“Because you’re the reason she hates me in the first place.”
“What I do?” PJ’s eyes widened.
“It’s not like that.” Antonio nervously tore the corner of a cocktail napkin on the table. It was time he told PJ why Jackie had hated him for damn-near a decade. He wished he could turn back time.
“I met Jackie at a sports management conference ten years ago. I had just started with AMW. Honestly, I think people were skeptical of my skills. Here I was, this athlete going into being an agent. But I was determined to prove them wrong. So, I signed myself up to appear at this conference, even though I hate public speaking.”
“You do?” PJ was surprised. “You always seem confident when you’re handling business.”
“I’m deathly terrified of it,” chuckled Antonio. “I get the shakes just thinking about speaking in front of a crowd. But at the conference, I’d just seen Jackie kill it on stage right before me. And I was like, damn, she is so good. So confident. So sure of herself, you know? She really had college-aged students into whatever she was telling them about the industry. Shit, I learned a thing or two myself. When she came off stage, I told her she was great and asked her for tips. She gave me this smile that was so bright. Brighter than the lights on that stage.”
Even though Jackie was finer than frog hair, it was her smile that drew Antonio in. She’d smiled for him so much that weekend. It was priceless.
“Jackie smiled?” PJ asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. I was starting to think she didn’t have teeth.”
Antonio laughed. “Well, she smiled for me. More than a few times. Before I went on stage, she told me to be myself. I know that’s cliche, but it wasn’t what she said, it was how she said it. It just relaxed me instantly. And I went out there and did my speech. It killed. I came backstage and she was still there. And part of me hoped it was because she wanted to see me, because I damn sure wanted to see her again.”
PJ was looking at him, hand on his chin, awaiting the rest of the story. He looked just like that curious twelve-year-old boy that Antonio had met so long ago. He blinked. “So, I asked her what she was doing. I mean, it was Vegas, you know? So, we hung out… and—”
“Ohhellnaw, y’all smashed, didn’t you?” PJ exclaimed, interrupting. “Damn. Why didn’t I figure that out earlier? At the cookout, I knew I was catching a vibe between y’all, but I thought I was tripping. You probably smashed, then dipped on her, didn’t you? No wonder she can’t stand your ass!”
“Yo, will you let me finish?” Antonio shook his head.
“Am I wrong?”
“Well, I would have said it more eloquently, but we spent some time together. Yo, I don’t want to talk about that with you.” Antonio was not about to go into detail with his son about how he damn-near broke the frame off the bed in a Vegas suite with Jackie. The things they had done in that suite were probably still illegal in some red states. Since finding out about PJ, Antonio had put his one-night stand days behind him. But what he had felt with Jackie…it was something more. Something deeper than a casual hookup. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle, once-in-a-lifetime type of chemistry.
Honestly, ever since that night, he’d thought she was the one. The one he let get away, like a fool. Seems he had a habit of not fighting for the things he cared about.
“Hey, bruh.” PJ snapped his fingers in front of Antonio’s face. “Where’d you go? On God, please don’t tell me you were thinking about Jackie naked?”
“I wasn’t,” Antonio lied. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”
“Go ahead,” PJ said.
“We hung out all night in Vegas. Drinks were flowing. We were gambling. I swore I blew through several thousand bands, but seemed like when I was with her, my winnings tripled.” That’s why Antonio had started calling Jackie “Lucky.” It just stuck, and for the remainder of the night, this woman who was a virtual stranger didn’t object to the nickname. It endeared her to Antonio even more.
“Then y’all smashed, huh?” PJ chuckled.
Antonio ignored that. “Anyway, I swear, it was the most fun I’d had in forever. But I got a call early the next morning. It was your mother. That’s when she told me that the DNA test had come back, and you were definitely my kid. We were kind of going at each other about it—I was angry I’d lost out on twelve years of your life; she was defensive. And I’m pretty sure Jackie overheard. Next thing I know, I heard the door to the suite slam. She was gone.”
PJ took a sip of his beer, which had to be lukewarm by now. The kid hadn’t touched it since Antonio started talking.
“Damn, guess I did jack shit up between you,” PJ said. “I take it Jackie heard your end of the call and assumed you had an angry wife at home?”
Antonio nodded. “No doubt. You know your mother; things escalated fast. I don’t blame Jackie for thinking the worst.”
“Damn.” PJ leaned back in the booth. “So, you didn’t go after Jackie? Tell her what was up?”
“I tried. I tried to call her. She blocked my calls immediately. I’ve tried to talk to her in-person about it, but she’s always refused to hear it.”
“And you can’t never get a word in with Jackie when she gets going,” PJ added. “With a voice as smooth as hers, her tongue is surprisingly vicious.”
Antonio pointed at PJ. “Exactly. When she’s pissed, there’s no stopping her mouth.”
“Man, I don’t know.” PJ scratched his faded goatee. “Jackie may be a lot to handle, but I didn’t think you were a dude who gave up so easily. Clearly, you’re still feeling her, so what’s stopping you? Unless you just ain’t got no rizz no more.”
Antonio’s eyes widened. This boy had a lot of nerve to question his game with women. “For your information, I had and still have all the rizz. Matter of fact, I drip with rizz. Where do you thinkyouget it from? You ain’t see how India Inkwell was trying to push up on me at Jackie’s cookout?”
