Forever. (This. Is. Not. Over. Book 3) (9 page)

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Malcolm lets out a deep breath and shakes his head. “This Jon character doesn’t have a clue
; what in the hell did Danielle see in him?”

“Malcolm, Jon was a good guy, he just didn’t know how to love properly. That’s all. Can’t fault a man for never learning how to love.”

“You can’t. But you also can’t fault Danielle for wanting to
be
loved. Now, I’m not perfect, trust me. There’s tons of shit I struggle with, but loving Danielle has always come easy for me. I do it without thinking about it.”

“Let me guess, you love her with every breath you take.” I roll my eyes and look out the
window. “Another score for Danielle.”

“No, I don’t love her with every breath I take
,” he says impassively.

“Huh?” I whip my head around to look at him. “What are you talking about? You
adore
her. It’s what makes me hate her even more.” He smiles and shakes his head.

“I don’t love Red with every breath I take.” He shrugs. “Because when you breathe you have the power to manipulate it:
you can speed it up, slow it down or stop it all together. My love for Danielle is more like a heartbeat, I can’t completely control it. I can speed it up, I can slow it down, but never—no matter what I do—can I make it stop altogether. No matter what you’re feeling, no matter what’s going on, no matter what you try to do, your heart will continue beating until the day you die. That’s love.” The light turns green and he takes off slowly, pulling in front of Starbucks and then coming to a stop. “So do me favor?”

“What?” I whisper, wondering if I have that kind of love for Jacob
, because I already know I have it for Marlon.

“For ten minutes, I want you to take your rose
-colored glasses off because he’s waiting for you.” Who? Marlon? I look at Malcolm and watch him point towards the Starbucks on Tremont Street. And, as I turn my head, I lay eyes on
him
through the window.

Jacob.

Jacob

(
Winnie
.)             

“Malcolm,” Laura says as she runs her hands up under Malcolm’s shirt and lands them on his chest.

“Yeah, baby,” he says as he looks off to the side, the Boston Globe in his hands turned to the
Today in Politics
section.

“I had fun in Hilton Head this summer but we should go back for Christmas.” Malcolm says nothing. He’s still reading the paper. Mac’s got a bad habit of doing that now; ignoring Laura when she speaks. I turn to watch cars glide down Chestnut Street as we stand outside of Cinemark 12, a nice cool autumn breeze in the air. I look up to the sk
y and catch a grey cloud slide over the moon.

“This shit would have never gotten out if I was her counsel,” Malcolm says. I’m sure he’s reading the news story that’s being broadcast on ever
y news station in New England. Apparently, the governor of Massachusetts has accrued massive gambling debt and is now considered to have an addiction. This has Massachusetts up in arms; how can a woman with a gambling addiction run the state? “A gambling addiction? Who the hell cares, as long as she’s handling state finances appropriately? This shit would have easily disappeared if I was on her team.”

             
“Malcolm, are you listening to me?” Laura whines out. “Daddy heard you were in town and said he wants to have dinner with us.” I snap my head around to Mac and watch him dart his eyes over to Laura. Now she has his attention. We graduate law school in two years. We need clients. Big name clients.

             
“Absolutely.” He says as he tosses the paper in a recycle bin nearby. “Call him now, tell him to pick a time and place. Dinner on me.”

             
“There she is!” Laura screams out. We all turn and see a town car approaching us. It slides up to the curb before the driver steps out. “Oh you’re gonna love her, Jacob! She’s so fun and she plays the piano and I think that’s so romantic and she likes to drink dark liquor and she wears red lipstick which is super sexy and—”  Before Laura can finish, the chauffeur opens the back door and out slides a brunette with a bob, red lips and a smirk. Flapper style. Nice. “Gwyneth! Jacob, this is Gwyneth Yates.”

             
“Gwyneth,” I say as I walk over to her town car. She drops her eyes to my mouth, jaw, shoulders, abs, dick …

             
“Nice,” Gwyneth says, her smirk still pasted on her face. “And call me Winnie.”

             
“Winnie,” I say as I walk closer to her, our eyes stuck on each other. “How about you and I go grab a drink alone?” She raises an eyebrow to me.

             
“Let’s roll.”

Jasmine             

(
christmas
.
present
.)

“Babygirl
,” Jacob says as he stands, dressed in what appears to be the day’s work clothes. He’s always so sharp these days; so different from the shirtless guy who was tatted up, listening to Slick Rick and eating Oreos at Yale. I walk slowly over to his table, coming face to face, with number five on my Hit List.

God, this man is beautiful. He’s still broad-shouldered
—even more so now with a wife, four kids and a successful law firm. I’ve come to realize that the more accomplished a man is in his personal and professional life, the wider his shoulders become to carry the load. While I have deep dimples, Jacob has faint traces of them. Depending on the light, they look like slight indentations that add to the definition of his square jaw. God … Jacob.

             
No, I can’t. I can’t walk any further. I can’t come face to face with Jacob and sit at a table with the man whom I would have given my entire life for, only to stand by and watch him marry another woman. A woman he considered better than me. A woman my former best friend obviously considers better than me.

             
Gwyneth ‘Winnie’ Blair is
better
than me.

             
“I can’t do this, Jacob. I’m sorry,” I say before I quickly turn around and begin to head back towards Malcolm’s truck.

