CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They crossed that one hurdle called Keisha easy enough.
Mainly because Toya decided against introducing Grayson to her mouthy baby sister.
With Keesh, you had to show her better than you could tell her and Toya showed her she was not the one to be trifled with tonight.
She ignored her and her drinking buddies and escorted Grayson straight into the house.
But as they were walking inside, Grayson was curious. “You and that young lady have similar features. Is that your sister?”
So much for an easy getaway, Toya thought. She nodded. “My baby sister,” she said as if that said it all, and then they walked on inside.
As suspected, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were at the small kitchen table playing cards, smoking weed, drinking beer and arguing. It was a constant sight.
Toya didn’t want to introduce them, either, but she did. “This is my mother and her boyfriend Earl. Ma, Earl, this is Mr. Carrington, my employer.”
Her mother looked at Grayson. “Your employer? I thought your ass was in jail. You and Bam.”
“I was.”
“Then where Bam at? Why didn’t you bring Bam home too?”
Toya just stood there. “How in the world was I supposed to bring him home?”
Her mother, as was her way, would say something outlandish and then move on. She moved on. “You can’t keep yourself out of trouble, can you?” her mother said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Jameesha, but you live in trouble. You getting too old for this shit.”
“I’m saying,” Earl said.
Toya wanted to lash back at both of them, but she didn’t bother. Earl paid all the bills. He was the only one in that whole house with a solid, dependable job. He had a right to his opinion.
But Toya had a right to ignore him too. “I’ll be back,” she said to Grayson and hurried to her room to grab her luggage.
Grayson remained standing while Toya went to the bedroom she shared with her little nephew. He saw where Toya got her good looks from because her mother was most attractive. And she kept taking peeps at him. Until she spoke up.
“What’s your intentions with my daughter?”
Grayson smiled. “I’m just helping out.”
The mother gave him an assessing look. “Oh I’ll bet you are.”
It was so accusatory that Grayson didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing. And then Toya returned.
He grabbed her garment bag and the suitcase she was carrying. Toya looked at her mother. “I’m going to be away for a few days, Ma,” Toya said.
“For a week,” Grayson corrected her. No way was he allowing her back there in a few days. Or even in a week, he was beginning to believe.
“I’ll be back in a week or so,” Toya corrected herself.
“Alright now, child, you be careful,” her mother said. “Don’t let that white man get that milk for free.”
Although Grayson smiled, Toya was stunned. “Mama!”
“Don’t you mama me! That goes all the way back to slavery! Black women and these white men. You better know what you better know!”
Had Toya been a white girl her face would have been fire-red. She was just that embarrassed.
But Grayson reassured her mother. “You needn’t worry about that, Mrs. Morgan.”
“Yeah un-hun. That’s what they all say. Until they knock you up and disappear. Watch him, Toya. You better know what you know!”
“He’s helping me, Ma. He’s done nothing but help me.”
“And then he’s gonna expect you to help him,” her mother shot back.
“I’m telling you now. You always think you so smart when you ain’t been smart enough to keep yourself out of trouble.
Robbing a store with Bam. Girl get out of my face!
And now you expect this white man to help you and save you and be there for you. All them other girls thought so too.”
“That’s not what this is, Ma.”
“Where you think all these half-white babies running around this neighborhood come from? From them white boys, that’s where! But where them white boys at? Where they at, Jameesha? I know what I know!”
Toya wanted to roll her eyes, but she was never going to disrespect her mother that way. Even though her mother had no problem disrespecting her every single chance she got. So Toya said yes ma’am to shut her up, and then she and Grayson got out of that house. Toya couldn’t get out fast enough.
Just as they walked downstairs with her suitcase and garment bag, Keisha finally spoke up. “I need to ask you something, Toya.”
Toya knew it was going to be more nonsense because it always was with her sister, but she looked at Grayson anyway. “I’ll be there.”
Grayson didn’t like the look on her sister’s face. She was teeming for a fight he could tell. But Toya didn’t seem intimidated by her in the least. That was the only reason why he left, with her luggage, and headed for his limousine.
