The Man in 3B (16 page)

He didn’t even flinch at the amount. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do,” he said and then exited the apartment.

I felt frozen with anger, disappointment, and regret. It took a couple of minutes before the reality of everything he’d said registered, and that’s when I let out a roar.

“You motherfucker! I hate you! I hate you, motherfucker!” I was shouting everything I wished I’d said to Avery when he was in my face. “Broke-ass, tired-ass son of a bitch.”

Before I could come up with more names, there was a knock at the door. I knew it was Avery, and this time I was going to say exactly what was on my chest.

I flung the door open and started right in. “You son of—”

“Yo!” Daryl stood there with his hands up, as if prepared to block oncoming punches. “What’s going on? I heard you over here screaming at the top of your lungs like a mad woman.” He peeked inside but only after I calmed down enough for him to be sure I wasn’t going to hit him. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m sick of his shit,” I blurted. “I did everything for that man. I cooked and cleaned and washed his nasty ass when he was sick. I hate him!” My bottom lip began to tremble, and tears leaked from my eyes.

At first Daryl stood there in my doorway looking at me; then he sort of nudged me on my shoulder. I looked up at him, but his eyes weren’t on my face. They were roaming over my entire body, like I was on display. The funny thing is, I didn’t mind it one bit because the expression on his face made me feel like he approved. Then his words confirmed it.

“The man’s a fool,” he said. “Mark my words. With a woman who looks as good as you, he’ll be back. Or someone else will be here to take his place.”

My heart began doing palpitations. Daryl’s words had erased all of Avery’s insults. And as if that wasn’t enough, out of nowhere I felt his soft lips connect with mine. I probably should have pulled away. After all, even though Avery was filing for divorce, I was still technically a married woman. Yes, I should have pulled away, but I didn’t. I allowed his lips to cover mine and my tongue to intermingle with his until he finally pulled back.

Wow, that was probably the best kiss I’ve ever had,
I thought. It was so good, in fact, that I had to catch my breath. We both stared at each other wordlessly.

I finally drummed up the courage to ask, “What was that for?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You looked like you needed it.”

“I did,” I said. “Can I have another?”

He leaned in again, and I closed my eyes, expecting another kiss. When it didn’t come, I opened my eyes to see that he’d pulled himself back and was looking at me with a disheartened expression. I was
about to ask him what was wrong, but then I heard a door opening in the hall. I peeked out there to see Benny, the young kid from the building, coming out of Daryl’s apartment.

Daryl looked at Benny, then at me, and whispered, “You know, Connie, we’re both in a very vulnerable place in our lives right now and going any further could complicate things.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear now that he had me all hot and bothered, but I knew he was probably right. The last thing I needed in my life was more complication. “Good night, Daryl,” I said with a smile as I closed my door and went to dream about our kiss.

It was just about closing time when I locked the door at Cheap Sam’s Furniture. Life sure takes us down strange paths, doesn’t it? You couldn’t have paid me a million bucks to think I’d ever walk in that place again after the way they passed me over for the position of manager, but there I was, staring across the showroom once again.

Ever since the night I met Cain, I’d been doing a lot of thinking, and I’d gained a new perspective about my life. It was time for me to stop being a goddamn doormat. I’d spent the better part of the last three years helping to build Cheap Sam’s. I’d had a hand in almost everything that was on the sales floor. It was too much for me to give up and walk away without anything to show for it, so now I was back—back to claim what was rightfully mine.

“Hey, snap out of it,” Cain whispered from behind me. “Get your head out your ass. You’ve got a job to do, remember?”

“You’re right. Sorry about that,” I whispered as Sam’s pimply-faced son walked out of what should have been my office. I’d gotten caught up in the moment and almost forgotten my objective.

“You can apologize later. We’ve got work to do now. You ready? Because there’s no turning back after this.”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied with a nod, then moved quickly toward the center of the showroom. Although it was almost closing time, I was surprised that no one had even looked in our direction.

