CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After showering and brushing and gargling and sprucing up her thick hair, Tish arrived downstairs in one of JJ’s oversized dress shirts. A shirt that smelled so much like the fresh cologne he smelled like, and his car smelled like, that it was intoxicating. And not in a bad way either. She liked the smell. Naked beneath the shirt because she knew she had to preserve her clean underwear until she had a longer-term plan, she felt a connection to him as soon as she put it on. And the connection wasn’t what she had expected to have. It was all sensual. It was the very kind of connection she was railing against earlier. Which was so hypocritical of her on so many levels that she couldn’t even deal.
But it couldn’t be helped. Between the smell of his shirt and the press of that soft silk against her bare skin, it was hard not to feel the way she was feeling. But that was her business. She was keeping all that to herself. She wasn’t about to give him a reason.
When she went downstairs and made her way to the center island where JJ was standing in his same dress pants and shirt with his stylish suspenders, but with his suit coat and tie off, she smiled just seeing him again. Something about him made her feel safe. And happy. “There you are,” she said as she sat on one of the stools.
JJ smiled. He was happy that she seemed more relaxed around him. Then he looked at the fit of his shirt on her. It seemed to swallow her. “Am I that big?” he asked her.
She laughed. “Yes, sir, you are.”
He smiled again and placed a plate of food – mostly veggies – in front of her. “It’s not chicken,” he said to laughter from her, “but eat. You need it.”
She wasn’t arguing with him. She ate. He stood there sipping his wine and watching her eat, which should have made her feel super-uncomfortable, but it didn’t at all. After showering in his house, it kind of put it all in perspective. This man was going so far above and beyond for her, way more than any human being had ever done for her, that she couldn’t help but be grateful. And she wasn’t going to overthink it. She was going to just enjoy it.
She looked at him. She had decided while she was in his fancy shower that she was going to stop beating around the bush with him. She was going to get to the meat of the matter and be done with it. “You’ve done so much for me,” she said, “that I feel like I’m overdoing it by asking for another favor from you. But I’ll violate my probation if I don’t find a job. Can you help me find a job?” she asked him pointblank.
JJ took another sip of his wine. But it wasn’t lost on her that even as he sipped, he was still staring at her. Then he sat his glass on the countertop. “You have a job,” he said to her.
That was news to Tish. “I do?”
He didn’t respond to that. He’d already told her she did.
“Where? Doing what?”
“Assisting me.”
That sounded fantastic to Tish. There was nobody else alive she’d rather help. “Assisting you do what?”
“Whatever I need you to assist me with.”
“You mean like a personal assistant?”
“Yes,” JJ said. “We’ll start you out with room and board as your pay, with a small allowance,” he added. “If you can actually do the job and do it well, then we’ll talk salary.”
Tish wanted to jump out of her skin with happiness. But she contained herself. Because there was a but in his offer. “And if I can’t do it the way you want me to do it?”
“Then we’ll find out what you can do, and I’ll see what I can do to make it happen for you. Deal?”
Tish smiled. It seemed like a win-win for her! “Deal,” she said.
JJ slid a sheet of paper to her. “This is what I need you to do for me tomorrow.”
It was a long list. But Tish immediately saw a problem. “Go to the drycleaners and pick up your suits,” she read. “Then go to the UPS store. Then . . .” She looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“How am I going to do all of this? Are all these places in walking distance? I don’t have a car.”
JJ reached into his pocket, pulled out his Mercedes keyfob with his house keycard attached, and handed them to Tish.
“Your Mercedes?” She was shocked. “But what are you going to drive?”
“My other car.”
“Is it a hoopty? Because I can drive the hoopty and you can keep your Mercedes.”
JJ was puzzled. “What’s a hoopty?”
Tish inwardly smiled. She had to remember who she was dealing with! “It’s what we call an old car. Kind of broke down, you know. The backup car. The hoopty. I’ll drive your backup car and you can keep driving your good car.”
JJ smiled. “No, that’s not necessary.”
“Sure?”
“Positive. Keep eating.”
Tish smiled and kept on eating.
“The addresses of the places you’ll go tomorrow are all programmed in the car’s navigation,” JJ said. “I’ll show you how to work it in the morning.”
“Yes, sir. And I’ll do everything to the best of my ability on this list.”
JJ’s phone began ringing. He looked at the Caller ID. “I need to take this,” he said as he answered his phone and began walking toward the living room.
Tish finished eating, happily washed and cloth-dried the dishes, and then made her way into the living room, too, where JJ was now seated in a chair on his phone, his legs propped up on the coffee table. He tossed the TV’s remote to Tish as she plopped down on his sofa. Thrilled to watch TV again, she found a repeat of an old Real Housewives of Atlanta show, one of the ones where NeNe Leakes was the star, and began watching it.
