4. Talia & Izael
TALIA & IZAEL
ONE WEEK LATER
TALIA
I moved around the kitchen. This was the only place in my home in the last week where I felt comfortable and at ease. Whenever I was anywhere else, including my bedroom, Izael occupied my thoughts.
But here in the kitchen, my domain, I ruled, and my creations occupied every corner of my brain. It had taken some time to get used to having someone else in the house with me after being here for so long on my own. It jarred me initially whenever I heard someone moving around outside of my bedroom at one or two in the morning.
Those were the nights Izael would come in late after being gone all day. Although we didn’t talk about it, I figured he was hooking up with one of his little girlfriends after work. As long as he didn’t bring them back to my house, I was cool with that, or at least that was what I told myself.
I added the diced veggies and sausage into the roux that I was making and tried not to ear hustle. But I swear Izael made it hard as hell.
Izael was sitting on the couch in the living room. He had been talking to me until ten minutes ago when his phone rang. I knew that it was his ex-girlfriend because I heard him say the name Cee-Cee twice. Cee-Cee was Chantel Collins.
I tossed in the beef bouillon, tomatoes, and hot sauce as I thought about Izael’s ex. I envied that bitch in more ways than one. She had the curvy Coke-bottle shape with the perfect hips, slim waist, big ass, and tits, but she was not too big and had curvy thighs. Every part of her was toned, and her skin was blemish free. Mine was, too, but still.
I shook my head as I added the seasonings. I hated that I hated her because she was a nice girl, but I didn’t want to like her. The thing I envied about her most was that she had held Izael’s heart, and she had occupied his bed and life for four years. I wasn’t sure why they had broken up, but I was glad that they had.
“Are you gonna go with me or what?” I stirred and listened as Izael’s voice drew closer. He was probably coming into the kitchen to get a snack or drink until dinner was ready. I busied myself at the stove until I heard him say, “Oh, now you can’t hear?”
I spun around. “Who’re you talking to?”
“You.”
“Oh, my bad. I didn’t know. What’s going on?” I asked, pretending like I had been in a world of my own.
Izael chuckled and shook his head.
“Keep acting like I haven’t known you since you were this high,” he stated, tapping his hand at his waist.
“Whatever,” I replied with a smirk as I sucked my teeth. “What were you asking me?”
“The same thing we were talking about before Cee-Cee called. Are you going to go house hunting with me tomorrow?"
I thought about my schedule, and I knew I had plans to visit a restaurant. I had postponed it on two occasions, and I didn’t want to push it off again. With the James Beard Awards nomination deadline drawing close, I didn’t have much time.
“Uhm, what time?”
“I’m meeting up with my realtor around noon.”
“I’m sorry. I wish that I could, but I already have another appointment scheduled,” I replied.
“A’ight.”
“Where are you going? To call Cee-Cee back and invite her to go with you?”
He turned around in the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s it to you?”
I shrugged. “Just wondering why you are still hanging so tough with your ex, is all. I mean, why did the two of you break up?”
Izael walked back into the kitchen and stood slightly behind and beside me at the same time.
“We just grew apart.” His voice grew distant and low, as if he felt regret.
“There’s got to be more to it than that. You spent four years with Cee-Cee. People don’t just grow apart.”
“Or they do,” he replied and snatched the wooden spoon out of my hand.
“Hey! Give that back to me!” I cried out and reached for my spoon.
“What’s this?” he asked and smirked at me.
“It’s my gumbo.”
He closed his eyes and moaned as he sampled it. I swear I felt my thighs squeezing together to keep my uterus and vagina intact. He had every organ in my body ready to tap dance on this kitchen floor.
“Damn, Chè! You trying to sneak your way into a nigga’s heart,” Izael teased.
I grabbed his arm, trying to get my spoon back, but those words stopped me in my tracks. I still held his arm, but I forgot the purpose of doing so. I stared into those dark brown eyes, and when he licked his lips, I found my heart racing. The apartment became silent, and all I could hear were our breaths filling the kitchen like a pot of soup bubbling and boiling over.
“It’s good,” he muttered, staring back at me.
“Hmm?” I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. His gaze hypnotized me, and I couldn’t break the spell he had me under.
“Your gumbo. It’s good,” Izael stated and twisted his wrist in my grip.
I slowly let go, and he reached out and tugged on my chin.
“Open up.”
I obeyed him. Not because I wanted to sample the food, but partly because I didn’t want him to stop touching me, and I didn’t know what else to do. He slid the spoon into my mouth, and the thought of it being in his mouth before had me trembling inside.
