Case
I’d been DREAMING about Roemy Blackwell and watching her for years. I just knew talent when I saw it and shorty had it. The first book of hers I picked up had me hooked before I made it through the second chapter.
Back then, I was fresh home and trying to figure out what the fuck came next for me.
I started writing while I was locked up.
What began as a way to kill time in a cell turned into something that kept me sane.
By the time I came home, I already had notebooks full of nasty stories and a head full of plans.
Publishing wasn’t even on my radar when I first put pen to paper, but life got funny sometimes.
While I was building my own name in this game, I paid attention to the people doing it right and Roemy was one of them.
She knew how to write desire, not that fake romance-novel shit, either.
She wrote the kind of chemistry and sex that made you forget you were reading a fucking book and start feeling like you was sitting in the room watching that freaky shit happen.
Every now and then, I’d check her page and see what she had going on.
I’d see her book releases, events, success, and her nigga too.
That was some shit I never understood. Maybe it wasn’t my business, but every time I saw them together, I found myself wondering what the fuck she was doing with this bum-ass nigga.
I wasn’t trying to be on no homewrecker shit, but I also knew what I saw.
Roemy wasn’t happy, and anybody could see that shit in her eyes in some of those pictures.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach all the way.
Her captions were always about her work and never about him.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Still, I kept my distance and stayed on my grind, but I always wondered what it would be like to meet her.
Roemy carried herself like a woman who wanted more than dinner dates and a weak-ass goodnight kiss.
She wrote like a woman who wanted deep conversations that led to her hair being pulled and her fucking back arched.
Over the years, I’d caught myself wondering what she’d be like in real life.
Dreaming about what she tasted like. What she sounded like when she moaned for real.
Now, after like four years of waiting to run into her, she was attending the same book conference as me.
And the crazy part was that she looked even better than her pictures on social media.
Roemy was tall for a woman and she wore every inch of it well.
She was thick in all the right places, the kind of plus-size that made a grown man stop whatever the fuck he was doing and pay attention.
Not because she was trying too hard, but because she didn’t have to.
She carried herself with a level of confidence most people spent their whole lives chasing.
What really got me, though, was her face.
She had one of those smiles that could completely throw you off your game.
Add in those expressive eyes, that smooth brown skin, and the fact that she looked like she knew she was fine without needing validation from anybody.
Yeah, shorty was dangerous. The pictures had been cool, but the woman that just stood before me was a whole different problem.
I’d seen the want in her eyes, and that was dangerous because once I wanted something, I usually got it.
Leaving the ballroom, I opened a door that led to the balcony. “What’s good, Leon?” I said, dapping him up. He was another dope author I’d met at a book event last year. He was cool people and mostly wrote urban fiction with a little romance mixed in.
“Man, I can’t believe you’re here after the last one. You said you’d pop out every five years.” He laughed as I sparked up the blunt I’d had in my pocket.
“Yeah, well, somethin’ about this year felt different.”
“It is. Aye, you seen who the keynote speaker is?”
“Yeah, Roe Blackwell. I’m familiar wit’ her work.”
“Familiar? Nigga, she’s the goat right now. Her last book had me in my feelings for real.” He laughed. “My girl was mad at me because I kept reading instead of paying attention to her.”
Blowing out smoke, I nodded. “Yeah, shorty can write.”
“You met her yet?”
“We spoke for a minute.” I passed him the blunt and checked my phone. I wasn’t trying to say too much.
“That’s what’s up. I gotta make sure to get my autograph for my girl, or she’ll kill me.” We both laughed before he took a pull from the blunt. Blowing out smoke, he asked, “Anyway, you working on anything new?”
“Always got somethin’ in the works.”
“That’s what’s up. Looking forward to it, bro.”
We chopped it up for a few more minutes while we smoked, then I went to the bathroom to freshen up before going to see about Roemy.
I scanned the room again and zeroed in on her talking to some older woman near the bar.
She looked engaged in the conversation, but I could tell she was aware of her surroundings.
She glanced around every now and then, like she was looking for something.
I moved through the crowd, stopping to talk to a few more people. An editor I’d worked with before. A book reviewer who’d given my last novel a dope write-up. I did all that with a smile, but my mind was somewhere, Roemy.
I watched the way she laughed at something the woman said before she walked off.
The way she twirled the curls framing her face.
The way she held her drink like she needed something to do with her hands.
She was magnetic and everybody she talked to seemed drawn in like they wanted to be in her orbit. I felt the same way.
After a while, I made my way over to where she stood by the dessert table and positioned myself close enough that she’d notice me. “You gon’ feed me too or let a nigga starve?”
She turned with a little smirk on her face as she held a plate of mixed fruits. “Did you handle what you needed to handle?”
