“Easier said than done, man,” I said as I stood to walk him to the door.
After he left, I did some thinking of the possibility of being a father…courtesy of Tara Harrison. I felt that debilitating grip again. The crazy thing about this situation was even if she was not pregnant, I wouldn’t want Tara. We were just two different types of people. She was silver spoon fed and I was plastic. When I started fucking with her about six years ago, it was fun because she was so different from other chicks—daring. I’d been fucking Tara since her eighteenth birthday. I sat and recalled the night when she and her girls snuck to The Joint in their drop top Beamer. They hit the dance floor hard with their miniskirts and make up on. Tara started asking for me so my peoples came and got me. She told me that since she had turned eighteen that day she could tell me why she kept eyeing me and trying to spend so much time with her dad when she knew he was coming to see me. Tara said she could act out her fantasies if I gave her the opportunity. I had sex with her that night in the back of my truck. I knew it was wrong but I didn’t fuck her like I did other broads at that time. I actually liked her.
After a year of sneaking around with Tara, my conscious started to forbid the creeping. I had to tell Big D about it. It was a relief to discover he knew she’d had a major crush on me for years, and his daughter was the type to get what she wanted. He gave me his blessings to date his Tara after a serious talk. He laid the responsibility of her on my shoulders. Two years later, Tara wanted to move in with me. I wasn’t too keen on the idea and thought Big D wouldn’t roll with it so easily. What was surprising was that she asked her dad with her mom there rooting for it. Patricia was trying to train her daughter to be like her and get with a man that could offer a certain type of lifestyle. She knew her husband was coaching me to be the hustler that I am today and that would mean security for her only child.
There was no way in hell that I was taking that leap with Tara. Living with a woman was never a desire of mine, and living with Tara had never been a thought. If I knew any better, I would’ve sent Tara’s ass home the moment I saw her at my club that night.
What I didn’t realize was that the relationship came along with an obligation and compromised boundaries between my mentor and me. Now that my feelings for his daughter had dissipated, I still felt a responsibility to him and his family. Leaving Tara would be perceived as betrayal to the only man that showed me love and guidance no matter how legitimate the reason. And not to mention the business relationship we have. This would jeopardize serious cash flow for so many people. I didn’t want to count the number of people who ate from this operation we’ve set up over the past fifteen or so years.
I deliberately switched my thoughts to warmer ones of Rayna. I don’t know this woman thoroughly but I had to say, I wanted to. After what happened a few weeks ago, I’d been thinking about getting to know her more. She frequents my thoughts and I want to be with her more often. On the contrary, we haven’t been together since that night at my apartment. Every time I thought about that night with her on my couch I could smell that flowery scent she wore. I remembered how she tried to keep it together until she couldn’t take it anymore and abandoned that calm and reserved act. Man, when I think about the way she breathed heavily in my ear asking me to help myself to her body, I have to feel she was inviting me to a little more than that.
It was at that moment I realized I was sounding like a bitch and needed to stop. Ain’t no * or woman ever had me going in like that and I wasn’t trying to let it begin there.
Little did I know…