Stuck On You

by Monica Walters

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Life can be hard to navigate at times, but for Lazarus Mitchell, it’s been a constant battle. Marrying his high school sweetheart and putting his dreams on hold to help her fulfill hers, he kept pushing through life’s adversities in hopes of
seeing better days. Throughout the journey, he realized that she didn’t have the tenacity he had or the wherewithal to look difficulty in the face and choose to overcome it.
Feeling heavily depressed and discouraged for the first time in his life, he worries that despair will overtake him. So, he chooses to begin anew. He enrolls in college, determined to fulfill the dreams he put on hold. He hires a tutor to help him get
acclimated once again, and upon first sight of her, he realizes that love hasn’t given up on him.
Kiana Solé Jordan is a matriculating graduate student on the campus of Lamar University. She loves science, but chemistry sparks her interest the most, and her love for the subject makes her want to help others understand and love it too.
Tutoring is gratifying and constantly makes her smile, but when a more seasoned student requests her tutelage, she feels a lot more than gratification. The fact that he’s twelve years her senior does nothing to diminish her attraction to him. For
once, she wants to take a chance on something not so safe, and the excitement of that has her feeling things she never thought possible.
Lazarus has a lot of baggage to let go of, and Kiana wants to help him along duringthe process. But that decision isn’t welcomed by the most important people in her life, causing her to question her actions more than she should. Kiana wonders if
love is worth her ignoring her parents’ and sister’s warnings regarding her new relationship, while Lazarus wonders if choosing love is worth the adversity that will come with it. Can Kiana cut ties with her family to choose the ultimate love?
Can Lazarus’s ability to love be resurrected and strengthened enough to cause him to become the warrior he once was?

Release date: January 24, 2023

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

A year and a half later . . .

“If you don’t get your ass up! I’m sick of you just going to work and coming home to wallow in depression. It has been almost two years. It’s time for you to come forth!”

I hated that I’d even given my mama a key to my apartment. She just barged in whenever she got good and got-damn ready. I rolled my eyes at her. If I did have something going on, she would have walked in on it.

“You have got to start knocking. One day, I’m gon’ shock yo’ drawz. You gon’ bust in here and a woman is gonna be in here having the time of her life.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nigga, you must have forgotten who you talking to. I’m yo’ mama. I been knowing you yo’ entire life. If you had a woman or was getting some pussy, I would be the first one to notice.”

I slowly shook my head. This woman stayed in my damn business, but I was glad for it. It was her that kept me from falling into an even deeper depression than what I’d fallen into. For the past year and a half, I’d been working nonstop, saving money. I hated living in these raggedy-ass apartments. There was always some shit going on. Sirens blared all time of the night, but they were affordable. If I had a woman or kids to protect, I wouldn’t dare live in this hellhole.

I stood from my bed and stretched. I’d just gotten off from my job as a bouncer six hours ago. Only my mama visited at the ass crack of dawn. It was only nine in the morning, and I hadn’t gotten home until almost four, because my coworkers wanted to talk and had held me up. By the time I got cleaned up and had eaten, it was nearly five thirty.

Since it was the weekend, I didn’t have to worry about getting up to go to work at my full-time job. I was still driving the garbage truck. I worked at least seventeen hours on Fridays between the two, and I usually slept most of the day on Saturday, until it was time to go back to work Saturday night at the club.

Life had been tough after the demise of my marriage. I was depressed for months and was still somewhat depressed. When I first left and went to my mother’s house, I stayed for a week. When I went back to talk to Jamie to see if she had calmed down, she’d already packed the rest of my things and put them in the garage. Rage filled me, and had she been home, I probably would have gone to jail for choking the shit out of her ass. She didn’t realize I was only soft-ass Lazarus around her. She was the only one that saw that side of me. I would have done anything for her. I thought I’d proven that when I did everything for her.

“You working tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Monday, I need you to get registered for school.”

I frowned at her. “Mama, you know I can’t afford to go to school right now. I’ll probably never be able to afford it at the rate I’m going. I gave up on that when Jamie put me out.”

“Boy, what did I say when I first came in this hellhole? I named you Lazarus for a reason. Now, I need you to come forth! You’ve been dead for far too long. Pack up this place, and you’re moving in with me. I don’t know why you moved in this shit anyway. You don’t need privacy because you don’t do shit. Come home and eliminate these unnecessary bills and get enrolled in school. Quit that night job and see if you can rearrange your schedule to go to school.”