I was high as shit, but I knew how to keep my composure. “I did. Everything’s cool.”
“Good.” I watched as Roemy held a strawberry to her lips and bit into it. We stood there for a minute, not saying anything. Just existing in the same space. “So,” she said, breaking the silence. “You always this smooth, or is this a special occasion?”
I laughed. “What you mean?”
“You know what I mean. The way you walked up to me earlier. The way you talked. You’ve done this before.”
“Done what?”
“This. The whole… charming thing.”
“I’m just bein’ myself. Ain’t no act.”
“Right.” She looked at me, her eyes narrowing a little bit like she was trying to figure me out. “So this is just how you are?”
“I don’t see the point in playin’ games. Life’s too short for that shit. I’m not tryna waste your time or mine.”
She tilted her head. “And what exactly are you trying to do?”
“I told you already.” I licked my lips. “I’m tryna get to know the real Roemy Blackwell. Not the version of you that you show everybody else.”
“That’s bold.”
“I told you earlier. I know what I want.”
She stared at me for a long moment, picking up the strawberry for another bite.
Lips looking all perfect and shit. I could see the wheels turning in her head.
She was trying to decide whether I was full of shit or serious.
“All these other authors are here. Lucy Wynman, Sheree Anders, Getty Smithsen. And yet, Mr. Erotica is in my face.”
“Pretty ass face.” She chuckled at that. “I been wantin’ to meet you for a long time, and now that I gotchu, I’m not about to waste the opportunity.”
“A long time?”
“Years. You know how hard it is to find somebody who gets what you tryna do? Somebody who understands the craft the way you do?”
She looked down and I saw a little smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “You’re a little too good at this.”
“At what?”
“At making a woman feel seen.”
“I’m just speakin’ the truth.” Roemy took another bit of fruit and I watched the way her lips wrapped around it. The way she sucked on the pineapple. Damn. “So, what’s your story?” I asked, arms folded across my chest.
“My story?”
“Yeah. I know the public version about the successful author and all that. But what’s the real story? What’s going on behind the scenes?”
She hesitated and I could see her deciding how much to tell me. “That’s a loaded question.”
“I got time.”
She looked at me again and this time there was something different in her eyes. “My life looks good on paper. Great career, nice place, vacations whenever I want. But… it doesn’t feel good. It feels… empty.”
“Why’s that?”
“Truth?” She shrugged. “Because I’m not really happy. I haven’t been truly happy in a long time.”
“What’s stoppin’ you from changin’ that?”
“Fear, I guess. Starting over and being alone. Making the wrong choice.”
“That’s real. But you know what’s worse than makin’ the wrong choice?"
“What?”
“Not makin’ a choice at all and just stayin’ stuck ‘cause it’s easier than takin’ a risk.
” She didn’t say anything, but I could tell I’d hit a nerve.
“I’m not tryna tell you what to do, but I been there.
Been in a place where I felt trapped, like I didn’t have no options.
And the only thing that got me out was decidin’ I wasn’t gon’ settle for less than what I deserved. ”
“Is that what you did in prison?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I did. I was locked up for five years and I coulda let that shit break me.
But instead, I used it. I read everything I could get my hands on.
I wrote every day. I figured out who the fuck I wanted to be when I got out.
And when I finally did get out, I didn’t waste time. I went after what I wanted.”
“And what did you want?” She asked, putting the plate of fruit down on the table.
“Freedom. Not just physical freedom, but mental freedom. Creative freedom. The freedom to live my life on my own terms and not apologize for it.”
“That’s really powerful, Case.”
“It’s the truth. And I think you want the same thing. You just haven’t given yourself permission to go after what you really want yet.”
Roemy looked at me and I could see something shift in her expression like I’d said something she needed to hear. “You don’t even know me,” she said softly.
“I wanna know you. You’re beautiful as fuck and talented beyond words. I think we could make magic happen if you let it.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a dismissive laugh. I made her nervous and I loved that shit. “You’re really putting it all out there, huh?”
“I told you. I don’t play games.”
“I can see that.” We stood there for another minute, the air between us thick with everything we weren’t saying.
I wanted to touch her. Pull her close. Kiss her right there in front of everybody who could’ve been watching us.
“I should probably go see where my cousin went. She’s already two drinks and two shots in,” she chuckled.
“Nah, I get it. Do your thing.”
“Thank you, though. For being real with me.”
“Anytime, beautiful.”
She reached for her plate of fruit to trash and then I watched her weave her way through the crowd.
I watched the way her hips moved in that bad ass white dress.
I watched the way she glanced back at me one more time before she disappeared completely.
I knew one thing for sure. This weekend was just getting started.