Chapter 3
Crimson
Flashing lights, people screaming, microphones being thrust in my face as I kept a hand at the small of Jordan’s back. Her head hung low with a hoodie covering a good portion of her face as we exited Charlie’s Steak House on Orleans Drive.
“When are y’all getting married?” one reporter shouted in the distance.
“Is it true you guys had a secret baby?” another reporter followed up with to my left.
“Are the cheating rumors true?” a short, grey-haired man asked, while shoving a tape recorder in my face.
“Damn,” I gasped, when one of Jordan’s bodyguards tossed the man with the tape recorder against a brick wall, like he was a weightless dumbbell.
The black SUV screeched up to the corner of the alley we had planned to escape from, and the doors swung open. Jordan rushed inside, and I shut the door behind her before rushing around to the other side of the truck. I had to cover my face from the countless pictures being taken and hurried inside.
Shutting the door, I exhaled and stared out the dark tinted windows at the reporters and fans running beside the truck as we took off.
How can someone live this life? It’s too exhausting to never have any alone time.
As I was deep in thought, Jordan slid her hand in mine and rested her head on my shoulders.
“That was fun,” she laughed softly.
“Not really,” I replied.
She sat up slightly to stare in my face. “When you started dating me, you agreed to this world, Crimson.”
“Yeah, I know,” I stated, rubbing my forehead. “It’s cool.”
“Nah, it’s not.” She sat straight up and frowned.
“Look, I ain’t trying to argue with you tonight,” I told her and lowered the window to let some air in.
“Well, I want to fight.”
Rolling my eyes, I kept my head turned toward the window. This was typical Jordan. If you didn’t agree with her on something, then it was an argument.
“Fight by yourself,” I mumbled.
“You know how many men would love to be in your place right now?”
I frowned. Jordan was what some men would call drop dead gorgeous. She was a cross between Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. Yet, her attitude was what made her unattractive to me. On the outside, she checked all the boxes by being beautiful, tall, and having a body built like a brick house. However, she could do some work on her internal being.
Through clenched teeth, I asked, “Do you know how many women would love to be in your place right now?”
She bucked her eyes and jerked her neck back. “Oh, you’re feeling yourself now.”
“Nah, I’m confident in who the hell I am, and I don’t need this shit.” I paused a moment. “You know what?” I tapped the driver seat. “Hey, take me back to my place and drop Jordan off at her place.”
The driver nodded and bust a U-turn in the middle of Wacker Drive.
“Really? Crimson,” she folded her arms and poked out her bottom red lip, “you’re just going to end our date like that?”
“I told you about testing me, Jordan. I don’t take kindly to threats, and if you’re testing me, I told your ass I’d fail every time.”
“I’m sorry.” She moved closer to me and placed a hand on my leg.
“I’m not one of those lame ass niggas who’s obsessed with the thought of being with you. I’m with you because I like you, but that shit can change in a heartbeat.”
I snapped my fingers.
“Damn, you’re talking to me like I ain’t shit.” She crossed her legs, and the red dress she was wearing rose to her mid-thigh.
My eyes instantly dropped to her voluptuous thighs. She knew exactly what she was doing when she lifted the hem of her skirt to fan herself. I was a thigh man by nature. Some men preferred the breasts or the butt of a woman, but not me. I loved the most juiciest, meatiest, and moist part of the chicken. Licking my lips, I tried to focus on her face and not the snake tattoo on her mid-thigh that ran up under her dress and disappeared. Everything in me wanted to rip that damn dress from her body and find where that snake head went.
But I had to stay focused, because if I was being completely honest with myself, I was tired of this life. We’d only been dating three months, and within that time my face has been splashed on almost every magazine and my name has been uttered from the mouths of radio DJs and talk show hosts.
One damn talk show called me a drug dealer.
Shaking my head, I said, “I’m not trying to talk to you like you ain’t shit. I apologize if that’s how it sounded.”
“It did,” she pouted.
Inhaling, I glanced around at our scenery and noticed we were on Lake Shore Drive. I signaled the driver. “Can you pull over?”