I huffed loudly. There was no way I was quitting my night job. I didn’t know how she expected me to be able to pay for school with a limited amount of money coming in.

Before I could respond to her, she continued. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. I just wanna see action. Do what you have to do. If you don’t want to quit the other job, that’s on you. But you will enroll in school and quit fucking pining over that bitch that don’t give a shit about you.”

I slid my hand down my face as I walked away from her to go to the bathroom. Jamie had been my everything since I was sixteen years old. When we divorced, we had nearly nineteen years of history. How could I let all that go in a year’s time? I was trying to, because I knew the shit wasn’t healthy, but it was hard as hell. Old habits die hard. For over half my life, I had been looking out for and taking care of this beautiful woman who was the love of my life. I just couldn’t believe that it was all a lie. She had to have loved me at some point. I refused to believe that the whole nineteen years had been acts of greed, opportunity, and lies.

While in the bathroom, I tried to clear my head of those thoughts so I could deal with my mama and her foolery when I came out. I already knew she would be on me moving in, then would have the nerve to tell me to move on to another woman.

I was not moving in with Natalie Mitchell. What woman at my age would want a man who lived with his mother? I wasn’t sure how I would feel about a woman that would overlook something like that. Although I was far from being a bum, if I lived with my mother, I would definitely feel like one, no matter how temporary that arrangement would be.

“Hurry up so I can do something with your head, boy! You need to cut that shit.”

I rolled my eyes as I listened to her move around the apartment, probably straightening up for me.

“Thirty-six years old and can’t let go,” she mumbled.

Let go of what? Growing my hair out made it seem like I was holding on to something? Old people were weird as hell sometimes with their theories and judgments. I supposed she thought I was trying to hold onto my youth by needing her to braid my hair.

I naturally looked young anyway. People always thought I was still in my twenties. Whenever I told them I was thirty-six, they’d nearly swallow their tongues. But I liked my hair, and most times, it looked nice. Even when it didn’t look nice to my standards, I still received compliments on it at the club. I even had a couple of women gather the audacity to run their fingers through it. I quickly put them in their places, though.

There were two things I needed to let go of: my love and respect for Jamie. She was the only person besides my mom that had run her fingers through my hair. She loved my hair as much as I did—unless that shit was an act.

Staring at myself in the mirror, I took a deep breath and whispered, “Get it together, Laz.”

After handling my hygiene, I walked out to see my mama had retreated to the front room. When I peeked around the corner, I saw her sitting on the couch with her legs spread and the comb in her hand, watching TV. I smiled at how she always had my back.

She was never in my business when I was married, but she had always told me to be careful with Jamie. It was like she could see right through her ass, but I didn’t listen. I was in love. She hadn’t thrown it in my face maliciously, and I appreciated her for that.

I walked in the den, and she smiled at me and sat back on the couch so I could sit on the floor in front of her. She spent time detangling my hair then massaging and greasing my scalp before beginning to braid. The massages were always my favorite. I tended to hold tension there, which often gave me headaches.

She didn’t try to talk me to death when I sat. She turned off the TV and hummed as she made my hair look more presentable. It was soothing to my soul, and I nearly fell asleep listening to her.

It had always been just me and her. I had no siblings, and my dad was killed by the police when I was young. Supposedly, it was a case of mistaken identity. They settled with my mama for five hundred grand. She shouldn’t have accepted that, but she was young and had no one close that she trusted to advise her. She took the settlement, and we moved to Beaumont. She refused to live in Birmingham any longer after that.

I was only six years old at the time, so I barely remembered anything about Birmingham. However, that was where her family still was. She refused to go back to visit until my grandmother passed a few years ago. Thankfully, my grandmother had visited us here, though, so there was no guilt associated with Granny’s death.

As she braided my hair, I looked around at my tattered couches and sparsely furnished apartment. I didn’t own a table because I felt it wasn’t necessary for just me. When Jamie divorced me, I was left with all the bills I had incurred while we were married. I had a few loans I was paying on, and thankfully, the biggest one was almost done.

