Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1) Read online

  I left the deck off my master suite realizing it was late and the house was quiet. Kyree came in to say goodnight over an hour ago and his uncharacteristically quiet mother had been ghost since. I peeked my head through Kyree’s door to confirm he was sleep. Dude was out, posted on his back and snoring. No other bedroom lights were on as I made my way to the back steps for the kitchen. When I came through the door, at first I didn’t see her. But after listening for a few seconds, I heard music. Then I rounded the island, moving toward the sink and found her on all floors with half her petite frame in one of the lower cabinets. Even the way Jade arched her back screamed sexy and delicate.

  I tapped her shoulder and watched her back out of the cabinet space, snatching out one of her ear buds.

  “Oh! I noticed how dusty it was under here when I get pots and pans, and decided to clean them tonight. Am I loud?”

  She was holding a sponge in her gloved hands. That’s when I noticed a bucket to the side of her.

  “Nah.” I chuckled while scratching my nose. Jade was cute when she wasn’t flirting or messing with my head, having me trying to figure out if she was flirting. “The opposite actually. I was coming to check on you about earlier. Church with your parents, and all. You haven’t been yourself since we got back.”

  She had been quiet on the ride back and as soon as we came through the doors she changed her clothes and started with dinner. I ate down here in the kitchen with her and Kyree, but he and I were the only two talking. Jade didn’t even finish her food. I felt somewhat responsible since she was my guest—here and at RSfALC.

  Jade exhaled, removing the other earpiece. “As a woman, seeing my mother is always a humbling event in my life. They aren’t my finest moments.”

  She pulled off her gloves and started to wash her hands at the sink.

  “Word? Y’all not in touch? Didn’t seem that way with Ky. Seemed like they’re tight.”

  “Yeah. For the past month or so. What’s depressing is today I got to see the environment that inspired her sudden interest in my son.”

  “What do you mean?” I was surprised that I was genuinely curious.

  Jade moved to sit on the other side of the island.

  “She started taking an interest in him out of nowhere a few weeks before we ended up here. She even invited us over for dinner for the first time, making it clear what made her reach out to KyKy was being in church and seeing a baller’s son that was about Ky’s age that reminded her she had a grandchild—not a child, but a grandchild. That fact cut deep.”

  I nodded, my lips pushed toward my nose. “I can rock with you on that. I can feel you.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Can you…really?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be real with you about knowing firsthand what it feels like to be neglected by your moms and to have her look past you and not at you. That’s been the case all my life.”

  Jade’s shoulders inclined over the island, her eyes filling with sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s just been my case since Kyree and leaving her home. Of course, I couldn’t have a baby and get off her timetable for my life. It was always about Chéri’s agenda and not mine.”

  “But she seemed happy to see you.”

  “No,” she sighed, wiping her eye. “She was actually happy to see Kyree. She was thrilled to see me next to you. It was you and Kyree that caused the dazzle in those green beds. That’s not something I’ve ever gotten from her, and what made your pastor’s sermon hit so hard with me. It resonated so deep. It’s hard for me because your mother is the one that sets off trust and self-esteem with her approval throughout your childhood. But when she’s too busy looking past you to see where you missed the mark of her lofty expectations, you spend your life realizing the people closest to you like only certain parts of you, but never love your total essence.”

  I found myself nodding again. Jade indeed was talking Ezra language. She’d really listened to his message this morning and applied it to her world that quickly. That impressed me, though I still didn’t know why.

  “Imagine if she looked past you and never in your direction.”

  Our eyes locked and the silence of the room was stifling. Her eyes eventually fell and she sucked her bottom lip.

  “Nah.” I chuckled. “I ain’t tryna invite you to my pity party. I’mma big boy, Jade. I’ve accepted all the cards God dealt when I was conceived. It’s just my life and I eat it every day. Like Ezra said, I fight every day to feel I’m good enough and it doesn’t matter what other people think. At the end of the day, I’m good with me and all He’s given me. It ain’t so bad.”