He swerved the car to the curb, and I got out and walked around to Jordan’s side of the car.
“Open the door?” I asked. When she did, I told her, “Get out.”
“Why?” She frowned. “It’s a little chilly and dark.” She glanced around while chewing on her bottom lip.
“I want to take a walk with you.”
She hesitated for a moment before she swung her legs out and glanced around again with a lifted eyebrow.
“Are you going to try to kill me, Crimson?” she giggled.
“What?” I asked, shutting the door with a frown. “Nah, girl, c’mon.”
We sidestepped a few joggers and families strolling along the pier. She placed her hood over her head as a disguise and I instructed her bodyguard to stay behind. Reluctantly, he agreed as I intertwined our fingers to lead her down the cyclist path, where a few bicyclists rolled past, enjoying the crisp April weather.
“Why did you want to come out here by the lake tonight?” she asked, lifting her head upward to stare at me.
“To think.”
“About what?”
I didn’t answer but kept our hands linked as we strolled down the path overlooking the dark waters. Truthfully, something was off between us, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. It was a feeling I’d been having for a while, but tonight I needed to explore it and the only way to do that was to get Jordan alone, on my turf, on my terms to figure things out.
“Crimson, what’s wrong?”
The wind picked up a little and she shuddered, causing me to wrap an arm around her shoulders as I kept my gaze straight ahead.
“You’re scaring me,” she confessed.
“Answer this.” I turned to face her. “Why do you want to be with me?”
She halted her steps, dropped my hand, and furrowed her eyebrows. “Why are you asking me this?” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Can you answer the question?”
Shrugging, she answered nonchalantly, “I don’t know. I saw you at the club that night and you weren’t even looking my way, so I wanted to get your attention.”
“So you talked to me because you saw I wasn’t interested, and you wanted to see if you could get me? Is that correct?”
“Nah,” she laughed. “You make it sound like you were a challenge for me or something.”
Taking her by the hands, I confessed, “Well, I’m going to cut to the chase. I don’t think this is going to work out, Jordan. We’ve had some great times in the brief time we’ve been dating, but this life …” I paused and glanced around, “is not for me. I’ve never been the spotlight guy, I’m the guy who’ll probably one day go live out on my farm after I retire with horses and chickens running around. I’m the simple guy. I don’t fit in your world.”
“You don’t think we’re going to work out?” she asked, taking a few steps back from me. Suddenly, she shoved me in the chest. Before I could answer or fathom what had just happened, she started crying, waving her arms in the air, and screaming to the top of her lungs.
“I can’t believe you doing this to me.” She covered her face while her shoulders shook.
“Jordan, please calm down.” I touched her arm, and she snatched it away.
“Don’t touch me!” she hollered.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was auditioning for a part in one of her movies. Her rants and temper tantrum didn’t do the situation any good, because random bystanders stopped on the pier and glanced our way. The scene playing out before my eyes caused me to grab ahold of Jordan’s shoulders again, and I tried to stop her charade, but before I could say anything a woman in the distance yelled at me.
“Let her go.”
Lifting my gaze, my eyes locked on a slender figure standing at the edge of the banks, blowing smoke from a vape pen.
“Don’t touch her,” she yelled out again.
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to get a good look at the woman who hyped the crowd around me to start shouting out obscene words.
“He’s trying to hurt her,” one older lady screamed.
“Call the police,” another woman shouted.
“Let’s mind our own business,” a man on the woman’s arm told her and ushered her along the pier.
Shaking my head, I backed away from Jordan, with my hands in the air.
“Are you okay, miss?” the mystery woman asked, squatting down to eye level with her.
Jordan still kept her face covered as I took another step back from her to try to defuse the situation. The last thing I needed was to be painted as this bad man who went around hurting women. My farm was already suffering a setback from my father’s untimely death, and the last thing I needed was for all my vendors to pull out entirely because I had created a bad rep in the cannabis industry.
