Heartbeat (11 page)

I called Charlie again but my call went straight to voicemail. Something wasn’t right. I called Lake to see if she’d heard from her, but her damn phone was going straight to voicemail too. Now, I felt bad for leaving her at the club last night with a nigga she barely knew. But I let Lake’s ass convince me it was ok. At the time, I thought I was doing her a favor by leaving her there with that fine ass Amir. Now, here I was two minutes away from throwing on my sneakers and just heading to her house. As soon as I grabbed my shoes, a text from her finally came in.

Can’t talk now. Rick is here. But bitch I owe you for last night!

I smiled in relief now that I knew everything was okay. But I couldn’t wait to hear all the details of what happened last night after Lake and I left the club. It was just like Rick not to come home for a week but the night she gets lucky he brings his ass around. I hoped he wasn’t trying to slither his way back into Charlie’s heart. But I quickly shook that thought off. Charlie was too smart for that. I could tell by the way she was looking at Amir last night that she and Rick were officially over. She’d never looked at another man like that when she was with Rick. Then again, I’d never seen her around another man as fine as Amir before, either. It was crazy that she and Rick were going to get a divorce, I would have never in a million years thought my girl would be going through this. We all thought Rick was the perfect guy, but he was just another nigga that had it all and threw it away behind a piece of ass.

I had to admit, I was losing faith in this happily ever after shit. I couldn’t count on one hand the number of successful marriages I knew of. And that thought depressed the hell out of me.

When my phone buzzed again, I thought it was Charlie texting with more details but it was Harris.

Can’t wait to see you tonight.

I rolled my eyes. Yes, I was going out with him tonight but as soon as I’d agreed to it, I regretted it. I sighed. It was only dinner. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be a complete bore. Even though, I hadn’t had a real conversation with him, something about that man gave me the impression he was a boring, corny as hell dude.

I got dressed and headed to the gym. The last thing I needed was to start getting paranoid but every time I looked in my rearview mirror, I could have sworn I saw a black Honda Civic making every turn I made. To make sure I wasn’t just tripping, I took a right turn into a shopping center. Sure enough, the Honda Civic took the same turn. My pulse quickened as I aimlessly drove through the shopping center. Every time I looked in my rearview, the car was behind me. It stayed at least a car’s distance away from mine, but it was definitely following me. I knew it couldn’t be anybody but Darnel’s crazy ass. But he didn’t drive a Honda Civic, and as far as I knew, he didn’t know anyone who drove one. Then again, there wasn’t anyone else with any interest in following me but his crazy ass.  Why didn’t I notice all these signs of craziness before I started messing with him?

I picked up my cell phone. I was on the verge of calling the cops. If it was indeed him following me, then he obviously didn’t care about the restraining order. Maybe he was trying to intimidate me into dropping the charges against him. That wasn’t going to happen. Not after what he did to my face.

I parked in front of a TJ Maxx store and watched as the car parked three cars away from me. I waited for someone to jump out of the car and attack me but thirty minutes passed and nothing happened. I started my car and drove out of the parking lot. When the Honda Civic didn’t follow, I blamed everything on my nerves and headed to the gym.  

I walked out of the gym feeling refreshed and actually looking forward to my date. I searched the parking lot for the Honda Civic and when I didn’t see it, I laughed at my paranoia. I looked at my phone and saw that neither of my friends had returned any of my calls. I knew they weren’t that damn busy not to give me a pep talk before my date. So what I didn’t really care for Harris, they could have at least called to see what I was going to wear. “Bitches,” I said under my breath and headed home to get ready for the date.  

Since Morelys was an upscale restaurant, I could play dress up without feeling overdressed. I pulled out a burgundy long sleeve Donna Karan sheath dress that fit like a second skin. I’d been waiting to wear the dress since I bought it two months ago. The dress stopped at my knees so with it being so tight I was still able to keep it classy. I paired the dress with ruby red Oscar de la Renta cut out glove sandals and decided not to wear any jewelry other than small dangling earrings. It took five minutes to fix my hair and another twenty to perfect my makeup.  