  This time Jade nodded, eyes dancing around the table. Then she snorted, mostly to herself.

  “What’s that about?”

  Her hazel nuggets met me. “How anyone could look past you and not see the good in you. How they could ever think you’re not good enough.”

  I cracked a wry grin. “I ‘on’t… I don’t know about all that.”

  “I’m serious. What you’re doing for Ky and me may be a bit extreme, but I seriously doubt we’re the only people you’ve shown this level of generosity to. I’m sure you don’t invite strangers to stay in your mansion often, but look at that night I had issues with my car. You saw to it that it got some attention and Ky and I got home safely. That’s more than what my mother would have done—clearly because we’re here.” She stretched her arms to gesture the house.

  I laughed along with her, but I was sure for different reasons. “It was a stretch…yeah, but it’s all good. Everybody deserves a helping hand and that includes me.”

  Her arms slip across the countertop and her hands rested over mine.

  “Well, Trent, thanks for being that hand.”

  I glanced down on our meeting skin. Her pink manicured nails over my calloused hands. I felt a zinging sensation course my body instantly. The next moment anger followed for being so affected by this beautiful girl that I didn’t understand.

  A few nights after I went to church with Trent, I put Kyree down and toed out of the room, biting my lips as I closed the door behind me. Trent had come home a few hours ago and I had been plotting this time of the day with him for two days now. That’s how long it took me to get up the nerve. I fingered through my weave, fluffing it around my shoulders. I applied the right amount of foundation, blush, eye-liner, and lip gloss to appear casual.

  When I made it to his door, my pulse beat so loud I could hear it in my head. Taking a deep breath, I skipped in his room and found him tossing a football in the air while he lay on his bed wearing a tank top and basketball shorts. I bit my bottom lip, knowing the moment his eyes met me wearing a tank and tiny boy shorts.

  “Hey!” I trilled, batting my eyes.

  For a while, Trent didn’t speak. “We celebrating something?” his tone was far more neutral than his hooded eyes appeared.

  Yessss! I was thrilled he found me attractive. I’d been worrying about that.

  “Yeah. I kinda guess so.” I couldn’t help my smile and it wasn’t for the reason he named. It was how I battled my nerves.

  “Tell me about it.” He laid his ball aside on the bed.

  And that’s when I went for it. I dived on his mattress, landing on my knees. My boobs jiggled madly during my dissension and my weave crowded to the front of my face. It took me a moment to correct it, but I transitioned seamlessly.

  “My Section 8 got approved!” I clapped.

  Slowly, the realization of my announcement settled over Trent and his lips curved. “Congratulations. So, how does that work?”

  “Well, I have a month to find an apartment before losing my voucher. It’s for not Alpine, though.” I snorted drily and shrugged my lips. “But I have to do what I have to do.”

  “Don’t know much about real estate, but let me know if I can help.”

  “You’ve done enough.” I stretched out on his bed.

  Trent’s eyes widened, surprised by my audacity of relaxing on his bed.


  “So,” I strained stretching out my arms. “what is a man your age doing home at a decent hour?”

  “Chillin’,” was all he said before continuing with his ball toss and catch game.

  “So, no girlfriend…estranged lover…ex-wife?”

  “No.” He caught the ball. “No.” He caught the ball. “And…uhhhhhh…no.” He caught the ball again.

  “Do you date?” I bit my lip.

  “Not at the moment. Don’t think you’d be here in my bed if I had a special lady in my life, Jade. So, the short answer to your burning question is no. No lady. Ain’t got a care in the world for one right now. Got more important things to do.”

  My neck snapped back. It was my turn to ask what audacity he’d had. I jumped from the bed, not even worried about the wedgie in my booty. I started opening up drawers in his dresser and armoire, shuffling through clothes.

  “Yo!” he called out from behind me as I was bending over in the bottom drawers. “What’re you doing, man?”

  I waited until I was done to straighten and speak.

  Out of breath, I put my hand on my hip and answered, “I’m looking for evidence of your woman.”

