CHAPTER 5 #2
“Anyway, I knew who he was, and I’d heard about AMW hiring him.
It was a big deal. He was there as a speaker, too, talking about the career trajectory from athlete to agent.
He asked me if I could give him some pointers before he took the stage, and I just said to be himself.
I stayed in the wings and watched him work the crowd.
He was amazing. Funny. Had anecdotes that the students could relate to.
He knew how to captivate an audience. When he came back off stage, he was surprised to see me there.
I told him he did great, and he was like, ‘You must be my good luck charm.’”
Jackie smiled, thinking fondly of that moment. She’d never forget the smile Antonio wore when he saw her still standing there after his speech. The memory did something to her insides, made them swirl around like a spinning top. When she looked up, her friends were staring.
“It must have been a damn good speech if she’s smiling like that,” Tanika said, evoking a chorus of “mmm-hmms” from the table.
“Whatever.” Quickly, Jackie restored her resting bitch face. Thinking about Antonio shouldn’t elicit a damn smile.
“What else happened?” asked Mya, chewing slowly on a spring roll.
“He asked me what I was doing later that night, and if I wanted to hang out. I said cool. We hung out, had drinks, and…” Jackie paused. “I mean, it’s Vegas, so you know. What happens there, stays there.”
“Ugh, no!” Bronwyn shook her head. “Must I remind you that there are no secrets at this table, Jackie! What happened?”
“Yeah, spill it, Jackie,” Tanika folded her arms.
Jackie pursed her lips, looking between her friends. “Fine, you wanna know what happened? Yes, we had sex.”
Toe-curling, spine-tingling sex. It was the best sex of my life. But Jackie wasn’t going to say all of that.
“Whoa.” Tanika looked shocked. “With Antonio Steele? Seriously, Jackie, we’re only hearing about this ten years later?”
“Back up,” Mya said. “How did we jump from hanging out to sex? You’ve gotta fill in the blanks, girl.”
Jackie shrugged. “We were winning big at the blackjack table, and the drinks were flowing. Antonio kept saying I was his lucky charm. I think he won like fifty grand. Anyway, we were so drunk that we made some terrible decisions. Including tattoos. He convinced me to get that four-leaf clover tramp stamp, and he got a J behind his ear because he said I was always gonna be on his mind. Corny, right?”
Tanika’s eyes went wide behind her glasses. “I’d always wondered why you had that tattoo. You never would tell me the story behind it.”
“I thought it was a silly sorority thing,” mused Bronwyn. Jackie was in the same sorority as Bronwyn’s mother, but Bronwyn was not a sorority type of girl. “I think that’s kind of romantic.”
“You would think that,” Jackie chided. “Your back looks like a Banksy mural.” There wasn’t a place on her body that Bronwyn hadn’t pierced or tattooed.
She was the prototype for alternative Black girls.
“Well, now you all know. Why else would a woman in her thirties get a tramp stamp, other than being drunk in Vegas? It’s so ridiculously cliche. ”
“Girl, don’t nobody care about that poorly drawn leaf on your butt! Get to the sex!” Mya yelled, earning looks from nearby diners and a swift kick under the table from Tanika.
Jackie took a big gulp of her drink before continuing.
“So, there we were, freshly tattooed, laughing our asses off. And I just couldn’t stop looking into his eyes.
There was just something about him. Something familiar.
Even though I didn’t know him, he felt safe.
We just connected. We talked about so much stuff I typically wouldn’t share with anyone, let alone a stranger. ”
Jackie remembered being a horny, babbling mess on that Vegas trip.
It was one year after that debacle with Katrice, and while her heart had healed, she needed to take her mind off the drama.
She’d figured she’d probably never see Antonio again—at least in any way that mattered.
Despite him being an agent and an ex-athlete, they didn’t run in the same circles.
He was on the West Coast; she was in Atlanta.
What was the harm in having a one-night stand?
It was supposed to be casual, fun sex. But it didn’t end up like that at all.
