Mary B. Morrison Bundle: Darius Jones, Never Again Once More, Soulmates Dissipate

Book 0: Soulmates Dissipate

by Mary B. Morrison

Genres: African American; African American Women's Fiction; African American Romance

Synopsis

Soulmates Dissipate Fashion photographer Jada Diamond Tanner may have her pick of fine men, but no one has captured her heart like gorgeous financial advisor Wellington Jones. From their first embrace, Jada knows he is the soulmate she has waited for. But while the love she shares with Wellington is exhilarating, Jada faces challenges she never imagined—from a beautiful rival, hungry for love, and from Wellington’s overbearing socialite mother, who believes Jada will never fit into her circle. Forced to make difficult choices, Jada learns painful lessons about trust and commitment…and discovers the courage to celebrate each day, with or without the man she loves. Never Again Once More Jada Diamond Tanner thought she’d chosen the right man in Lawrence Anderson, her rock-solid husband and stepfather to her son, Darius. But did she really choose wisely when she turned her back on Wellington Jones, her one true soul mate? For twenty years, Jada has kept her distance from him. Yet now, the cracks in her carefully constructed life are beginning to show. Adding to her troubles is Darius’s destructive behavior. To get Darius on the right path, Jada reluctantly lets Wellington be the father Darius needs. But with each day back in Wellington’s company, Jada begins to realize that she has one important choice left… Darius Jones Darius Jones is living the good life. He's got a chance to become the league's most valuable player, he's crazy in love with his wife, and his relationship with his mom has never been better. But Darius has a stalker who's determined to be the number one woman in his life. No matter where he goes, she's there. . .scheming to kill his wife, Fancy; charming his manager and mother, Jada; manipulating his son's mother, Ashlee; and dragging new mother Honey Thomas into the mix with one of the most heartless schemes ever. With his life quickly unraveling, Darius must gamble all he's worked for to save his wife, reclaim his son, and stop a madwoman from ruining the lives of everyone around him...

Release date: July 1, 2011

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 861

Sample

Two hours earlier . . .

At what point in a man’s life was he ready to love and be loved? Sitting in the passenger seat of our SUV, I asked myself that question as I trailed my pointing finger from her kneecap, along her thigh, then up to the crevice of her crotch. I wanted her to park in the emergency lane, put on the brake, and turn on the flashers so I could bend her over the armrest and fuck her real good.

That was my fantasy but not a good idea with my son behind me in the backseat. I scanned from her succulent mocha lips, to her collarbone, to her cleavage, down to her lap where the seat belt hugged snug across her hips, keeping my pussy safe.

Damn, I love my sexy ass wife. Slugger could wait until we got home to slide his throbbing head inside our favorite hot spot. My wife was cool but her pussy seemed to have a built-in thermostat permanently set at a lethal body temperature of 106 degrees. Her good pussy was one of several reasons I hadn’t fucked another woman since we’d gotten married.

I adjusted my partially erect nine-inch shaft, bit my bottom lip, shook my head. I was the luckiest man to have Fancy Taylor as my better half. She had what I called the magnificent five—brains, beauty, booty, breasts, and her own bank. The odds of finding all those qualities in one female were slimmer than winning California’s Mega Millions lotto.

I texted her, I’ma beat that pussy up tonight!

Her iPhone dinged twice. My wife glanced at her phone, read her text, then nodded at me. When she tried to reply, I took her phone, placed it in my lap. “Not while you’re driving.” Careless shit happened when drivers didn’t watch the road. Whenever possible, I was the passenger. Addicted to texting, tweeting, and Facebook—all that technological shit was my weakness—I had to have my hands free in order to communicate with my teammates and fans.

“I love you,” my wife said, resting her hand on my thigh. In a sad tone, she added, “And I miss LA.”

I agreed with her. Our living in Atlanta made us too laid back. Fame didn’t excite folks in Atlanta. People in LA gave us that red carpet treatment. I replied, “No matter where we live, long as I’ve got you, I’m good. You are my everything, woman.” Then I took a picture of the long line of cars on the 405 freeway in front of us.

