Royce (13 page)

But nobody fell in love with him!  Even though how he splayed you and wiped you out could easily make you want to fall in love but she didn’t and nobody else did either!  That’s why she was so pissed at Joy she had a good thing.  Joy had it all just like her, she didn’t need Royce, so why couldn’t she let him go?  That she would somehow convince him to only be with her.  She knew it was Joy who caused all this.  They’d been members of The Club for a long time and Royce had never only gone to one woman, so it had to be her.  Royce was only accommodating her insecurities that’s all, but he got lost, got caught up in the experience and now he was still caught up.  He walked around like he had the world on his shoulders.

Everybody was up now and she hurriedly dressed and jumped in the car, “You got your cleats, your water and everything right?”  “Yes mom,” Karen said with a bit of attitude as Royce guided the car out the garage and down the driveway.  Tammy looked over at him, he was so handsome, even in his sadness he was gorgeous to her and she loved him still.  He drove to the soccer fields and parked, it was already crowded.  They walked over to field three, Bobby and Sarah were there, “Hey good morning,” Bobby said hugging Royce, “We just finished up, Megan’s team just played,” he said. “Great, how’d they do?”  Royce smiled but his eyes were still sad, “Aww you know, they did their best,” Bobby laughed.  Royce knew Bobby thought Megan was on the worst soccer team in the league, but she was young too, only six and just learning the game. “It’s a great morning for soccer, we’ll hang around and watch Karen,” Bobby said.

It was a cool crisp morning, the kind Royce loved, some of those afternoon games could get quite hot and miserable; he placed their lawn chairs next to Bobby and Sarah’s.  Then the others came, Collin and Amanda, Chris and Laura, Eric and Becky, the men smiled and hugged Royce and Tammy as they placed their lawn chairs and umbrellas, but the women gave Royce an icy stare and a curt, “Royce,” and Tammy knew the comments would come.  Her friends were on her side and they let Royce know he was in the wrong every chance they got.  She smiled to herself, glad to know it wasn’t just her who felt she’d been done wrong.

“How long has Karen been on this team?” Bobby asked Royce.

“Oh let’s see a couple of years at least,” and before Tammy knew it Amanda said,

“It’s called loyalty Royce, sticking to one team and not switching to another, in case you didn’t know,” and she gave him a look, and Royce usually either ignored them or he gave back and today he discreetly gave her the finger, and Bobby now felt he should defend Royce jumped in.

“Can we have a peaceful game, it’s over.  We all came to watch the kids play,” he said.

“Oh yeah, we should keep that in mind there are kids involved.  Always remember that before doing anything stupid that will hurt them,” Amanda came back with and it was Collin who tried to squash it.

“Okay honey you made your point,” the men mostly threw their hands in the air trying to walk that fine line between being a friend to Royce and not crossing their wives, but Royce wouldn’t let it go.  He looked over at Amanda with his icy blue stare and said.

“The last I looked I didn’t put a ring on your finger.  This is my wife,” he said pointing at Tammy,” And this is between Tammy and me; we can work this out without any comments from you,” he said angrily and although Tammy loved that her friends were giving him a hard time but she loved when Royce said,
this is my wife
, she was the one he was with, she was the one who’s finger he put a ring on, she had to remember that herself.

Michael was heading home.  They’d moved to La Casa Madrid another exclusive neighborhood and he liked the new house.  It was a sprawling two-story five bedroom Spanish style house with high ceilings and plenty of old Spanish charm.  Joy wasted no time decorating and painting it in the style she liked and he was happy to give her something to occupy her mind after the fiasco of The Enclave.  He still couldn’t believe how that turned out and he tried his hardest not to blame Joy, but he did.  Joy he thought,
Why couldn’t you just play the game?  Why couldn’t you just fuck the man and move on? 
But he knew why, that wasn’t Joy and now look what he has to deal with, to keep Joy he’d had to accept the consequences of what happened and the turn of events still had him reeling. 