I pulled out two handguns I had tucked away in my overcoat.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen!” Cain announced as he revealed
the sawed-off shotgun he’d been hiding. “This is a robbery! Hit the floor or get shot. The choice is yours.”

He fired one warning round into the ceiling, and all of a sudden, everything we’d talked about and planned was no longer idle chitchat but reality. We were actually robbing my former employer with real guns, and people were screaming in fear. I had expected to be nervous, but surprisingly, I felt a surge of power pumping through my body. It was a euphoria like I’d never felt before.

I walked over and looked down at Sam Junior, who was cowering on the floor like a little bitch. I bet he wished Daddy hadn’t made him manager now. I kicked the little prick in the ribs twice for good measure and laughed, only stopping when Cain swiveled his head in my direction, reminding me once again that we were there for a reason other than my personal vendetta. I had a job to do. As Cain patrolled the showroom floor, I made sure my mask was secure over my face, then headed directly to the counter in the back. I spotted Jerri lying facedown on the floor in front of her desk, and I was momentarily distracted by the roundness of her ass. I couldn’t help but imagine her on all fours with me hittin’ it from the back. When I noticed that she was shaking, I sort of felt bad. I had this strange urge to apologize to her for cursing her out when I quit. It wasn’t her fault that those pricks had made the mistake of passing me over.

“You got the money?” Cain barked from the center of the store.

I didn’t answer, but I did force myself to focus on the job at hand. I could have stared at Jerri’s ass all day, but I wasn’t there to sightsee. I was there to get paid. There’d be plenty of time for pussy when I got back to Cain’s place and hooked up with Holly and the other girls.

“Get up,” I commanded, but Jerri didn’t move. “I said, ‘Get up’!” I repeated, tapping her firm, round ass with my foot. She looked up at me as if to confirm that I was indeed speaking to her before she made a move. “I said, ‘Get up’!”

“Okay, okay,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Please don’t shoot me,” she begged as she got off the floor.

“Let’s go,” I demanded, nudging her along with my guns until we were in front of the safe. “Open it!”

“Okay.” Her hands trembled as she tried to put in the combination. Her first attempt was a bust.

“Open the goddamn safe, or I’ll blow your pretty fucking head off,” I said to give her some incentive to hurry.

“I’m trying! I’m a little nervous,” Jerri cried out. She turned around and looked at me. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Open up the safe.” I pointed both barrels at her, and she got the message. She quickly swiveled back to the safe, this time opening it successfully.

I removed the duffel bag from my shoulder and threw it on the ground at her feet. “Now put the money in the bag.” She wasted no time following my orders. The sense of power I got from that was incredible. “Back down on the ground. Facedown.”

“You got the money?” I heard Cain yell again from the floor.

I left Jerri on the floor and ran back up front, lifting the bag to show Cain. “Got it.”

He nodded, and I could imagine the smile he had under his mask. “Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We gave one last order for everyone to stay on the ground for the next ten minutes, and then we headed to the door. I noticed Cain make a move to lift his mask, but I grabbed his arm.

“No, not yet. The cameras are still on us,” I warned, jerking my head upward to draw his attention to the camera above the exit. He pulled his mask back down, and we headed out to the getaway car.

“Hell yeah! We did it!” I shouted as we drove out of the parking lot toward the first of several car switches we would make in the next few hours.

“How much you think we got?”

I looked down at the bag, opening it so he could see the cash inside. “I’d say it’s about thirty grand.”

“Thirty grand?” Now that his mask was off, I could see the huge smile on his face. “Man, that was ingenious. I never thought about robbing a furniture store on a Sunday night.”

“Like I told you, they don’t make deposits until Monday, so you get the whole weekend’s take. You’d be surprised how many people around here pay cash or use layaway, especially around the first of the month.”

“Like I said, Avery, you’re a fucking genius. I told you all you had to do was think positive and start living like you’re dying.”

“Yeah, you sure did.”

“So, how do you feel?” he asked. “Gave you a sense of power, didn’t it?” He didn’t even wait for my answer. “Man, sometimes when I’m standing there with my gun in hand, I almost feel like I’m high off the adrenaline rush.”