  “Maaan! What woman?” Trent was sitting up, eyes wide as saucers.

  “The one that wants me to know she exists. She’ll let me know by leaving her shoes in a corner, combs or hair clips in the bathroom drawer. Or the ones who want your wife to know about her, by leaving her soiled panties in your sheets.”

  I went to his bed and yanked back the sheets, wearing a determined glower.

  “Jade, man!” He stood from the bed and headed toward the bathroom. “You ain’t ‘bout to find no evidence of a woman. Trust. But go knock yourself out. I gotta hit the bowl.”

  I leaped around in just enough time to see the bathroom door closing. My shoulders dropped.

  I’m in here, almost naked and he announces he has to go take a crap?

  If I didn’t learn that night, I soon learned Jade was a wild, fiery, miniature pit-bull. A sexy one who suffered from insomnia. That wasn’t the last time she waited for Kyree to fall asleep before creeping into my room. The first few nights were awkward, because typically I knew exactly what to do with a woman, wanting to lay half naked in my bed with her face made up nicely and hair wild and long. Yeah. It was clear to me she wanted to fuck, and man, was she tempting. But I wouldn’t go there with Jade. I respected Kyree too much to lay a finger on his mother. Plus, as much as I wanted to, something about it didn’t feel right. She stayed at my crib temporarily because she was on hard times. Taking it there with her would feel like I was exploiting her. Outside of that, I had to be real with myself. I didn’t want a woman. I needed my career back. I had to prove myself worthy to Christ so he could provide that blessing.

  But Jade kept sneaking into my room, and to be real, I started looking forward to it. You never knew what she was going to come with, but it was always something interesting. One night, and out of the blue she told me how she came from a decent family. And though she didn’t point it out, I knew it was the type of family that people from my hood would consider rich. She pretty much grew up in West Orange with a housekeeper and nanny at some point in her childhood. Apparently, her mother married his wealth and the stability he could bring her daughter. She believed her mother married him for his money first, then fell in love. That admission confirmed my fears about getting caught up with her. Jade was familiar with money and knew how to spend it.

  That same night Jade talked a lot about her stepfather. Jade watched her mother wear her husband, George’s, wealth like an accessory. It was something that she thought all women did until she grew up feeling something was missing, which was her mother’s love. It was something she didn’t see evidence of in her parents’ marriage or her mother’s care of her. Jade said George, her stepfather, had been good to her coming up.

  “George never got involved when my mother and I would fight—and boy, did we fight all the time. I figured he didn’t interfere because I technically wasn’t his. But what’s weird is how he cried when I left their home while pregnant with Ky. It was…sad.”

  Another night she kicked it about Kyree’s father and how wild their relationship had been. His name was Ryshon, but he went by the street name Ryder and was a year older than me. She shared how she almost came to blows with other chicks and one of his four baby mothers over his bullshit. Obviously, they were no longer together, but what I wasn’t expecting to learn was how he had been incarcerated for three years. It amazed her that Kyree still remembered him, which is why she always took his calls and obeyed when he insisted on their son playing football. Jade said she wanted Kyree to have a relationship with his father no matter the dude, Ryshon’s decision because she didn’t want him growing up fatherless like her.

  Jade’s conversations were more or less her sharing her mistakes and revelations over the past ten years of her life. She didn’t press me much about my personal life, making it comfortable for me to lay back and listen. But this one night that so happened to be Halloween and after she’d tucked Kyree in and had put his candy away, she slid through the cracked doors of my bedroom and dumped her voluptuous body on my mattress.

  “When was the last time you…” Her eyes traveled over to me, lined with caution, and voice now timid. “…you know. Had sex?”

  I rolled my eyes, chuckling at her intrusion. For some reason, I felt I shouldn’t be surprised, though I was.

  “Months.”

  “Months?” she asked, tone laced with suspense. “How many?”

  “‘Bout six.”