Harris was ringing my doorbell at 7 on the dot. When I opened the door for him, it took a second for me to collect my bearings. It was the first time I saw him outside of his uniform and I had to admit he looked fine as hell out of it. The uniform made him look bulky but looking at him now I could tell he spent more than enough time in the gym. I smiled, welcomed him inside of my condo and offered him a drink.

“Wow,” he said as soon as I’d closed the door behind him. “You look amazing.”

I felt heat rush to my cheeks, “Thank you. You look nice as well.”

He ran his hand down his navy blue blazer and gave me a smile that made me wonder why I hadn’t noticed how perfect his teeth were before. He stood a little over 6 feet. He wore a white v-neck under the blazer and dark wash denim jeans. I caught myself looking at him over and over. Why hadn’t I noticed how fine he was before now? His chiseled cheekbones reminded me of my favorite male model.  

I walked back to my bathroom, sprayed perfume on, and checked my makeup before grabbing my clutch and walking out of the condo. I followed Harris to a white Cadillac CTS. When he opened the door for me I didn’t know how to react. This was definitely something new. I could tell tonight was going to go far different than I’d expected.  

When we made it to the restaurant, I was surprised to see we’d gotten excellent seating by the oversized fireplace. All tables were served under candlelight. At first, I was thinking the setting was too romantic for a first date but once we were seated I realized it was perfect.

“You really look amazing tonight,” Harris said. He flipped open his menu, browsed for a second and looked back up at me giving me his undivided attention. “I knew you were fine, but damn!”

I loved compliments and usually took them very well but tonight I couldn’t stop blushing. “Thank you.”

I glanced at him but quickly averted my eyes. I don’t know if it was the shock of the day’s events that made me not notice just how fine this man was the first night I met him, but I was seeing him clear as day right now. He was clean shaven, with a low cut taper fade. He had long lashes that curled over a set of oval shaped brown eyes. Every time I made eye contact with him, I felt a butterfly get its wings in the pit of my stomach.  

“So, tell me, Harris, what’s so special about me? Or do you ask out all the girls who call you up for restraining orders?”

He laughed and his smile made me smile. Suddenly, I was so glad I’d decided to go on this date.

“You’re actually the first. The night me and my partner came to your condo, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.” He was looking me directly in my eyes. For some reason, his eye contact made me nervous. It was funny how I’d been so unaffected by this man before, but now, I could barely hold his eye contact.  “I will never understand what could possess a man to put his hands on a woman. I wanted to do more than arrest that nigga when we left your condo, but my partner kept me grounded.”

I smiled at the thought of someone kicking Darnel’s ass. Especially Harris, who had at least three inches and 40 pounds, which appeared to be all muscle, on Darnel.  

The waitress came to our table, and when Harris ordered the wine, I was surprised and pleased at his taste. Once she left the table, he said, “So, does that answer your question?”

I dropped my eyes to the bread appetizer the waitress had placed in the center of the table and fought the urge to grin. Of course, I’d been called beautiful before, but for some reason, it felt different when Harris said it. Something in my heart jumped. I didn’t have to finish this date to know that I already liked him. And to think, I was seconds away from blowing him off.

“Well, how was your day?” He broke off a piece of the bread and spread a small amount of the sweet butter across it.  

“Interesting,” I said.  

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I could have sworn I was being followed today,” I said with a laugh but when I looked up at Harris the look on his face cut my laugh short.

“What made you think you were being followed?”

“I could have just been paranoid but I swore every turn I made, the car made too. Then, I pulled into a shopping center and it did too. I just sat there but no one got out of the car so I guess I was just tripping,” I shrugged my shoulders.

Harris waited for the waitress to pour our glasses of wine and leave before he spoke. “So, when you parked in the shopping center, did the car you thought was following you, park also?”

I stuck a piece of bread in my mouth then nodded. I was reminded as soon as the bread was in front of me that I hadn’t eaten all day.