“Good, huh?” he asked and stared at my lips.
“Mmhmm,” I muttered as he slid the spoon free from my mouth.
Izael reached a thumb out and wiped my bottom lip.
“You had something on there.” His voice was low and husky, and it stirred the always-present yearning inside of me.
A moan fell from my lips, and I wasn’t sure if it was the taste of the food he was feeding me or the man who fed me that created the sound. Izael was the first one to take a step back. I stood in the middle of my kitchen trying to gather my senses when he walked to the sink and cleaned the spoon.
“I’m gonna go take a shower while you finish that gumbo, baby girl.”
I accepted the spoon back from his hand and watched him walk away from me. The tattoos on his back and arms seemed to be in motion, moving independently from his body as he moved. When he was no longer in my line of sight, I sat down at the breakfast nook and dropped my forehead into the palms of my hands.
“Talia, get your shit together. That’s your brother’s best friend, and you know how Tahj feels about that. Besides, it’s not like Zae even thinks about you like that anyway,” I whispered to myself.
* * *
IZAEL
A cold shower was definitely in order. I turned the heat down after I had been underneath the spray for a few minutes. I needed to hurry up and find a new place because the way a nigga was feeling…I was about to fuck some shit up. If I didn’t get out of here soon I’d be digging all up in baby girl’s guts, and my nigga Tahj would be bent like a muthafucka.
Talia had been cool as a little kid when I first moved next door to them when I was eleven, and she was five. She was still cool when she was twelve, and we were eighteen. She ignored Tahj’s taunts whenever he called her four-eyes to get rid of her. Talia let shit roll off her back like water off a duck.
She always had a lot on her little brain, a sassy mouth, and she was nosy as hell, but she was still cool and fucked with a nigga. She was one of the few people who listened to me back then.
But when twenty-year-old Talia, whom I hadn’t seen since she left for culinary school at eighteen because of our schedules, returned home, she was all grown up and no longer wearing glasses but contacts. Her baby fat had turned into shapely curves, and I was no longer looking at her like a little kid.
She had always been a thick little kid, but she had full-grown woman curves and a body that wouldn’t quit. I had done a double take to make sure that it was her when I first laid eyes on her. That pretty little, heart-shaped face was that of a stunningly beautiful woman, and that had been at twenty.
Six years later, at twenty-six, she was a badass woman. Her smooth, blemish-free copper skin tone was luminous and lit up even more when she smiled. And the smile didn’t just stop at her full, heart-shaped lips. It narrowed those tilted, gorgeous, russet eyes and lit them up as if the sun was beaming directly from them.
Talia had thick hair that her mama struggled to tame when she was a kid, but I guess she found a remedy when she went to college because she only wore sew-ins from that time forward.
At five foot five, she stopped perfectly at my chest. Whenever she stood close to me, she was forced to look up because of our nine-inch height difference. Talia’s titties were so damn big I doubted she owned anything that could contain them. No matter what she wore, they damn near spilled out, forcing you to take notice.
Although she had thick thighs and wide hips, baby girl didn’t have an ass. She never did, and I often heard her complain about it during her teen years. Back then, I was on Tahj’s side, telling her that she didn’t need to be worried about that shit, and if we found out a nigga was looking at her like that, we might fuck him up. I still felt that way but for different reasons.
“Fuck!” I grumbled as I gripped my rock-hard dick.
The thought of those thighs and titties wasn’t helping a nigga at all. I rested my forearm against the shower and leaned forward as my other hand glided along the length of my wet dick. My hips slowly rocked forward as I imagined the tight grip I held on it was her pussy clenching around it. I thought about what her pussy would smell and taste like. I hadn’t had sex in a while. The most that I’d had was my dick sucked by Xanthe. But that was weeks ago, and I needed to get into some pussy bad as hell. I felt my nuts tighten and a clenching in my stomach and chest as I grunted.
“Aww, Chè. Baby, I need that pussy.” I groaned as I picked up the pace.
My hand slid effortlessly up and down my dick until the hot, thick white semen spilled forth and coated my fingers before going down the drain.
No sooner than I finished did I hear a thump. I jerked my head up and looked around, but I saw nothing. The bathroom door was still mostly open. I finished my shower and headed out of my bathroom and into my room.
The minute I stepped into my bedroom, I noticed that the book I read before going to bed was no longer on the nightstand. The Power of Broke by Daymond John was lying on the floor, and my bedroom door, which had been slightly ajar before I went into the bathroom, was now completely closed. A smirk tilted my lips. That was what her little ass got for ear hustling.