Page 14 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
“Is that why you wanted her to drive your car? Because you can activate the GPS?”
“That ain’t your business,” Teddy said as he stood up. “Now give me the keys.”
“Ah Pop! How am I gonna get around?”
“Call an Uber. Ask one of the guys. Hell, how should I know? You’re a resourceful young man. You’re find a way. Now give me those keys.”
Marco took his key fob off his ring and gave it to his father. “When will I get it back?”
Teddy began leaving the room.
“Pop?Pop?Pop!”
But Teddy, smiling, headed for the exit.
Marco shook his head. “I must really love y’all,” he said, “to put up with all y’all bullshit!”
Teddy turned around. “What did you say?”
“Whome? I know nothing. I didn’t say a word.”
Teddy turned back around, smiling again at the son he adored, and left.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She saw him when he walked in, looked around until he saw her across the seedy restaurant at a window booth, and then he made his way in that direction. He looked around again, unzipped his windbreaker, and then slide onto the booth seat in front of her.
His dark eyes gave her a full body perusal. “If it ain’t the one and only Nikki Baker in the flesh,” he said as he looked her up and down.
Nikki’s maiden name was Baker, but it still stunned her to hear anybody call her by that name. And although she kept her married name after she divorced her first husband, she didn’t feel as if she’d ever been a Tarver either. For some reason she felt as if she’d been Nikki Sinatra all her life. That name, even more so than her birth name, just seemed to fit her the best.
“It if ain’t the one and only Juda Gavin,” Nikki responded, and he laughed. He seemed bigger than the last time she saw him, which was only a week ago. But that was how he seemed to her. With his high-yellow complexion and European features, many used to question whether he was black or white, when Nikki knew he was both. But he was every bit as cocky as he’d always been. “How’s life been treating you?”
“Why would you care? You said you didn’t wanna have nothing to do with me just last week. Now you calling me this week?”
“I still don’t wanna have anything to do with you.”
“Then what you call me for?”
That was the rub, Nikki thought. But he was the only one who was there when it all went down. She exhaled. “I saw him last night.”
“You saw who last night?”
Nikki waited and then exhaled it out. “Emilio.”
Juda was just about to toss a handful of nuts into his mouth when he heard that name. He stopped in shock and sat his hand back down. “What you mean you saw Emilio?”
“I saw him.”
Juda nearly jumped out of his skin. “What the hell, Nikki! When?Where?”
“Last night. At a bar.”
“Here in Philly?”
“No on the moon, Juda. Yes here in Philly!”
“Shit Nikki. Shit! Did he see you?”