“Am I your everything, Daddy?” my son asked.

My Facebook fan page automatically updated my Twitter page so I entered the caption, Only in LA, then posted the pic.

“Of course, my man. Daddy loves you unconditionally.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“I love you no matter what,” I said, reading the comments posted to my page. Most of my fans wanted to know where I was headed. Unbeknownst to my wife, my phone kept my dick out of a lot of chicks’ mouths.

Pussy was deceiving. I wasn’t banging, but every once in a while I’d let a chick blow me. The attitude I’d seen from women upfront wasn’t what I’d gotten after cumming. I’d concluded that all females were either bipolar or straight-up undercover crazy.

Learned the hard way not to leave my cell phone unattended. One chick took a close-up of her pussy, texted the photo from her phone to mine, then replied from my phone back to hers, Can’t wait to hit your pussy again. And she copied my wife. All that happened while I was taking a shit and a shower in my hotel room.

She was trying to get three minutes of fame. Shit backfired. When I got home, I told my wife my phone was stolen, asked her to buy me a new iPhone and change my number. Wasn’t getting caught in a tiger trap. My wife had no reason not to believe me. I downloaded my data from my Mac computer to my new phone and kept shit moving.

I’d learned that each of my orgasms came with the hidden costs of a female’s emotional distress. Ginger. Miranda. Heather. Zen. Maxine. Ciara. Ashlee. If I blended the best every woman I’d fucked had to offer and molded their assets into one woman, that one woman would not come close to being better than my wife. And the exact opposite of Fancy was my son’s vindictive mother, Ashlee.

Wham! I buried my fist in my pillow, wishing it were Darius’s chest. Not a day went by that I didn’t go insane missing our son.

“What did Darius do to prove he was a better fit parent? I’ll tell you. Nothing, that’s what!” I rolled onto my back, gave my down feather pillow the tightest hug. My fists pressed against my ribs. I kicked my feet high in the air, quickly sat on the edge of my bed, then closed my eyes. “I hate you, Darius!” I flung the pillow across the room, opened my eyes to the sound of perfume bottles crashing to the floor.

After having my son, my postpartum depression escalated to bouts of mania. I was happy before and when I’d met Darius. Cute little innocent adolescent Ashlee. That was me. The voice in my head said, “You know you should’ve aborted his baby.” I thought keeping his baby would make him love me, make us a family. By the time I realized I was wrong, DJ was born.

I curled my fingers over my thumbs, squinted, rocked back and forth as I sat on the edge of my bed. “I did the right thing by keeping my baby. Darius still loves me.”

My inner voice answered, Keep believing that, you gonna end up in a psychiatric ward.

“Don’t say that,” I told myself. “My mental instability isn’t my fault.”

My life changed forever when I became pregnant. I went from jovial to being depressed my entire pregnancy. Almost four years after giving birth, I was still on these antidepressant medications. I shook two tablets into my hand, tossed them in my mouth, then gulped a sixteen-ounce bottle of water without stopping.

I heard a car door open. “That’s them.” I placed the empty bottle on my nightstand, ran into my living room.

I snatched back my curtain, stared out my front window, and watched my ex’s baby mama and her son enter Jay’s house. Jay was my man until that bitch Tracy came back into his life. I hate weak men who let females control them. When I met Jay, he said he wasn’t in a relationship. What he failed to mention was he wasn’t over his ex. A man who was emotionally unavailable should keep his dick unavailable too. After I found out about Tracy, I leased this house across the street from Jay.

No man gets rid of me. I leave when I’m done.

Before Tracy closed his door, I opened mine. A burst of cold air clung to my virtually naked body. I yelled, “Bitch, you better watch your back! You and that trick ass baby of yours is next.” Her son was a year older than mine. She needed to keep her ass at her own house instead of babysitting Jay’s house while he was in jail.

Men were the root of all my problems. My daddy and Darius have moved on with their lives. Slam! I closed my front door, turned up the thermostat to reheat my home. I went back to my bedroom, sat on my bed. “Now, I hate Jay Crawford and Darius Jones.”

