Wyndi Outside

Prologue

The event planner for the upscale hotel Maison Cosmopolitan in Chicago had done an excellent job with a very short window.

She’d single-handedly transformed their main ballroom so that it gave “swanky nightclub in Miami” vibes, which was Preston’s hometown and favorite city.

As a professional football player for the Chicago Coyotes, Preston Wilcox had visited clubs all over the country.

He never stopped talking about how no other city could touch his hometown, so I tried to bring the feel of Miami into the space.

The décor in the event space was everything, the food was delicious, the guest list was Chicago’s cream of the crop, the vibe was vibing, and now Preston had a grin on his face as he watched his favorite rapper, Tone Amsterdam, perform his hit single with Preston’s favorite female artist, Allura.

I had to give myself a pat on the back. I couldn’t believe I’d managed to pull off such an epic birthday party for him in three short weeks.

Truth be told, the money I spent to make it happen still pinched.

Not that I was naturally cheap or anything.

It wasn’t that. It was the fact that Preston wasn’t really my man.

We had met a few months earlier. He was young and gorgeous, and I was finally ready to get back out there after two years of mourning the breakup of an almost lifelong relationship.

He wanted to see what it was like to kick it with an older woman.

I apparently wanted commitment-free young dick.

We agreed to mess around. To have fun for the summer, and just do what came naturally.

When it stopped being fun, . . . we would part ways.

The fact that I was a millennial and he was Gen Z quickly became apparent.

My idea of fun was going to concerts, comedy shows, and boozy trolley tours in nearby cities.

His idea of fun was fucking at concerts.

Fucking in bathrooms at comedy shows. Fucking on boozy trolley tours in nearby cities.

I would admit that, initially, it was a rush.

I had been in a relationship with my childhood sweetheart since forever.

Most of the situations and circumstances Preston exposed me to were new for me.

After a while, though, it became very predictable and honestly felt performative.

Having my body folded up into a pretzel in the middle of a king-sized bed was one thing; having that same thirty-two-year-old body folded up in a broom closet was quite another.

The entanglement had run its course. As the fall approached, so did the start of training camp.

I planned to thank Preston for an eventful summer and send him on his way.

Unfortunately for me, misfortune struck Preston before I could make my escape.

He was being tapped to endorse a pair of headphones for an insane amount of money.

He was ecstatic about the opportunity because he had one of those stereotypical family situations.

He had made it out of poverty based on his athletic ability, but the rest of his family still remained fully entrenched there.

That meant that he was the financial savior to all who shared his bloodline.

He was under a lot of pressure. I got that.

I hated that for him. When he lost the endorsement to a teammate, he went into a funk.

His mother reached out to me and asked what plans I had to make his birthday special.

The same mother who had met me once and quickly decided that I was an opportunistic cougar who was trying to sink my claws into her baby boy.

That mother. She reached out to me. As his .

. . person with benefits (because I didn’t consider us friends), my plan had been to serve up some good coochie and a meal at a nice restaurant. I felt like that would suffice.

His mother wasn’t with that. She poured it on thick about the state of his mental health.

She even went so far as to offer to cover some of the cost of the party she wanted him to have.

I knew help from her would never materialize.

Every dollar in her bank account came from him.

I was fine with footing the bill. Until I saw the bill.

I never expected to drop so much money, but the details kept leading to other details.

Before I knew it, the bill for the party was in the mid-five figures.

I wasn’t a professional athlete. I was a self-employed artist. I wasn’t a starving artist, but I didn’t have tens of thousands sitting around to blow.

Especially not on my jump-off. It was going to take me months to recoup what I’d dropped on Preston’s party.

But I was glad that he seemed to be enjoying it.

He was currently standing at the stage, gazing at Allura as she seemed to croon only for him.

If she wants him, she can have him, I thought to myself. She just needs to split this damn bill with me.

At the end of the night, after the guests began to leave and the staff began to break down the room, I found Preston. “Happy birthday,” I told him as he clasped our hands together. I stood on my tiptoes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks.”