“And you say you never saw anyone exit the vehicle? That’s strange, Kesha.” He looked at me like he was concerned, and that made me think the worst. “Did you get the license plate number?”

“No, I just assumed that since no one got out of the car, it was all in my imagination.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

It was my turn to look at him like he was crazy. I didn’t know him well enough to just up and call him like that. Yes, he was a cop, but he wasn’t my man.   

“You should have called me. I don’t like the idea that someone could have been following you, Kesha. Especially this close to your court date with this assault case against Darnel.”

“I honestly don’t think Darnel would violate the restraining order. I mean he’s crazy but he ain’t that damn crazy,” I said. I sipped my wine.

“I beg to differ, Kesha. Darnel has a record two pages long.”

I almost choked on the red wine. “What?”

“This isn’t his first assault case. He assaulted two previous girlfriends. Both of them dropped the charges before the court date. I didn’t think much of it until you said you thought you’d been followed today.” He rubbed his hands together. “But now that you’ve said you think someone was following you today, I’m thinking these women dropped those charges because they were coerced or something.” He paused. “He also has a few petty theft charges, a DUI and not to mention he just got out of prison.”

I felt my stomach turn upside down. It took a full second for it to register what he’d just said. I didn’t say anything because I knew I must have looked as stupid as I felt. Here, I’d moved a nigga into my home that I obviously hardly even knew. Even though, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know, I had to ask, “He just got out of prison for what?”

“A drug conviction,” Harris said matter of factly.  

I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. Not only was Darnel a woman beating asshole, but he was also lying asshole. All this time, I thought he was a district manager for a chain grocery store. He’d get up at 8AM every morning like he was headed into the office, when his ass was probably headed to the block. The thought made another lump form in my throat. I swallowed the rest of the wine in my glass and poured myself another glass. I wanted to call the waitress back to our table so I could order something a little stronger; something on the rocks.  

Harris was studying my face when he said, “I should have known you didn’t know.”

I didn’t know shit. I was too dickmatized to have seen what was staring me right in my face! I felt like a damn fool. I was grateful when the waitress returned to take our entrée orders. Thankfully, Harris hadn’t ruined my entire appetite but he’d definitely put a dent in it.

Once the waitress walked away there was a long awkward silence lingering between us. I was thinking about Darnel and he was probably thinking about how he could stop Darnel from stalking me.  

“So,” I said breaking the silence, “What made you become a police officer?”

He chuckled and folded his hands on top of the table. “What do you have against police officers?”

“I don’t have anything against them. Why you ask me that?”

“Because of the face you made when you asked me why I became one.”

I felt a rush of embarrassment. I hadn’t realized I’d made a face. I shrugged my shoulders. I really didn’t have anything against them. It wasn’t like I was into any illegal activities. “I don’t know. I guess it’s because every time I’m in my car and one of you guys get behind me I get all paranoid like I have a few bricks in my trunk.”

He laughed and I had to admit I was really starting to like the way his smile reached his eyes when he laughed.  

I shrugged my shoulders, “I guess I just assumed since you were a cop you’d be corny as hell.”

“Well, am I?”

I shook my head. “Not from what I can see.”

“So, to answer your question. I became a police officer because of my father.”

“He was a cop?”

He shook his head. “No, he was killed when I was nine.” He paused. “My dad was like my everything, my hero. I used to wait at the door every evening at six because I knew that was the time he would be coming home from work. And then one evening, he didn’t. Instead, it was two cops at the door telling my mama, my lil’ sisters and me that Daddy got killed in a fuckin’ convenience store robbery. Ever since then I had an obsession with finding his killer.”

I was quiet. I didn’t know how to respond. Especially since his handsome face suddenly went somber.

He continued, “That obsession grew the older I became and the quest to find his killer turned into a quest to put as many murderers behind bars as possible.” He was staring at the white napkin in his lap but then he looked up at me and there was a smile in his eyes again, “In two weeks I’ll be promoted to detective.”