I’d relocated from Dallas to D.C. shortly after the custody hearing. The worst day of my life was listening to the judge say, “Based on the caseworker’s recommendation and the testimony given today, the court awards full custody to Darius. . . .” That bitch claimed I was mentally unstable.

The judge’s decision to award custody to Darius numbed my compassion for men. Best if I didn’t date another man anytime soon. I sat on the edge of my bed in my red boy shorts replaying that day in court over in my mind, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong besides fall in love with Darius. I flopped backward on the mattress.

Unlike with Jay, my heart had never stopped loving Darius.

Jay-Z loved New York and Darius Jones loved Los Angeles. The bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405 didn’t faze me. The LA sunshine beamed to a warm eighty degrees, my son chilled in the backseat, and my wife sat high behind the wheel driving us to BOA Steakhouse for dinner. The only person missing from my special evening was my mother. She’d insisted on attending a movie premiere with her new so-called fiancé, Grant Hill, and her new personal assistant, Bambi.

Hadn’t met Bambi yet. Mom tried making me remember her from elementary, middle, and high school but I couldn’t. Didn’t matter. Bambi was Mom’s PA, not mine.

I’d tell my mom that dude was all bad before she walked down the aisle. I’d paid for her wedding to see her happy again but I couldn’t buy her happiness. I still had to look out for Mom but right now my mouth watered for two things, a tender medium bone-in rib-eye steak and the sweet taste of my wife’s pussy. By nightfall, I would have devoured both.

I’ve got plans for you tonight, woman.

“What, Darius?” she asked, smiling at me with her curious brown eyes on high beam.

“You watch the road, Ladycat. I’ll watch my . . .” I mouthed the word “pussy” so my son wouldn’t hear.

My son chimed in. “Watch your what, Daddy? I’ll help you.”

“My man, what did I tell you about grown folks’ convo?”

“Sorry, Daddy.”

“You’re up to something,” my wife said, staring ahead. “I know that look.”

“I’ll tell you in a few.” I had to savor what I was about to say and do for my wife. I wasn’t good at prolonging surprises. If she asked again, I’d tell her. I stared out my window to avoid giving in to her.

Now I was really starving. Ready to sink my teeth into a tender juicy piece of USDA prime.

Tapping on my iPhone, I texted my secret to my teammate, K-9, along with a pic. Had to show and tell someone. He texted back, It’s motherfuckers like you that make it hard for a single man like me to fuck for free. Congrats, D.

I didn’t respond. I’d hit him back later.

I posted, Headed to BOA’s with the Mrs. and my lil’ man. Stay posted for pics. I included a link for the restaurant.

When a man had no interest in conquering new pussy, he was ready to tackle loving one woman. For once in my life, I was happy. I mean genuinely happy.

My mother, wife, and son were my world. My mother was my rock. My wife was my rib. My son kept me focused on what was most important in my life . . . family.

My phone vibrated. It was Ashlee. “What’s up?” I answered, knowing she was going to ask to see DJ. I didn’t want to get into it with her, so I cut her off with, “Let me call you back,” and hung up.

“Who was that?” my wife asked.

I spelled the word visitation. Glancing over my shoulder, I winked at my son. He gave me an upward nod. That was his way of signaling he was good. I held my wife’s hand, then became quiet. I loved her ass so much I felt that shit from my fingers all the way up in my chest.

She was the only woman who told me to my face when I was wrong. Sometimes she yelled at me but when her voice was barely above a whisper, or when she called me Darius Henry Jones, I stopped whatever the fuck I was doing and gave her my undivided attention.

“I get so caught up in your basketball games, I forget about her every other weekends. I’ll do it after the Cleveland game. Baby, when you win MVP, you should tell your agent to look into trading you from Atlanta to LA,” my wife said. “This is your hometown.”

Aw, man. My lips curved to the side. “Nah, it’s best we stay put for another year.” Moving wasn’t a bad idea. Moving back to LA was a bad idea. I might give in and fuck one of these LA glamazons.