When Jamie started working, I thought she would have helped me pay them off. It wasn’t like I was bad with managing money. I was just running short from time to time when it was time to pay tuition. I didn’t want her to be burdened with student loans, but school wasn’t cheap. This country was ass backwards, charging all that money. People were penalized for wanting to better themselves. This country was just fine with its citizens being crippled with debt, especially those of us stuck in the middle that lived paycheck to paycheck but made too much money to qualify for any type of assistance. It wasn’t that I was looking for a handout, but shit, it definitely would have made things easier while Jamie was in school.

The grease-stained walls in the kitchen and the dirty walls throughout the rest of the place were disgusting. My efforts to clean them were in vain because the shit wouldn’t come off. While I wanted to just paint it, I knew I wouldn’t be reimbursed for the shit. Until I couldn’t take the look of them anymore, I would just deal with it. I was the only person that saw the inside of this apartment anyway, and the only other person that saw it didn’t give a damn.

“You have to be able to find somewhere else to live that’s cleaner, Lazarus. This shit makes my skin crawl.”

Well, I thought she didn’t give a damn. I was clearly wrong about that.

“Eventually, Ma.”

“Yeah, ’cause I know you ain’t gon’ move in with me. Stubborn ass.”

She went back to humming, and I was grateful. I just needed peace and quiet since I was only working with three and a half hours of sleep.

There wasn’t much I needed to do today other than speaking with my therapist. Thankfully, my health insurance through my job was covering the costs I incurred, because there was no way I would have been able to afford it.

My sessions were only once a month now, and they’d helped me tremendously. There were things that I didn’t want to share with my mama that I was able to articulate to the counselor. She helped me to see the worth within me. I’d allowed Jamie to rob me of that. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s time, love, or affection, and I was fighting a losing battle within myself. I always knew I had the looks to get a woman, but I felt like my personality was what drove Jamie away. My thinking was so screwed up. It took me months to crawl out of that mental space. And crawled, I did. Slowly.

After about thirty minutes or so, Mama tapped my shoulder to let me know she was done. I went to the mirror to see the four braids she had put my hair in, and it looked fresh as always. Going to her, I kissed her cheek and hugged her as she smiled.

“I just have to get my beard groomed and I’ll be looking fresh, Ma.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. You look nice, son. I need your mental to be as put together as your physical, though. I know yo’ ass ain’t gon’ move in with me, but please consider going to school. It’s time to stop deferring your dreams. Even if you only take two classes, that’s progress. Just start, baby.”

I gave her a slight smile and nodded. “Okay. I’m going to look into it.”

She smiled again. “Okay. Now let’s go get breakfast. My treat.”

“Yo’ treat? Where we going?”

“Toasted Yolk.”

“Oh, you fancy, huh? Let’s go get it then. I’ll drive. Let me put on something more presentable first, though.”

“Absolutely. You ain’t going nowhere with me looking like a bum.”

I chuckled as I went back to my room to change into some jeans. Even with the lack of sleep, I felt good today. Maybe I would paint those walls after all.

I stretched my arms over my head, wishing that I could just sleep all day long. However, if I missed church, I would never hear the end of it. Deacon Otis Jordan and Missionary Lisa Jordan didn’t play that foolishness. Even though I was twenty-four years old, I still lived “under their roof” as they would say, so I had to abide by their rules. One of their rules was that if I lived here, I had to go to church. That was fine by me. I usually didn’t mind going to church. I enjoyed the sermons my pastor preached as well as the songs the choir sang. It was just days like today, when I felt extremely drained, that I didn’t want to go.

I had finals last week, and yesterday, I’d volunteered at the clinic the church put on, administering free tests for diabetes and conducting seminars on overall health and prevention of illnesses that plagued the Black community, such as high blood pressure. Since I had extensive knowledge of medical diagnoses and medicines, I knew I could be an asset to the clinic. I was one year away from graduating and becoming a pharmacist, so I definitely qualified. I was surprised by how many people didn’t have health insurance and who couldn’t afford to go to the doctor. It was eye opening.

Growing up in a two-parent household that was financially stable created a smoke screen as to how life really was for a lot of people. Most people were living paycheck to paycheck and doing the best they could to survive. Healthcare was expensive. Having insurance was expensive. I never had to worry about either because I was on my dad’s insurance. I had a person tell me that it would cost them nearly fifteen hundred dollars a month to insure their family, and after that, they would still have to meet deductibles and pay copays. What was this country coming to when people couldn’t afford the necessities? I didn’t know what it meant not to have a yearly checkup. My sister and I didn’t want for anything and while I was grateful for that, it certainly blinded us to the issues many hardworking people faced.

