Chapter Eight
“How did your date go?” The question was tossed at her before she had a chance to unlock her front door and turn on the lights.
Couldn’t she ever get a moment’s peace without someone in her life wanting to fix her up?
God, she had enough on her plate trying to wipe Spencer’s kiss permanently from her mind.
Which by the way she was having a hell of the time doing?
Nicey finished unlocking the door and turned on the lights but she wasn’t ready to answer her visitors question yet and she didn’t want to waste any time discussing Spencer or the earth shattering kiss he planned on her.
Nothing was ever going to happen between them and today she had to make sure Spencer Davis understood that.
She wasn’t a token to be used to fill a void in his life.
“Nicey, don’t you dare act like you don’t hear me talking to you.
Give me details about your date last night.
I’m not leaving until I hear if they guy is worth my cupid skills.
Remember I promised to help you find yourself a man.
Now spill how does he look? Does he have one of those bodies that you want to lick from top to bottom? ”
Lick from top to bottom? What in the world has Erika been reading or worst watching on television since she last saw her.
Erika couldn’t know that the second she got home last night she stripped down, popped her favorite Gerald Levert into the cd player and soaked in a hot bath.
She tried wiping Spencer lips and tongue from her mind, but the water caress her body only made her want to replace it with Spencer long tanned fingers with the light dusting of blond hair that covered them.
Shit, she could let him rule her mind like this. It wasn’t healthy and nothing was going to come of it. She would help him find his soul mate and after he was happy she wouldn’t even be a thought in his mind.
“I told you last night that Spencer…Mr. Davis wasn’t a date.
” Nicey complained as she started making coffee.
“It was an orientation so I could see what kind of females he liked or better yet found him attractive. It never went past that stage,” she lied as their lip lock in the booth flashed before her eyes.
“Oh, his name is Spencer,” Erika purred. “Is he a delicious as his name sounds?”
Dark blue eyes, a perfect mouth made for kissing and other sinful acts, a killer body that left nothing to the imagination. Yes, Spencer was hot and she wasn’t going to act on her unprofessional feelings for him.
“I haven’t paid much attention to his looks,” she lied again praying that Erika didn’t figure it out. “I’m not interested in him so why would I?”
Erika sighed and took a seat behind Sarah’s desk. “Honey, when are you going to be interested in dating any guy besides your business? This place isn’t going to keep you warm on a cold winter’s night.”
“Yes it will after I turn up the heat,” she tossed back smug.
“Not cute and you know it,” Erika muttered with a small shake of her dark head. Sad brown eyes stared back at her from a dark caramel complexion. “You’ve to get back out there. I want my little boy to have a playmate.” Erika replied rubbing her hand over her stomach.
She finished getting the coffee ready as her best friend’s words and then joined Erika at the desk. “Isn’t it a little early to be thinking about your son’s playmate? He hasn’t even been born yet.”
“Fine,” Erika complained rubbing her growing stomach. “How about you let me fix you up with some of the guys from my job?” You know no woman can resist a sexy fire fighter.”
She couldn’t believe that Erika was still trying to throw her co-workers at her. “You and Sarah both know how I feel about guys in uniform.”
“I’ve never understood why you don’t love a man in uniform. If I wasn’t married to Dylan I would have picked a guy in uniform in a hot second.”
Nicey saw that Erika wasn’t able to leave this alone. Why did she know how to let something go and move on? “I just haven’t had the best of luck with men in uniform, so I avoid a romantic relationship with them as much as possible,” she muttered not wanting to relive her past.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Erika asked sensing her discomfort as she took her hand off her stomach and placed it on her hand.
She leaned forward and stared directly into her eyes.
“You can let in stay in you like that. Did something happen to give you such a jaded opinion of them? You know that you can tell me anything and it will stay between us. I love Dylan but I don’t tell him everything. ”
Nicey was stunned by how Erika wasn’t trying to be overly bossy with her, but a good understanding friend. It was a new experience that she wasn’t used to with her friend.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” she sighed giving in. It was her past and something she such have gotten over a long time again, but sometimes things didn’t work out that away. “I don’t know why I’ve held on to it as long as I have, but I can’t seem to get it out of my mind.”