I asked my wife, “Why did I have to go there? I wish I’d never met her.”

I appreciated that my wife never emasculated me like my son’s mother. Never understood why my son’s mom verbally castrated me, then thought I’d ask to marry her ass. What dude in his right mind would volunteer to be humiliated twenty-four-seven? That was some backward bullshit thinking.

“Go where, Daddy? Who, Daddy?”

My wife tapped me on the thigh, shook her head, told me, “Don’t say things like that,” then spoke to DJ. “Your dad was just thinking out loud.”

Some thought me to be arrogant, cocky, a shit talker, an asshole. Others thought of me as the shit. Regardless of their opinions, they didn’t know me. My wife, she knew me.

“Let me call you back,” Darius said, ending the call. And he wondered why I hated him. At times I wished he were dead. I wished they were both dead. Jay and Darius.

Dating Jay helped take my mind off my problems. Helped me to temporarily forget about Darius. Jay sexed me crazy just like Darius. If he hadn’t left me for Tracy, I wouldn’t have lied and said he’d raped me. Without Jay in my life, I had to go back to Darius. Why did the roads in my life keep leading me back to Darius? Maybe we were meant to be together.

I rolled out of bed, showered, dabbed The One perfume by Dolce & Gabbana behind my ears, put a little inside my navel, and trailed a line between my breasts. I put on my black catsuit and my black fur-collared button-up fitted sweater. Zipped up my thigh-high boots. I fingered my natural hair creating wide waves that flowed over my shoulders. Put on my cherry dick-sucking lipstick that men couldn’t resist.

My cell phone rang. Hoping it was Darius calling me back, I glanced at the caller ID. It was Bambi.

As I locked my front door, I answered, “I’m not selling my tickets to see Darius play in Cleveland next week.”

She laughed. “Hey, Ashlee. Trust me, I understand. I’ve got tickets for that game but I get that a lot now that I’m Jada’s personal assistant.”

Whoa, wait a minute. Low self-esteemed, overweight all her life, unattractive Bambi was what? “You’re Jada Diamond Tanner’s personal assistant?”

“As in Darius’s mother. That’s me. You know I was Darius’s number-one fan before you got knocked up.”

“And that would make me his son’s mother for life. So why are you calling me? I haven’t heard from you since high school.” Graduation was five years ago. When I told Bambi I was pregnant with Darius’s baby, she cursed me like he was her husband.

I guess Jada felt sorry for Bambi the way I had. I was Bambi’s only friend in elementary and junior high. She was the only obese girl in our elementary school. She’d gained more weight in middle school. By the time we were seniors, Bambi was close to weighing three hundred pounds.

Bambi was infatuated with Darius since we were six years old. Told me her parents were to blame for her obesity because they’d started overfeeding her at birth. She hated her parents. Whatever. If she was still fat, she couldn’t use that excuse.

“You gained any weight? Darius probably didn’t recognize you when he saw you, huh?”

“Did you take your medication today? Darius knows but he hasn’t seen the new me yet. Now that I’m closer to Darius than you are, are you jealous?”

Okay, Bambi was officially my enemy. She was never smarter or prettier than me. She had called to get all up in my business and steal Darius from me. I wanted to curse her out but she wasn’t worth it. The only place Darius would sex her was in her dreams.

I tossed my purse on the passenger seat, got in my Benz, started the engine.

“Listen, Ashlee. I’m in LA with Jada and Darius. Jada invited me to a movie premiere tonight so I don’t have much time for you. Jada asked me to call and confirm your address so she can send you an invitation to her wedding.”

Jada was getting married a third time and I hadn’t been married once. No way. “You’re lying. Jada would never hire you. What are you up to?”

“You want an invite or what?”

“I’m good.” Jada already had my address. “Don’t put me on any list of yours. By the way, how’re your parents?”

“Dead,” she said, then ended the call.

“Baby, I love you so much.” I never got tired of telling her that shit because it was my truth. What the hell. Let it rip. “I can’t hold it any longer. Baby, I want to marry you again.” Hell, if T. Parker could marry Eva twice, I could give my baby the big ass wedding she’d dreamt of.