He hadn’t expected any of this to happen, and just like he’d predicted all the business he’d gotten from joining The Club dried up, apparently no one thought they could trust him or her with their husbands he supposed and they quickly withdrew his services, but now that didn’t bother him it had been a good year and his family was intact that’s all that mattered and he’d gotten Joy out of there.  All he knew is he had to get her out of there and he shouldn’t have let the white man have her.

He pulled into his driveway and pushed the button to raise the garage.  He thanked god there were no clubs like The Club in this neighborhood, it was good and wholesome and no wild sex parties.

It had been almost a year since Joy left and Royce still hadn’t gotten over her.  He still found himself thinking of her, thinking of holding her and wondering if she was okay and he hoped in his aching heart that if he wasn’t okay then maybe she wasn’t either, that maybe she was still hurting too.  He knew Tammy was sick of his antics, “Royce what is your problem?” She often said when he still didn’t come around, “Act like the Royce I know, where is that Royce?”  She’d yelled at him the other day, “I want that Royce back,” and he shrugged, “I’m here doing the best I can under the circumstances,” and she’d fume, and he
was
doing the best he could.  He went to her a few times to make love to her that was a step, before he couldn’t at all.  He didn’t feel anything and sex was the last thing on his mind, but he was coming around he thought.  He still felt like his body was one big walking ache and to dull the pain his body had gone numb, he believed that and he knew he still loved Joy. 

The only person he talked too was Bobby.  Bobby was the only person who tried to understand what he was going through to an extent even though he still said things like.

“You have to get over this Royce, she’s gone, it’s over and it’s for the best.”

“Is it Bobby?  Why to people keep saying that,
it’s for the best
, because it sure doesn’t feel like it’s the best for me.” 

“Royce come on man, you have a wife, children and so does she.  You can’t easily toss that aside man for…lust,” and Royce understood that and he felt Bobby was right.

“I know you’re right, I can’t hurt Tammy and the kids like that,” and he knew he didn’t want to hurt them but why was he hurting so bad?  Why was he still carrying around this hurt?  If it was for the best shouldn’t it be the best for him and he tried to fight it, “Maybe I’m just holding on, I should make myself let go. I won’t think about her today,” he’d say believing the adage, time heals all wounds, “I’ll give myself time and a schedule,” he’d said months ago and that didn’t work.  He still ached for her, “I’ll focus on my work and my family, that should keep my mind on other things,” and during the day that worked, but driving home he’d think of her and it didn’t help that right after it happened and he’d started talking to Bobby about it he teased him and called him Louie, and he didn’t know what he was talking about, “Louie, what do you mean Louie?”

“Aw man you don’t know the song Louie Louie?”

“No man I don’t” and Bobby laughed.

“Aww man, it’s about this white guy who falls in love with this black lady,” then Bobby sang a line from the song, “Louie, Louie, Louie, nothings good when you taste brown sugar, Louie, Louie you’re gonna cry,” he sang, “Something like that, I don’t know all the words man,” he said laughing, and the next day he bought a copy of the song for Royce.

“Play this on the way home I found it on an oldies CD, it’s by the Stories, its track number…five,” he said looking at the back of the CD, and Royce did.  He popped in the CD not expecting much and by the time the song was done he was crying.  Even though all the words didn’t apply to him, but the chorus, Louie crying over being with his brown girl, tasting brown sugar and he was hooked those words resonated with him and now he played the song at the loudest volume he could stand.  He knew every word and he sang loud as he drove down the road and often cried thinking of his brown sugar lady. 

He was playing the song now as he drove to the office.  He pulled into his designated parking space and wiped his eyes, the song still brought a tear.  He walked in the building and caught the elevator to the fourteenth floor where the offices of Harrington-Rhodes were located and went straight to his office and closed the door.  He looked through his contacts on his computer, scanning the names.  They’d had to use a private investigator once on a business they were looking into buying and the numbers didn’t add up.  He stopped the scan when he found Carl T. Jameson private investigator.

“Jameson,” Carl answered,

“Yes, this is Royce Harrington; you did some work for us a few years back.”

