Let's Get It On (17 page)

She wanted to burn those sheets and anything else that Lauryn had left in the house. Stalking into the bathroom, she opened all of the cabinets, looking for old make-up, old hair spray, and the like. Her head was spinning; the temperature in the room seemed to have jumped up a hundred degrees. Leaning back on the oversized tub, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Sweat had beaded on her forehead, and make-up ran down her cheeks. She felt as mad as she looked.

“What's going on?” Maurice asked as he entered the bathroom.

Looking up, she gave Maurice an intense stare. “When's the last time you bought new sheets? How much of this furniture did Lauryn pick out?” she ranted. “I'm not going to play house with you while living with another woman's relics. As a matter of fact, I don't even want to be here in this place, knowing that she lived here and made this place your home.”

Maurice grabbed her shoulders. “Kenya, calm down. Lauryn is trying to push our buttons, trying to come between us, and I'm not going to let it happen.”

“Like before, right?” she snapped, then immediately regretted the words.

Dropping his hands to his sides, Maurice shook his head from side to side. “Why do we have to keep going back to the past?”

“Because she keeps showing up,” Kenya said, her voice low and angry. “Why is that, Mo? What kind of signals are you giving her?”

Taking a step back, Maurice grabbed the edge of the sink. “I can't keep defending myself every time Lauryn shows up. She's going to be around. Charlotte isn't that big. What do you want me to do? Ask to be traded? Then are you going to quit your job and join me wherever I land? I can't control what she does. But you have to trust me when I say that I'm finished with her.”

She dropped her head in her hands and exhaled slowly. “I can't help that I feel insecure about you and Lauryn. I can't get that image out of my head. I see you with her. I see all of the media reports about your marriage and—”

Maurice reached out and pulled Kenya into his arms. “She's nothing, she means nothing to me, and I want nothing to do with her. She chose someone else, another life, and I have you. We have each other, and that's all that we need,” he said, his lips close to her ear.

Closing her eyes, Kenya prayed for trust and forgiveness. She prayed that when she went to sleep tonight, she would see the future that she and Maurice deserved, and not the past that she couldn't leave behind.

But she wasn't going to sleep until they bought new sheets.

Casting her eyes upward at him, Kenya made one request. “We need to go to Target.”

Lauryn smiled as the videographer handed her a DVD and a VHS tape.

“This is some hot stuff,” he said. “You're quite the performer.”

Licking her lips, she replied, “You think so, huh?”

Practically salivating, he nodded like a hound dog. “You know there's a bed in the back.”

“Then you should get in it,” she said, slipping her items in her purse. “Alone.” Lauryn flounced out of the store, smiling broadly as her plan took form in her head.

As soon as she stepped on the sidewalk, Mya stood in front of her. “What the hell is going on, Lauryn?”

“Nothing.”

“Bull. You haven't been home in two days. If this isn't what you want, let me know. I thought you chose me when you left Mo at the altar, but obviously, you're looking for something I can't give you.”

“I'm not a lesbian, Mya, and you've become someone I don't recognized. What happened to you?”

“I'm myself. I'm a same gender–loving woman who's out of the closet. I thought we were going to be on this journey together. If that's not the case, then why did you leave him?”

“Mya, I'm sorry, but this isn't what I want anymore,” Lauryn said.

Running her fingers though her wavy hair, Mya blinked back the tears. “You're such a selfish bitch. I don't know how I allowed myself to fall in love with you.”

Lauryn smiled. “You seduced me because you couldn't resist me. But I'm not a possession and I can't be contained by one person and I won't let you define me by your dictionary.”

“You can't keep doing this to people,” Mya called out after Lauryn as she walked away. “You can't play with people's hearts like it's a poker game.”

Lauryn waved her hand in the air as she walked away. She could care less what Mya had to say, because she was going to make sure that Maurice and Kenya weren't happy and that they wouldn't make it to the altar. Though Lauryn didn't know if they were getting married or not, her goal was to make sure that it didn't happen.

 

 

Maurice and Kenya had been in Hickory, North Carolina, looking for furniture, and he was tired. Though he was willing to let Kenya redecorate what was going to be their house, he couldn't wait to get home, get something to eat, and go to sleep.