The mystery woman removed the black skull cap she was wearing, and curly, dark black hair fell past her shoulders to the middle of her back. She turned slightly toward me, and I could see the side of her face. The high cheekbones, pert nose, full lips, and skin the color of honey glistened underneath the shining white moon.
“God, it can’t be.”
Recognition shone in her eyes as well when she said, “Crimson.”
I stood still and held a hand on my chest. It was as if Cupid himself had come down from the clouds and shot an arrow straight through this hardened heart of mine. Feelings I once had for this person came rushing back in an unknowing way.
I blinked, having not noticed that she had fully turned in my direction, but when my eyes lifted and locked with hers, I could see exactly what I saw all those years ago—that this brown-eyed woman, who could stop a man in his tracks with one glance, still had the power to render me speechless.
And after fifteen long years I finally uttered her name in her presence, “Brynn.”
She paused with a hand on Jordan’s arm and her head lifted up at me with a frown.
“Crimson,” she said again as if she was trying to be sure it was me as she narrowed her eyes.
“Yes. Damn. It-It’s been too long, B.”
“Don’t call me that,” she rushed out and turned her attention back to Jordan. “Are you okay?” Brynn repeated to Jordan.
Jordan wiped the few tears from her face. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Do you need help?” She frowned in my direction. “I know he can be an asshole.”
“Help?” I interjected. “This was just a misunderstanding, Brynn. Nothing more.”
“You know him?” Jordan asked.
“I did, a long time ago,” Brynn admitted.
Damn, that shit hurt to hear.
“Brynn, you know me,” I told her, stepping closer. “You know I’d never hurt a woman.”
Her cold, brown eyes softened when she stood upright and said, “I’m sorry to intrude here. I just heard your cries and thought you were in danger, but it seems everything is fine.”
She turned to walk away, and I gripped her arm. “Wait,” I asked.
She glanced up at me and nothing else came out my mouth. I wanted to ask her to stay, let’s talk as friends, like we used to, and ask her what happened all those years ago that caused her to not to show up to my step show and block my calls for fifteen years.
Didn’t she know I’d missed her? She was my best friend, it took me years to figure out life again, because nothing made sense without her in it anymore.
“It’s cold and I’m tired.” Jordan yawned. “Are you ready, baby?”
I knew that shit was an act, I thought as my irritation with her grew. “I’ll call for your bodyguard to come back and pick you up.”
“What?” she shouted. “If you don’t leave with me now, we’re done.”
“I’m cool with that,” I told her, as Brynn wiggled free of the hold I had on her arm.
“I’m going to leave and give y’all some time alone.”
“Nah, hold up, Brynn. We need to talk,” I insisted. “Are you out here alone?” I asked, glancing up and down the pier.
“Umm, yeah, but I live right up the hill in that high-rise.” She pointed to her left.
I lifted my wrist to check the time. “It’s past ten o’clock and I don’t feel right with you walking home by yourself. There’s too many crazies out here.”
“I do this all the time, Crim,” she revealed with a frown. “I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, she’ll be okay,” Jordan repeated.
“Hey.” I clapped my hands, and then sent a quick text. “Max will be here to get you shortly,” I told Jordan. “That little fake ass stunt you pulled earlier wasn’t cool. So, I’m done with this.”
“Just like that?” she asked and folded her arms.
Nodding, I replied, “Yes, just like that. I told you I don’t do drama.”
“You ain’t shit, Crimson. I don’t even know why I wasted my time on you.”
“Likewise,” I agreed, right before she lifted her arm and slapped my face.
What the hell?
She swung her arm back again, and I caught it in mid-air. “Don’t do that shit again. It wouldn’t be smart.”
Right then, Jordan’s bodyguard approached. He rested his hand on the gun on his hip and asked, “Is everything okay, Miss Steele?”
She huffed and stared at me and back at Brynn who was standing there with a surprised expression on her face.
“You can have him.” She flipped her hair and stormed up the path.
“Damn, that was intense,” Brynn said, taking a puff of her vape pen.
Scratching my forehead, I nodded. “That shit was too toxic for me.”
