Pawns & Kings Read online

  “It’s nice to meet you two as well. Darius has told me a lot about you,” I told them before turning my attention to Leah. “I’m glad that I’ll have another girl around. All of these boys are getting on my nerves,” I said and actually managed to get a laugh out of her.

  “Girl, you and me both,” Donna said. She went upstairs with the two of them to show them where they’d be staying. I made my way to the kitchen and had breakfast. Afterward I found Leah and helped her unpack and get settled in.

  Chapter IV- Leah

  After talking to Natalie and spending the day getting settled in, I was finally beginning to feel like myself again. The whole ordeal with Allen really had me feeling out of character. I really wished that I would have never put myself in a position that allowed him to use me to set Darius up. I had no idea what they were planning to do until things were already under way. I was still unsure exactly how Darius was able to get us both out of there alive, but I was glad that he did.

  My body was still a little sore from the beating that Allen had given me. We had a huge argument the other night before everything went down, and as the trend was with Allen and I for the past few months, things became physical. No matter how much I tried to defend myself against Allen’s blows, it was no use. Physically, I was no match for him. Besides, whenever I would try to fight him back, he would only become angrier and hurt me even more.

  My parents didn’t know that Allen had been hitting me until Darius brought me home the other night. Now they were both insisting that I never speak to him again. My mother lectured me on how I should never let a man disrespect me, and I know that. But what they don’t understand is that I love Allen. I don’t know why, but I just do. Of all the guys that I’ve dated, he’s the first one that I’ve ever loved. In spite of his flaws, when he chooses to he can make me feel so good. It breaks my heart that I can’t talk to him and be with him right now, but I know that it’s for the best.

  It was almost time for dinner and I was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom that was adjoined to the bedroom that I would be staying in for the week. I showered and changed into a cute outfit, I had all of my make-up and beauty products spread out across the counter, and I was pressing and primping my hair. It’s not that I was trying to impress anyone. There was no need to since Ms. Donna and Darius had always felt like family to me. But this was all about me feeling good about myself. The past few days had been pretty rough for me, and if it hadn’t been for my family I don’t know how I would have made it through. But it is true what they say; when you look good, then you feel good. Primping had always been therapeutic for me, and I was beginning to feel like the real me again.

  “Oh, hell nah,” I heard someone say.

  I looked up from the mirror and turned my head to the door. Some guy was standing there scowling at me, wearing a white t-shirt and denim jeans that were one size too big. He had a few tattoos on his arms and looked like nothing more than a thug to me. I instantly scrunched my face at him before turning back to the mirror and continuing to put on my lip gloss.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I heard him ask.

  I finished what I was doing and then turned to him and said, “Excuse me?” as I screwed the top back on to my MAC lip gloss.

  “Cut the bull shit. I know you heard me,” he spat as he took a few steps into the bathroom. He glared hard at me, and I guess he expected me to be intimidated by him, but he had another thing coming. Guys like him didn’t scare me, they only made me laugh.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I replied.

  “It looks like you in the wrong place, girl,” he said. “This is my space. You ain’t supposed to be in here.”

  “Oh really,” I said with a chuckle. “Well, this is the room that Ms. Donna said that I would be staying in for the week.”

  “The week?!” he said, his eyes growing wide.

  “That’s right,” I said, putting my hand on my hip.

  “Chick, who are you?” he wanted to know.

  “I’m Leah… Walter’s daughter,” I said as if it should have been obvious. Once I mentioned my father’s name, I noticed that his expression changed slightly, but I wasn’t expecting him to say what he said next.

  “Oh, you’re Walter’s daughter, huh. I guess I should have known. You’re just as stuck-up as he is.”

  “What?!” I said appalled. “Don’t talk about my dad. We are not stuck-up.”

  He huffed and said, “Coulda fooled me.” I looked at him a little closer and then it dawned on me who he was.

  “You must be Terry,” I said with disgust.

  “That’s right,” he said, folding his arms. “But how would you know that?”

  “Natalie already told me all about you and the other guys,” I said as I turned to the mirror and began running my fingers through my hair so that my bangs would fall just right. “You’re just as I imagined you would be.”

  “And what did you imagine, Tinker-Bell?”

