Flirt (24 page)

After DJ’s death, Marley temporarily forgot about her rules and simply enjoyed kicking it with Chris even though she quickly developed a slight reputation for being that close with DeJuan’s best friend. The untimely death of her soul mate had knocked the life out of Marley. Whenever she thought of DJ and the pain he suffered and how he must have been feeling the very moment he pulled the trigger, Marley couldn’t breathe; she felt as if she were being suffocated by her tears. She was often inconsolable and only found innocent solace in the arms of his friend.

Chris managed to withstand the ridiculous tactics Marley used to guard her heart. He respected her and would do anything to protect her from ever being hurt again. Chris’s feelings for Marley far surpassed any feelings he’d ever felt for any other chick. He genuinely cared about her and he’d even surprised himself when he managed to momentarily knock her out of her box, as she put it, but Chris fully understood her position on his lifestyle. A hustler, a so-called thug drug dealer, was something she pledged never to allow in her life. Chris knew he was no exception, no matter how smooth and sexy she said he was.

Chris sat at the foot of the chaise and softly caressed Marley’s legs. He leaned down and kissed her knee softly.

“I miss you, girl,” he said.

“I miss you, too.”

Chris pulled Marley’s leg from underneath her body and gently massaged it while he straightened it. He slowly lifted her
short dress and exposed her toned, tan thigh. Chris lowered his head and kissed her uncovered skin softly.

“Tell me you weren’t falling in love with me,” Chris whispered. He turned to the waitress who was suddenly standing beside the couple and ordered a Hennessy and Coke. “All those rules and shit you wrote down on that piece of paper after DJ died . . . You broke every one of them for me . . . remember?” Chris kissed Marley’s soft skin again and waited for an answer.

Marley caressed Chris’s smooth bald head when he kissed her thigh. When he lifted his head toward hers, she silently stared into his eyes and lost herself in a time long ago.

The day of DJ’s funeral, Marley thought she would breathe her last breath also. Miss D opted for an open casket to give DeJuan’s many friends and family members one last vision of his earthly shell. The display of DeJuan’s lifeless body inside the shining silver casket lined with blue proved to be too much for Marley. After collapsing several times, she gathered the strength to stand over DJ’s body and kiss him lightly, ending everything she knew. Her life was centered on DJ and his around her. Now he was gone, and she didn’t know how she’d survive.

During the service, a superbly cleaned-up Charles sat next to Miss D and tried unsuccessfully to control her thrashing body and muffle her heart-wrenching sobs into his chest. Tara, not knowing how to help her daughter through the tragedy, quietly
dabbed the corners of her eyes lightly as she sat in the back pew of the church.

Chris wrapped his arm around Marley’s waist and held her tightly when her legs wobbled underneath her body. He’d been there the day Marley heard the devastating news and hadn’t left her side. Chris and Marley collected their emotions long enough to stay with Miss D until the last lingering guest walked out of the door. They silently picked up trash from the floor and cleared dishes from the table until Miss D’s older sister took over and forced them to go home to try to get some rest.

“I can’t go home, Chris,” Marley whispered once they were standing on the dimly lit porch. “I’m not thinking straight. I can’t be alone. I miss DJ
already
.” Marley’s voice cracked slightly, and she inhaled deeply. She put her hand over her heart and gasped. She shook her head back and forth swiftly and attempted to scream at the top of her lungs, but Chris suffocated the earth-shattering sound with his body.

When Marley’s body quaked uncontrollably, Chris held her and softly stroked her hair until she seemed to calm down. They walked toward Chris’s Chevy in silence as Marley tried to contain her unbearable sorrow. Chris opened the car door and helped Marley into the tricked-out ’97 Caprice. He closed the door after she fastened her seat belt and walked around to the other side. When gravel crunched under his Stacy Adams, Chris thought about the way the gravel crunched under his and DeJuan’s basketball shoes back when they played Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson on an old basketball hoop in the driveway
before Miss D saved up enough money to buy another new hoop and have the driveway paved. He shook his head and then looked toward the sky. He pounded his chest twice with his fist, kissed it, and then thrust it toward the sky.

