Читать книгу She Ain't The One - Carl Weber - Страница 6

I stepped out of my new BMW 650i convertible and handed the keys to the valet at Zanzibar Nightclub. I could tell he was impressed by my new car. I was impressed too. You see, I wasn’t a rich guy who could buy things like this all the time. In truth, I was just a civil servant, but the BMW was a present to myself, a present to celebrate my new life and my divorce from my wife—I mean ex-wife—Kenya.

It had taken me some time to get to this point in my life, but I finally felt free for the first time in years. Free to find the woman I would spend the rest of my life with, or die trying.

Kenya and I had been married for the past ten years, the last three of which we’d been separated. I know it’s pretty pitiful, but I wasn’t even in love with her when I married her. She was pregnant, and I thought I was doing the right thing. When in truth I was doing nothing more than killing myself slowly. It was something I swore I’d never do again. If I ever got married again, I was going to be in love.

To date there was only one woman that I’d ever been in love with, and her name was Tracy. We’d had an affair three years ago, and things were going great until she found out about my marriage. She was the reason I’d moved to D.C. in the first place. I was hoping to rekindle the flame of our past relationship and recapture the one thing I was missing in life—love. The only problem was, I’d been in D.C. almost three months and had no idea how or where to find her. I wasn’t even sure she was still living in the D.C. area.

After getting my parking ticket from the valet, I glanced at the entrance of Zanzibar. There had to be at least a hundred people waiting in line to get in. And from what I heard from my new coworkers about the waterfront clubs in D.C., that meant at least an hour’s wait. I wasn’t worried about that, though, because not only was I on the guest list, I had a VIP pass waiting for me at the door, thanks to fine-ass Monica, the head bartender.

I’d met Monica about two months ago, after sharing a plane ride from New York to D.C. That wasn’t the only ride we shared. We also shared a cab ride back to her place, and about a half hour later, I rode that ass to sleep. I know I sound full of myself and perhaps a little arrogant, but I put it on her so good, she’d been blowing my phone up ever since. I’d been trying my best to avoid seeing her again, giving her one lame-ass excuse after another, but for some reason she wasn’t getting the hint. Funny thing is, I probably would have hooked up with her right away if it wasn’t for the fact that she was one of the worst pieces of ass I’d ever had. Can you say, stiff as a board? I swear to God the girl did not move one muscle the entire time during sex. If she was any indication of what the sex was like in D.C., I was going to have to rethink my relocation to the nation’s capital.

I know what you’re thinking—If Monica was so bad in bed and I was trying so hard to avoid her, why the hell was I meeting her at the club? Well, the truth is, she called me from a blocked number and caught me off guard. She offered to put me on the guest list at the club and give me a pass to the VIP lounge. I figured, what the hell…why not give her another shot? It couldn’t get any worse than the first time. Besides, my divorce had just become final, and I was in the mood to do some celebrating.

When I walked up to the front of the line, it had to be about a five-to-one ratio of women to men waiting to get in. I could feel the women staring at me, and I felt like a movie star. I even heard one woman whispering, “Who is he?” to her friend.

Her friend answered, “I don’t remember his name, but I think he was the guy who played in that movie with Monique, what’s his name, Jimmy Jean-Louis.”

“Oh my God! That’s him,” the first woman replied. “Damn, I got to give him some of this pussy.”

I glanced at the woman and gave her a wink. She was fine as hell and could get a lot more than a one-night stand if she played her cards right. It looks like Monica’ll be going home alone tonight.

You see, I kinda fancied myself as a player. Not trying to brag or anything, but I was a good-looking guy, five feet eleven with baby-smooth chocolate skin and, for lack of a better phrase, “good hair.” I guess I gotta thank my mama for that. She was from Trinidad, and everybody knows that Trinis got good hair. Well, to make a long story short, I’d never had a problem with women falling all over me; it was guys I had a problem with, and as usual, they were hating.

One brother who was standing in line by the door actually had the nerve to say, “Who the fuck is that?” to the bouncer right after I told him my name and he gave me an orange wristband to get into the VIP area and let me into the club.

Once I got into the club, I made my way over to the main bar to find Monica. It was crowded, but I spotted her pouring drinks on the other end of the bar as she danced awkwardly to the music. I immediately busted out laughing. Now I knew why she was so bad in bed—the girl had absolutely no rhythm whatsoever. Just watching her dance reminded me how bad the sex was; I was about to fade back into the crowd when she spotted me.

