Hunks Pulled Over (6 page)

“Why not?” She was getting more and more fed up with Chance by the second.

“You only mentioned him as an afterthought. Plus, I get a feeling you’re hiding something from me. I love a challenge especially one as beautiful as you are. I’ll let you pass on our lunch date this time, but I will be back Emerald.”

His eyes searched her face, like he was trying to see into her soul, before winking at her and walking away.

Emerald was frozen in the same spot five minutes after Chance had left. How could she let him do this to her after all of this time? She was a grown woman now not the starry-eyed girl in awe of the great Chance Cutter.

Shit...Shit...Shit
. She cursed silently. She would put a stop to this before it went any further, but first she had to get through her lunch with Adonis.

****

Hours later, sitting inside the restaurant, Emerald glanced around at the lunch crowd as she waited for Adonis to show up for their date. She was concerned about how he might react to her news. She had two different scenarios in her head at how she wanted to end things with him, but Emerald wasn’t sure which one was going to work the best.

Hopefully, her decision would be made easier when Adonis finally showed up. Her entire morning had taken a wrong turn after her encounter with Chance. Why did he have to show up at her job and ruin everything?

Was Chance really so conceited he really thought only after one meeting she would want to date him?

Of course, Chance would think that because he hadn’t changed at all over the years. He still thought he was God’s gift to women. Sad thing was, women were the ones who gave him that idea.

Frowning, Emerald looked down at her fork next to her plate and started to play with it. Why weren't things in her life going according to plan? She’d been positive she would be the first one to find her hunk for the challenge, but she had failed at that miserably.

Secondly, she never in her wildest dreams thought she would lay eyes on Chance again, but here he was living in the same town as her and breathing the same air.

Nothing was going right for her and there was only one person to blame—a blue-eyed devil named Chance.

“Emerald, what are you frowning about?”

Startled by the sound of her name, Emerald glanced up and found Adonis standing at the side of the table staring at her closely.

“God, you scared me,” Emerald said as she placed the fork back down on the table. “I was thinking about something that happened at work. Sit down. I want to talk to you about something very important.”

“I have something I want to discuss with you too,” Adonis said as he pulled a chair out from the table and took a seat across from her. “Do you mind if I go first?”

Emerald wanted to say no, but she couldn’t. Adonis at least deserved to be heard out.

“Sure, go ahead,” she agreed, but was secretly worried about what Adonis was going to tell her. Now wouldn’t be the right time for him to ask her to move in with him again.

Reaching across the table, Adonis laid his hand on top of hers giving it a small squeeze.

“Emerald, I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together. You’re a smart, beautiful woman but I don’t think we should see each other anymore. After a long soul searching, I see that you aren’t the woman for me. So, I think it would be for the best if I broke up with you.

Did he just dump me? No, I must be hearing things.

Emerald was stunned speechless. How in the hell did that just happen? Did she really allow Adonis to dump her first?

“Emerald, are you alright? You aren’t saying much,” Adonis asked concerned.

She jumped at the sound of his voice. She was so caught off guard that she almost forgot where she was for a second.“Yes, I’m fine,” Emerald snapped, jerking her hand away from Adonis. “You can’t seriously be breaking up with me?” All of this was stupid because Adonis wasn’t the type to dump someone.

“Emerald I know this must be a shock for you, but it’s for the best.” He reached for her hand again to comfort her, but she removed it from the table placing it in her lap.

No! She wasn’t going to let it go down like this. Why in the hell did she have to be nice and let him go first? This entire mess was her fault.

“Adonis, listen, I need to tell you something. There was a reason I invited you to lunch today.”

Adonis glanced down at his watch and then stood up. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay any longer. I’m expected somewhere else, but don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find another guy and he’ll love what you have to offer him. Unfortunately, that guy isn’t me.”

Before Emerald had a chance to respond, Adonis walked away from the table leaving her there in shock and alone. Snatching her purse off the table, she stormed towards the front entrance and walked out too pissed off to even think about getting something for lunch.