“No word on Holt’s endorsement?” JJ asked over the phone. “I haven’t heard anything either.” Then he listened a few minutes longer. “Not again, Artie. Why do you keep bringing that up? You know I don’t like that blind shit.” He glanced over at Tish when he said that, but she was watching her television show too intensely to figure out that Artie was trying, once again, to hook JJ up on a blind date. “I’ll talk to you later,” JJ ultimately said, and ended the call.
He looked at the television too. Then he looked at her. “You like that stuff?”
“Love it.”
JJ appreciated her honesty. “What’s there to love?” he asked as he looked back at the TV again. But because Tish seemed so into it, he actually began watching it too. It was ridiculous to him. All they did was fight over such trivial matters about what somebody said about somebody else and why didn’t they say it to whoever’s face. It was ludicrous. And he couldn’t stop watching it!
But by the time the show was off, JJ had dozed off in his chair and Tish, by now lying down on the sofa, was full-on asleep.
JJ was the first to awaken and realize their show was off and the eleven o’ clock news was now on. He yawned and stretched and then looked over at Tish. When he saw that she had fallen asleep, too, he smiled. “LaTisha?”
She didn’t even stir.
“LaTisha?” He called her name louder.
She still didn’t stir.
He got up and went over to her. But as soon as he began to shake her gently on her shoulder, she twisted her body around, causing her to lay on her side facing JJ to laying on her side away from JJ. But in so doing, the shirt she wore got bunched together and ended up revealing all of her body from the waist down, especially her butt. Which got an immediate reaction from JJ’s midsection. He could have enjoyed that view all night long, but he wasn’t going to exploit her that way. He called her name again, and then shook her a little harder.
When Tish finally opened her eyes, she turned back onto her back and saw him standing there. She smiled. “Hey.”
Her reaction pleased him. He smiled back at her. “We both fell asleep.”
“Really?” She looked at the TV and saw that her show had gone off and the news was on. “I didn’t think I was so sleepy.”
“It’s been a long day.”
She began sitting up, trying not to reveal too much but it was impossible. He saw even more of her. Then he reached out his hand and helped her to her feet.
“Thanks for giving me a chance,” she said.
He knew she meant the job. “No worries. Just do the best you can do.”
“I will. For real though.” She had that sincere look he loved. “And I won’t wreck your car or anything like that either.”
“Which reminds me: you do have a license, right?”
She grinned. “Yes, sir. I had to get it renewed when I got out, but my P.O.’s office arranged for me to get that done right away. I can show it to you,” she said, about to go get it.
“No need for that,” JJ said. “I believe you.”
Those three words touched Tish. He believed her. A swell of emotion rushed through her. And she couldn’t help it. She leaned into JJ and hugged him.
JJ was so startled by her show of affection that he at first didn’t react to her embrace. But then he couldn’t help it either. He hugged her back. It felt different to hold anybody, and to hold LaTisha in his arms felt especially good to him. But inhaling her sweet, fresh scent, and remembering that view of her butt and the knowledge that she had nothing underneath, caused him to become aroused again. He tried to fight it, but it wasn’t possible.
Tish could feel him expanding against her like a steel rod pressing harder into her. And she could also feel him pulling her closer and closer against him as he expanded, as if he wanted to feel more of her. And she found that she liked how he felt against her.
But almost immediately she extracted herself from him. She wasn’t ready go down that road with anyone. Especially the kind of dead-end road she’d be going down with a man like him. A man that was now her employer no less! She had to get on her feet and get her own shit together before she started worrying about involving herself with anybody else. Her whole adult life had been about Shake. Now she needed it to be about her.
What she liked about the judge was that he seemed to understand that, too, and didn’t put up any resistance when she backed away.
“Good night,” she said to him.
“Good night, LaTisha.”
“You can call me Tish you know. Or Tisha.”
“Is that what you prefer?”
She nodded. “Yeah. LaTisha sounds like somebody from the Addams Family.”
JJ laughed. “We wouldn’t want that,” he said.
“No, sir,” she replied, grinning.
And then they stood there, staring at each other more seconds than was necessary, and then Tish said goodnight again and headed upstairs.
JJ watched her shapely body make its way up those stairs. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to resist her much longer. Not with the way she made him feel just hugging him. But introducing sex into their relationship would be insanity. But it was there. As real and vibrant as if it were an entity all its own.
Deeper and deeper, he thought, as he went to the bathroom to relieve himself.