Can't Get Enough of Your Love (15 page)

“I enjoyed it.”

So did I. I should get injured more often. I fake a long yawn. “But I'm still really sleepy, and I'm sure you have things to do.” Take the hint.

“Not really.”

Now what? “Well, um, I think my, um, friend is on her way, you know?”

He doesn't get it at first, and then … “Oh.
That
friend.” He looks at the ground. “I could stay and rub your back.”

Which would be heavenly! “It's okay. She's feeling pretty vicious today.” Take
that
hint.

“I understand. I'll call you later.” He kisses my cheek. “Should I put the tractor in the barn?”

“Yeah. Oh, and could you turn on the generator? I'm sure we used up all the hot water last night.” And Karl wants a shower.

“Sure.” He kisses my lips. “I hope your ankle feels better.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as the door shuts, I take stock of the situation. We did it in the tub, so the sheets are clean. But my stuff is kind of sore. Maybe Karl won't want to …

Of course he will. It's been almost a month.

Shit.

Maybe he'll look at my ankle and take pity on me.

Well, Roger didn't take pity on me, but I didn't
let
him take pity on me, so …

Shit.

The phone rings. “Peanut, I'm lost.”

Unlike most men, Karl admits this—often. “Did you turn right at the tree?”

“You told me left, not right.”

“Sorry. Go back to the tree and turn right this time.”

“All right.”

I look out the window and see Roger's car
still
parked outside. What's taking him so long? Oh shit! He's having trouble with Sheila.

I crawl up the stairs, get my crutches, bounce down the stairs on my booty, and hit the door, crutches clawing the air in front of me. When I get to the barn, I see Roger shaking his head.

“Is there an on button in here somewhere?”

I slide around him as best as I can and flick the correct switch, which for some reason Mr. Wilson mounted on a piece of wood under a bench. Sheila starts up, noxious smoke filling the barn. Both of us leave, hacking and coughing.

“Does that happen every time?”

“Just about. Um, drive safely.” Just leave!

He kisses me again, this time with tongue, which I'd really like under normal circumstances. “Get well soon. It's supposed to rain some next week.”

I look at my ankle.

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that. Sorry.”

“It's okay. Maybe we can just play catch.” I lower my voice. “You know, you pitch and I catch.”

“I'd like that.”

Now get on! My first friend with benefits is coming!

“Bye.”

I watch him go to his car … he starts it up … he waves … he backs out … he's leaving … he's gone.

Whew.

What? He's coming back. I crutch my way to his window. “What's wrong?”

“I just realized that I'm going cowboy. I must have left my boxers in the bathroom.”

Think fast! “I'll, uh, I'll wash them for you.”

“Okay. Just don't wear them.”

I smile. “I might.”

He winks. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hear a car approaching.

Think fast, Lana! “Oh, um, is that my brother? You better go.”

“You have a brother?”

I should have said “cousin.” Damn. “Um, he's my half brother, and, uh, he doesn't know about you, and he has this thing against white people, so …”

“I understand.”

Roger leaves again, and my heart sinks. Their cars will pass each other, and Karl will say something and …

Shit.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

I moved out here so that what's happening would never happen!

But here it is … happening.

I
'm still standing there on my crutches when Karl rolls up. Here we go. Smile pretty.

Show a little of your good leg. Lick your lower lip.

Act as if you haven't had any in a long time.

And stop sweating so damn much!

As soon as he gets out of the car, I say, “Hey, boo.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

I try to raise my leg but fail. “My ankle.”

He squats and looks at it. “Damn. Is it broken?”

“Feels like it.”

“You been to the doctor?”

Just Roger and his gentle bedside manner. “No. It'll be okay in a few days.”

He stands and looks past me to the house. “This your house, huh?”

“Yeah.” And thanks for sounding so concerned about my ankle. Geez.

“You been cutting grass?”

