31
The following day, Shayna called a powwow with her girls. They'd congregated in Talisha's room, the largest, a master suite with en suite bath that she'd gotten by default because at the time she was the only one who'd had a man and nobody wanted to take the chance of seeing Cameron's goods at two or three o'clock in the morning. They'd split the rent accordingly, and the arrangement had worked out for everyone involved.
“Okay, so what is going on?” Talisha asked, after setting a bowl of popcorn in the middle of the bed. “This must be about Jarrell, because just last week you floated in here talking about you and Michael being exclusive. So I know that's not the problem.”
Shayna reached for the popcorn, even though she wasn't hungry. “Looks like I may have spoken too soon.” She told the girls about finding all of the names on Michael's phone.
Talisha reacted first. “My Aunt Claudette says if you go looking for shit, you'll find shit.”
“Doesn't excuse him if he's playing her,” Brittney said, hurrying to Shayna's defense.
“I didn't go looking, not exactly. We were in his bedroom and his phones started ringingâ”
“Hold up,” Talisha said, one hand in the air and another on her hip. “âPhones,' as in plural?”
“Well, you know, for business . . .” Shayna offered, but considering where she was going with the conversation, her defense sounded out of place at best. “I knew he had more than one. That wasn't what got my attention. What happened is they started ringing at once, or almost at once anyway. Hell, it sounded like a datgum ring tone concert. After the fourth or fifth one, I don't remember, curiosity got the better of me and I picked one up. When I touched the screen it went to Missed Calls. That's when I saw the names.”
“How many?” Brittney asked, not even trying to hide her nosiness.
“Too many,” Talisha interjected. “Unless they were all clientsâwhich, since Shayna is here with us instead of where she's been spending nearly every night, I'd say isn't the case.” She popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “What did he say when you asked him about it?”
“He assured me that he hadn't been with any of them since we got together, and that it would take time to . . . handle that whole situation. Some of them he's slept with, but had business with as wellâ”
“Been a busy little bee, sounds like,” Brittney offered, rolling over for her water bottle on the nightstand. Shayna cut her a look. “What? Just saying . . .”
“I think you're overreacting,” Talisha said.
“Me? Wasn't your hand on your hip just a moment ago?”
“You know how fast I jump to conclusions. But think about it. You just met the man, what, a month ago? Y'all just decided to become an exclusive item or whatever a week ago. The man wasn't a monk when you met him, Shayna. I don't think it's too much to ask for you to give him some time to get his past squared away. He knows you still have interactions with Jarrell and he isn't tripping about that.”
“That's different!”
“How?”
“Please, Tee,” Brittney interrupted. “You know how. Shay's ex is also her brother-in-law.”
“Technically, uncle-in-law,” Shayna corrected.
Talisha grunted. “That's some messed up reality TV stuff if I ever saw it.”
“Tell me about it,” Shayna admitted. “Butâ”
All three women finished the sentence together: “It is what it is.”
“What did you tell him?” Talisha asked.
“I may have overreacted. I told him that I wanted us to cool things off until he handled his business.”
“Um, risky move there,” Brittney said. “Man like that don't seem like the cooling off type, if you know what I mean.”
“Britt has a point, Shay. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to want what you want and to put down your rules, but are you really ready to turn back the clock and go back to a manager/client relationship only? How will y'all work together if that happens? Won't that be kind of. . . you know . . . awkward?”
“If it weren't for ya'll, I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Britt asked.
“It was your suggestion to seduce him!”
“Yes,” Britt answered, “but it was your decision to go back for seconds and thirds. . . .”
“And fourths and fifths,” Talisha chimed in.
“And now I'm all wide open and everything, with a man who's more desirable than a winning lotto ticket.” Shayna grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest as she fell back against the bed. “Geez, here I was trying to straighten my life out and now it's more complicated than ever.”
“Don't worry about it,” Talisha said, her voice as calm as a mother soothing a child. “Things like this have a way of working out. Just go with the flow.”