The two of us walked out into the hotel’s lobby where the elevator was open and seemed to be waiting for us.

Once we were inside, he backed me up against one of the walls, feeling me up as we slowly traveled to the twenty-fifth floor where our room for the night was located.

I could feel his erection pressing against me.

“You know they have cameras on these things.”

“Who gives a fuck?” He sucked my neck lightly. “Tonight was good, but I’m excited as hell about my real gift,” he muttered as he nipped at my neck.

He had to feel my body tense, because it was like somebody literally dashed cold water in my face. I pulled away from him slightly. “Wh . . . what? What, uh, what do you mean?” Shit, I had just dropped major stacks, and he was looking for a “present”? What part of the game was that?

The elevator door slid open. He took my hand and led me off. “I only asked you for one thing for my birthday.”

“What?” I repeated. I hadn’t gotten a chance to really take advantage of the open bar I paid for, so I knew I wasn’t drunk. I was confused as to why I couldn’t follow what he was saying.

He stopped walking and looked down at me with a scowl. I wasn’t moved by it. Some women were known for having “resting bitch face.” Preston was known for having “constant frown face.” I figured my blank stare raised his level of anger, because his next words were delivered with malice.

“I knew you would fuck this up. Here you are, at your big ass age and you’re still young-minded as hell.”

“Fuck you, Pres.”

“No, fuck you. Trust you to try to ruin my birthday.”

“Ruin your birthday? Ruin your birthday?” My volume elevated as he used the key card to open the door to our room. “Nigga, I just dropped stacks on you. Stacks! I pulled out all the damn stops for you—”

“You did that shit for yourself. I didn’t ask for that. All I asked for was one thing, . . . and it’s free. I told you that all I wanted was to spend my birthday night with you and my homegirl.”

We moved from the entryway into the actual sitting area of the room. On the small sofa sat a pretty, curvy woman.

My breath caught in my throat, because I just knew that the night hadn’t dissolved into this. “Who is this?” My words came out slowly.

He introduced us with a grin. “Wynnie, this is Arielle. Arielle, this is Wynnie.”

He called me Wynnie, and I hated that. My name was Wyndsor or Wyndi. Not no damn Wynnie. No matter how many times I told him, he refused to respect my wishes. I didn’t say a word in response to his introduction.

Arielle gave me what she probably considered her seductive smile. “Hey, girl. Hey.”

My stomach plummeted to the floor. “I’m not attracted to women, Pres. So what exactly is the expectation here?”

He was still smiling at me, leering. “For us to get to know each other, . . . make each other feel good.”

I couldn’t speak. It didn’t matter. He kept talking.

“You’re always so prim and proper, Wynnie.

My birthday fantasy is to watch you lick Arielle’s pussy.

” He turned to me, giving me his full attention.

His hand moved into my hair, softly fingering a few strands.

“You’re so buttoned up and straitlaced. I wanna see you lose it.

I want you butt naked, ass in the air, all this pretty hair hanging freely, and your face between her legs.

” He reached down and stroked his own penis.

“I want your tongue buried inside of her while my dick is buried inside of you.”

I didn’t know if it was my own shock that he would ask me to do that or the audacity of him having the nerve to ask me to do that.

All I knew was that it was time for me to go.

I walked into the bedroom area of the hotel suite and locked myself in the bathroom, while I tried to calm myself enough to retrieve my overnight bag so I could get my truck from the parking lot and drive home.

Before I could even formulate a thought, my phone vibrated in my purse. It was my best friend, LoLo.

I didn’t give her the opportunity to talk; I just started speaking. “Lo, Pres brought some other girl to our hotel room, talking about he wants to have a threesome. And get this: He says his birthday fantasy is to see me licking her coochie.”

“These rich weirdo motherfuckers. They done fucked so much that regular positions and shit don’t satisfy them anymore.

When people say there’s nothing new under the sun, these niggas take it as a personal challenge.

Weird asses be wanting to nut in your hair while you lick a bitch’s ankles. I’m sick of them.”