“What you think?” Oh yeah. “The, uh, the owner, Mr. Wilson—”

“The guy I passed?”

Well … It'll have to do. “Um, yeah.” It's just a little lie.

“He makes you call him ‘Mr. Wilson'?”

“Uh, no, but anyway, he just came out here this morning—”

“And on a Sunday morning?” Karl interrupts.

“Yeah. He woke me up.” Damn, I just told the truth and shit.

He grabs my booty and releases it slowly. “I been thinking about this a long time, Peanut.”

Whew. I'm so glad he didn't press me about Roger, but as soon as Karl gets his mind off something and onto booty, there's no turning back.

Shit.

My stuff is going to hate me.

Should my friend arrive for Karl, too? That would be so mean. Maybe I can delay him just long enough—

“I got you something,” he says, and he rushes to his car, coming back with two little fake Coach bags and a stack of DVDs, including Denzel Washington's latest, one I've already seen with Juan Carlos
and
Roger at the movie theater.

“So,” I say as we go inside, “how's business?”

Thankfully, Karl is content to talk about his trip to New York while I prop up my leg on a kitchen chair and rest my stuff.

“It won't be long, Peanut, it won't be long,” he says, holding my hand in his.

“For what?”

“For when I can stop traveling and just be a distributor or even open up a store down here. I've been trying
to make some connections up there that will keep me in one place.”

Which
is
what I've always wanted, but things have changed. What would one of those white actresses in the movies say to this? “This is all so sudden, dear.” Something like that.

“I got it all worked out. I know a few truckers who go up and down the East Coast all the time, and we've been talking about forming a partnership, you know? They go up, get the stuff, I pay them wholesale, and charge retail. It's a perfect setup.”

“Perfect.”

Shit. And it actually makes sense.

“So, you'll be seeing a lot more of me, Peanut.”

“Yeah.”

Shit.

“And, you know, maybe I can use that barn back there to store some of my merchandise.”

He thinks he's going to store fake Coach bags and bootleg DVDs next to Sheila? “The barn gets pretty smoky when the generator's running.”

He points to the storage room door. “What's back there?”

I can't tell him “storage.” Shit. He'll look anyway. “It's a storage room.”

He gets up and goes in, coming back a few minutes later. “You got plenty of room in there. It's perfect.”

Perfect.

Gee, Juan Carlos, I don't know how all those fake Coach bags and bootleg DVDs got back there. One morning I woke up, and there they were. Maybe, Roger, maybe Mr. Wilson has a business on the side, and I'm sure he'll have some explanation.

Because
I
sure as hell won't have an explanation!

Think! You can't have a man leave his shit and not leave himself! It isn't right! “But it's so far from your customers, boo. Aren't most of your regular customers in Roanoke?”

He nods. “Yeah. You're right, Peanut. But at least I know I
could
use your place if I needed to, right?”

That makes sense, too. “Right.”

He smiles. “And if my shit was here, I'd visit a
lot
more.”

This isn't happening.

The one who I've
always
thought was
least
likely to settle down is using “settle-down” language. But maybe “a lot more” means “twice a month” to Karl.

I have to test him.

“Would that mean that …” What the hell else
could
that mean? No. He doesn't want to do that … does he? “Would that mean that you might want to move in with me?”

“Huh?”

Well, at least it doesn't mean that. Time to throw a bigger scare into Karl. “I mean, if you're going to be around more, why not make it permanent?”

“Like marriage?”

“Maybe.”

He paces around a little. “But …” He looks at me. “You serious?”

Hell no! I'm having my beefcake and eating it twice more. I'm getting seconds and thirds. Why would I want that to end? “I'm serious, boo. As serious as I've ever been.”

He smiles that smile that seduced me the first time I ever saw him sitting on the hood of his Blazer at Washington Park. “Nah, Peanut, you're just playin'.”

My face is a mask, but my mind is doing somersaults. “I'm not playin'.”

“You're serious?”

