CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JJ, in his white, terrycloth bathrobe, ended his numerous phone calls with his numerous supporters, all voicing their concerns, and made his way from his master bedroom down the hall to his guest bedroom: to check on Tish. When he saw that she wasn’t in the bedroom, he went into the ensuite bathroom.
And there she was, still in the tub thumbing through her cellphone. He leaned against the doorframe, as that feeling of warmth and those swell of emotions overtook him just watching her. And all those so-called upstanding citizens were insistent that she wasn’t their cup of tea. That shewasn’t good enough for him. They saw what she looked like on paper, and was horrified, and decided that what that paper said was who she was. When it wasn’t. They didn’t know her at all.
But when JJ realized Tish seemed to be upset by whatever she was seeing on her phone, with her face in a fixed frown, he pushed away from the doorway and went up to the tub. “What is it?” he asked her, his hands in his robe pockets.
Tish had been so engrossed in her phone that she didn’t even realize JJ was in the bathroom. And she tried to lay down her phone on the tub tray. But JJ picked it up and looked himself.
And when he saw all the social media garbage about their relationship she had been thumbing through, he frowned too. “Why are you reading this bullshit, Tisha?
She said nothing. But her face said everything: She was still upset.
He stood there, staring at her. He could see how worried she was: her eyes hid nothing. And although he had showered earlier in the master bathroom, when they first arrived back at his house, he nonetheless tossed that phone onto the vanity, removed his bathrobe, and sat his naked body in the tub behind her. He sat her butt directly on top of his penis. She leaned her back against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her front, as they sat in that tub.
But after several minutes of no words being spoken at all, he knew she was in deep thought. And it all redounded to what everybody in his world made clear: Who did she think she was? She was not one of them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her in a soft, whispery voice.
But Tish still said nothing. It was too agonizing to even speak about.
JJ could sense that she had something on her chest she wanted to tell him, but it wasn’t going to come out that easily. She had to work herself up to it. “I spoke with the hospital,” he said.
Tish almost turned around. “How is she?”
“She’s out of surgery. They said she’s in stable condition now and is resting comfortably with her family around her. She should make a full recovery.”
“Thank God!”
JJ could feel her entire body relax, as if the stress of not knowing Dena Lamb’s condition was, among other things, weighing her down too. Now she felt a little lighter.
“At least it’s over,” JJ said. “At least they have the people in custody who tried to terrorize you for something you didn’t even do.”
Tish agreed with that. But JJ could still feel her dejection over that incident outside the country club. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Tish.”
But Tish was never going to go along with appeasement. “Yes, it was. If I hadn’t gone over to that restaurant and stopped her before she went inside, she wouldn’t have been standing out there talking to me. I gave that driver the perfect target. And he took it. It was all my fault.”
“You went over there to hold a conversation with her.” Tish could hear anger in his voice. “She may work in Jacksonville, but she lives here in Scottsdale and I’m certain she frequents that restaurant all the time. All you did was run over to talk to her. That’s all you did. That asshole was the one who harmed her. He was the one lying in wait for you. So stop blaming yourself for other people’s problems, you hear me, Tisha? Just stop. This world beats you up enough. Don’t you join in.”
Tish was moved by his words. He was such a wonderful, caring human being who seemed to genuinely care for her. Something she’d never experienced before. But it only reinforced her decision. Her father always taught her that just because it made you feel good didn’t mean it was good for you. Or, she remembered he always added, you for it. She never forgot that. It weighed on her now. Because there was no version of her that was going to let this good man go down because of her refusal to let him go.
“Maybe I should leave,” she finally said to him, her face a mask of anguish.
JJ had suspected she had that in mind. She wasn’t a piece of plastic listening to people talk so negatively about her as if she was a discarded piece of trash. She was a young woman with pride about herself. She worked all her life. Took care of herself. Eked-out a living even as the world wasn’t giving her any breaks. She was a survivor. He got that. But he was still kind of stunned that she was willing to survive without him. When he was at a point in their relationship that he wasn’t at all sure if he could survive without her!
But he also was getting to know LaTisha. He had to tread lightly with her. A wounded animal cornered would strike back. She had that kind of instinct too. “Why do you feel you need to leave?”
“I need time to think.”
“About what?”
Tish knew she had to come clean with this man. He deserved at least that from her. “I’m not good for you.”
JJ’s jaw tightened. “You’re not good for me, or good enough for me?”
Tish scrunched up her face. It was exactly what she meant. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
JJ wanted to turn her around and talk sense into her. It wasn’t about what the world thought about them. It was what they thought. But that was easy for him to say. All he had to lose was an election. She could lose herself.