“I love you,” he whispered before opening the door and sliding into the driver’s seat. Chris placed the keys in the ignition and started the car. He stared at Marley’s face, studying the outline of her distinct features. He placed his hand at the back of the headrest behind Marley’s head, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the backyard. Marley continued to stare at DJ’s picture on the front of the funeral program that rested in her lap and said nothing. Chris steered the car toward I-95 and pressed his foot to the gas pedal. His mind was clouded with visions from the funeral while he drove at high speed down the highway, maneuvering in and out of traffic. Inside, he wanted to break down, but Chris understood that he needed to be strong for Marley and Miss D so he held it in. He was hurting, but not only for the loss of his friend, but for the loss of his
blood
.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Marley spoke.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered. Chris quickly glanced to his right when he heard the soft voice. He stared at Marley briefly, and his own eyes began to water. Marley’s eyes were puffy from crying silently and blackened from the running mascara and black eyeliner. Whenever she tried to wipe away the falling tears, she smeared more of the black mess onto her cheeks.

“My brother gave me the keys to his house in Kensington Estates. They just use the house as a drop spot,” Chris offered.
“No one is living there, so he told me to stay there until I got my head together and shit. You don’t mind, do you? I think you could use a little time away from everyone and everything,” he said.

Marley shook her head. “You are so right,” she whispered. “I don’t have clothes or anything, though,” she said, looking down at the funeral program again.

“We’ll worry about that a little later. It’s been a long-ass day. We really do need to try to get some rest. We’ll figure out all the details in the morning. Do you need to call your moms?”

“No, she knows I’m fine.”

“All right.”

When they pulled into Kensington Estates, Marley looked around the subdivision. She never expected Chris’s brother’s drop house, whatever that was, to look like any of the houses she was admiring. Even in the spotlight of floodlights and dimly lit walkways, Marley could make out specific architectural features on the homes, and her mind ran wild when she tried to imagine the decorating that was done on the inside of each. Chris pressed the button on the remote garage opener and slowly drove inside as the door rose.

Chris used the key to open the door and walked over to the alarm and entered the code his brother made him memorize. Marley looked around at the spacious but scarcely furnished home.

She walked around until she found the fully furnished televi sion room. She couldn’t help but laugh. The house was a typical bachelor pad. No furniture except in the bedroom and, of course, television room. A sixty-inch plasma television hung on
the wall in a room complete with a plush black extended sofa and pool table.

While Marley went from room to room, Chris searched through his brother’s walk-in closet for a robe or something that Marley could change into after she showered. She surprised him at the closet door after he’d found a blue Sean John terry-cloth robe. He handed her the robe and smiled.

“Towels are in the closet. I’m sure one of my brother’s friends probably left some kind of smell-good shit that you women use in there.”

Marley took the robe from Chris’s hand and smiled. She wrapped her arms around his neck and then stepped back.

“Thanks for being here for me,” Marley said before she turned and walked down the long hallway toward the bathroom. Chris watched Marley’s hips sway from left to right. The way her hair hung down the middle of her bare back was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time. He shook his head quickly before sneaking one more glance.

Chris walked back into the closet and began removing his brother’s boxed Nikes and other sneakers from the top shelf. He pulled the handle to the homemade secret compartment. He keyed the numbers into the safe, opened it, and placed money inside.

For months after the funeral, Chris and Marley retreated to Kensington Estates to get away from everything. They went to dinner and movies together. They went for picnics at the beach. Chris attended Marley’s graduation and the party her family threw for her afterwards.

When the crowd dispersed, they loaded into Chris’s Chevy and drove to Kensington Estates. Marley and Chris had been growing closer with each passing moment. Feelings that they could not contain were beginning to take over. It wasn’t long before things got out of hand.

