Be Bad For Me(9)

"Okay." She jumped up from the couch and started walking towards the door.

When she opened the door, she smiled when she opened the door and saw  Anthony standing there looking so cute and fresh in a white wife beater,  Nike jogging pants, and sneakers. He had a bouquet of a dozen red roses  and a gift bag hanging from his hand.

"Hey. Come in?"

"You look good," he said, smiling at her.

She didn't bother getting dressed this morning and she wore a pair of  boy cut shorts and a tank top. He handed her the roses, closing the door  behind him.

"Thank you." The roses smelled fresh and still had beads of water on the  petals, indicating that he had just purchased them from the florist.  She was completely surprised. She could count the number of times that  he had surprised her with roses on one hand. And he only gave them to  her on special occasion, like birthdays, Valentine's Day, and Christmas.  She placed them on an end table in her foyer as he sat on the couch.

"You want something to drink?" she asked, walking over to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water.

"No, I want you to come here."

"Okay … " She grabbed the water from the kitchen and walked over to him.

"That's right, bring your sexy ass over here." He reached out for her  and pulled her close between his legs. "I'm still mad at how you left me  hangin' last night. You know that I wanted to be with you last night."

She was straddled his hips, his hands around her waist. She wrapped her  arms around his neck. "If you hadn't been such a bad boy, then maybe you  would have been," she teased.

"Maybe?"

"Yes, maybe." She leaned forward and kissed him.

He kissed her back hungrily. When they pulled away, she couldn't help  but notice the growing bulge in the front of his jogging pants.

"I got something for you." He reached beside him for the little black gift bag and pulled out a box of fine chocolates.

"Mmmmm." She took the box from him and lifted up the top to find that  two chocolate candies were already missing. "Hey! You already ate some!"

"I'm sorry, babygirl. I was hungry."

"That's okay," she said, taking a bite out of one of the chocolates, and  then offered him a piece. She watched as he took the whole thing in his  mouth and chewed. She licked her lips. "Tastes good."

"Yeah, but not as good as you." He pulled her forward and kissed her  again and she could taste the chocolate in both their mouths. "I was  doing some thinking."

"Oh, yeah? About what?"

"About you and about us."

"And?"

"You know how you always say that I don't love you?"

"Yessss?"

"Well, you know I love you, homegirl. Or I wouldn't even be with you. You know that, don't you?"

"Well … kind of … but you always call me your homegirl, like now. I want to  be your girlfriend. I want people to know that you and me are together,  you know?"         

     



 

"But, you and I know that and we don't need to prove that to other people."

"But.."

"I know what you're going to say and I understand. From now on I swear  that everyone will know that you are mine. And hopefully, we won't have  that problem like we did last night with that dude."

"It's not just that, Anthony. We've been going together now for two years and I feel like we aren't really moving forward."

"What do you mean, move forward? We're together, right?" He looked sort  of skeptical, as if he really didn't know what she was talking about.

"Yeah." She nodded her head, but couldn't seem to find the words to put what she wanted into words.

He reached into his little black gift bag again and pulled out a small  velvet box. Was it what she thought it was? "Open it." He was holding  the little box out to her. She reached out and lifted the top up and saw  two diamond earrings. She smiled, even though she expected to see some  other type of jewelry. A ring, maybe. He had purchased her so many pairs  of earrings, that she had one pair for every day of the week and then  some. "They are so beautiful! Thank you!" She gave him another quick  kiss on the lips.

"I promise that I'll be a better man to you."

"I know you will, baby."

"You eat lunch, yet?" he asked.

"No, but I had a late breakfast."

"Let's go get some pizza or something. I'm hungry as a dog," Anthony said, rubbing his stomach.

She stood up. "Let me get ready, first."

"Hurry up, too," he said, reaching for the remote on her coffee table  and turning on the television. As he flipped through the channels, she  walked into her bedroom to put on some clothes.