32
Barcelona, Catalonia, lazily rests against the Mediterranean Sea and is the second largest city in Spain. Founded as a Roman city (by either the mythical Hercules or Hannibal's daddy, depending on who's asked), it is a rich cultural mecca known for its unique architectureâmost notably the works of native artist Antoni Gaudà and his signature creation, the Sagrada Familia, the Church of the Holy Family, which even now, after more than one hundred-sixty years, is still considered unfinished. Popular tourist attractions include the Columbus monument and La Rambla. This tree-lined boulevard boasting eateries, shops, souvenir-selling kiosks, and dozens of street performers, was a haven for tourists and locals both day and night, often played out to a soundtrack of a street-performing band. As beautiful and notable as the city was, however, for those attending the indoor track meet, their only scenery was the Estadi OlÃmpic LluÃs Companys, formerly known as the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, and their only attraction was whatever event they'd come to conquer. For Shayna, Brittney, Talisha, and Kim, that event was the 4 x 100 relay, the next item up on the day's agenda and one of the highlights of the meet. The track world's eyes were not only on the U.S. team, but also on Jamaica's ultratalented, record-busting relay squad, along with countries Trinidad and Tobago, France, and the Ukraine. The stadium held a capacity crowd of more than 55,000. But there was one particular man watching one particular woman's every move.
Michael wasn't aware of his serious expression as he watched Shayna go through her paces. His world had felt slightly off its axis for about a week now, ever since her last visit to his home when she heard an unplanned phone symphony that needed an explanation rather than an encore. He was still trying to figure out just how many gods he'd pissed off for events that night to go down the way they had. In all his years of bed hopping, he'd never encountered a cellular traffic jam of this magnitude. But it had happened, with Shayna as witness. To that he'd had only one thought.
There was a first time for everything.
Later he'd learned that Jessica, the flight attendant, had called just after touching down in Los Angeles. She was only going to be there twenty-four hours, which might have accounted for the reason that she called him three times in five minutes. Ashley had broken up with her latest sponsor and even though he'd told her there was no interest in rekindling the relationship, she'd obviously not believed him. Paige and Victoria, well, they'd always been every-now-and-then diversions. While it was true that Chloe was an ex-lover, her call was the legitimate one in the group. She was now dating a football player and was checking to see if there was room for another client on Michael's roster. Michael had explained this to Shayna, had told her that it would take time to totally break all of his past ties. When her reaction to this statement was skeptical at best, he asked how he was supposed to make people quit calling him. Changing his phone number would only result in their calling the office.
“Just give it time, babe,” he'd gently requested.
“How much?”
“I don't know, Shayna. You'll have to trust me.”
“Unfortunately, Michael, from watching my mother's life and through my own experience, I'm not sure that is something that I can do.”
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If there was one thing Shayna was an expert at doing, it was finding her focus before a race. No matter what had gone on in the week, day, or moment leading up to when she stepped on the track, she could bring all of her energy into the singular importance of the moment and force out all distraction until there was nothing but her, the track, and the wind.
Today, this was not happening.
Shayna squinted her eyes as she shook out the muscles of one leg and then the other. She raised her hands high above her head, standing on tiptoe, and then bent at the waist until her palms were firmly planted on the polyurethane track. She let her head hang loosely, turning it this way and that. She forced her breathing to be slow, steady, forced her thoughts to become singular. Or tried to. The truth of the matter was nothing had been quite the same since the phone call last night, the one where she learned that Michael was here. When she'd boarded the plane two days ago, it was with the knowledge that she'd have several days to not think about “the conversation,” that she could put any decisions that needed to be made on the back burner until after the meet. After learning about all of the women still blowing up Michael's phone, Shayna had not spent the night at Michael's house, a rare occasion in itself since they'd become a couple. But this revelation had come too close on the heels of the conversation with her mother, had drawn the unavoidable comparison to a lifestyle that she'd grown up witnessing and didn't want to lead. They'd talked a couple more times since, and then she'd told him that she needed to focus on the upcoming meet and that they'd talk when she got back.
But Michael was here. In Barcelona. And Shayna didn't quite know how she felt about that.
“Come on, Kim,” Shayna commanded, glad that the race had begun and her focus had shifted. “Keep your head up, girl, let's do this!” She watched as her teammate gracefully rounded the first curve of the track, fists pumping, legs churning in a fluid motion, her braids flying horizontally in the breeze. Kim reached Brittney and the handoff was flawless, practiced hundreds of times. “Go, Britt!” Shayna forcefully encouraged, her voice low, energy contained, when she really wanted to shout and jump up and down as her girl flew ahead of Jamaica, their primary competition, giving the United States a slight lead as she handed off to Talisha. Talisha took the baton, shifted it to her other hand, and was off like a canon shot. She ran straight up and down, similar to Usain Bolt, her tall frame and lanky legs providing the much needed assist to create more distance between her and the shorter Jamaican running the third leg. The group of eight runners rounded the curve at different intervals and hit the straightaway. The Jamaican runner's arms swung back and forth in an interesting, staccato motion, her face a mask of concentration. But Shayna didn't see that. All she saw was Talisha coming at her. She turned and threw back her arm, palm up, feet moving as she waited for the smooth feel of hard plastic to slap against her flesh.
