All Out of Love

CHAPTER ONE

FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

Today of all days she had to oversleep. Today of all days she was running for the entrance in her stiletto heels, her above-the-knee pencil skirt, and her tucked-in sleeveless blouse that was supposed to be her celebration outfit.

Today was the day her department head would finally announce her promotion from team leader to the supervisor of the clerical staff.

It had been ten years in the making. Now the day had come. And she was late!

Angie Rawlings, one of the clerks she was soon to be supervising and the only other black worker in the entire department, was just coming out of her cubicle with what looked like salt and pepper shakers when Toya was rushing in. “About time you got here girl.”

But Toya was confused. No one was in their cubicles. “Where’s everybody?”

“Upstairs in the conference room eating a celebration breakfast that some of the ladies brought in.”

Toya’s heart dropped. “Are you telling me Jill already made the announcement?”

“Not yet. It’s gonna be after breakfast, so you have time.

We’re just getting started. But people are beginning to ask who are we celebrating so Jill told me to come down here and get you so you could be in place when she does announce it.

I told her you was down here plating your food.

So make sure you come up with a plate of food. ”

Toya smiled. “Thanks Ang.”

“Had to come down and get my go-to anyway,” she said as she shook her shakers at Toya. “Them white folks don’t know nothing about seasoning no food.”

“I’m surprised you’re eating potluck at all the way you’re always complaining about people’s hygiene around here.”

“Girl what you say? All these females don’t wanna wash their hands after wiping their crusty butts. I put that junk in the microwave for five long minutes, yes I did. My bacon got burned, but it’s worth it.”

Toya laughed.

“But hurry up,” Angie added as she, with her seasoning, hurried back upstairs.

Toya smiled and shook her head as she stuffed her Gucci bag into her desk, locked it up, and then grabbed her keys and her phone and quickly made her way to the kitchen in the back of the wide-open office space.

On the ground floor was the maids/janitors department: Generally called the housekeeping department although there was no house to keep.

The first floor was clerical. From the second floor all the way up to the eighth floor were the professional departments: such as legal, statistics, social media marketing, and human resources.

The ninth floor was where upper management and the founding partners’ offices were.

Rarely ever did anybody from two to nine hang downstairs with clerical, and even more rarely ever did clerical hang downstairs with housekeeping.

The higher-ups called down their demands and clerical had to go up to them to give them whatever they needed.

Which was why Toya was pleasantly surprised that they allowed them to use the fourth-floor conference room for her celebration breakfast.

But it was the least they could do, Toya thought as she quickly tossed grits and eggs and bacon and sausage onto her plate and shoved it in the microwave.

She’d been an employee of Leonard and Lowe for thirteen long years, getting hired when she was only eighteen.

But she busted her butt and became team leader in three years.

But it took her a staggering ten years after that to become supervisor.

And just as she was the only black lead anything in the office where there were twelve different departments, she was about to make Leonard and Lowe history again and become the only black supervisor of any of those said twelve departments.

She wanted to move up and out of clerical for years, but she made decent money and was able to pay her bills, so she got stuck where she was: the devil you know kind of situation.

And besides, where was she really going to go?

Ocala wasn’t the kindest place when it came to race relations: it was never going to be a bastion of liberal thinking.

And although housekeeping paid sometimes even more than clerical paid because of their strong union, she promised herself long ago to never clean anybody’s anything for a living.

Not that she had something against housekeepers.

She didn’t. She admired their hustle. But she wasn’t going to be anybody’s maid.

The only office she was going to clean was her own.

The only house she was going to clean was her own.

She wanted to go to work dressed up, not dressed down in some dowdy uniform like her mother did for all those years with not even a pension to show for it when she couldn’t do it anymore. And she kept to that promise.

But as she waited for the food to heat, she was once again wondering if she’d wasted her time.

A supervisor’s pay would be substantially more than what she was earning now, but it wasn’t going to be exactly a great paycheck either.

But she gave her all to this job. Some of her boyfriends complained endlessly about how much time she devoted to her work.

Her ex-husband, who was a lying cheat, had the nerve to put in their divorce papers that she alienated his affection by working too many long hours.

As if all of his cheating all around Ocala didn’t alienate her affection!

But that was Clarence. He could always clearly see the little penny in her eye, but could never see that big-ass quarter, or that even bigger-ass Kennedy Fifty cent, in his eye.

But whatever, Toya thought as the microwave dinged and she opened the door. But just as she was about to grab the plate of food, somebody rushed up behind her so fast and slammed her forward against the countertop so violently that it took her breath away.

She started to scream out but the person behind her quickly covered her mouth, while the other hand, a heavy man’s hand, grabbed her around her small waist and pressed her back against his front.

Her heart was hammering as she realized she was trapped against the countertop and his big body. Oh God, her heart was crying. Oh God!

Even with her mouth covered, she still tried to scream with all she had, but only muffled sounds came out. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp or push against him or try to back-kick him, but nothing worked. She was trapped.

And he seemed to know it, too, because he leaned in even closer against her and started simulating his body against her body. Then his mouth was touching her ear. “If you scream when I remove my hand,” his hot breath whispered in her ear, “I’ll kill you.”

When she nodded her head, making it clear to him that she understood, he removed his hand from her mouth. And then he ripped her blouse open so viciously that every button, every single one, flew off.

And then he slowly, cautiously, turned her around.

When she saw his face, when she realized who the person was that was assaulting her so savagely, she was so astounded that she froze in place.