Chapter 5-Devon
“Tell me something, beautiful. How are you doing?” I spoke into the phone as soon as she answered.
Kenya and I had gotten into the habit over the past week of talking to each other daily.
I would call her around six to chop it up with her.
It was crazy, because hearing her voice had become the highlight of my day in the short amount of time that we had known each other.
She had a calmness in her voice that I needed in my life, and as crazy as it sounded, I didn’t know that I needed it until the moment I heard her voice.
There were two problems I had with Kenya; one was that our conversations were never long enough for me, and secondly, even after a week in, they were very surface level. Far too surface level for me to feel like I knew her, yet the attraction and pull were still there.
Hopefully, she wasn’t a catfish, because if she was, I would have to chunk the deuces. I don’t know if any woman’s conversation was good enough to make me overlook her being ugly. I’d mentioned the possibility of a video call, but she got busy out of nowhere and had to hit me back.
The possibility of her being a catfish had crossed my mind more than once. If her body wasn’t right, I could have handled that, but I couldn’t get over an ugly face or messed up teeth.
“I’m well. I just got in from work.”
“Cool. That’s where I am coming from now. How was your day?”
“It was busy, but I managed to get a lot of things accomplished. I took on a new case today, so that’s always good.”
Her response had me rearing my head back in surprise. I’d just pulled my Hummer truck into my garage and shut its ignition down. Normally I’d have already hopped out, but she had me in the mindset of pulling out of my garage and driving around for the hell of it, which was exactly what I did.
There was no reason for me to be at home. I was hungry, and it was as good of time as any to get something to eat instead of going inside and throwing something together. Once I was out of my garage, I closed the door and then returned my focus to my conversation.
“ Case ? What do you do for work ?” Maybe she’s a social worker or something. To me, that was the most logical thing.
“I am an attorney.”
“Oh, word?” LegallyKenya . All of a sudden, her username made complete sense to me. I didn’t know what career I thought she had, but this damn sure wasn’t it.
“You sound surprised,” she replied. I was having a hard time hearing if she was offended or humored. Hell, maybe she was both.
“Yeah … I mean, I just wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s a good look, though.”
“I will take that as a compliment. What do you do for a living?”
“I am an entrepreneur. I have my hands in a few different ventures.” My profile said that I was a small business owner.
There damn sure wasn’t anything small about any of my businesses, but I didn’t want to go into detail and risk increasing her interest in me for the wrong reasons.
Then again, she was an attorney, so she had to be doing good for herself.
“Hmm … A businessman. That’s interesting.” I could hear the intrigue in her tone.
I got the vibe that Kenya was reserved and different from the type of women I normally went for.
Which was exactly what attracted me to her. She was something different.
I couldn’t remember a time that I talked to a female with a career. The females that I typically dealt with had a primary focus on securing a man with a bag, but they weren’t interested in securing their own.
At the most, chicks in my past may have had a hair hustle to keep money in their pockets, but it was always done out of their mama’s house and never there’s.
It didn’t move me one way or the other because I didn’t keep them around long enough to care.
Being the person responsible for a female’s come up wasn’t my M.O.
Dreux’s mama, Keesha, caught me slipping and tried to trap me with a baby. The baby part of it worked. What she didn’t realize was that a baby wouldn’t keep me in a situation I didn’t want to be in. We shared a son. I made sure that he was taken care of, and that was all there was between us.
“I hope that it isn’t too soon, but I would love to take you out this week. Would you let me do that?”
“Wow … A date … Ummm … ” she said, and there was a brief pause.
Her silence had me wondering if I had made a damn fool of myself. I had never been rejected by a female, and yet, I was being rejected by a woman I pursued off of a dating app. This was something I could never let Levi find out because he’d never let me hear the end of it.
“My bad if it was too soon. I—”
“Oh no, it’s not that,” she interrupted, halting my sentence. “I would like to go out on a date with you.”
Just when I thought that I’d lost my touch … I was back in the game like I’d never been out.
“You had me sweating bullets for a second,” I said, causing her to laugh.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that—I just haven’t been asked on a date in a while.”