             
“Jazz.”

             
I stop dead in my tracks and close my eyes at the sound of that voice of his. Just hearing him say my name again makes my throat burn.

“What, Jacob?” I say, my voice cracking. I will not cry. I will not cry.

“I love you.”

My heart starts racing and my scalp gets all prickly.

I glance around the empty Starbucks and notice the only two baristas behind the counter are looking at their cell phones and laughing with each other while the sounds of
God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman
are filling the air.

Jacob and I are alone.

Jacob loves me.

“But I was never the one for you
,” he says.

My heart sinks.

“I guess you were the one for Winnie?” I ask, my back still to him.

“I am.”

“Why?” I whisper through my burning throat.

“I didn’t deserve any better than Winnie.”

“You were always
so hard
on yourself,” I say before taking a long swallow to control an oncoming sob.

“No, I wasn’t. You were too easy on me.”

“I loved you. I wasn’t there to tear you down; I was there to build you up. Like any good girlfriend would have done.”

“I was a lost cause, Jazz. There was no helping me. I went into life knowing exactly what I wanted to do. And trust me, I didn’t want to be saved. I saw what it took to get to the top and I went hard. They say the climb can kill you
and I was ready to die … I just wouldn’t let you die bedside me.”

“So you gave Winnie that privilege?”

“Is death a privilege or a penalty? Either way, yeah, I did. She’s carved from the same pile of coal as me. In the end, dead or alive, she and I are both going to the same place.”

“And I guess you couldn’t take me?”

“Hell is hot, baby.” I hear a smile in his voice. It takes all of my strength, every sinew in my legs, to keep myself firmly planted in this spot. Because right now all I want to do is turn around, run to Jacob and forget everything. I want to hop on the back of his bike, blaze down the streets of Boston, let the moon guide us anywhere but here and just have my chance with Jacob Blair. That’s my Christmas wish. Just one chance with this lump of coal.

“Coal … why do you always associate yourself with bad things?”

              “Because that’s what I am, Jasmine.”

             
“Well, coal turns into diamonds.”

             
“No it doesn’t, Jazz. That’s just a legend made up by people who wanna believe the best in the worst. The truth is that coal is good for one thing and that’s burning.”

“Oh Jacob, please! Save
me the metaphorical bull. Why don’t you just admit it—you didn’t want me because I was black.”

             
“I won’t lie, back then, that was a factor.”

             
“You bastard.” I give out a sardonic smile and shake my head.

             
“I was young; that’s my only excuse.”

             
“Well it’s insulting.”

             
“Tell me, Jasmine, do you believe that all of those dreams and aspirations of yours could have materialized with me by your side? And I’m not talking about your dreams of being married and having children because, let’s be honest, I’ve got three kids under my belt, and another one on the way. If there’s anything Jacob Blair can do it’s make a fucking baby. I’m talking about those dreams of balls and galas and black society you always talked about. Remember that?” I hear him moving closer to me. “You and I’d be in bed at Princeton after an exceptional night of rough-housing.” He lets out a small laugh. “I never could understand how someone so soft wanted it so hard.” He moves closer to me. “Do you remember that?”

“I remember everything about us, Jacob.” I feel my breathing picking up. I close my eyes to control it. Relax Jasmine
; it’s just a memory.

“So you remember when we used to lie in bed afterwards? The window would be open, the crickets would be loud as hell,
and the breeze would damn near chill us to the bone. But of course, when you’re dripping with sweat, a cool breeze feels like an artic chill.” He walks closer to me. “And you’d tell me stories about those Christmas balls at Danielle’s house and Easter egg hunts at Judge Carmichael’s home, who was just a civil rights attorney back then. Do you remember how you always talked about becoming part of that world, without your parents? Getting your own respect? Do you think you could have gotten there with me as your husband?”

“Danielle was asked to join The Board and she’s married to Malcolm. So, yes. I could have
, Jacob. I could have gotten there with you.”

             
“Danielle has a solid career and a helluva lot of respect around Boston and now the nation, for that matter. That’s why she gained The Board’s attention. She wasn’t asked to join because of her husband. But let’s be honest Jasmine, all you’ve ever wanted to do was stand by your man.”

             
“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” I snap. How dare he imply that I had no dreams of my own!

             
“Jazz, that’s one of the things that made me fall in love with you. Trust me, I know there’s nothing wrong with having a woman who’s down for you
regardless
. But that’s not the can-do attitude that gets you invited into the circles you’ve always aspired to belong to. You standing strong and firm by your
white
husband wasn’t going to get you a private invitation into The Board. Marlon, as much as I hate to admit it, can provide you with something I never could: the life you’ve always wanted.”

             
I close my eyes and try to control my breathing. If I can just control my breathing right here, right now with Jacob, I can stop the sob that’s threatening to break out. All I have to do is breathe. I take a deep breath in and then exhale slowly.

             
“Why am I here?” I ask with my eyes still closed. If he’s not begging me back, if he’s not apologizing, if he hasn’t said goodbye yet, then why am I here?

“I owed you this.”

              “Oh yeah? What is this? The final goodbye? A decade overdue, don’t you think?”

             
“Jasmine, I always had every intention of telling you goodbye.”