“Where will you go?” he decided to ask her. He was gravely concerned about her welfare.
“With the money I’ve been making from you and not spending, I could get a room.”
JJ was livid. “Like at that Beverly Belle motel? You aren’t going to any place like that. Are you insane?!”
But just as he had earlier predicted, a wounded animal cornered struck back. Because Tish was offended. “Now you look,” she said, turning around. She managed to straddle her body on top of him, and they were now face to face. “You may think I’m helpless as some damn dove, but I’m not. I can take care of myself. And have all my adult life.”
“Where will you go then?” He was equally agitated.
She exhaled. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“What’s the real reason, Tish? Why do you all of a sudden have to leave? And what about your job here?”
Tish felt bad about that. Awful about it. She shook her head in anguish. “It wouldn’t work anymore.”
JJ frowned. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I’m naked in a tub with my boss,” she said angrily. “That’s why!”
JJ knew he had taken it there. He knew it could change the entire dynamic of their relationship, and it did change it. But to him it was for the better. Apparently not to her.
“This may be your world,” she said to him as tears filled her eyes, “but it’s not mine. And I don’t know if I want it to be. I need time alone. To think.”
JJ could feel his heart drop. She didn’t want him, was what he heard. His second try at love, and it was beginning to look like he was going to go zero for two.
“You saw all that stuff they were saying on social media,” Tish said.
“Yes, I saw it. And?”
“And it hurts, JJ. They’re saying I don’t deserve somebody like you and guess what? They’re right!”
“They’re wrong!” JJ said forcefully, slamming his palm on the tub. “You’re my lady, Tish. You are. I don’t give a damn about those losers on social media and who they think I deserve. Don’t worry about that nonsense.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Tish fired back. “You aren’t the one ruining somebody’s career. You aren’t the one ruining somebody’s life.”
JJ frowned. “Ruining it?” He grabbed her by her small arms so violently that her large breasts were bouncing. Which made him loosen his grip on her, but it didn’t ease his anger. “You think you’re ruining my life? That’s what you think?”
She nodded her head.
“That’s absurd, Tisha! I had no life before you. Just a series of duties and responsibilities. Day in and day out like I was some fucking zombie. It was you who got me living again. Not just existing. But living again. You aren’t ruining anything, you hear me?”
He looked so hurt and so sincere that tears came into Tish’s eyes. She didn’t want to leave him. He was the last person on earth she wanted to leave. And she threw her arms around him, sobbing.
JJ pulled her into a tight embrace. And when she stopped crying, he pulled her back so that he could see her eyes. And when he realized she had come back to him: that she wasn’t going to leave him, he said it again. He needed her to understand his true feelings for her. He lifted her chin so that they were eyeball to eyeball. “You’re my lady, Tisha,” he said to her. “You hear me? You’re the one I worry about and care about and. . .” He almost said love. It was too soon. He knew it was too soon. But it was the truth. “You’re the one I love,” he said to her. “And don’t you forget that.”
Tish stared at him with a look of affection and fear and love too, all wrapped up into those huge, expressive eyes. Sometimes it felt like she was living a dream when she was with him. This was one of those times. “I love you too,” she said to him.
When JJ heard her say those words to him, and he somehow believed to the depths of his soul that she really did love him, his heart soared. And his affection for her caused him to give her a kiss that was so laced in love that it cause his passion to break. And he wrapped her in his arms again and began kissing her so hard, and so passionately that they both knew where that was going.
And it went there. He kissed her and massaged her and then he was entering her. She laid her head on his shoulder as he wrapped her into his arms and did her, no longer with that urgency he felt when he was kissing her, but with a slow, sweet, grinding love. For nearly forty minutes, they didn’t just come together to be together. They made what they both knew was real love.
And when they came, they came together too.
Then they bathe, dried off, got in JJ’s big bed and did it all over again. And came again with a thunderous cum.
But there would be no third round. They were too exhausted. And happy just to be together.
They laid in bed on their backs, with JJ’s arm around her, and watched Netflix. Tish picked the movie: Boo! A Madea Halloween, and they laughed their asses off. Especially at Bam. It was the first time JJ had ever seen a Tyler Perry movie in his life, which shocked Tish, and he could not stop laughing. When those people came out of the woodwork like zombies and Madea was running down the street yelling help me, Jesus, he nearly fell off the bed in laughter. He started coughing he was laughing so hard. And it was contagious. Tish had seen that movie several times before, but not ever with somebody like JJ. A man as powerful as he was, and as wealthy, was like a kid again. And she was too busy enjoying seeing that remarkable, sweet, wonderful sight, than seeing the movie.