  I snapped my head around. “Tinker-Bell? Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Nah. It’s just that with all that weave and make-up you got on, I thought you were gonna grow some wings too and fly up outta here.”

  “You know what, I haven’t even been here for a full day yet and you’re already getting on my last nerve,” I snapped at him.

  “I don’t give a damn about all that,” Terry said. “As a matter of fact, I’ma keep getting on yo’ nerves until you get up outta my spot.”

  “Your spot?!”

  “That’s right. This is my room and my bathroom. I was here first, so you got’s to bounce.”

  He spoke so definitively that I almost gave in, but there was no way that I was about to let him win.

  “Well, we’ll just see what Ms. Donna has to say about that.” I stormed out of the bathroom, pushing him out of my way as I walked past him.

  “Damn, girl!” he shouted after me. As I made my way down the hallway and toward the stairs, it didn’t take long for me to realize that he was on my heels.

  We went into the dining room where Jeremiah and the other guys were already gathering for dinner. Jeremiah seemed to be getting along pretty well with the guys, but I didn’t have time to socialize at the moment. I had to put this tough-guy in his place before we had a serious problem. We went through the swinging door and into the kitchen. Ms. Donna was there with Darius, the cook Ms. Martha, and Phillip the butler. Darius and Ms. Donna were standing near the refrigerator while Phillip and Ms. Martha were making the final dinner preparations and beginning to take the food into the dining room.

  “Hey, Leah. Is everything okay?” Ms. Donna asked when she saw the pissed off look on my face.

  “No,” I said as Terry and I stood face to face with her and Darius. “Terry is trying to kick me out of my room.”

  “I tried to tell this little snob that it was my room first,” he said quickly.

  “Snob?” I said glaring at him. “I am not a snob. You’re a jerk!”

  “Chick, you better watch who you talking to before I call you something worse than a snob,” he said, putting his finger in my face until I slapped it down.

  “Hold on now you two! Stop arguing!” Ms. Donna reprimanded us.

  “Ms. Donna, how you gon’ give her my room?” Terry said, but his tone was a lot more respectful than it had been when he was talking to me.

  “Terry, I’m sorry. I forgot that you moved into that room after you guys came back from Paris,” she said sincerely. “But Leah is our guest this week. So let her stay there, and then you can move back in when she’s gone.”

  I couldn’t hide the smile that formed on my face and I made sure that Terry’s rude ass saw it. He was standing there with his mouth balled up, looking like he wanted to cuss me out, but he knew better than to do it in front of Ms. Donna.

  “Thank you, Ms. Donna,” I cooed before moving past her and Darius. I looked back at Terry one last time before going back into the dining room.

&
nbsp; I win, I thought to myself.

  Chapter V- Darius

  “How y’all just gon’ let that chick come up in here and run game on y’all?” Terry said, still upset about losing his room to Leah.

  “She ain’t running game on anybody,” I told him, laughing a little. “You just don’t want to give up your room.”

  “You damn right,” he said. “And I don’t like the way her little stuck-up ass was talking to me either when we were upstairs. That chick got a mouth on her.”

  “Yeah, I know she does,” I laughed and said. “But cut her some slack, man. I told y’all about what happened to her the other night. And besides that, she’s Walter’s daughter, so treat her right.”

  “Look, I get all that, but that don’t mean that I’m going to kiss her ass, bruh.”

  “Terry, will you quit complaining and help Ms. Martha take the food into the dining room,” my mom told him. Terry rolled his eyes but did what she said.

  “Yeah, son. Get yo’self over here and put those muscles to use,” Ms. Martha told him as she handed him a tray of fried chicken. “You need to be nice to that girl while she’s here. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I guess I can,” Terry said as he followed her into the dining room. Leave it to my mom and Ms. Martha to keep my boys in line.

  Just then, Natalie came into the kitchen. She was wearing one of the dresses that I remembered her buying while we were in Paris, and I was glad that she was because seeing her had instantly become the highlight of my day. Even though we still weren’t talking, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t missed her at breakfast that morning. I had gotten used to being able to see her for at least a few minutes before I went to work. Not seeing her that day didn’t feel right. But I wasn’t about to let her know that. I was still upset about the fact that she put me in the “friend zone” all because I refused to do what she wanted me to do. After all I had done for her, she owed me an apology as far as I was concerned.