“Yeah, she smacked the shit out of you.”
“It probably won’t be the last time somebody tries and smack me.”
“Why, because you’re a son-of-a-bitch?”
“What?” I asked, as she turned from me and started up the bike path. “Hold up, Brynn. I’m not going let you walk home alone.”
“You have no choice,” she blurted over her shoulder.
I caught up to her in two long strides and touched her arm. “I’ll walk you back.”
She frowned.
“You know me, Brynn,” I reminded her. “You know I’d never let you or any woman walk alone at night by themselves. Don’t you remember those nights I used to walk you back to your dorm. It’s who I am, there’s no need to fight me on this.”
She stared out at the water, as if she was thinking about the things I said. She knew me better than anyone, and one thing she knew for sure, this was a fight she’d never win when it came to her safety.
“Yeah,” she twisted her lips, “I know how you are, so I won’t argue with you.”
“Thanks,” I muttered and fell in step beside her.
“I thought you were still up in Lovett.”
I glanced her way, to see if she was speaking to me because her head was facing forward as she blew out smoke. She gave me a sideways glance to indicate that she did speak. Inhaling, I answered, “I live here now but I go up to Lovett to work and manage the farm.”
“Hmmm.”
“So, how are you doing?” I asked, genuinely concerned.
“Good.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.” She stopped walking to glance out at the party cruise boats roaring past with the partygoers dancing aboard.
I stared at her, probably in a creepy way because I was still attracted to her in a way I couldn’t explain.
She avoided my eyes as she dropped her head down to say, “I’m this way.”
As we continued down the boardwalk, I observed her a little more. She wore a black jogging suit. The hoodie stopped above her navel, and the jogging pants accentuated her firm ass and wide hips.
Brynn had always been a fireball. I believed that was what attracted me to her when we were back in college. Don’t get me wrong, she was fine as hell. She had a bounce in her walk that would render a man speechless. Not only that, she was intelligent, and right now she reeked of confidence.
Yet, she didn’t look my way as I walked beside her, and she smoked on her pen.
To break the awkward silence, I asked, “Hey, can I get a pull of that?”
She looked down at her pen and back at me before she handed it over. After inhaling, I lifted my head to the sky to blow the smoke in the air.
“I’m sorry to hear about your dad.”
When I only shrugged in response, she continued. “I wanted to be there, but you know—”
“It’s cool. I understand.” I took another hit of the pen. “His passing happened abruptly, so I didn’t get a chance to make an announcement.”
She nodded. “I should’ve been there.”
“It wasn’t like you were talking to me back then,” I reminded her.
She narrowed her eyes at me and replied, “You act like I didn’t have good reason for not talking to you anymore.”
“You didn’t,” I say, taking short strides to match her pace. “What happened that day you left school a week before graduation without telling me? I thought we were better than that, B. Rob nor Ant didn’t know why you left so abruptly. And to top the shit off,” I pounded my fist in my hand, “you still kept in contact with those niggas and X’d me out your life completely. I called you for weeks, months, and even stopped at your mother’s house for her to tell me you weren’t there. I knew that shit was lie, because I saw you one time peeking out of the curtains. Why, B? I need to know.” I stopped walking to face her again.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Crim,” she warned me with a wave of her hand.
“Let me get this out, Brynn, before I can’t … I’m sorry,” I finally uttered. “For whatever I did or didn’t do. I needed you over the years.”
She laughed, and I frowned.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
She reared backward, holding her stomach, and snorted a few times to confess, “You don’t even know what you’re sorry for but here you are apologizing anyway.”
Shrugging, I said, “So?” I paused. “I want you back in my life, and if you refuse to tell me what I did, then fuck it, a nigga will apologize.”
“I dreamed of this day, Crim. I used to think what I would do if I ever saw you again. My first thought was to punch you in the face, cuss you out, and then make you feel like shit. But now after all this time, I don’t even want to do any of those things. I guess it’s true when they say time heals all wounds.”