Why do women spend all of this time shopping and only end up buying one thing?
he asked himself. In the four hours that they had been shopping at the furniture mall, the only thing Kenya had picked out was a leather sofa and matching love seat. Maurice had to admit, her taste was better than Lauryn's. She wasn't as pretentious as Lauryn was, and she asked Maurice's opinion on how he wanted things to look. Now his place was going to feel like his home and not Lauryn's version of what their house should look like. Lauryn had wanted to turn their house into something that she'd seen on
MTV Cribs.
Hell, she probably had wanted to be on that show once they were married. If she'd really paid attention to Maurice, she would've known that he wasn't much for the media spotlight. And if he had paid attention to her, he would've known that she was only with him for the media attention and the money.

I was such a fool,
he thought.
I could be celebrating my anniversary with Kenya, instead of starting all over again.

“Are you bored with all this?” Kenya asked, mistaking his silence for indifference. “I promise this is the last stop.”

“All right,” he said, then kissed her on the cheek. “I'm fine. We just need to go get something to eat.”

“That's fine,” she said as they walked into the Ashley Furniture outlet. “I'll even treat.”

“Now that's what's up,” he said. “What are we looking for in here?”

“Something to brighten up the living room,” she said. “I know you like black, but maybe we should add a little splash of color?”

“As long as that color isn't pink,” he said, ready to take a seat and let Kenya do her thing.

“I'll take that into consideration,” she said as she headed for the accessories section.

Maurice sat down on one of the display sofas and watched her walk away, her hips swaying underneath her A-line cotton skirt. He couldn't wait to peel that skirt off her, spread her legs, and dive for her buried treasure.

“Hey,” said a boy about twelve years old. “Aren't you Mo Goings from the Carolina Panthers? What are you doing here?”

Maurice pointed to Kenya. “Whatever she wants.”

“Man, my friends aren't going to believe this. Can you sign my T-shirt or something?” the boy asked excitedly.

“Sure, kid,” Maurice said. “You got a pen?”

The boy produced a Sharpie marker from his jeans pocket and handed it to Maurice. Then he lifted his sweatshirt, revealing a Carolina Panthers T-shirt. “I'm glad you're not a jerk, like some other players.”

Maurice shook the boy's hand and smiled. His mind flashed to Kenya's confession of her miscarriage. He wondered what their son would've been like. He didn't even consider the fact that the lost child could have been a girl. He wanted a son, someone he could toss a football with and teach the rules of the game that he loved. Kenya would watch them from the porch and maybe even bring them some snacks. A family had never been something Maurice had daydreamed about when he and Lauryn were together, but he wanted that with Kenya more than he imagined.

Rising to his feet after signing the boy's shirt and watching him happily run away, Maurice walked up to Kenya, who was standing in the lamps section of the store, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Hey, babe,” she said, then pointed to a pair of Tiffany floor lamps. “What do you think?”

Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “Didn't your grandmother have some lamps like these when she used to baby-sit us?”

Kenya laughed. “And as I recall, you and James broke one while playing football in the house, after she told you not to.”

Sharing the memory, Maurice chuckled and kissed her neck gently. “She whooped me good, too,” he said. “And it wasn't even my fault. James couldn't throw a football to save his life.”

“I guess it's good that you're the star in the family,” Kenya said.

“Maybe we need to have a little star of our own?” he whispered.

Whirling around, she raised her eyebrows and asked, “What?”

“I want to start a family with you. I want us to have the life that we should've had all those years ago. We should get married immediately. What's the point in waiting?”

Kenya smiled broadly and shook her head. “Maurice, this is too much too fast. How are we going plan a wedding with my schedule and you getting ready for training camp?”

“We can fly to Vegas tonight and get started on making Junior tomorrow,” he said gleefully.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” she inquired. “I mean, I'm not doing some tawdry Vegas chapel for my wedding. And that's not to say that I want the Princess Di treatment, but I want my mother and my friends around when I get married.”

He respected her wishes, but he didn't want to wait much longer. “How do you think the family's going to react to the news? The last time I saw your dad in Atlanta, he tried to kill me with his eyes.”

Kenya laughed nervously, telling Maurice that he still was persona non grata in the Taylor family.

“Have you even told them about us?” he said.

“My mother knows.”

“What did she say?”

Exhaling exasperatedly, Kenya said, “I'm an adult, and I can make my own decisions, without my parents' approval.”

“So, she's not happy about us being together, huh?” he said.

“That's putting it mildly,” Kenya said. “But my mother, father, and others are going to have their opinions about you. I know the truth, though.”

“And what would that be?” he asked, hugging her tightly.

“That you love me, and I love you back. It's you and me, boo.”

“You're not just saying that so I'll buy these ugly lamps, are you?” he teased, kissing her on the bridge of her nose.