“It was so…so much that I can’t even remember it all,” Jackie continued. “Plus, he looked so good. Smelled so good.”
“As big as that man is, I bet he tried to fuck you through the mattress! Was the sex good?” Mya blurted. All three of Jackie’s best friends leaned forward, waiting.
“Good is an understatement. It was…intuitive. It’s like he knew exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it. He was soft when I needed. Rough when I needed. It’s like he had the roadmap to my body in a matter of hours.”
Tanika’s voice was low. “Hours, girl?”
Jackie felt her cheeks heat from the memory.
“Girl, hours! We were going at it all night. At one point, it felt like I had left my body and was looking down at myself mid-session. It was sexy, lustful, and magically sinful all at once. I think I might have blacked out mid-orgasm, too. I was sober by then, so this was purely from the pleasure. It was a once-in-a lifetime kind of night. I swear, I’ll never have sex like that again. ”
Jackie instantly felt embarrassed for being so candid.
That wasn’t really her style. But now that she was finally telling the story, she couldn’t lie.
That one night with Antonio had been everything she needed and more.
She knew after it was over she’d never experience something like that again. In the ten years since, she hadn’t.
“Ah.” Bronwyn smiled, pointing one of her ring-adorned fingers.
“You made a soul bond with this man. Kenny and I had that the first time we had sex. I knew he was the one after the first orgasm. That’s powerful.
What’s his sign? You’re an Aries, so he must be highly compatible. Maybe a Scorpio? Or maybe….”
Sagittarius. Antonio’s birthday was the week before Christmas. She remembered because they’d talked about how he hated not getting separate Christmas and birthday presents as a kid. But she wasn’t going to give Bronwyn any more ammunition.
“Oh my god, Bron! Why are you like this? Everything isn’t about a spiritual connection!” Jackie groaned. “Sometimes good sex is just sex.”
“Yes and no,” argued Bronwyn, her silver locs dancing past her shoulders. “Yes, good sex can just be sex. But in this instance, it wasn’t. You just told us you levitated, Jack. You are fighting a deeper connection to this man and are just too stubborn to see it.”
Jackie gave Bronwyn a blank stare. “Didn’t you tell me Katrice was the one too?”
“Well, sometimes the soul has more than one match. Some fit better than others.” Bronwyn turned to Tanika, looking for a backup. “Tanika, don’t you think I’m right?”
Tanika nodded. “Leaving your body mid-orgasm? Sounds like a higher connection to me.” Although Tanika hadn’t experienced seeing auras anymore, she now felt she had insight into the metaphysical.
“I really need for you to be the old Tanika, before the magical glasses and auras,” grumbled Jackie. “You’re starting to sound like Bronwyn.”
“So, what went wrong?” asked Mya, fully invested in the story.
“What went wrong is that Antonio is a lying sack of shit!” hissed Jackie. She stabbed her fork through her food, scraping it against the plate.
“Jackie, I need you to take a breath, love. And not take it out on the food,” Bronwyn cautioned. “Remember what you learned in anger management.”
Jackie put her fork down, trying to recenter herself.
Bronwyn was right. “Sorry,” she apologized.
“The next morning, I’m thinking we could get in another round.
Or at least order some room service before I have to catch my flight.
I wake up, and he’s not in bed. I look all over the suite until finally, I find him out on the balcony.
I overhear his conversation. It was obvious to me he was talking to some woman.
He kept saying stuff like ‘We’ll talk when I get home.
’ And ‘it’s not a good time.’ Then he went quiet, and I could hear her yelling on the other end.
When he spoke again, he was swearing up and down to her that he would ‘make things right.’ Clearly, he was in a relationship, and I was some conference booty.
He lied and told me he was single! I was an idiot for believing that a guy like Antonio Steele was being honest. Retired or not, athletes are all the same. ”
Tanika narrowed her eyes. “Jackie, are you sure that he was talking to a girlfriend or wife? It could have been anyone.”
“Are you all doubting me? I know what cheaters sound like when they’re trying to rush someone off the phone!”