Why was this happening to her today? First, Chance showed up and asked her out on a date and now the guy she planned on breaking up with ended up dumping her first.

Something wasn’t right about all of this. It was like she woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Emerald headed for her car in the parking lot praying nothing else happened to her today that she wasn’t expecting. She didn’t have the time or patience to deal with it
.

Chapter Eight

“I want to thank the both of you for meeting me for lunch,” Chance said, sliding into the booth across from Brian and Nash at his favorite fast food restaurant.

He’d been really worried his buddies would continue to ignore his phone calls and he wouldn’t give him the chance to repair the damage he caused with his words spoken out of jealousy and stupidity.

“You should be thanking Nash for even seeing me here,” Brian told him. “I still haven’t forgotten what you said about Sapphire.”

Chance heard the anger in Brian’s voice and felt even worse. He got a bad feeling nothing he said today would repair his long standing friendship with Brian.

“Brian you agreed to hear Chance out and then make your decision. Don’t jump to conclusions like he did,” Nash said.

“Fine, I’ll listen to him, but one negative word about Sapphire better not leave his mouth or he’ll be picking his ass up off the floor. I don’t care if he’s a cop or not. I won’t let him talk about her like he did the other day.”

Chance was amazed at how much Brian loved Sapphire. He wondered if he would ever be able to feel like that way about a woman. As of yet, no woman had come into his life that he wanted to get into a fight with his friends over.

Taking a deep breath, Chance got his thoughts together before he continued. “Guys, I have tried getting in touch with both of you before to apologize for my hurtful comments but neither one of you would take my calls,” he said, looking back and forth between Brian and Nash.

“I’m really sorry for the horrible comments I made about Sapphire and Shauntie. They’re two amazing women and both of you are lucky to have found them. I hope we can get past all of this, so we can continue to be friends.”

There. Chance knew he couldn’t say or do anything else to show his friends how truly sorry he was about his insults. Now it was left up to them to either forgive him or end their close to fifteen year friendship.

“I accept your apologize,” Nash said. “I’m too in love with Shauntie to let anything you say get me down or change how I feel about her. Besides, I’ve gotten used to your ‘speak first and think later’ personality.”

Chance felt like half the weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Now, he was waiting to see what Brian would tell him. It could go either way with him.

“Chance, you knew before coming here that Nash is a lot more of a forgiving person than me. I’m getting more and more fed up with your comments and then sorry apologies a few days later. However, I do agree with Nash on one thing. I’m too happy with Sapphire to stay mad at you because one day you’re going to say something flippant to someone and you won’t be able to take it back so easily or probably not at all, but I will forgive you.”

He wasn’t as thrilled with Brian accepting his apology as he was with Nash. Chance knew he was without a doubt still on the fence with Brian. If he fucked up one more time, Brian was going to end their friendship and he couldn’t let that happen.

Finding good friends was a rarity. Most people couldn’t accomplish it in this lifetime and he wasn’t going to lose his over stupid remarks on his part.

“Brian, I’m truly sorry. I hope you can see that I am.” Chance apologized again.

“We’ll see,” Brian said, reaching for the menu in front of him on the table.

Chance opened his mouth, but from the corner of his eye he caught Nash shaking his head. He let it go, realizing he could find a way to talk with Brian at another time.

Since he had repaired or tried to fix the horrible mess he caused with Nash and Brian as much as he could, Chance decided to relax and turn his thoughts to finding out more about Emerald.

After leaving the medical examiner’s office the other day, he went back to the station and ran her name, but nothing came up for Emerald. Not even a speeding ticket, so Chance was still out in the cold about how he knew her; but he still got a gut feeling that their paths had crossed before. He was running out of ideas about the way he could have met her.

Chance got the impression Emerald was lying to him about them not knowing each other. She knew actually how they were connected, but she was keeping her mouth shut and he was determined to find out why.