Her hand was at the top of the steering wheel. She slid her hand down to the bottom. Damn, she had the sexiest mannerisms doing the simplest things. Her long straight dark hair flowed over her bare shoulders. Her titties were perched high under her aqua blue halter dress. Her hair, her breasts, all of that shit right there was mine.

My wife made a smooth U-turn, parked at a meter in front of 9200 Sunset. “I’d marry you again in a heartbeat,” she said, smiling back at me.

Valet parking for BOA was less than fifty feet away. My wife was one of those women who believed in holding on to what was hers. She preferred self-parking and keeping the keys.

“Then let’s do it,” I told her.

Her eyes lit up like diamonds. Her smile melted my heart. “Are you serious, Darius? I can have the wedding I’ve always wanted?”

“Yes, baby. Yes, you can have whatever you want this time.”

“Darius Henry Jones, do not tease me.”

“Baby, plan it. Honeymoon and all. Let’s do it right after the season is over.”

The first time we were married we invited family, close friends, and a few of my teammates. My biological dad wanted me to wait until I was thirty before considering marriage. I wasn’t letting Fancy leave me twice. He was more concerned with my earnings supporting his future. He didn’t understand that by marrying Fancy I was investing in my future. I didn’t want to invite a ton of spectators to our ceremony. Unless I was on the court ballin’, I never liked witnesses or a crowd.

“Daddy, I want you to marry my mommy. Can you marry her too?” my son asked. “Please. That would make my mommy happy too.” His small foot kicked the back of my black leather seat as he waited for me to answer. I had to say something or he’d ask again and kick again.

Kids said the darnedest things, but my son was brainwashed by his mother. Most of what came out of his mouth was his mother speaking through him. No telling what he’d say next. Ashlee had drilled in his head about our one day being a family and how he shouldn’t call my wife “mother” or “mommy” but to call her by her first name, Fancy. My wife was okay with DJ calling her by her first name. She wasn’t trying to replace Ashlee. My wife was making sure my son had a healthy and happy home. I’d given up on trying to build a relationship between Ashlee and Fancy.

Ashlee was one unfit chick. She was gorgeous on the outside but, man, the demons had invaded her mind. My mom was good at letting DJ talk to Ashlee a couple of times a week, saying, “Darius, you can’t change the fact that Ashlee is DJ’s mother. He needs her too.” Yeah, right. Whatever. Mom hadn’t experienced Ashlee the way my wife and I had.

Fancy chuckled at DJ. I lifted my brilliant soon to be four-year-old from his booster seat, and said, “My man, marrying two women would send your daddy to jail. You don’t want me to go to prison, do you?”

“Nope, but Mommy does. Mommy said she’s going to set you up and send you to jail just like she did Jay.”

Jada texted me. I’ve decided not to meet Darius and Fancy for dinner at BOA’s. Change the reservation from five to three. See you at the premiere.

Before working for Jada, I slept with my cell phone so I wouldn’t miss any of Darius’s postings on Facebook or Twitter. Soon as Jada hired me, I searched her files. I stored Darius’s home addresses and his cell phone number in my phone.

I’d heard the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Truth was, the way to a man’s heart was a journey through his mother’s stomach. I had to become more than Jada’s assistant. I had to make her dependent upon my services.

I changed the reservation as requested but I was already in motion to BOA’s for Jada to introduce me to Darius. I drove to the corner, whipped a U-turn behind Fancy. I made another U-turn at Doheny Road, then parked my silver convertible rental at the only metered space in front of where Blowfish Sushi to Die For used to be. Contractors were renovating the space for another upscale LA nightclub. I turned off the engine, then watched Darius carry his son to the door of BOA. Darius opened the door, stepped aside, then entered after Fancy.

A walnut-size lump lodged in my throat. I longed for the day that I’d be the woman in front of him. I tapped on my cell, waited a few seconds, then heard, “Thanks for calling BOA Steakhouse. How may we serve you?”

I swallowed my envy, then answered, “I’d like to change the reservation for Darius Jones from five to three please.”

