Page 26 of Night and Day
“You like rubbing it in, don’t you? The fact is, something wasn’t right about the way Melissa was acting, and if I wasn’t busy working all the time, I probably would have figured out she was cheating.”
“At least now you know.”
“Yeah, she was boning another man. And ran off with him.” The past four weeks hadn’t diminished the bitter taste of that pill.
“Didn’t you say the other guy—Calvin—stole Tamika’s money?” Axel smoothly tapped a solid-colored ball into a side pocket and then started circling the table, looking for another shot.
“Yes, a real jerk.”
Axel straightened. “Back to the issue at hand. You can’t stop thinking about Tamika, so what do you think that means?”
“Maybe it’s a rebound thing,” Anton said with a shrug, though he doubted that was the case. “Or some kind of weird attraction because our significant others were cheating on us with each other.”
Marvin spoke up. “If that’s the case, your mind ain’t right, and you need to stay away from Tamika.”
“But,” Anton said, dragging out the word, “she’s fine as hell.” His thighs tightened at the memory of sliding between her legs and hearing her breathlessly moan,Please. He took a swig of beer to cool down.
“From your description of her, she sounds insane. She showed up at your house with abaseball bat,man.”
Anton laughed at the memory, the first real laugh he’d had in a while. “I know, and she’s not my usual type. She’s too—”
“Dramatic?”
He tossed the word around in his head for a while. “Maybe that’s the word.”
“You need to leave her alone and find you a nice, quiet woman who fits your personality. Tamika sounds like bad news.”
But nice and quiet sounded so… boring. Tamika was exciting. Sexy. Spicy. Outgoing.
Axel was watching him hard, eyes narrowed. “Did you sleep with her the night you dropped her off at her place?”
Startled, all Anton could say was, “Huh?”
Marvin stepped closer and stared into his face, the pool game completely forgotten as both men focused their attention on Anton.
“We keeping secrets now? Tell me you didn’t,” Marvin said.
Anton set down his beer and folded his arms across his chest. “Then I’d be lying.”
“Now everything makes sense!” Marvin exclaimed. “She’s wild, so the sex was probably wild. Don’t let it cloud your thinking, man.”
“Might be too late,” Anton muttered. “I told her she could move in with me.” Anton knew the judgment was coming but didn’t care.
“You did what?”
“Goddamn,” Axel muttered, dropping his stick to the table.
“You heard me.”
Marvin stared at him. “Bruh, you barely knew this woman. You already jeopardized your career by grabbing old dude by the jacket. If you’d fought with him, you could have lost your job. The way you’re acting, it’s not like you. What are you thinking?”
Marvin looked genuinely worried. They were good friends—closer than he was with Axel, and Marvin was used to seeing him behave differently. Calmly. Logically.
“She had nowhere else to go. What was I supposed to do?”
“Most people have somewhere to go. Family or friends. Sounds to me like she was taking advantage of you because of the situation.”
“She wasn’t. She turned me down.”
