Page 27 of Love Next Door
I had just gotten in from work and had finished eating a chicken sandwich that I still had from lunch. I pulled my legs up on the couch with me and tried to focus on the TV show that was on, but I couldn’t get July off my mind.
I was missing that man like crazy, and I knew that it was time for me to be honest with him. He had no problem telling me how special I was, how much I meant to him, and how he would do anything for me.
July hadn’t told me that he loved me yet, but he didn’t have to. He told me with his actions and behaviors. I suspected the only reason he hadn’t spoken the words was because he didn’t want to scare me away. The wall that I had erected around my heart was thicker than the Berlin Wall was before its fall in 1989.
I lay down on the couch and plumped a pillow underneath my head. No matter how hard I tried to focus on the show, I couldn’t. I missed the hell out of July and just wanted him in my bed. I wanted to tell him how I truly felt and let him know that, though I was scared, I would take a risk on him.
I began drifting off to sleep, still in my work clothes, when I heard some noises from next door. Frowning, I sat up, yawned,and stretched. I guessed that wherever July had disappeared to the last few days, he must have returned.
I walked to my bedroom, showered, and changed into some comfortable clothes. When I finished, I pulled my damp curls up into a ponytail the way July liked them. He loved pulling the ponytail free just so that it would fall over my shoulders and his fingers while he fucked me from behind.
I spritzed some of his favorite perfume, Forever by Jovi Noelle, on my wrists and applied it to my neck before I spritzed it between my thighs. I wore a long-sleeved white knit crop top with matching shorts that stopped right at the curve of my cheeks. I slid my pedicured white toes into some fluffy white slippers and peered into the wall-length mirror in my bathroom.
Satisfied with my appearance, I smirked at my reflection. “Okay, thickums! You betta get them cheeks clapped by ya man, gworl!” I gyrated in the mirror with my tongue stuck out.
Giggling, I grabbed my keys and phone off my dresser and headed out of my apartment. Desire and anxiousness swirled around inside of me. I hadn’t seen or spoken with July in three days other than short text messages, where he asked if I was okay, and I replied that I was. Whenever I asked if he were okay and if he were back home, he simply said, “I’ll be fine, and I’ll be back shortly.”
I suspected he had been going through a lot, and I just wanted to be by his side. I rang the doorbell and waited for him to answer. Just thinking about all the things that I knew he would do to my body aroused me.
I pressed the doorbell a second time after a few minutes. I saw the light cover up the peephole, and I smiled, knowing that he had seen me. My heart raced, waiting to jump into his arms and welcome him home. I prayed that he didn’t have any company, because I hadn’t thought about his boys being here with him.
The door opened, and my heart squeezed tightly in my chest as my belly tightened and roiled with anxiety.
“Can I help you?” she asked with an annoyed expression on her face.
“You can go get July,” I replied because, why the fuck was she answering his door? Not only did she answer his door, but she answered it wearing nothing but a towel, and her hair was damp.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to do that.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Because he’s . . . tied up at the moment,” she answered, licking her lips.
I shook my head, bit my bottom lip, and turned to head back to my apartment.
“Oh, and for future reference, . . . he won’t be able to help out the thirsty anymore.”
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. He’s doing a damn good job of it.”
I turned around and looked at her. “Mm-hmm. I heard. Looking for a baby daddy?”
She slammed the door, and I quickly headed back to my apartment. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, but I would not give that bitch the satisfaction of seeing me shed a single tear, nor would I fight over a nigga. He wasn’t worth it. If there was one thing that I learned it was that he would be where he wanted to be.
And if July had decided to fall for her tricks and take her back, then that was on him. I was tired of being played the fool, and I definitely was not about to find myself at the receiving end of getting fucked with no Vaseline again, to put it in the words of one of my favorite rappers.
The minute I closed and locked my door, though, the thought of everything July meant to me and all he had done for andto me, ran through my mind. The tears fell, and I walked to my couch and dropped down. Using the same pillow that I had previously rested my head on, I clutched it against my chest.
I cried my heart out, not because I was weak or broken, but for strength. The reason that I promised myself not to get caught up with another man again was out of fear of risking my heart. Sasha had obviously given Devon something that I couldn’t give him.
Now, here I was back on that same road. Briana had given July something that I could not give him. And when I searched my heart and soul, the only thing that I could come up with was that I had not given him my heart. Only I had . . . I just hadn’t told him that I loved him too.
FOUR DAYS LATER
I satin my living room, staring at the floor.
“You good, bruh?”