Hell no! Back out, man! “Yes, I'm serious.”

“Nah, you playin'. Getting all serious and shit. That ain't like you. I mean all this”—he waves his hands around the kitchen—”this is serious. Your own place and shit. You didn't decorate it, did you?”

I think the moment has passed. “No.”

“It sure is countrified, like Andy Griffith and shit.” He starts whistling the theme music from that show.

“Boo, you know I'm still a city girl inside.”

“Yeah?” He starts massaging my shoulders, pulling up my T-shirt and rubbing my bare skin with his hot hands.

Why did I have to say “inside”? Karl can take the most innocent word and turn it into something sexual. I once told him, “I wish you'd shave more,” and in a matter of seconds, he was shaving me down there. And my coochie was cold for weeks! And when the hair grew back, it itched terribly.

“You feel like a city girl on the outside, too.” He slides his hands around to my girls, squeezing them tightly.

Oh damn.

“You got a nice bed upstairs?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

He scoops me out of my chair. “Give me better directions to your bedroom, all right?”

“All right.”

Just as we reach the bedroom, I remember Roger's boxers. I see them out of the corner of my eye lying in the bathroom sink. The nerve!

“Put me down, boo. I need to use the bathroom.”

He sets me down, and I'm in that bathroom in a stumbling flash, the door closed behind me. Now, where do you hide a man's—I pick them up—
used
boxers when another man is behind the door waiting to get into your drawers?

The window over the shower. Thanks, Jenny.

I hobble to the tub, step in, and open the window. After balling up Roger's boxers, I drop them, hoping they'll go straight down to get lost among my three trash cans.

They don't.

They get hung up on the bricks on the side of the house!

Shit!

Naturally, they're too far up the side of the house to reach from either here or the ground. Maybe the wind will blow them off. But with my luck today, they'll blow around until they get stuck on the antenna of Karl's Blazer. What would I tell him? That they're mine? That might work.

“C'mon, Peanut, don't keep me waiting.”

“Keep
you
waiting? You've kept
me
waiting for almost a month.”

Which is … sort of true. At least in Karl's case.

“I got somethin' for you, girl.”

I know, I know.

I take a deep breath.

Here comes some pain.

And once we're in bed, damn if my ankle doesn't start to scream in pain while he's hitting my booty from behind.

“Damn, girl, you really missed me, huh? Screaming
like that and shit. Get as loud as you want, now, cuz daddy's home….”

When he's through ten minutes later, he jumps into the shower, still whistling that damn song, and the only thing going through my head is:
If Juan Carlos calls me, I am not answering. If Roger calls me, I am not answering
.

“Peanut, the water's nice and hot!”

I am not answering. Maybe I can fake being asleep—

He appears dripping in the doorway in all of his African-warrior manliness, every little nook and cranny of him sculpted to perfection. “See anything you like?”

“Give me a second.” Damn, I shouldn't have said—

“You want you some seconds, don't you?”

Why didn't I say, “Give me a minute”? He couldn't have done a damn thing with “minute”! Wait. He might have said, “I'll be in it in a minute.”

“I'll be right there, okay?”

“I'll be waiting. Oh, and what's up with the window in there?”

Shit!

Did he look out?

“It, uh, keeps the bathroom from steaming up too much.”

“Oh.”

I watch him turn around. The man is an African god.

“Sorry, Jenny,” I say, and I hop into the bathroom lusting for a god, and the first thing I do is look out the window.

“Damn, girl, you lookin' good!”

Roger's boxers are waving at me. They're actually blowing in the breeze like a damn flag! I close the window.

“Oh, you wanna get steamy, don't you?”

I smile and turn to him. “Yeah. I wanna get steamy.” I turn and face the water. “Wash my back.”

“Yeah, I'm watching it….”

Ouch … ouch … ouch …”I said ‘wash,' not ‘watch'!”

“Don't worry, girl, I'll soap you up something
good…
.”