“Go, Shay,” Talisha commanded as she handed off the baton. Her roommate and bestie hadn't said nothing but a word. Out of the corner of her eye, Shayna saw a flash of green, gold, and black.
Jamaica.
She shifted her focus, eyes becoming fixed on nothing but the track and the tape. The sound of the crowd receded.
Up in the stands, Michael's eyes were trained on Shayna. She ran like a machine, all arms and legs and fluid motion, her face holding the same type of intensity he sometimes saw when they made love. By the time she busted the tape at the finish line, he knew what he had to do. And he wanted to do it before the meet ended tomorrow and he took Shayna to the next level of her career.
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Back at his suite at the W Hotel, Michael sat gazing at the nighttime view of Barcelona, the lights twinkling from the buildings beyond his hotel, the vast darkness of the sea just beyond them. He'd been walking back and forth from the sitting area to the bedroom area, on the phone for the better part of an hour, trying to do what he'd promised Shayna he would and end the liaisons with all of his other women. It sounded easy enough in theory, but the reality of it was proving harder than he thought. First there was the matter of reaching them and if not, leaving a message for them to call him as soon as possible. Unlike some of the guys he'd heard about, he wasn't going to send a text message or break up by voice mail. No, a son of Sam and Jackie Morgan would never go out like that.
Michael looked down at his blinking phone. For the umpteenth time he wished that the ringers on his cells had been silenced when Shayna had come over that night. But Michael had never played those kinds of games, never thought to silence his phones unless he was in a meeting. Had surely never thought to silence his phones so that one female wouldn't know that another was calling.
It was probably best that it happened,
he thought, seeing that it was Paia who'd returned his call.
This had to happen sooner or later, so it might as well be happening now.
He touched the screen. “Hello, Paia.” No “baby,” “honey,” or “darling” on these calls. It was time to address each and every one of these women by their first names.
A brief pause, and then she said, “You sound . . . serious.”
Michael attempted a chuckle, but it sounded more like a cough. As confident as he was, and as up to any task that came in his direction, these waters had never been charted and he didn't mind admitting that it was taking him a while to get used to rowing upstream. He decided to ease into it. “Where are you?”
“Paris. Where are you? Wait, don't tell me you're in Barcelona! Was that this week you were going to Spain? How long will you be there? The last show ends here tomorrow night. I could hop on a plane or if it's too late, take a charter.”
“That's okay.” Immediately he knew that he'd answered too quickly.
“What kind of call is this?” she asked bluntly.
“Not the type of call I'm used to,” he honestly replied.
“What kind of call is that?”
“One where I'm ending a liaison to . . . focus on someone special.” Silence. Several seconds passed. “Paia, you still there?”
“Yes, and I'm trying to figure out who this imposter is who stole Michael Morgan's phone. Because this doesn't sound like the guy I know at all.”
“Yeah, well, the guy you heard about is turning over a new leaf.”
“Wow. She must be pretty special.”
“She is.”
“Whatâa famous actor or pop star? Or waitâdo I know her? Is it another model and you're trying to keep things from getting messy?”
“No, none of that. You don't know this girl.” She would eventually, but Michael knew this fact needn't be a part of the conversation.
“I'm happy for you, Michael,” Paia said at last. “I mean that. No matter how we play in the fast lane, I think all of us would like to find that one true love, and experience happiness. If I'd known that's where you were in life, I would have tried harder to be the one you found that with.”
“You're good people, Paia. I wish you the best.” Three quick beeps sounded in succession. “Listen, that's my other phone. Take care of yourself, okay?”
“You, too, lover. You, too.”
Michael ended that call and quickly reached for his other phone. “Valerie, thanks for calling me back. There's something I need to discuss with you.”
Before the night was over, Michael was well on his way to making good on his promise to Shayna. He'd talked to Cheryl for over an hour, including about the suicide attempt, and was thrilled to learn that not only had she joined a professional dating service, but also that a world-renowned therapist was helping her sort out her life. And as he finished taking his shower to spend an unlikely night in his bed alone, he was hit with the most unexpected thought. Jackie Morgan just might get what she wanted. She might get to witness one of her sons stop sowing his oats.