“Yes, Mr. Harrington how can I help you?”

“I need you to find someone.”

“I see, let’s meet Mr. Harrington so I can get the particulars.” 

“Yes, I’d like to keep this private,” and they made arrangements to meet at The Meridian, a private member’s only club downtown.  For Jameson this was standard business; he’d only take the job if he felt comfortable with it, he wasn’t going to take a job to find someone that didn’t want to be found, so you had to be careful with that, sometimes when a person left your life they had good reason. 

Carl Jameson was ex-CIA who’d retired after being shot guarding a diplomat in the Philippines.  He didn’t look like your average CIA man, ex-military is more like it.  He was big and muscled; he had sandy blonde hair he pulled back into a ponytail and blue eyes.  If he had one fault it was he took his job way to seriously, his focus was so intense it was to the detriment of everything else; he ate, slept and drank the job until it was over. 

Jameson met Royce at The Meridian.

“Hello Mr. Harrington,” he said offering his hand.  Royce took it and shook it, “I’m glad you could make it,” Jameson said, “Tell me who do you want found and why?”

“A woman who is very special to me, I need to find her.”

Jameson eyed him trying to get a feel for him, “I understand.  Did she leave of her own free will?”

Royce eyed him now, “Yes.”

“Well maybe she doesn’t want to be found.  Why do you want to find her if she left on her on?”

Royce looked sadly away from him, “I just want to make sure she’s okay. I may not even contact her, I just want to make sure she’d alright,” he said and he looked at Jameson his eyes tearing, “She was very special and I need to know.”

Jameson took him in.  He’d seen tears before and teary eyes didn’t faze him, but genuinely sad eyes did, and this man was sad, this man was hurting, he couldn’t fake that.

“Okay Mr. Harrington, I’ll see what I can do, give me all the information you have on her,” and Royce told him about Michael’s company and he gave him the name and the location, “That might be a good place to start,” he said to Jameson.

“And the lady what do you have on her?”

“Her name is Joy, Joy Abrams,” and Jameson’s looked at him.  He was taking notes, he understood now, he’d just mentioned Michael Abrams, “So she’s married?”

“Yes,” Royce said looking down, “I just want to make sure she’s doing okay.”

Jameson didn’t know about this now, trying to find a married woman who’d left on her own told him she definitely didn’t want to be found, but he said, “Do you have a picture of her?”

“No, sorry I don’t,” and Jameson thought that was odd, if this lady was special to him why were there no pictures?

“Can you give me a physical description something I can go on?”  He saw Royce smile a little, and he made note of that.

“Well let me see if I can describe Joy,” he watched Royce’s body language and the little smile on his lips, “Well she’s beautiful that’s the first thing you’ll notice and let me see...She’s tall, slender, dark hair, yeah long dark hair.  She likes to wear it tousled, kind of wavy, and um, her eyes beautiful dark liquid eyes that come off shy, but she’s not, and um her lips, perfect, the perfect plumpness,” and he saw Royce suck his bottom lip, “And let’s see, she has a smile that lights up the room, but it’s shy too and oh yeah, the one thing you will notice is her behind Joy has one of the nicest rears you’ll ever see.  I have to mention that for you to know her,” Royce said looking at him, but he continued, “Let’s see, what else about Joy that’ll help you, oh yeah beautiful light golden brown skin, it looks like silk it’s so smooth…,” Royce paused to look at Jameson who was staring at him, “Is that enough Mr. Jameson?”

Jameson had stopped writing to look at him because he’d never heard anyone give a physical description like that, this man knew every detail of this woman, intimate details and Jameson knew he was in love with her, and now he really didn’t know if he should find her, he caught himself at Royce’s question.

“Uh, no, you said she was light golden brown, is she Latin, Hispanic, a tanned Caucasian woman, African American, what kind of light brown is she?”

“Oh yeah,” Royce’s smile came back, “She’s African American, a beautiful African American,” and Royce thought
beautiful brown sugar is what she is
.

“And her husband is he African American?”