“Oh Jackie,” Bronwyn sighed. “No one is doubting you, but you do tend to jump to conclusions.”
“Yeah, did you even ask him about it?” Mya asked.
Her friends had looks of genuine concern on their faces. Jackie took a deep breath. “Of course not. I just put on my clothes and left. I’m not sticking around to get embarrassed. Been there, done that.”
Jackie felt hot tears pooling in her eyes, but she refused to cry. Not in front of her friends. And not about Antonio. “Can we talk about something else? Like, what’s up with your wedding plans, Nik?”
“I just got engaged like a week ago.” Tanika looked at her left hand like she was surprised to see the diamond there. “I hadn’t even thought about wedding plans.”
Everyone looked at Tanika skeptically. They knew their friend. She was a planner through and through.
“Okay, fine, I have thought a little about it. I really don’t want a wedding, but Gideon insists that we have one. Even if it’s small. He said not to cheat him out of the experience of seeing me walk down the aisle. Maybe we’ll go back to Belize or Costa Rica or something.”
“Aww,” Mya swooned. “Dr. Gideon is so romantic.”
“I’m thinking of getting a black dress. You know, to match my glasses.” Tanika pointed to her specs, which had quickly become an essential part of her personality.
“Girl, no.” Jackie frowned. “Are you trying to look like Morticia Addams going down the aisle? Get a fabulous dress, please. Wang or Amsale only, of course.”
Bronwyn raised a brow. “I thought you didn’t care about weddings and matrimonial trappings.”
Jackie shrugged. “I don’t. Marriage is a suffocating institution built on the lie of everlasting love. No offense.”
“I take all the offense,” scoffed Bronwyn, playfully.
Excluding Bronwyn, Jackie didn’t know a single couple whose marriage was strong and lasted the test of time.
Her parents didn’t make it. One hint of trouble, and her mother was out.
Her grandmother was always kicking her grandfather out of the house because of his cheating ways.
Jackie had briefly considered marrying Katrice—but she now knew how that would have panned out. Marriage was the scam of the century.
“I do, however, care about fashion,” Jackie rationalized. “And Tanika isn’t wearing black down the aisle. Wearing black to marry a widower? The optics are terrible.”
“Oh, I hadn’t really thought about that,” Tanika admitted. “But I’m far from traditional. I hate veils. And of course, I’d rather wear sneakers than heels. I’m in my forties—it’s not like I’m a virgin and need to wear bridal-white.”
“Hell, you went years without some dick. I bet you’re re-virginized or something,” Mya said. “Then again, Gideon has been putting it down.”
Jackie groaned, covering her ears. “I still don’t want to hear about my cousin and my bestie boning.”
Tanika threw a chopstick at Mya. “What is wrong with you?”
“Speaking of boning,” Bronwyn said, turning to Jackie. She was the absolute worst at being subtle. “Are you seeing anyone? I mean, I know it’s been a while since you’ve—”
“I’m still not dating, Bronwyn,” Jackie interrupted, picking up a forkful of crab fried rice. “You and Kenny can stop trying to fix me up with every straight man, single lesbian, and pansexual healthy Hotep you know. It’s never going to happen.”
Jackie didn’t date. At least, not in the traditional sense.
After Katrice, then Antonio, it was easier to compartmentalize her life.
Relationships were too emotionally taxing.
Sex was sex. A basic human function. If she needed to blow off steam, she’d hit the apps or call one of her old buddies on standby.
Itches would get scratched. Orgasms would be had.
Granted, none of it came close to what she had experienced with Antonio.
Yet, knowing the deal upfront was better than being heartbroken.
Bronwyn shrugged as sipped her drink. “Never say never, my love. The universe has a funny way of making things happen.”
Jackie paused mid-bite at Bronwyn’s words, which did little to put her mind at ease. A funny way of making things happen. Instead of bringing comfort, the words felt like a premonition.
“You okay, Jackie?” Tanika asked.
Jackie pushed back her plate. It felt as though rice were lodged in her throat. “Yeah, I think I’ve lost my appetite.”