She had to be lying … Either that or there was really something wrong with her and I hadn’t been around her to see it.
Damn, what if she has a limp? Or what if she had a wondering eye and her pictures on the app were photo shopped?
I wanted to think the worst, but something was pulling at me telling me not to.
“That’s a shame, but lucky for you, I’m in a position to change that, if you let me.”
“I’ll give you the opportunity to,” she flirtatiously added, and I smiled harder than I already was, which was an act in itself.
I’d done a complete circle after realizing I really didn’t have a taste for anything near me.
Here I was, back on the street that I lived on, and when I pulled into my driveway, I saw that I had an unexpected visitor.
“Something just came up. Do you mind if I call you back in a few?”
“I was actually about to call it a night. I have to get started early in the morning.” Her words sounded like a lie, but I didn’t want to call her out on it.
“Okay. Have a good night, and I will talk to you soon.” I didn’t want to end the call with her, but I had to. If she thought I was going to let up on seeing her sooner rather than later, then she was sadly mistaken.
I parked my car on the opposite side of where I normally parked because there was a car in my way.
One I’d paid cash for in order to make sure my son wasn’t being transported on a public bus or in the backseat of one of those got damn rideshare vehicles. I didn’t care what happened to her, but my son’s safety was my top concern, so I made sure she had a nice, dependable vehicle.
I’d even tried to buy her a house, but she refused saying she’d stay on section 8 housing until the day that she could no longer be on it anymore.
To her bird brain friends and anybody else that would listen, she swore I wasn’t worth anything as a baby daddy, but the Volkswagen Tiguan was a major flex for her, and she liked to flaunt it like she’d paid for it.
Feeling the anger building, threatening to explode in my chest, I ran my hands down my face at the sight in front of me. This girl won’t be happy until I blow all the way up on her ass. I thought to myself, shaking my head. After a few seconds of getting my mindset together, I got out of my truck.
“Hey, Dad!” Dreux yelled as he ran to me, almost knocking me down.
“Hey, son,” I said as I hugged him, looking over his shoulder the entire time at the person who didn’t have an open invitation to my house, but had made herself comfortable on my front porch, anyway.
This was the very reason I needed to upgrade and move into a gated community, where you needed a code to visit.
Or maybe one where you had to go as far as getting my clearance and security approval to get in.
I walked to my front door, unlocked it, and went in to make sure that nobody was posted up waiting for me to get caught slipping, then I came back out. No, I didn’t have any known enemies, but you could really never be too sure.
My son knew the drill, so he didn’t even attempt to go inside without my approval.
After one good look at Keesha, I could tell she was on one. Despite how dramatic she was and in spite of how she got off on talking out of the side of her neck, I didn’t like Dreux to see us argue. With the way Keesha was looking, I’d bet money a fight was exactly what was about to happen.
“Dreux, go in the house, and I will be in there in a few.” I waited until he was safely in the house, closed the door, and then turned my attention to his mama. “Keesha, why are you and my son on my doorstep like this? You can’t call first?”
“Hell nah! That lil’ boy in there gives me a pass to pop up on you anytime I feel like it,” she claimed, pointing her finger toward my front door with a smirk on her face.
“On top of that, I have a date, and you are his father, so I shouldn’t have to find a babysitter when his father isn’t doing anything.
” She popped her gum, knowing good and damn well it was a pet peeve of mine.
To me, it was tacky and gave off ghetto energy without really trying.
I stared at her, doing my best to choose my words wisely.
Since she had Dreux, I hadn’t been able to see what I saw in her back then.
She used to be a bad yellow bone, with hazel eyes and freckles that gave her an exotic look.
She was built like a stripper, kept her appearance up, and would do anything to make me happy.
“Okay, Keesha. You got it.” I wasn’t about to go back and forth with her cause that would give her exactly what she wanted. My words were a truce. With nothing left to say, I tried to walk around her to end the conversation and go into my house.
“So, you don’t care that I’m going out on a date?” Keesha asked as she put her hands on her once defined waistline that now bulged over a belt she forced to get on.