Chapter 5 #3
Free was the only one who really had a nickname, and everyone would call her by that nickname.
The second Free would take it there with our mom though, our mom would call her Freedom, and that’s when we knew that she had pissed her off.
That had to be a black thing because I swear, I’ll call someone by their government name when I’m pissed off too.
“Where are your grandparents?” I asked.
“My grandparents on my mom’s side passed away. I still have my grandma on my dad’s side though. She stay right here in Miami,” he said.
“I’m sorry for the passing of your grandparents. Were you close with them?” I inquired.
“Man, was I? They meant everything, and more to me. My pop- pop taught me everything there is to know about being a man. Ion really look up to no man, but my pop- pop was someone that I’ve always looked up to, and someone that I wanted to be like.
He got me into riding horses, fixing on cars, doing handy work around the house, all that shit.
God rest his soul,” there was a gleam in his eyes as he talked about him.
The love was evident. He loved his pop- pop, and for whatever reason, I found that to be very attractive.
“You like horses?” I asked him, and now, it was his turn to smile.
“Yeah. I just bought one. You want to see her?” he asked, already going in his pocket, so that he could pull his phone out, and show me.
I let him know that I did want to see it, and he was quick with unlocking his phone, and I watched the way his fingers dance around on the screen, and the second he found what he was looking for, he handed me his phone, and I was met with the most beautiful, black mare that I have ever seen before in my life.
You could look at her and tell that she was healthy.
I found myself smiling big because it made me think back to when I was a little girl, and I used to talk to my daddy over the phone on the prison line, telling him that I wanted a horse.
My dad used to feed me jail lies, telling me that he was going to get me one for my birthday, but of course it never happened.
I used to tell my mom that I wanted to go horseback riding, but she never took me, either.
I didn’t fault her for it, though. She was raising four girls, so we didn’t always get everything that we wanted.
As an adult, I used to make plans to take horseback riding lessons, but I just never fell through with it.
“She’s beautiful. You can ride?” I asked, and he laughed.
“Girl, I’m a pro. I can teach classes. I geek out when it comes to horses.
My little cousin was with me the other day when I went to see her.
He sent me some videos of me riding. Let me show you,” he said, taking the phone from my hand, and he fished around, looking for the video, and he pressed play, and showed it to me.
The way I had to cross my legs when Tank showed that video to me.
Immediately, when I saw his ass on top of that horse, and he was riding it all around the farm, knowing what he was doing too, it automatically had my pussy leaking.
Literally leaking. I could feel the juices slipping out of me, leaving me with no choice but to cross my legs.
It’s almost like he knew what was happening with me, and that’s why he sat his ass there with a smirk on his face.
I had no words, so I just tossed him the phone, and I didn’t say anything because if I did, I was going to tell on myself.
“Can you ride?” he asked me, and that question caught me off guard a little bit because it could have double meaning. The way he had me leaking right now, I’m thinking about the other meaning of ride.
“No,” was all I said in response to that, and he smiled.
“When the next time your free? I can teach you. I been doing it since I was a kid, so like I told you, I’m a professional.
I can talk you through the session. Riding is all about how you move your body once you get up there and knowing how to keep your balance.
Get a good rhythm going on, and that shit is easy,” he shared, and my pussy was pulsating at this point because I wasn’t sure if it was horse riding that we were talking about anymore.
Tank knew what the hell he was doing, and that’s why he was sitting here, smiling away.
I’ve never been so excited for the bottle girls, and the waitress to make their way back over to our table. I was only so excited to see them because we could change topics and shift our conversation to something different.
There was a line of bottle girls that came, weaving through the crowd.
There were sparklers shooting from the tops of the bottles that they had in their hands, and smoke that was in the air.
One of the girls in the back held onto a big LED sign, with flashing lights, that read, ‘Don Julio Reposado’.
I glanced over at Tank, who sat there cool, and relaxed, and the fact that he didn’t even pull his phone out to record just let me know that he was used to this and probably did a bottle service each time that he went out.