  The quickness of my answer only came because since she’d been staying here, throwing me those ‘fuck me hazels;’ it reminded me of the drought. The drought that hadn’t been an issue at all before.

  Jade jumped up from the mattress to sit on the backs of her legs, facing me.

  “You’re shitting me!”

  I shook my head, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  “There’s no way you haven’t had sex in months, much less six, Trent!” It seemed the word pained her to speak.

  I shrugged with a tight face. “Of course I can. Sex ain’t bread and water.”

  “For men, and especially men like you, it’s oxygen.”

  I chuckled again. She was something else. Jade knew nothing about me, and assumed everything.

  “It’s actually not.” I started pulling on a hangnail on my thumb. “In my case, I grew up in a hyper-sexualized environment, per my shrink.”

  “Shrink?”

  I nodded. “Yup. Saw one for a minute. My pastor.” And now that you’re in my crib, I may need to call on him again.

  “I don’t think talking to your pastor qualifies as seeing a shrink. You can’t even talk about sex with him.”

  “My guy has degrees and a license. And we’ve talked about everything in my world. Anyway, I come from a line of strippers. My uncles were strippers, life-long professional ones. It was their bread and butter. When you see sexual content to that level, sex loses intimacy and becomes just an occupational art form.”

  “Who was the last girl?” Her eyes shot down to her lap, she still sat on her knees, facing me.

  I scoffed quietly. “I won’t say all that, but someone in my circle I’ve known for years.”

  “Were you sleeping with her for years?”

  “Something like that.” When you subtract the time I was away.

  “Why’d you stop?” That was delivered with more timidity, making me consider actually answering it.

  “Turned too aggressive. Real suspect.” I angled my head on the mattress, hit with a thought. “It was probably aggressive from the gate, but I got caught up in the hype and let it play on for too long.”

  “So, she wanted you and showed some aggression,” Jade noted defensively. “What’s wrong with that? She’s suspect because she goes after what she’s wants?”

  She wasn’t understanding. Brielle was a damn con artist.

  “She was a poser,
built with a hidden agenda like everyone else. She wanted a freedom with me that she could use to hide the real her from the world.” Flashes appeared in my mind of how familiar and at ease she was with the shortie in our threesome. I remember recognizing that and realizing I’d been set up to allow an experience Brielle wanted all along. Doing it with me padded her with the excuse of sexual exhibition with a lover instead of her desire to explore intimacy with the same sex. She could always put it on me. That’s why I’d walked out while they were going at it. “That aggression came from a place. A fraudulent place. A place where I was the means to an end that served only her.” I spoke with widened nostrils, the bitter memory of being used now in the forefront of my mind.

  Jade tossed her little body on the mattress, sighing on the way down. “Well, that just sucks.”

  My brows met. “For who?”

  Me…Brielle?

  Jade never answered that question, leading me to my final thought on the topic.

  You…

  “Where do you work?” he whispered in the faintly lit room.

  I exhaled, stretching my arms and legs on his ginormous bed that I found extra comfortable, certainly more fitting than the full size mattress Kyree slept on next door. That question reminded me of the long day I had today. I worked between three gigs. I started at Ming Nails on Bloomfield Ave in Bloomfield. That was only for a couple hours before Pretty Nails from down the street on Bloomfield Ave in Montclair called for help for their lunch time rush. I drove down there to clear their shop before taking off to Maplewood to do a private wedding gig with a fellow student belonging to the same program. Mila was completing her hours, too, but did private gigs on the side for extra money. Whenever she called, I came running, guaranteed to walk away with at least a couple of hundred for my services.

  “Between two salons on Bloomfield Avenue, doing nails and waxing. Technically, I’m finishing my 300 hours of instruction, but I’m so popular, the owners forget.”

  “So, you’re in high demand?”

  I smiled in the soft glow of the room, mostly recessed lights from the hall illuminating. I’d been leaving them on lately for Ky, who apparently came looking for me one night, and thankfully had no idea I was in Trent’s bed, lost in his virile heat and scent.