“What happened?”
The sound of the coffee pot automatically ending sounded loudly in the silence of the room. Nicey thought of how many way she wanted to approach this with Erika. However from the beginning seemed like the best policy and the easiest way.
“When I was about eight years old I went on a field trip with my class to the fire station. I was so excited because I was going to be able to sit in a real fire truck and I couldn’t wait.
Well, I stood in line until I was the next kid up because I had to wait for a little boy that was a head of me. ”
She was so surprised at how this memory seemed so fresh and vivid to her after all of the time that has passed. It was almost like she was sitting there looking through a mirror to the past.
“All that excitement I felt went away when one of the firefighters that was helping us on the truck looked down at me. He told me in the nastiest voice that I’d ever heard that we don’t let any black kids on the fire truck,” she whispered.
“I was the only black children in class that day because the other two were out sick. I was so hurt that I ran over to my teacher and stayed there for the rest of the field trip.”
“Nicey, that was so mean,” Erika whispered, “Did your teacher do anything?”
“She got on him and he tried to get me to come by over there but I wasn’t about to move not after what he said to me. All I could think about was getting home to my mama.”
“Honey, that was one bad apple and you shouldn’t judge all men that were a uniform by that idiot.”
“I thought so too until I worked at a sandwich store during my senior year of college that was about a block from a fire station. I never made any of their sandwiches because they didn’t want me touching their food. They rather my co-worker Tiffany do it.”
“What was so special about her?”
“She didn’t have a permanent tan is what one of them finally told me one day after I asked. Do I have to explain any further? It like after that all men in uniform seemed to have a problem with me. So, I just don’t bother trying to date them.”
Erika shook her head. “No, I get it but those idiots were just that idiots. All men who were uniforms aren’t bigots like them. You just need to search through them and find the right one for you. None of the guys I want to hook you up with are that closed minded.”
She heard what Ericka was telling here, but she wasn’t ready to listen to it. She liked her life the way it was-simple. Besides, how could she be thinking about a man in uniform when Spencer was controlling most of her thoughts? It wasn’t fair how he has gotten a hold of her like this.
“So, I’m assuming the reason you don’t like Spencer is because he wears a uniform,” Erika inquired.
“No, he’s an attorney,” she answered glancing at the clock above Erika’s head. She wasn’t getting into about Spencer with her. Not now. One confession of the soul was her limit for the day. She still had a couple of minutes to kill before she had to go and see Spencer at work.
“Do you have a thing against attorneys?” Erika pressed. “I think you really like him and you’re afraid to admit it. That’s why you’re working so hard to find him a date.”
“I haven’t known Spencer long enough to from an opinion,” she lied. If that was true then why did you let him play tonsil hockey with you last night, her mind taunted.
“Nicey Johnson, you’re a liar,” Erika scolded. “You can tell within two minutes of meeting a person if you’ll like them or not. That’s why Pamper Me does so well.”
How did Erika get to read her so thoroughly? She hated how her friend made her think about Spencer. What if she was making a mistake by not seeing where things could go between them?
“You think you’re so smart don’t you?” She accused. “I’ve told you I don’t like him and how can you be so sure that I do. You haven’t even laid eyes on the guy.”
A wide grin spilt across Erika’s face as she stood up from the desk. “It seems like I might have hit a nerve, so I’m going to leave while I’m ahead, but remember you can’t stay alone for the rest of your life.”
Making her way to the door Erika looked back at her, “Take my advice. It sounds like to me that this Spencer guy might have stirred up the curiosity gene in you. How about you test the waters and see what happens.” With this final words hanging in the air between them Erika opened the door and left her alone.
The hell she would see where things would lead with Spencer. “Nope, I’m going to keep it strictly on a business level between us from now on,” Nicey promised herself. “I can’t let him kiss me again. I enjoyed it way too much than I should have.”