Authors: Rhonda Bowen
Man Enough For Me
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2011 by Rhonda Bowen
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Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-6779-5
eISBN-10: 0-7582-6779-7
First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: March 2011
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Printed in the United States of America
In loving memory of Garfield Gray (1981–2006),
who always made everything look “Easy.” His friendship and kindness cannot be replaced and will not be forgotten. May he rest in peace until that great and soon coming day.
Acknowledgments
Is this real? I still ask myself that question every now and then. I never really imagined I would be here writing the acknowledgments to my first novel. But God has blessed me with this gift and this opportunity to write, and I thank Him first and foremost for everything I am and everything He is doing in me. I never really know what path He will take me on next, but I trust Him completely to lead me to the place I need to be.
I can’t go any further without thanking my mother, Vonnie, for starting this whole mess in the first place. If she hadn’t taught me to read before I even set foot in school we wouldn’t be here now. Her love and support is irreplaceable, and I am so eternally grateful.
Thank you to my daddy, Clive, for always letting me be his little girl, even when I don’t want to be, and for always supporting and encouraging me in my faith and in life.
To my brother, Kevin, thank you for helping me learn to laugh at myself. I love you more than you know.
To two of my closest friends in this world, Shanice Carter and Latoya Kerr, thank you for supporting my dream to “write a book” even when none of us knew what it was about. We knew that life was too funny to laugh at by ourselves—the jokes needed to be shared with the world. You ladies will always be in my heart no matter where we go.
To Simone Erskine, who let me cowrite with her on our very first novel back in third form at Campion when we were barely thirteen years old: I wish I still had that notebook—you know that story was good. Thank you for getting me started. Girl, you know you need to be in print too! Don’t let that gift go to waste.
To my editor, Mercedes, thanks a million! You are such a
blessing and full of encouragement. Thank you for helping shape this book into what it needed to be, for believing in me and my manuscript, and for loving Jules and Germaine as much as I do.
Thank you to Elaine P. English for being patient with me and helping me wade through the legalese.
Thanks to writer friend Cecelia Dowdy, who answered my questions, encouraged me, and cheered me on as I entered this publishing journey. I am so grateful for your kindness. Thank you also to Tiffany Warren, Tia McCollors, Rhonda McKnight, and all the other talented women of the African American fiction community who have been a support and an inspiration to me. May God continue to bless your ministries.
To all the extended family and church family at Agape in Pickering, Ontario, and Hope in Kingston, Jamaica—there are too many of you for me to start naming names, but I am thankful to all of you for your love and encouragement over the years.
And to all the readers who will read this—thank you! May the path you walk on lead you to His destiny for you.
Be blessed!
“M
iss, another drink for you.”
She should have known better than to stand by the bar. But it was the only spot in the house where she had a full view of the floor and all the entrances. That was especially important tonight when it was very possible that media might show up. It would be just like them to slip through a side entrance, and try to sneak an interview with Truuth without checking with her. Those journalists—she couldn’t live with them, but didn’t have a career without them.
“You know the drill, Owen,” Jules said to the bartender. He smirked and sent back the drink to a dark guy lounging at the other end of the bar. Although it was just 10:30 p.m., Owen had already returned three unsolicited beverages for Jules, so they were now on a first name basis.
Jules sighed heavily. What was it with these brothers? Couldn’t a girl stand alone at a bar in peace? She was used to the attention that her curvy, size eight figure, smooth, caramel-colored skin, and dark, wide eyes usually attracted. But that didn’t make it any less annoying. She pushed a lock of her wild, curly, shoulder-length hair behind her ear, and wished for a moment that her five-foot, six-inch frame could be invisible just long enough for her to get her job done.
It was bad enough that these brothers kept shooting her greasy smiles, but if they were going to send her drinks, couldn’t they at least find out what she was drinking and send that? Maybe then she could think about entertaining a conversation with one of them.
Then again, maybe not. She knew exactly how their weak game would go, because she had heard it a million times before. She couldn’t help but grimace. What she wouldn’t give for something new.
She glanced at her watch impatiently, wondering why the MC was taking so long to put Truuth on stage. From what she’d heard, new music night at the Sound Lounge usually wrapped up around midnight. That only gave them an hour to get Truuth up to do his set.
Scanning the room again, she noted that the reviewers from the free entertainment tabloid
EYE Weekly
and the city’s monthly culture magazine
Toronto Life
hadn’t left yet. In fact they looked pretty at ease as they sipped their drinks and chatted with a couple other patrons. While she was watching them, she saw Baron Levy and his girlfriend slip in through the side entrance.
Baron was a music reporter for
Urbanology,
one of Toronto’s popular urban music magazines. When Jules had called him earlier in the week to pitch the event, she hadn’t been certain he would show up.
Urbanology
had a habit of ignoring artists who weren’t halfway to a Juno or Grammy award. But for some reason, he had turned out to see Truuth, who was still just the opening act for most opening acts. Maybe they were finally beginning to see in him what she had seen all along. Maybe this was a sign of things to come. A small shiver ran up her spine, and she downed the rest of her cranberry juice.
“Can I have another one of these?” Jules asked, shaking her empty glass at Owen.
Owen held up one finger, motioning for Jules to wait, as he finished talking to someone on the phone behind the bar. A few moments later he turned back to Jules and gave her an apologetic look.
“Sorry, Jules, I gotta cut you off,” he said, taking her empty glass and placing it under the counter.
Jules rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Owen. Hurry up already with that drink. It’s the only thing keeping me sane right now.”
Owen shook his head.
“No can do, Jules. I have orders from management not to serve you anymore beverages.”
Jules scanned Owen’s face for a hint of his boyish grin. But the look in his eyes told Jules he was dead serious. Her own eyes widened in surprise.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said. “I am a paying customer. Why can’t I order a drink from the bar?”
“Management reserves the right to refuse beverages to any patron if they have reason to believe that said patron is either below the legal drinking age or impaired to the extent that to do so would cause harm to the patron in question or other guests of the establishment,” Owen said in one breath.
“You don’t even serve alcohol! I’d have a better chance of getting drunk off the tap water.”
Owen shrugged, and began wiping down the bar. “Sorry, Jules. I’m just following orders.”
“From who? You know what, forget that. Let me talk to your manager, ‘cause this is—”
“Hey, is everything okay?”
Jules glanced over at a tall, dark guy who had come up beside her at the bar. He wore a look of concern on his handsome features, but Jules was too upset to notice.
“Someone
told the bartender to cut me off,” Jules said, glaring at Owen.
“Well, maybe they thought you were—” The guy stopped short when Jules turned her fiery eyes on him.
“Never mind,” he said quickly. “What were you drinking?”
Jules folded her arms and shot a nasty look at Owen, who was trying his best to avoid her by acting busy.
“Just cranberry juice.”
Without hesitation, the nameless stranger turned to Owen. “One just cranberry juice, please?”
Owen opened his mouth to protest, but one raised eyebrow from the guy seemed to shut him up fast.
“One cranberry juice coming up,” he said, reaching under the bar for a clean glass and pouring the drink.
A few moments later Jules stole a peek at her intervener out of the corner of her eye as she sipped on her drink. After handing her the glass, he had given her a small smile, and then had gone back to leaning against the bar with not so much as a second look in her direction. They had finally introduced Truuth, and Jules could hear him warming up the audience as he prepared to start his set. But even though she was excited to see him go on, she couldn’t help but glance over at the attractive man who had stopped her from making a fool of herself.