Toya folded her arms. “What’s your question?”
“Where Bam at? How you get out and Bam still in?”
“My charges were dropped.”
Keisha was shocked. “Why would they drop your charges?”
“Because I didn’t do anything wrong. Why do you think?”
“Then where Bam at? He didn’t do nothing wrong either.”
“Girl bye,” Toya said dismissively as she turned to leave.
But before she could make a full step away, Keisha jumped down from those steps and snatched Toya by the catch of her hair, throwing her to the ground backwards and then dragging her.
“Don’t you talk to me like that!” Keisha said as she tried to jump down on Toya.
“Don’t your ass ever talk to me like that! ”
Grayson’s heart fell through his shoe when he saw that woman knock Toya down. He had just handed that suitcase and garment bag to his driver, and his driver was putting them in the trunk, when they both saw Keisha, who was larger than Toya, sling Toya to the ground and start dragging her.
But just as he was about to run to her rescue, and just as Keisha got down to start beating on her sister, Toya pushed Keisha off of her, and flipped that script with gusto.
To Grayson’s shock, Toya began beating her sister down.
It was as if Toya had had it with all of the abusiveness and was beating her sister, not because of that one push, but because of a ton of pushes.
Because of a lifetime of pushes. And the guys on that stoop were on their feet, not to stop the sisters from battling, but to enjoy the show.
But it wasn’t a show to Grayson. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, his reaction to seeing Toya get dragged that way almost gave him a heart attack. It was as if there was an invisible string that was binding him to her, and it was too strong to cut.
Grayson ran over to those two ladies and angrily pulled Toya away from Keisha.
But Toya was still seeing red and all she wanted to do was continue to beat her sister’s ass.
She’d taken all she was going to take from that woman and everybody else that kept messing with her.
She just wanted them to leave her alone.
All her life she just wanted them to leave her alone.
Now it was her time to kick ass and take names. Now she was out for blood too!
But she didn’t get it that night. Grayson grabbed her and lifted her off her feet, even as she was still trying to kick at her sister, and he carried her to his limousine.
His driver hurriedly opened the door. He didn’t know what those folks on that stoop were capable of. Did they have a weapon? He didn’t like this scene at all!
But the only weapon appeared to be Grayson’s temper as he all but threw Latoya into the back of his limousine and got in after her. His driver closed the door and got in behind the wheel of that limo and sped away.
But Grayson was beside himself with anger. “Are you out of your gotdamn mind?” he yelled at Toya.
But Toya matched his energy. “What are you talking about? She came at me!”
“She’s not the one who’s freedom is in question. Your ass just got out of jail, yet you’re behaving as if you’re hellbent on going right back in!”
Toya knew she had overreacted. She knew she had thrown all caution to the wind, including her freedom, and just wanted to fight back. She knew she was wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said.
But Grayson wasn’t having it. “Save it,” he responded. Then he leaned his head back. “Why am I putting myself through all of this bullshit? What am I doing?!”
It was a rhetorical question that felt like the heart of the matter to Toya. Because she was wondering the same thing. His driver was wondering the same thing, too, as he glanced at the boss through the rearview mirror.
But for Toya, it was proof that Grayson was already tired of being in her corner. For all of her life, nobody lasted in her corner for long anyway. “You can drop me off right here,” she said forcefully. “I’ll walk back home.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no? Stop this car and drop me off.”
“I said no.”
“Why not?” Even Toya couldn’t understand the reason.
“I’ll be out of your way. You won’t have to put yourself through this bullshit anymore.
Isn’t that what you just said? I’m not gonna stay where I’m not wanted.
Just let me out. Please.” She was fighting back tears.
“I’ll go back home.” As if she had a home!
But Grayson was just as stubborn as she was. “There’s no way in hell you’re going back there,” he said, and then looked at her.
His driver looked at him, again, through the rearview mirror.
But Grayson was still pissed. “Now shut the fuck up about it!” he yelled at Toya so angrily that she saw veins in his neck.
Had anybody else said those words to her, Toya would have opened that door and jumped out of that car. She let her mother talk to her any kind of way, and even her sister. But the one thing she never did was let a man abuse her even verbally.
