Page 5 of Love Me Now: Adrian & Kwamé
Briefly, she peered at me before she shrugged. “I should’ve known you’d dig into my life.”
“There are still things I don’t know about you, Kwamé. Like the way you taste, or the faces you make while being properly pleased.”
Her eyes fluttered with passion, but she recovered quickly. “If you know so much, then you should’ve easily stumbled upon who Jessie’s father is.”
“After my second attempt at pinning down who the nigga was, I stopped lookin’.” I pointedly observed her. Unsettled, she fidgeted in her seat. “You’re purposely hiding his identity, and because I know you, I know that means a hell of a lot.”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
“Once we make the move to change Jessie’s last name, I need to know what I’m up against.”
Tears coated her eyes. “It shouldn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not in the way you think.” I was good at judging shit. Something was off with the nigga who fathered Jessie. I felt that shit in my bones. I needed to know who thenigga was for no other reason than to see why the hell Kwamé was protecting him. Or worse. Why she was afraid to out the nigga.
“If I tell you, you have to promise to drop it,” she said minutes later.
“Sure,” I appeased her, knowing good and damn well it depended on the situation.
“Damon Brooks,” she mumbled. “Are you happy now?”
Shit, I thought. Fucking a client was as good as career suicide in Kwamé’s line of work. If anyone found out about her and Brooks’s relationship, she’d never work a decent psychology job ever again.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about what happened, Adrian. We were… He got me pregnant, then turned around and got married. End of story.”
It wasn’t the end of the story. I saw it in her eyes.
“Promise me you’ll drop it,” she requested.
Reluctantly, I said, “Aight. Don’t make me regret agreeing to drop it.”
She blinked a few times and was relieved when Jessie got my attention again. As I accepted another nasty ass fry from Jessie, I couldn’t help but think that Kwamé was going to find a way to piss me off. Between her and Damon Brooks, something still wasn’t sitting right with me.
Later that evening when we made it back to Kwamé’s place, I crashed on the sofa and divided my attention between the ceiling and the NBA game playing on the television. The Jets weren’t playing, but I found myself searching for their highlights.
On the screen, I watched a cocky ass Brooks prance up and down the court like he owned the shit. Granted, that nigga was a beast and was easily the league’s MVP for the year. He’d made alot of betting ass niggas plenty of money this season and it didn’t look like his momentum was slowing down.
Somehow, his ass finessed my damn girl. I was down bad over Jessie and would never wish that she wasn’t here. So, despite the fact that her daddy was a piece of shit, Jessie wouldn’t have to worry about him. I was here now. She was mine, and I was going to raise her like my own daughter. If that nigga dared get in the way, I was going to cave his chest in and ball his ass up like some shoelaces.
CHAPTER 3
KWAMÉ
TheminuteIfoundout I was pregnant with Jessie, I stepped away from my duties with the NBA. My interim replacement couldn’t wait for me to return this coming season. Meanwhile, I wasn’t looking forward to the hustle and bustle of that life.
Flights at the drop of a hat, testosterone-fueled breakdowns, and cameras in my face twenty-four-seven used to be something that drove me to work harder. Every time I successfully averted a crisis, it added a notch to my mental wins.
Counseling people through some of the hardest times of their lives wasn’t for the weak. One day I could be counseling a player through a career-ending injury. Another day, I could be counseling a player through the hardships of being in a foreign country. Most times, though, it was the shit happening behind the scenes that no one knew about.Thosecalls were never easy. Many players battled off-the-court issues and still went out to play as if nothing was going on in their lives. That wasn’t the case for a few. However, most did well with keeping their personal lives, personal.
That was what I thought Damon was doing. I thought he was exceptionally private.
Damon’s sessions started after the death of his father. He and his father were close, and the devastating loss drove Damon to want to drown his sorrows in a bottle. His agent came to me and begged for my help. At the time, I didn’t even suspect that Damon had a drinking problem. To this day, no one suspected. Just like no one suspected that Damon was the epitome of a demon.
“Either the breakfast I made is nasty as fuck, or ya mind is somewhere other than here.”
Smiling at the partial mug on Adrian’s face, I wiped away any residue of the melancholy that thoughts of Damon brought. Since last night, Adrian had been watching me closely. I had to get it together. Yes, I was healed where Damon was concerned. However, sometimes the way that I handled the situation surrounding him played in my mind.
