Church #2
He watched me for a second or two before taking off his jacket. I watched him stuff it on one of the empty shelves, where I one day hoped to house surplus inventory. “What were you planning on working on?”
“What? Why?”
“I’ma help you break in your production room. I’m here. It’s raining hard as hell, and we ain’t got shit else to do. What we making tonight?”
“Um, my Apple Mask.”
“We got all the ingredients, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So how do we start?”
I took a deep breath. “At the stove with the Jamaican Black Castor Oil and the honey.”
Lightning flashed outside again, followed by a loud bang of thunder. The intensity of the raindrops hitting the roof seemed to pick up. “You ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Let’s do this.”
After washing our hands, we started working. It didn’t take long for the two of us to fall into an easy rhythm. Jones was a quick study. By hour number two, he and I were moving almost as efficiently as Mari and me.
“Wow.” I placed the last jar of hair mask on the formerly empty shelf. Then I turned and grinned big at him. “I can’t believe we got all this done. Thirty-two jars. That’s a full case and eight extra bottles.”
Jones returned my grin with a large grin of his own. And once again, I was forced to acknowledge just how handsome he was.
“We make a good team,” I told him.
“The dynamic duo.”
We held each other’s gazes way too long. Finally, I broke it. “So.” I huffed out a breath. “Will you accept food as payment?”
“Hell yeah!”
I chuckled. “Don’t get too excited. It’s only turkey burgers and fries.”
“But it’s homemade, right?”
“Yeah.” I had to giggle. “You craving home-cooked meals?”
“Yeah. The only time I really got to eat something home-cooked was those few times I came through your mom’s for Sunday dinner.”
“Why’d you stop coming?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I ain’t wanna impose.”
I sucked my teeth. “You weren’t. Come this Sunday.”
The two of us moved into the kitchen. We both washed our hands again, then he took a seat at the island. I moved over to the counter and started preparing the food. Once the food was ready, Jones and I moved to my dining table.
I watched him rub his hand across the wood. “This is a nice table.”
“Yeah.” I nodded and put a fry in my mouth.
“My father is one of those OGs who likes to use money as a substitute for affection. He’d rather give you a stack than tell you he loves you.
He furnished the house as a housewarming gift.
” I waved my hand around the open-concept space that included the dining area, the kitchen, and the living room.
“He bought everything, made sure it was top of the line. I’ll have this furniture forever. ”
He cocked his head to the side. “Why doesn’t it sound like you wanted him to do that?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want him to do that.
It’s just so . . . him. Not to let me have an opinion or pick out my own furniture.
I would’ve loved for him to pay for it, just let me pick it out.
But no, he’s not like that. Like I said, he’s old-school.
He was already in his late forties when he met my mom.
She was twenty-six. He had kids almost as old as she was. ”
“Damn.”
“Anyway. He bought the house for my thirtieth birthday.”
“You’re thirty? Damn. I thought you were younger than that.”
“Nah. I made thirty in July. How old are you, Jonah?”
“Here you go with that Jonah shit again.”
“It’s your name. Besides, we already agreed that it’s fitting. The rebellion. The stubbornness. Pissing God off. Getting swallowed by a whale. Your mom clearly knew something about the baby she was carrying.”
He laughed. “My moms had jokes.”
“Nah, she just probably had a feeling that you were gonna need a lot of butt whuppings in life.”
He cracked up. “Probably. Anyway, I’m thirty-four. I’ll be thirty-five next month.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, what?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.” I said nothing, even though I was thinking that all that dick slanging and thot bopping was immature for a man his age.
“What? You think I’m out here acting younger than thirty-four?”
“Listen, I spent three years trying to love a self-absorbed asshole. What do I know about human nature? Do you think your behavior is presenting as younger than your chronological age?”
“At times,” he admitted.
I changed the subject. “What’s it like living in an RV? Is it comfortable? You said the RV is pimped out.”
“I mean, it’s cool. I don’t need a lot of space, so it suits me.
Like I said, I tend to be a wanderer. But there’s something about Jackson Falls that I like.
I’m thinking about staying here, putting down roots, .
. . at least for a little while. I’ve been looking for a piece of land in Jackson Falls and Chinook Woods where I can build a house.
I’ve been saving for about eight years now, so I can bring a cash offer to the table. ”
“Wow. Well, that right there is grown man behavior. Saving to pay cash for a house is huge.”
We fell into an easy silence as we ate together. Once we finished our food, he helped me load the dishwasher, then we moved into the living room to watch some television. We sat on opposite ends of my sofa, but somehow, at some point, my feet ended up in his lap.
I had pretty feet. I kept a standing mani/pedi appointment that was part of my self-care routine, but Timi had never liked feet. He didn’t like to touch them. He didn’t like them on him or really even around him. I was used to keeping my feet to myself. But Jones didn’t seem to have that problem.
“Get comfortable,” he told me. The next thing I knew, my legs were stretched across the sofa, and my feet were in his lap.
Then his hands were caressing them. I fought back a soft sigh.
Timi’s dislike of feet had managed to make them forbidden in my own mind.
The act of Jones being willing to not only touch them, but touch them like they weren’t gross but sacred, it did something to me.
From the moment his hands made contact with my feet, the television lost my attention.
My eyes kept flitting from the screen to his profile.
Oh, Church, you stupid, stupid woman, I chided myself.
Now you wanna fall for the community dick nucca?
Really? All it took was to have his hands on me for me to be ready to bust it wide open for him?
I really needed to do better. It had been a minute since I had some dick.
And with the way the ladies of Jackson Falls were literally falling all over themselves to get at Jones, he had to be working with something major.
The tap of his hand on my ankle brought me out of my thoughts. “Huh?”
“The rain slowed down. I should probably get outta here before it picks back up. Come let me out.”
Let him out? It took my brain a second to catch up with the words.
He was ready to leave. I was thinking about how good he would feel, knocking down these walls, and he was ready to leave.
“Oh, oh, . . . okay,” I stammered, trying to gather myself.
Slowly, I slipped my feet from his lap. They lightly and accidentally grazed his dick.
That was when I felt it. He wasn’t completely erect, but his dick definitely wasn’t soft. He felt it, too. I smiled to myself.
I walked him out through the production room, catching him by the bicep before he could step outside. “Hey, Jonah, thanks for your help.” Without thinking about it, I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a hug.
He pulled me tighter. “You’re good.” He dropped the softest kiss on my forehead before releasing me. “See you around, lil’ mama.” Then he was gone.
I was barely able to close the door before I slid down the wall.