“I guess so,” I said, not really sure how to feel about what she had just told me. “Does that mean you accept my apology, or are at least going to tell me what I did?”
“Hell no,” she stated with a frown. “Some shit you just can’t come back from, and what went down between us back then kind of fucked me up in other relationships.”
Hearing her confession made me feel like shit. What could I say to that? To hear I caused her that much pain had my stomach twisting in knots. Yet, I had no clue on what I did.
“You going to have to help me a little here. Let’s get it out, what did I do?”
“Let it go, Crim.”
Hearing her warning, and to taper my rising frustration, I decided to ease the conversation to something lighter. “How you like being SmokinLady?”
She let a huff and shook her head. “It’s cool, but after my almost near-death experience today, I’m rethinking my entire career.”
“Near-death experience,” I repeated with a frown.
She threw a hand in the air. “It’s the reason I’m out here tonight … to blow off some steam. But please, Crim, don’t ask. I’d rather forget the whole thing.”
Hearing the disdain in her voice, I didn’t push her on it. It wasn’t like she was in the sharing mood tonight.
“So, how do you like your new fame?”
“Huh?” I handed her back the pen and inquired, “What fame?”
She smiled. “You know, the one where your face is all over the magazines.”
“Shiiit, I don’t. You know me,” I turned to face her, “I’m a lowkey dude, never been into the limelight. That’s why I ended things with her tonight. Wait a minute.” I clasped my hands. “You been keeping tabs on me?”
“What?” she quipped, frowning.
“You said you didn’t know I was back in the city, and now you’re asking about my fame.”
“I just heard about it from Rob and Ant that you were dating this big-time actress, and I may have seen you face on TMZ once.”
Groaning, I rubbed my goatee. “I hated that shit.”
“Stop lying.” She nudged my arm.
“Nope, for real. It was like I was dating the public instead of her.” I shook my head. “There was always some make believe story floating around about me cheating.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You sure none of it was true?”
“Hell nah, what type of man you think I am?”
“Never mind, forget I said that.” She pointed. “This is me.”
I glanced up at the grey bricked high-rise on Roosevelt and revealed, “Wow, I’m not too far from here.” I pointed up the street.
She nodded. “It was really good to see you again.” She turned, and I rushed to stand in front of the revolving doors to block her entrance.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to sidestep me.
“I need one thing from you,” I told her, swallowing. “I told myself if I ever saw you again or got you alone, I’d make it right between us.”
She sidestepped me again, but I blocked her path. “Tell me what I did, Brynn? I can’t fix it if I don’t know.”
“You can’t fix everything, Crim,” she told me. “Sometimes things happen for a reason, and I realize it’s a wakeup call but it’s up to us to listen and act on it. That’s what I did, I woke up and saw you for who you were.”
Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “And who did you see?”
She adverted her gaze and said, “A flawed man.”
“What does that mean? We’re all flawed.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said and moved around me, for me to only step in her way again. This time, she placed her hands against my chest and shoved me back lightly.
“Please let me pass, Crim. I can’t do this right now.” Her eyes glossed over with mist.
I gripped her wrists. “Just tell me, B. I deserve to know. After all these years, it’s got to be weighing you down. Either Ant and Rob are good liars, which I know they’re not, or they don’t know. So, I’m begging you to tell me.”
She dropped her head and uttered in a whisper, “I saw you.”
“Saw what?” I asked as my heart rate quickened. Because whatever it was had caused her to crumble in my arms.
“You and my roommate,” was all she said before she gained her composure, brushed past me, and rushed inside of the building.
Standing on Roosevelt, I stared at the cars racing up and down the busy Chicago Street. My heart sunk, when my mind unwillingly conjured up the night, I had erased from my mind long ago. That day didn’t mean anything to me—it was just sex—but for it to hurt Brynn in that way held a concern.
So what, I slept with her roommate. Why would she unshelve me from her life like expired goods for me doing something that had nothing to do with her? Unless…
It can’t be, I thought.
The more I tried to rationalize it, my mind kept bringing me back to one thing. Unless she saw us as more than friends.