I sat there and stared at my partner in crime.

“What’s wrong?” Cain asked. “Why you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know. A little overwhelmed, I guess.” I looked down into the bag of money. “It’s just that that day on the bridge, when you told me it was time to change my life… hell, even when you invited me over your house with the girls and started talking that ‘live like you’re dying’ crap, I had no idea we’d end up doing armed robberies.”

“First of all, it’s not crap. It’s a way of life.” He actually sounded angry. “Secondly, your life, my life—both of our lives—ended on that bridge. We were as good as dead. Now look at us.” Cain reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a fistful of money. “Tell me you didn’t feel alive in there, Avery. Tell me the adrenaline that was pumping through your veins back there didn’t make your dick hard. Tell me you ain’t got thirty or forty thousand reasons to live.”

This time Cain waited for my reply. I stared at the money. It would definitely make a difference in my life. “Well, partner…” I took out a handful of cash. “Looks like change done come,” I said with a smile.

“And it ain’t chump change either,” Cain said, and we rode into the night, laughing all the way.

I was lying in bed with my eyes closed, but I wasn’t anywhere near sleep. I was dreaming, though—daydreaming about that kiss Daryl had planted so expertly on my lips. As a matter of fact, I had been replaying it for almost a week: the soft caress of his lips and his tongue connecting and intermingling with my mine. Just thinking about it had me so warm inside I felt like I was going to melt. I’d never been kissed like that before—not my first kiss, not my prom kiss, and damn sure not my wedding-day kiss. To say that it was magical would not be exaggerating. It was the most accurate description I could come up with. The memory of that kiss had the power to erase the pain of my failing marriage. Whenever I felt myself getting sad about Avery, I let my imagination wander back to Daryl, and then I felt all right.

I sat up in bed and touched my lips, wishing that I could do more than fantasize about Daryl’s kisses. I recalled the words he’d spoken when I asked for a second kiss:
“going any further could complicate things.”
Oddly enough, instead of feeling rejected, I’d felt protected, like Daryl was stopping me from doing something I might regret. Still, I was a big girl, and what would it hurt to get one more kiss?

I pulled the covers off and got out of bed. I threw on a robe, slid my feet into my slippers, and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Then I strode over to Daryl’s apartment and knocked on the door. I was a woman on a mission.

As the seconds ticked by and I waited for him to answer the door, I started second-guessing myself. All of a sudden I felt naked standing
there at his doorstop. I looked around and prayed no one saw me, a married woman, visiting a man other than her husband—in her pajamas.

I tightened my robe and mumbled to myself, “This better be worth it.” I’d barely gotten the sentence out of my mouth when Daryl’s door cracked open.

“Connie?” His eyes were half-opened and he stifled a yawn. Obviously I had woken him up. He peeked his head out the door, then looked at me again. I could tell by the way he wrinkled his brow that it had dawned on him that I was in my nightgown. He asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine. You don’t have company, do you?” If he had another woman in there, I was going to be pissed. I know I didn’t have a right to be, but I’d still be pissed.

“No, just me.”

“Can I come in?”

“Um, yeah, sure.”

I stepped forward, practically forcing my way past him.

“What’s up? What’s going on?” he asked, looking at my pajamas again.

I didn’t know how to say it other than to be direct. “I came here to finish what you started the other day.”

I think it took a minute for my words to register, but then his blank look transformed into wide-eyed surprise. “Connie, I already told you I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” he reasoned. “You’d had a fight with your husband. I had a bad breakup with the woman I was seeing. We were both feeling abandoned and vulnerable. I never should have taken advantage of that situation. I’m sor—”

“Will you stop making excuses and kiss me?” I stepped up to Daryl and wrapped my arms around his neck, looking into his eyes as I leaned my head toward his. I watched for his reaction to see if there was any resistance. When I saw none, I went for it. I pressed my lips against his.

I kept it brief this first time with a short, gentle kiss. When I pulled away, I searched his face once again for any type of resistance. His
features had relaxed, and I took that as a sign to keep going. I kissed him again, this time slipping in my tongue.