After purchasing the lamps, a new king-sized bed, a softer sofa and love seat, and a host of other household items, Kenya and Maurice headed back to his place for a dinner of Chinese takeout and a bottle of merlot.

“Want to watch a movie?” Maurice said as he picked up his mail. “These just came from Netflix.” He held up a brown package that looked like it had come from the Internet movie-rental company.

Kenya shrugged her shoulders as she set the food on the coffee table. “Right now I just want to eat. I'm starving. I'm going to get some plates. What do you have to drink in here?”

“I have some tea, water, and juice,” he called out as he opened the DVDs.

Kenya grabbed the plates and flatware and asked Maurice what movies had been delivered. “And please don't say action and adventure. I don't want to see anything blow up tonight.”

“I have no idea what these movies are, because they aren't labeled,” he said, watching Kenya walk into the living room.

“Huh,” she said as she set the plates on the oak coffee table. “What kind of bootleg company are you dealing with?”

Maurice shrugged. “James signed me up with this mess. There's no telling what kind of company this is.” He popped the unlabeled disk in the player and sat down next to Kenya after pressing PLAY.

She handed him a plate filled with sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. “Is this a mystery or something?” she said, glancing at the black screen.

“I don't know,” he said.

An image of Maurice's bedroom appeared on the screen along with the headline from yesterday's paper.

“What the hell?” Maurice muttered, inching to the edge of the sofa. “Is this some kind of joke?”

The screen faded to black, and then Lauryn's image appeared. “See,” she said, “some things never change. Kenya, you will always come in second to me.”

Kenya turned to Maurice. “What the hell is this?”

They both looked at the screen and saw what seemed to be Maurice and Lauryn having sex.

“What is this?” Kenya demanded again.

“This is a fake. She wasn't here yesterday. I was with you nearly all day,” he said. Maurice shut the DVD player off. “This is—”

Kenya quickly rose to her feet. “You slimy bastard. I knew Lauryn wasn't showing up just because she was trying to get back with you. You've been with her behind my back all this time. How could you do this to me again?”

Grabbing a pint of rice, Kenya tossed it in Maurice's face. He screamed as the hot rice hit his skin.

“Are you crazy?” he yelled.

“Yes, I am, for getting involved with you again. I must be insane. Did you have fun sleeping with me and Lauryn, comparing notes, and videotaping it?”

Maurice grabbed a napkin and wiped his face, then quickly rose to his feet. “I didn't sleep with Lauryn. That DVD is a fake.”

Kenya glared at him as she grabbed her purse and keys from the end of the sofa. “Go straight to hell!” she shouted then snatched her engagement ring off her finger and flung it across the room. Kenya ran out of the apartment, and slammed the door behind her just as hot tears welled in her eyes.

As she waited for the elevator, Maurice ran out into the hallway. “Can we talk about this?”

“There's nothing to talk about, Maurice. The DVD didn't lie. Lauryn can have your sorry ass, because I'm done.”

“That DVD is a lie, and if you won't take my word for it, then let's have it analyzed.”

The doors to the elevator opened, and Kenya stepped in, ignoring Maurice's pleas to talk to him about the DVD.

By the time Kenya reached the lobby, she was a bucket of tears. She pulled it together long enough to ask the doorman to call her a taxi. She'd rode with Maurice all day, and her car was in South Charlotte.

“Miss, are you all right?” the doorman asked when he hung up the phone.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she nodded but continued to cry. “I'll be fine,” she said, then headed out to the sidewalk. Tears blurred her vision, and she wasn't paying attention to the person walking in the door. It was James.

“Kenya, what's wrong?” James asked, noting her tears and shaky demeanor.She flung herself into his arms. “I was such a fool. I made a mistake giving him a second chance, and he did it to me again.”

Pushing her chin upward, James looked into her eyes. “What did he do?”

“Lauryn.”

“Come on. Let me take you home,” James said.

Kenya allowed James to lead her to his car and drive her across town. On the ride to her place, she stared out the window, wishing that she could hurt Maurice the way he'd hurt her. Then again, what would that solve? However, Kenya wasn't thinking rationally. Her first thought was to drive over to his place with a baseball bat and smash his car until it was unrecognizable. Then she thought about entering his apartment and lighting his bed on fire, with him in it. Turning to James, she thought that he might somehow be the key to her revenge. But if she did what she was thinking, there would be no turning back, and Maurice would never forgive her. That was fine with her, because she was never going to forgive him for what he'd done to her, again.