There was no question that she was on me hard because, the second she saw me, she stopped what she was doing and headed toward me, grinning from ear to ear. I had to give her some credit, though. She may have been terrible in bed, but she sure was a pleasure to the eyes. I could see the jealousy in half the guys sitting at the bar as she approached me. If they knew what I knew, they wouldn’t have been jealous at all; they probably would have bought me a drink in sympathy—’cause every guy knows there’s nothing worse than a bad piece of ass.

“What you drinking, handsome?” Monica leaned over the bar.

I couldn’t tell if she wanted a kiss or just wanted me to see her cleavage. Whichever one it was, I wasn’t interested. “Hennessey,” I replied as I took a step back.

She poured me a double and pointed to the VIP area. “I get off around two, so have a good time till then. Just remember who you’re going home with.”

“How could I forget?” I gave her a weak smile and walked away from the bar. By the time she gets off from work, I’ll be long gone and hopefully with a new playmate.

I walked around the club for a while and danced with a few women before heading to the VIP area. I even ran into the girl from the door, Nikki, and we made tentative plans to meet up at the door around quarter to two, to hit a diner after we left the club. That way, if I didn’t meet anybody more promising by then, I could get the hell out of the club with somebody to bed and not have to worry about Monica and her nonfucking ass.

I roamed the club for a while and actually found Zanzibar to be nice. The VIP lounge was higher than the club and gave me a nice view of the dance floor and the bar, allowing me to keep tabs on Monica. I settled into a chair in the corner by a rail that separated the club from the VIPs, so I could see almost everything going on and no one could see me.

One of my favorite things to do before I made a move on any women at a club was people-watch. Believe it or not, you could tell a lot about people just by watching them. Most of the brothers in the VIP were tall and big, so I suspected most of them were either football players with the Redskins or basketball players for the Wizards. Most of the women looked like video dancers or strippers, and all of them had GOLD DIGGER flashing across their heads, as far as I was concerned.

All of them but one, that is, and she seemed to be in her own world. Except when one of those pushy athletes tried to buy her a drink or asked her to dance. I’d never seen so many brothers get shot down by the same woman in my entire life. It was actually pretty humorous, along with being pathetic.

Whoever she was, she was one classy-looking female. She wasn’t flashy fine, but fine in a sophisticated kind of way, and because of that, she stuck out from the crowd. Her body was slim, and although she was sitting down, her strong arms and legs told me she was an athlete, a swimmer or maybe even an aerobics instructor.

I watched her for a good thirty minutes, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if she was white or black, she was so light. Truth is, whatever race she was really didn’t matter to me; what mattered was how I was going to get her to talk to me so I could take her home.

My opening finally came about quarter to one, when a guy about my size, with a weird Charlie Brown–shaped head, approached her. I’d seen him ask her to dance a few times before, but I guess this time he wasn’t taking no for an answer because he actually grabbed her wrist.

She tried to play it off, pulling her arm from his grasp, but I could tell she was scared. I stood up and walked over to where she was sitting. By the time I got there, Charlie Brown Head looked like he was going to slap her.

“Ahhh, hell no! Didn’t I tell you not to talk to anyone?” I pointed my finger in the woman’s face, then pointed to where I was sitting. “You didn’t even see me sitting over there, did you? You just couldn’t resist making a fool out of me, could you? I can’t leave your ass alone for two seconds, can I?”

She looked confused, like she was about to say something to tip off old boy.

I raised my voice even louder to shut her up. “I told you about flirting with these motherfuckers. Wait till I get your ass home. That’s why I didn’t wanna come here in the first place.”

I turned my attention to Charlie Brown, who was looking a little confused himself. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight or back off; I wasn’t about to give him a choice. It wasn’t like I was scared. Hell, I had a black belt in karate, but I never fought with or over women.

“Do you know her? ’Cause if you don’t, let me introduce myself—I’m her husband, and we got three kids. So unless you’re her long-lost brother, I think you should find someone else’s marriage to ruin.” I stood my ground, and the brother took a step back.

There was something about the word husband that always seemed to make a man reconsider his actions when it came to a pretty woman. Most brothers didn’t care if a woman had a husband, as long as he was not around to interfere, but the minute the old man showed up, all bets were off. Which obviously was the case with Charlie Brown. He didn’t say anything; he just stepped off and walked away.

I stared at him until he was out of sight, then turned to the sister. And she was a sister, which I could tell now that I was closer to the nape of her neck and her full lips.

“Sorry about the macho man routine, but you looked like you could use a little help. My name’s Jay. Jay Crawford.” I waited for her reply, and I knew I was in there when she started to grin.