Makela was offended. “Why I gotta wait in the car?”
“Just do it!”
Makela didn’t like it, but she knew Kenny could be cruel. She left.
“You might as well follow her,” Jayda said, still holding the door open.
“What you think you’re doing with this white dude? He don’t want you.”
“You don’t know anything about what I’m doing or what he does or doesn’t want. So you can stop that bull crap right now.”
“What about us?”
Jayda knew she hadn’t heard him right. “Us? There’s no us!”
“You know how I have to blow off some steam sometimes, Jayda. I just needed some time away. But I thought you still . . .”
“You thought I still what? Wanted a man who called me a loser? Who said I wasn’t up to his standards. Who only wanted my body? You thought I still wanted that?” Her anger turned to rage. “Get out!” she yelled.
“Okay, I’m going,” Kenny said, bitterly. But just as he was walking past her, he smiled. “You still want me. You can claim you don’t, but you still want me. And you’re right, all I ever wanted from you was what you did for me between them sheets. And you’re barely on my level even there. You aren’t up to my standards. I wasn’t lying about that. You’re just a piece of meat as far as I’m concerned. And that’s all that rich dude wants from you too. Watch what I tell you. That’s all you’re good for. Sad, but it’s true.”
Jayda pushed him out and slammed that door so hard that it just missed slamming into his bubble butt. He had to scoot out faster to avoid the hit.
But when the door closed, Jayda leaned against it. Because she had been wondering if that was all there was to Harrison’s interest in her. And because she gave him what he wanted, would that be the end of them too? Was she just a piece of meat to him too?
And just like that all of those happy feelings she felt as she made it home from his penthouse melted into the reality of her life. And it was a sinking feeling.
But that only made her more determined to fulfill her obligations at work. If it all backfired on her with Harrison and he lost out to his brother, or just flat didn’t want her around anymore and reneged on the job offer, she would still have her hustle.
She took a shower, got dressed, and hurried to work.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After delivering Popeyes chicken to a church dining hall at a youth camp, and then sitting there for a few minutes to hear the sermon blaring over the loudspeakers, she hopped on her e-bike and made her way to her next pickup for delivery. Cutting through alleys, which was her usual way, she knew she was ahead of schedule. But she could barely pass through one of her usual alley shortcuts when a van was parked in the way.
Assuming it was a delivery van for one of the stores nearby who should have known better than to take up all the space in an already narrow alleyway, she gave the driver a middle-finger gesture as she inched her bike pass him and that in the way van of his. She couldn’t see him clearly as he was just closing the van’s front driver side door when she first entered the alley, as if he’d just gotten into the van himself, and because of the heavy tint on the windows she couldn’t see him at all once he was inside the van and as she was passing it, but she gave him the finger anyway. But then she felt bad. She’d just heard a sermon on Christian love, which uplifted her again after that encounter with Kenny and Makela, and already she was back to her old, un-Christian-like ways. It was a wonder she didn’t kick that van the way she had kicked Harrison’s limo.
But then she glanced back when she heard the van attempting to start as if he was going to come after her to give her a piece of his mind. But the engine wouldn’t turn over. The battery or something else was apparently dead. Which made her smile. And she gave him the finger again. And kept on riding.
Then she thought about Harrison once again. What was she going to do about her completely irrational infatuation with that man? He didn’t want her in his world. He wanted her in his bed and in his father’s face long enough for him to take over his father’s company. That was the long and short of it because that had always been her experience with every man she’d ever been with. They used her until they found something better. It was just a fact. She’d never been with a man that wanted something more from her than to satisfy their temporary needs. Once they had what they wanted from her, she was as expendable to them as an old sock. And they dumped her.
Harrison was that man on steroids. And here she was falling for him? And thinking about him? Get a grip, Robinson. Get a grip!
But when she rode through yet another alley not that far away from the first one, and she suddenly heard a vehicle turn into the alley speeding way too fast, she rolled her eyes and moved over as far as she could to let that vehicle past. They knew those alleys weren’t meant for traffic like that, but there were always a few fools using them that way anyway. She hated it, but she was used to it.
But when she could hear the vehicle still speeding despite the fact that they knew they would have to slow down to safely get past her and her bike, she looked in her bike’s mirror. And that was when she realized that the car speeding in that alley wasn’t trying to slow down as if it was speeding straight for her!
She panicked and was about to jump from her bike and slam her body against the building to save her life, but the car crashed into the back of her bike and threw her small body over the handlebars so fast and furiously that she sailed as if she had been propelled all the way out of the alley. She landed on a pile of trash in an open field.
She tried to stand up, and get away, even though the wind had been knocked out of her, but she was no match for that car. It sped out of that alley and swerved toward her still going so fast that Jayda could only roll out of the way. The car’s front bumper missed her by inches.
Then the car stopped, and the car door opened. But a group of black guys playing basketball on a small court nearby began running to Jayda’s aid. Some had guns at their side as they ran to help her. That was when the car door closed again and the driver sped away.
The last things Jayda remembered was one guy arriving at her side ahead of all the others and asking if she was okay. Another guy was yelling for somebody to call 911. Other guys were running up and asking if the sister was going to be alright. She remembered how they surrounded her should that car return, and she could see their guns at their sides. Some were undoubtedly gangbangers. Some were undoubtedly very bad guys. But they were her shield of protection that day.
But then it all turned so blurry to her that all of them looked like trees. And then their voices began to sound far, far away. And then it all turned to total darkness.
And then total silence.