“What put that look on your face?”

Pulling his thoughts away from Emerald, Chance glanced across the table and found Brian watching him closely.

“What look?” he asked.

“Confusion. I’ve never seen you so deep in thought before. Care to tell us what is going on with you?”

Chance pondered over how much he should tell his buddies about Emerald. What would they think about it? Usually, he was bragging about women running
to
him, not away. He wasn’t used to a woman like Emerald who truly seemed uninterested in him and Chance suddenly realized that he didn’t like how it felt. This was a new experience for him.

“I’m having problems with a woman,” he admitted, hating how the words sounded. A suggestion of annoyance hovered behind his statement and if
he
heard it, Chance knew that Nash and Brian heard it, too.

“You’re kidding.” Nash laughed.

He shot his friend a hard look. “No, I’m not kidding,” Chance snapped. “I met her the other day while I was at work. I mean she’s stunning with curves in all of the right places. I was instantly attracted to her light brown eyes and smooth caramel skin, but she acted like I wasn’t worth her time.”

“She’s black,” Brian cut in surprised.

“Yes, she’s black. Why are you so shocked?”

“How can I not be taken back because as long as we’ve been friends and it has been for a very long time you have
never
shown any interest in dating a black woman.”

Chance wanted to deny it, but he had to admit at first he was taken by surprise with his burning fascination with Emerald, but something about it felt right. Like he’d been waiting all of his life to find her; yet she wasn’t experiencing the same thing. He had to find a way to fix it and soon.

“No, I hadn’t dated a black woman in the past, but there is something about her. I mean Emerald is different. She has this inner spunk that drew me to her.”

“Did you say her name is Emerald?” Nash asked him then immediately glanced over at Brian.

“Yes. Why?” Chance answered. “Do you know her?”

“Well—”

“No, we’ve never heard of her,” Brian interrupted, cutting Nash off before he could answer him. “I mean I know I would remember a woman with such an unusual first name.”

Frowning, he looked at Brian. Something here wasn’t right. Chance noticed how Nash was staring at Brian before his gaze swung back over to him. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but he knew his buddies were keeping something from him.

“Nash, is there something wrong? Were you going to tell me something?” he asked. Nash was usually pretty up front and honest with him, so if Brian was hiding something from him about Emerald, Nash would be the one who would tell him.

Nash paused for a few minutes before finally answering him. “No, there isn’t anything wrong,” he answered. “I was going to invite you to the engagement party Sapphire is throwing tomorrow night for me and Shauntie. Do you think you’ll be able to come?”

Before their falling out, Chance would have thought of a way to get out of attending; however, now he had to prove to his friends that he truly wanted to patch things up between them.

“Sure, I’ll be there,” Chance answered. He wanted to do everything he could to prove he was trying to change. “What time should I show up? Do I need to bring anything?”

Brian shook his head. “No, Sapphire wants to do everything herself. All you have to do is show up a little after seven o’clock.”

“Great, I’ll be there. I really want to get to know Sapphire and Shauntie better since they’re becoming a part of my life too.”

“I hope you mean what you’re saying because unlike Brian I won’t threaten to punch your lights out, I’ll just do it,” Nash warned, in a low voice. “I won’t allow you to hurt Shauntie’s feelings.” Chance knew Nash wasn’t lying to him. Nash adored Shauntie and would do anything to protect her.

“I’m telling the truth,” he insisted. “I promise you that I’ve turned over a new leaf. How about we order something before the manager kicks us out for loitering?”

 Everyone stopped talking and as they read over their menus Chance tried to focus on the typed print in front of him but all he could do was think about Emerald. He wanted to get to know her better. However, she didn’t hide the fact that she wanted completely the opposite thing. She didn’t know it yet, but it was this aloof attitude that attracted him more and more.

Since Emerald wasn’t too open at talking to him at her job then he would have to find another way to meet up with her outside the workplace.