After going to the bathroom, I turned the shower on to prepare to get ready for church service. It started in two hours, so I knew I needed to get going. I had a horrible habit of being late. I stood in the mirror forever, simply trying to decide on eyeshadow color. I was somewhat of a fashionista. My outfit, makeup, and hair had to be as close to perfect as possible before I could leave the house.

It was my mama’s fault. She’d created this monster. When I was little, kids used to tease me, calling me fat. She used to make me stand in the mirror and stare at myself, then tell myself just how beautiful I was. I would have to give myself compliments every day before I left the house. By the time I was a teenager, I was in full bloom. No one could tell me anything about how I looked. This five-foot-seven-inch, two-hundred-plus frame didn’t owe anyone a thing. I was happy in my size sixteens and some eighteens. God had made me perfectly, and I was sure to act like it.

I wasn’t stuck up or anything, but I didn’t tolerate insults from anyone. If the person handing those out was at church, I would find a creative way to be nice-nasty. However, if they weren’t at church, they got a version of Kiana my parents had never met. The sheltering they had done didn’t shield me from a damn thing concerning that. Although I couldn’t go to a lot of places, plenty of my friends reported back. Not to mention, there was TV and the internet. I was abreast of the times and latest trends.

Once I started college at Lamar University, it was like the world was at my feet and mine for the taking. My parents loosened the reins some and allowed me to come and go as I pleased just as long as I was home at a decent hour and did well in school. That I did. I was getting my master’s in chemistry along with my PharmD degree.

After showering and standing in the mirror, fixing my hair and makeup for at least an hour, I got dressed and headed to church. The journey wasn’t far. We only lived five minutes from church. Antioch Baptist Church was the place to be on Sunday morning, whether attending the early service at eight a.m. or the ten-a.m. service. The spirit was always high, and the word was always preached. I loved my church. I loved Pastor John Adolph.

What I didn’t like was my parents trying to hook me up with their friends’ son, Braylon. He was twenty-five and fine as hell; however, there were no sparks. We grew up as friends and knew one another well. My parents thought because their friends were God-fearing and loving Christians, their son was too. He was a ho. One time, that nigga had sex at church. Like . . . he had no fear that God would strike him dead with his dick out.

When I got to church, Braylon was just getting there too. I slowly shook my head as I rolled my eyes. Despite my annoyance with him, he was still interested in me . . . well, interested in my honey pot. That nigga had the nerve to tell me that he heard big girls had juicy pussies and that he would give his right lung to fall up off in mine. Bold ass.

I got heart palpitations at his words. It bothered me for weeks because my coochie had the audacity to be turned on. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was twenty years old, only four years ago, and I had only been with two men. However, the way she cut flips whenever he said something nasty to me irked the hell out of me.

I got out of the car and hurriedly made my way to the entrance, hoping he didn’t see me. I was thoroughly disappointed when he appeared next to me, sliding his hand in mine.

“What’s up, beautiful? You look good enough to eat, girl.”

I rolled my eyes and removed my hand from his. “Braylon, do you ever behave like a normal human being?”

He gave me a smirk as he opened the door for us to enter the sanctuary. “I am normal. I’m just outspoken. I promise you, every man ’round this place is thinking the same thing when they look at you.”

He licked his lips as I rolled my eyes once again and walked off to go to my seat. I sat in the same spot every Sunday, next to my sister. She was only a couple of years younger than me, and people often thought we were twins. We didn’t agree with that comparison. I was a shade darker than her and to us, I looked like my father, and she looked like our mother. Her cheekbones were higher, her eyes were smaller and slanted like she was Japanese, and her smile was bigger.

She was also my best friend. We talked about everything. She seemed to be a lot more experienced with men than me, but she was extremely discreet. Of course, she had to be discreet because of our parents. If they found out we were no longer virgins, there would be chaos in the house for a while. My mom took the time to explain exactly what sex was and what God intended. She encouraged us to save our goodies for the man that we married. Needless to say, we didn’t follow her advice.

I plopped next to Kinisha, and she glanced over at me with a smile on her face. She’d been here since the first service. She had obligations to the graduation ministry to fulfill. However, she was more of a morning person than I was. Most of my classes in school didn’t start until ten or later when I could help it. My parents took care of us financially, so I never had to worry about finding a job. I was just sure to volunteer whenever I could at different cli. . .