felt what seemed like it was coming from my urethra, and I shrieked loudly while holding onto the sides of Khalil’s head for dear life.

“
Aaahhh
!
I’mmm
…!
Cummm
…!
Aaahhh
…
Khalil
!”

The way the bottom of my ass slammed against my bed, I felt like I was gonna elevate off that bitch any minute and go through some type of damn demon wash! This nigga had me feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience where I felt like I was peeing my damn self and everything. That was until I realized that I was squirting! That shit that everybody talked about, but half never really experienced. That shit was phenomenal. If there was a word more descriptive than
phenomenal
, I needed it for this damn moment right here. Because when Khalil finished with me, I was immobile. I didn’t even wanna move.

“Daaamn, Jazz…”

I laughed a little bit. “
Damn, Jazz
? Damn…
you
! That’s that fix right there. That’s that sex-down that you just
know
you can’t get
nowhere
else,” I said, tracing his chest tattoo with my finger. I wasn’t about to tell him that I loved him because he would think it was because he just sexed me like a damn thoroughbred. But I did love him and it was for more reasons than that. I had loved this man since I was sixteen. But I would get tell him in due time.

“You know I love you, right?” he blurted out right in the middle of my musings.

I cleared my throat because the shock of his statement had put a lump in it. “You do?”

“Yep. Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t. I thought after you got mad at me—”

“Yeah, me too. But realizing that I coulda lost you brought it all back. At first I was like, ‘Fuck her’, because you just seem like a lot to deal with. But I ain’t tryna
not
be with you.”

I couldn’t believe that we were in that place where we could love on each other like we had, and then speak the actual words after. I swore that him knowing what happened with Dom would turn him all the way off from me. But I think he knew that what I said was true and that it meant nothing and that I was just doing what I felt I had to do. I loved his ass even more.

“I love you too, Khalil. Been lovin’ you since I was a teen. And even more now.”

“That’s what’s up. So, we gon’ do this, then?”

“Yeah, we gon’ do this. And ain’t no backing out now either.”

“Nah, baby…I ain’t goin’ nowhere from you.”

~*~*~

A few hours later, I was wide awake and admiring Khalil in his sleep as the sun tried to make it past my thick curtains. The man was fine, even in his sleep. I smiled down at his sleeping form, and then slid out of the bed to go see if Maria had cooked any breakfast. If she hadn’t, I was going to. This man had me feeling all domestic and shit just the day after. I had half expected him to be up before me with everything his schedule had on it, but he was knocked out. I called out to Eva, but she had obviously gotten her an early start or she was tucked away in some other part of the house. Whatever the case, the place seemed empty and there wasn’t any aroma coming from the kitchen, so I went to work and prepared us pancakes, bacon, eggs, and some cut up fruit. That was quicker than the smothered potatoes and grits that I wanted to make.

By the time I got upstairs, Khalil, was sitting against the headboard and probably thinking about what all he had to do today. But he hadn’t gotten up or dressed, so that was a good sign that he was sticking around for a while.

“Uh oh, my girl don’ made me breakfast in bed!”

“She sure did. And it’s enough to put you right back to sleep again,” I said, setting the oversized tray in between us on the bed. I sat down Indian style facing him and blushed. “This is us for real right here, huh?”

“Yep,” he responded, reaching for a piece of his turkey bacon.

“Oh!” I exclaimed suddenly, jumping from the bed and running over to my closet.

“Where you goin’?” Khalil yelled out with his mouth full.

“Forgot to show you something!” When I got back to the bed, I had Dom’s cell phone in my hand and extended it to him. “Here…”

He grabbed a paper towel to wipe his hands off. “What’s this? You already trying to give me access to your cell?” he laughed. “I trust you!” he teased.

“This ain’t mine. We can just call it a keepsake. You know, just in case there’s more people that need our…
your
attention.” I caught myself quickly.

“I think you already eliminated that, baby. I saw a typed out voicemail that confirmed that Dom was the dude who ordered the hit on DJ. I just wish I could’ve got that nigga first. I didn’t get a piece of no pie. Carl got that bitch ass Nick and you took out other dude. So, unfortunately, I think we’re good.”

“Long as you’re sure. Just know that I won’t be getting in the way again. I’ll let my
man
handle business the way he sees fit,” I promised.

“Great minds…” he remarked, in approval.

“Yep, great minds,” I cosigned. “So, baby . . .” I started, while chomping down on a piece of bacon. “Was any of those messages about Dani’s cousin, Shay? Because that’s what still gets me. I mean, I’ll admit my focus was all the way on my uncle; but shit is still a little strange, right?”

“
See!
” he laughed. “That’s that good education that keeps that beautiful mind thinking.”

“Whatever,” I stated with my jaws full.

While I was stuffing my face, Khalil had started to scroll through Dominic’s phone and had a big ass smile on his face. “This nigga got some missed calls,” he acknowledged. “Unfortunately, thanks to my chick, he won’t be answering anymore of ‘em.”

We started to laugh and mid-laughter, the phone began to vibrate in Khalil’s hand, just as he was setting it aside. We immediately looked at each other, amused. But when Khalil looked from me and then to the display, I watched as his entire facial expression changed to a more serious look.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed. But he didn’t answer. The ringing stopped and Khalil’s brows furrowed, then he looked over at me. “Baby—”

I was cut off by the phone’s persistent ringing again and watched as Khalil’s head began to shake slowly from side to side. I reached for the phone, but he pulled it back and swiped to answer with the speaker on. “What’s up…?” he greeted.

A deep sigh came through the speaker in 3-D. It was relief to the highest power in that sigh too. “Ohhh my God, baby! You’re okay! Where have you been?! I’ve been trying to reach you! I was worried! What’s going on? Did you find that guy you were looking for yet?! Or were you with one of those fuckin’ whores! Wait, no…
I’m sorry
! I’m just glad you’re okay, baby.
Whew!
” she breathed out deeply.

My entire mouth dropped when I recognized her voice. Instinctively, I went to say something, but Khalil shook his head in fast motion and put his finger to his lips. “Hold up,” he mouthed.

“Baby! You there? Are you mad at me? Say something,
please
.”

“What you want me to say…?”

The voice went silent. She had probably figured out that the voice wasn’t Dom’s. “Dominic…?” she whispered nervously.

“Nah, Eva…not Dom. This is Khalil.”