Keep in mind that we were at a very popular lounge, and the bottle that he ordered was almost $1k, but he didn’t even flinch when he ordered it, not the least bit afraid of the cost of it.
They eventually sat the bottle down on the table for us.
Our waitress sat my French 75 down, and she grabbed two of the shot cups, poured some of the Don Julio in each cup, and she pushed them our way.
From there, she asked if we were ready to order food, and Tank allowed me to go first. I ordered the shrimp alfredo dinner, while Tank ordered a few things.
I heard him ask for wings, fries, eggrolls, and ribs.
He had a big appetite, and that only made him more attractive because I loved a man that could eat.
The waitress left again, leaving just the two of us.
“Take a shot with me. That’s what comes with you losing the bet,” he offered, reaching over, grabbing his cup, and then he picked the other one up, so that he could put it in my hand.
“I’m only going to take one. I’m for real. I don’t know you enough to get drunk around you,” I said, and he nodded his head, as if he had no choice but to respect it.
“I hate that you feel like you can’t trust me because Dionne, I swear to God I’m the realest nigga that you will ever meet in your life.
I’m big on respect. I’m big on making a woman feel comfortable when she’s in my presence.
Even if you had lost the bet, and you decided that you didn’t want to come here to the lounge with me, I wouldn’t have pressured you or shamed you for not doing so.
I’m locked in with the shit that’s happening in the world.
I know that a woman can’t be too trusting when it comes to these niggas.
I know right now that my word is all that I have with you, but you good around me.
Come on. You said one shot, so all I’m going to let you do is one shot,” he finished.
I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what he was doing to me, but I believed him. I could feel it in my spirit that he wasn’t going to allow anything to happen to me.
With my drink in my hand, we hit our cups together, and we took a shot.
Tank threw his drink back like it was juice, while I struggled a little bit with taking mine.
I did finish it though, and when I did, I put the cup back on the table.
Because I did struggle a little bit, Tank tried to be funny, and he was clapping his hands at me, as if he was congratulating me.
I hated to admit it, but God did I have so much fun with this man.
I came to this lounge with him, with so many layers on me.
I’d internally told myself that I wasn’t going to stay longer than an hour.
I ended up staying for well over four hours.
I was so uptight when I’d originally sat down, not even being able to take my purse off my shoulder.
I didn’t want to share too much with him in the beginning, but as time progressed, it’s like it registered to me that I wasn’t sitting next to a monster.
It was the way he was so attentive to me.
When my food arrived, he asked me a couple of times how it tasted, as if he wanted to make sure that I wasn’t biting into anything that wasn’t fully cooked.
It was the way he offered to share his food with me.
The way he would make me laugh, even though I would be sitting here, fighting like hell not to laugh at some of the things that he was saying to me.
Not once did he sexualize me. He never even touched me.
The grandparents that were once in his life, and that had helped raised him, you could tell that their mark was left on him.
You could tell that there were women in his life that he loved and adored because it was a reflection of the way he treated me tonight.
It was almost three in the morning, and we were outside of the lounge. No lie, I was tired as hell.
“How you got out here?” he asked me.
“I look an Uber. I’m going to call one for me,” I shared.
There was this look on his face, where I could tell that he wanted to maybe even get in the Uber with me, so that he could make sure I got home safely, but during dinner, we spoke on our living arrangements, and I’m sure he was playing the conversation back in his head when I told him that I didn’t let people know where I live like that.
I protected that information like it was my social security number.
“I’m too much of a man to let you get in an Uber by yourself, but I get that we’re not on that kind of level yet, so I gotta just respect it. Go ahead and call it. I won’t leave until you get in the car, and I threaten the driver,” he said, and I laughed.
I navigated to the Uber app, and I found a premium service black truck. Less than a minute, it let me know that someone would be here in two minutes, and they were coming in a Cadillac Escalade.