But Grayson wasn’t anybody. He was the only somebody that had ever helped her by putting his own skin in the game. He would always hold a special place in her heart because of that.
But even he wasn’t going to abuse her.
“I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me,” she said to him with what he could see was all sincerity.
“You came through for me when I know nobody else on this planet would have. But what you are not going to ever do is talk to me like I’m some damn dog in the street.
I don’t have squat right now. I’ll admit I ain’t got shit!
But I still have my self-respect. And no matter how much you do for me, or how much I owe you, nobody, not even you, will ever take my self-respect away from me.
Now I told you to stop this car and let me out.
I’ll let them put me back in jail before I let you disrespect me.
Now stop this car right now gotdammit, and I’m not playing! ”
Tears were falling from her huge, clear eyes as she looked him in his eyes.
Because she knew how this story was going to end.
He was all she had, and having him in her corner did give her a glimmer of hope, but he’d had it up to here with her already.
He was over it already. “I don’t know what it is about me,” she said, “but people be hating on me when I haven’t done nothing to them.
And I’m tired of it,” she added as she angrily took the back of her hand and wiped the tears that had strolled down her face.
“I’m tired.” She said this with a trembling voice.
Then she just shook her head as if she knew nobody wanted to hear her sob story anyway. Her voice eased up, as if she was resigned to her fate. “Just let me out and I’ll be on my way.”
Although Grayson was torn up inside by her tears, and he desperately wanted to pull her into his arms, he knew the best thing he could have done for himself was to stop that car and let her go.
He abhorred drama in his life and she was the walking personification of it.
It stuck to her like glue. Why would he allow himself to get stuck too?
But his mind was made up. No way was she staying in that house, in that neighborhood, another night.
“You are the most drama-filled individual I have ever known,” he said. “But you aren’t going back there. At least not tonight. You’re going with me.”
Going with him where, Toya wondered. Miss Javits made it clear that he never even let his parents spend the night in his private residence, or any of his girlfriends. Why would he let her of all people go there?
Or was he taking her somewhere else? Like to a motel? Like to a place where she could pay him back, away from the glare of all those people that were always at his house, for all that he’d already done for her?
Now she suddenly felt an even deeper sense of hopelessness.
And her mother’s words were ringing in her ears.
This man was her boss. Forget everything else.
He was the person who had to sign the check that would ultimately pay her.
And he’d already called her drama with a capital D.
There was no way he was going to allow her to work in his home day after day when she was nothing but trouble to him.
He was going to take her to that motel, get that milk for free and let her stay there a few days, and then ghost her.
They were going to remove permanent status from her.
The temp agency was going to call and tell her Carrington Capital no longer needed her services.
And that, for him, was going to be that.
But even as she formulated that wild scenario in her mind, it still didn’t feel right.
It felt possible, but it didn’t feel like something he would do to her.
But didn’t every woman say that about their man?
She used to say it about every man she ever dated.
He was a good guy. He’d never cheat on her or abuse her or hurt her in any way.
When every single one of them cheated like cheating was a given.
But Mr. Carrington wasn’t like that. She saw that he was a different kind of dude even as they stood in that unisex bathroom in his house.
Her mother always said she expected too much from these men, and that was why she never married when Keisha had two ex-husbands already, and that was why she never had kids.
And Toya knew that maybe she was falling into that same trap once again.
But instead of questioning where he was taking her or his motives behind it, she just sat back and shut up.
This man had been nothing but kind to her. She was going to go with that.
But as they rode in silence, she realized that she had at some point in her mind thought of Grayson as her man.
How in the world could she even fix her brain to take that giant of a leap?
He was helping her, yes, but it began and ended right there.
It had to. They were from polar opposite worlds: like oil and water.
Both were liquid, but that was about it.
Or was it, she thought, as she glanced over at that gorgeous man with the kind eyes. He was so tired, and seemed so drained, that he closed those tired eyes and shut it all out.
But her eyes were still wide open. She wished to God she could shut it all out too.