“The party of three is being seated now. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“That’ll be all,” I said, ending the call.

Working for Jada allowed me to use her name or Darius’s name for my personal reservations too. For the first time in my life, I was an extension of celebrity. I was above Ashlee.

I had kept every news article on Darius Henry Jones since he’d played high school basketball. Fell in love with him in kindergarten the first day his mother brought him to school. I was the quiet overweight girl at St. Boniface. The boys gave me their food; the LA girls gave me attitude.

Ashlee’s dad Lawrence and Darius’s mom started dating when we were all six years old. Darius never considered Lawrence his dad. I felt bad for Darius when the media announced he’d changed his name to Williams, then changed it back to Jones. His mother was wrong for lying to him about who his real dad was. Most of what I knew about Darius before working for his mom I’d read in the paper or saw on the news.

It didn’t take Maury to say, “Wellington Jones, you are not the father.” Darius looked exactly like Darryl Williams and nothing like his so-called dad. I wasn’t hating on Jada for lying but she’d stepped to the left on that one. Right or wrong, sometimes a woman had to make the best decision for her life and not give a damn about what a man thought.

Removing my sunglasses from my purse, I placed them on my head, then refreshed my lip gloss. My first day working for Jada, I’d memorized Darius’s personal profile on her computer. I knew a lot more about my Darius, like his favorite steak was rib-eye cooked medium. Under intimate apparel his preferred underwear were black boxer briefs.

One day I’d persuade Darius to divorce Fancy and marry me. Waiting for Fancy to cheat on Darius hadn’t worked thus far. Her ass showed up courtside at every damn game with Darius’s son. I had to find a way to convince Darius that divorcing Fancy was his idea. I stood next to the hostess, scanned the room, then opted to sit at the bar facing the booth where Darius and his family were seated.

En route to the bar I saw Lamar with that Khloe chick and a few other folk seated at a booth on the patio. Marrying money didn’t upgrade every woman. That shimmering silver long-sleeved mini-dress she’d worn to the Grammys after-party was bangin’ but not on her body. Besides, why was she in line with the ordinaries? Bet her sister Kim wouldn’t have stood in line to get in.

Scanning the patrons, Adam Zacharius, one of the youngest men in Hollywood to manage a media company, was seated at the opposite end of the bar chopping it up with his fiancée. He’d recently finished the film The Company We Keep, based on the novel written by Mary Monroe.

“I’ll have a vodka martini stirred,” I told the bartender, then picked up the menu.

Glancing over my shoulder, I admired Darius for three seconds. I had videos of all his games and of his wedding when he married that bitch Fancy. Look at her ass all happy and shit. Your meter is expired. Time up. Bitch, you have got to go!

I was at Madison Square Garden when Darius was drafted, went to all of his home games in Atlanta, traveled to all his away games. I’d saved photos from the Internet in my phone of his son, his ex-wife, his new wife, his mother, his step and biological fathers, and Ashlee. That trick was almost crazier than me. Bet she was still trying to figure out how I’d gotten her number.

“Um, um, um. You are the best,” I told the bartender. Before taking another sip of my martini, I said, “I’ll have a half dozen oysters on the half shell,” to spike my libido.

Until I married Darius, I had to get my fuck on just like him. I rummaged through my purse, made sure my bottle of five-milligram Cialis was in there. Had to keep track of my pills. Without hesitation I’d slip a penile enhancement pill on a man in a minute. I took fucking seriously and wasn’t taking any chances on a limp dick or premature ejaculator leaving me with an angry wet ass.

The fucking around Darius had done on Fancy was coming to an end when we got married. Let me catch him with my dick on any parts of another chick, I’d fuck him up worse than Ashlee had done Jay.

But Ashlee had better not think about coming between Darius and me or she’d turn up face down floating in the Potomac River. The president would find Osama bin Laden before anyone would find her depressed miserable ass.