As Marley lay across the bed in short shorts and a tank top reading
Essence
magazine, Chris flipped through the sports channels. He tried to keep his eyes off of her ass, but each time she moved, a part of her cheek was exposed. He continued to change the channels until Marley snatched the remote and turned her back.

“Come get it,” she said out of the blue. She held the remote control close to her chest but when Chris reached for it, she refused to let it go. His huge hand covered hers as they playfully struggled for the control. Finally he climbed on top of Marley and held both her wrists. He placed her arms over her head while she laughed hysterically. When she finally calmed down, they locked eyes.

“What?” Marley asked.

“Nothing,” Chris whispered. He shook his head and repeated his statement.

“Kiss me, then.”

“What?” Chris said.

“Kiss me.”

“What? I . . . wh—Marley. D—”

“I want you to.”

Chris slowly lowered his head toward Marley’s waiting lips. He closed his eyes and forgot about
everything
. While he kissed
DJ’s girl with uninhibited passion, he released her wrists and Marley slowly wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She wanted Chris. She figured it was time for her to move on with her life.

Chris grinded against Marley’s lower body with his, through his basketball shorts he playfully teased her small button with his erection. When she moaned softly, he tenderly placed his mouth over hers. Together they moved their bodies in perfect rhythm until Chris suddenly jumped up.

“Yo . . . we can’t do this,” he said.

Chris stood at the edge of the bed and admired Marley. She was lying with her legs wide open, bent at the knee, her long dark hair was spread across the white pillowcase, and her small shirt slightly exposed her bare stomach. She looked confused, and Chris knew that he owed her an explanation, but he knew that he couldn’t tell her the
truth
.

“What’s wrong, Chris?” Marley asked. She sat up in the bed and stared blankly past Chris.

“This—this shit is wrong,” he said.

“You’re right, this is wrong. I’m sorry.”

Chris couldn’t believe that he’d almost taken it there with Marley. At first he was disgusted with himself when he thought about what could have happened, but after a couple of blunts and Hennessy and Coke one lonely night, Chris decided he didn’t care. If his love for Marley hadn’t changed after all this time, he didn’t think it ever would. He called her that same night and asked her to come over.

Marley and Chris rekindled their budding romance. Chris
was falling in love with Marley without even being able to sample the goods. It wasn’t about that. Chris figured it would happen sooner or later. He decided to just be patient and wait it out, but while he was being patient and falling deep in love with Marley, he was also becoming deep in the game. Chris’s brother’s business was growing, major clientele was established, and Chris was his right-hand man. He tried to keep his lifestyle secret from Marley, but the more he laced her with jewelry, gifts, and eventually a new car, the more inquisitive she became. It wasn’t long before everything was out in the open.

“You never told me what you were into either. If I had known
that
, we would have never gotten as close as we did,” Marley said. “And you know it, Chris.”

After almost one year of dating Chris, Marley graduated from interior design school, and Chris’s brother immediately hired her to redecorate the house in Kensington Estates. It was there that Chris’s secret was exposed. When she disassembled and removed the old shelving in the closet, she found the secret hole in the wall that held the drop house’s profit.

She thumbed through the crisp bills and immediately began to piece together the stories of the past. Now the answers Chris gave to simple questions didn’t seem sufficient. When she asked him where his money came from, he told Marley he inherited some money when his mother passed away the prior year. Chris seemed to have a never-ending cash flow, which never seemed
to bother Marley much until the very minute she sat on the floor in the closet of a drug house holding thousands of dollars. That was the demise of the relationship in her eyes.

When Marley gave Chris the ultimatum—his business or her—Chris decided he wanted to secure his future. He didn’t ever want to have to work for another man. He wanted to be able to take care of his sisters and brothers. He hoped Marley would eventually come around, but she never did. In fact, when she distanced herself from Chris, he became all about his business. Nothing came before money ever again. Nothing and no one.

Chris looked at Marley with sympathetic eyes. “What can I say?” He shrugged and then reached for the clip on the side of his jeans and pulled out his vibrating cell phone. Chris held up his index finger and turned away from Marley.