Chapter 6





As Annette walked out of the offices of the accounting firm that she  just interviewed at, she smiled. The interview went pretty well and she  was sure that she showcased her experience and education well. She was  really hoping for a call back for a second interview or even to say that  they wanted to hire her on temporary or even permanent. The entry level  auditing position seemed like the dream job that she had been waiting  for and the starting salary was way more than she had hoped for.

When she was settled in her BMW, she reached for her cell and saw that  she had received two calls while she was interviewing. One was from a  private number and the other came from Denise. Denise left a text  message on her phone.

Denise: CALL ME ASAP! DENISE.

I activated my Bluetooth headset and called her back. She answered her phone almost on the second ring. "Hey!"

"Hey. You called? What's up?"

"Girl, you wouldn't believe what I have to tell you!"

"What? What is it?" Denise had her attention, definitely. She was always  interested in hearing the latest gossip, whatever it was.

"I can't tell you right now, because I'm in my cubicle. But I get off work in about thirty minutes. Are you busy?"

"No, not really. I need to pick up some suits from the cleaners and then I'm headed home. Can we meet at my place?"

"Yeah … I'll bring some food. What about pizza?"

Annette scrunched up her nose. "Girl, I had pizza like three days ago."

"Well, let's do Chinese," Denise responded.

"Now, you're talking. Chicken and broccoli, please."

When she hung up the phone, she wondered what Denise had to tell her. It  had to be some juicy details, because she wanted to tell her in person.  Hopefully, it wasn't anything bad, for either of them. She hated bad  news.

She rushed to the cleaners to pick up the suits that she had dropped off  earlier in the week, so that she could make it home to meet Denise  there in time. When she got home, she changed into some comfortable  clothes and called Anthony. She hadn't spoken with Anthony all day  today. He had said something about stopping by Club Scarlet to get with  the owner about some parties he was hosting for the radio station. She  dialed his number and it immediately went to his voicemail, indicating  that he had turned the phone completely off.

"This is A. Lyrics. You know the deal."

She hung up without leaving any message. So far it had been too early to  tell if Anthony would stay true to his word on being a better man.  After Sunday, besides going out to eat, there was really no change in  his attitude about where their relationship was going. She felt the  same. Same old Annette and Anthony. Same old relationship. Same old sex  routine. Maybe their relationship would always be like this. It had  gotten boring. Yes, boring was the word for it. They needed to do  something to spice their relationship up soon before it was too late.         

     



 

There was a knock at her door and she knew it was Denise. She let her in  and she immediately carried the take-out bags of Chinese food to the  breakfast bar in her small galley kitchen.

"You got something to drink?" Denise asked, taking out the containers one by one from the bags.

"Yeah," Annette said, walking over to the kitchen and grabbing two  bottles of water from the fridge. The Chinese food smelled so good and  she couldn't wait to get her grub on. She hadn't eaten since earlier  this morning. "Thanks, girl," she said, wasting no time grabbing her  chopsticks and digging in.

"I can't see how you eat with those chopsticks," Denise said, walking  over to her kitchen and helping herself to a fork. "I ain't with that  picking up a piece of food here and there, I'm hungry than mofo and  those chopsticks don't be helpin' the situation."

Annette laughed. She hadn't told any of her friends that she and her  aunt used to eat at fancy Chinese restaurants all the time where forks  weren't provided or you had to ask for one. She also hadn't told anyone  that her aunt also made her attend etiquette classes for girls during  middle school. She was sure that if she told Denise, Bianca, or even  Anthony they would almost laugh their heads off trying to picture it.  They always thought she was a little privileged and pampered by her aunt  being the only child. Of course, Bianca couldn't get over the fact that  she had been unemployed for quite a while now, but could still afford  to buy only designer clothes almost every week. Anyway, there were a lot  of things that the closest people in her life right now didn't know  about her and she wanted to keep it that way as long as it didn't  interfere with their friendships or her relationship with Anthony. What  would she tell them? Hey, I'm worth half a million dollars, but I don't  want you to know that because I don't want you to think differently of  me. I'm the same old Annette. That sounded stupid. So, instead, she  didn't want to tell them anything. Money wasn't the most important thing  in the world.