Exhaling, I gulped the remainder of my drink, balanced the olive on the tip of my tongue, then swallowed it whole. “Bartender, another, please.” The sight of Fancy angered the hell out of me. If I could pick up this black granite countertop and drop it on her head, I would. I didn’t have an affinity for kids but Darius was too close to both of them for me to try anything violent.

I had a life-size six-eleven body-length pillow made in the image of Darius. Every home love potion I’d created to make Darius fall in love with me had failed. My last chance was to visit the two-headed lady. I’d found her web site online, e-mailed her my information. For five thousand dollars she’d agreed to cast a surefire love spell on my Darius. He was worth every penny. Next week I had an appointment to take Darius’s loc to the two-headed lady down in New Orleans. I’d picked up the dreadlock that fell from his head when he was sitting on the sidelines at one of his games.

The two-headed lady told me, “Don’t contact me again. Just come. I will know when you are here. When you arrive, come to the French Quarter.”

I prayed she wasn’t scamming me. She was my one last chance to cast a spell. If her spell didn’t work, I’d do the unimaginable. I’d kill Fancy.

I was Darius Jones’s number-one fan. He just didn’t know it . . . yet.

She was eerie. The woman seated at the end of the bar. The sound of acrylic nails slowly scratching along a chalkboard pierced my eardrums when she stared at me.

I didn’t want to stare back at her. I was temporarily paralyzed. I’d seen those morbid deep-set eyes before but couldn’t recall where. Her pupils seem dilated. Her eyes were darker than her black hair and brows. She was five-feet six or seven without her high heels. Her curly shoulder-length mane was shiny. She was so pale she could pass for black, white, or Latina. Her thick lips were plastered with a vibrant watermelon shine. Could’ve been permanent lipstick layered with a gloss. Her lips were too perfect to tell. She was a B cup, with a flat stomach and narrow straight hips. She was a comfortable size six, maybe a eight.

I noticed two distinct things about her. Her raspy voice, and the fact that her pointed nose had a flat bridge. The sunglasses that she removed from the top of her head, then sat on the counter wouldn’t fit her face unless she’d worn an adjustable strap or had a nose implant.

“Baby, please, can you stop texting for a minute?” I needed my husband’s attention.

“Two more minutes and I’m done,” Darius said, rapidly pressing keys with his thumbs.

One thing I learned the short time I’d lived in the City of Angels (before relocating to Atlanta with my husband) was most women in Los Angeles were anything but angels. I’d mastered the LA body scan. Took me three seconds to check out a person. First, I’d flash the person’s face, then I’d notice their shoes. Finally, I’d quickly scroll my eyes back up to their face.

In those three seconds I could vividly recall a person’s eye color, nose, lips, forehead, cheeks, shoes and style, ankles, body size, hips, hands, nails, waist, breasts, and clothes. My karate skills sharpened my memory of people and places.

Knowing karate had saved my life when my mom’s ex-man tried to kill me. When I was a little girl, I’d lied on Thaddeus. Told the police he’d raped me. Unlike Ashlee’s lying on Jay, I’d done it to save my mother’s life. My mother was afraid to tell the police Thaddeus had beaten her. I was a kid trying to be an adult when I had him arrested but I had no indication he’d get out of prison and come after me.

Two years ago Thaddeus broke into my apartment, tried to kill me, and Darius killed him. No doubt my husband would die for me. That woman at the bar, her spirit haunted me like she was Thaddeus. I wondered. Could a dead person seek revenge though another person’s soul?

I’d definitely seen that woman before. Eventually it’d come back to me. I wasn’t insecure or paranoid but whosoever she was she’d given me bad vibes. I’d felt that gut-wrenching feeling before. Most of the times my stomach churned like that at Darius’s games. Sometimes I felt it at the park when playing with DJ. Today, I felt it on our way into the restaurant. It was as if someone was stalking us.

Keeping track of Darius, I picked up my spy sunglasses, activated the video record button, sat my black glasses on the edge of the bar facing Darius, Fancy, and DJ, then proceeded to suck an oyster off the shell.

“Um, um, um.” The natural sea salt flavor of oyster juices trickling down my throat reminded me of the taste that oozed from the pores of