  She only glanced at me as she brushed against me on her way to the refrigerator.

  “Excuse me,” she mumbled dryly before opening the refrigerator. That was the only form of physical contact that we’d had in a little over a week. All it did was remind me of how much I was longing to touch her and hold her. The butterflies in my stomach were a sure sign of that if nothing else. She grabbed a bottle of water then closed the door.

  “Nat, are you coming to dinner?” my mother asked her, obviously trying to break through the tension that had suddenly filled the room.

  “No, I think that I’ll just take my water and go back to my room,” she said, her voice almost woeful. I guess she was trying to make me feel bad for her, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I knew that she wanted me to come to her and talk to her, but I refused to allow myself to do that even though a part of me wanted to. She was the one who initiated our break-up and walked out on me. She should be begging for my forgiveness and doing everything in her power to get me to take her back.

  I barely even looked at her as she walked out of the kitchen. Once she was gone, my mother turned to me.

  “You need to go talk to her,” she said seriously.

  “Look, if she wants to starve herself, then that’s her business,” I said.

  “This is not about her simply not having an appetite. She’s suffering from a broken heart,” she told me. “She is in love with you and she’s hurting because she thinks that you hate her.”

  “I don’t hate her, ma’. She knows that.”

  “Does she?” my mom said. “Maybe hate is the wrong word, but the point that I’m trying to make is that she needs to know how you feel about her. Right now she just doesn’t know what to think because she doesn’t know if you love her or not.”

  “I do love her, and she should know that,” I said. “Haven’t I shown her how much I do?”

  “Yes you’ve shown her, but she needs to hear you say it.”

  “Oh, c’mon, momma,” I said as I turned away from her and leaned against the counter.

  “What? You scared to tell that girl that you love her?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “But I want to know why you’re afraid.”

  I sighed and said, “I don’t know.”

  “I know. You’re afraid to commit,” she said.

  “It’s not that I’m afraid to commit, I just don’t know if I can,” I said honestly. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “By not being honest with her, you are hurting her and you don’t even know it,” she told me. “One of the worst things that you can do to a woman is leave her heart in limbo. Trust me; I know. We can’t deal with not knowing where we stand with a man. So you need to go talk to her. I don’t want you to come to dinner until you do.”

  Before I could even respond my mother left the kitchen and went into the dining room with everyone else. I hated to admit when my mother was right, but that was the case this time around. I guess I should be willing to listen to her advice since she obviously knows more about women than I do. Aside from that, I hated feeling torn. Apart of me wanted to avoid Natalie for as long as I could because I didn’t want to face our issues. But another part of me wanted to make up with her so that things could go back to the way that they were before. I missed her and there was no denying that.

  Taking my mother’s advice, I went upstairs and found my way to Natalie’s room. She had left the door wide open and I took that as an invitation to come in. Her back was turned as she faced the window, her arms folded as if she were hugging herself. Damn, she was beautiful. She was everything that I had ever wanted in a woman and at that moment I felt like a damn fool because I knew that I was losing her.

  “You okay?” I asked, closing the door gently behind me so that we could have some privacy. She didn’t respond or turn to look at me, she just continued to stare out of the window. I approached her anyway and stood directly behind her. She shifted slightly which let me know that she knew that I was there. I was afraid of what she would do or say if I touched her, but I couldn’t fight the urge. I stepped closer to her and put my hands on her hips. She didn’t pull away so I relaxed a little. I wrapped one arm around her waist and then the other, pulling her close to me. She tilted her head to the side as I nuzzled my face in her neck. In spite of how we may have felt about each other for the past few days, we both knew that this felt right.

  I felt her sigh, then she turned to face me while my arms were still around her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Our faces were close enough for us to kiss, and I wanted to so badly.

  “I’m holding you. I’ve missed you,” I told her.

  “You missed me? Is that why you haven’t been talking to me?” she said, probably intending to put more force behind her voice than she had.

  I sighed and said, “I haven’t been talking to you because I didn’t think that you wanted me to. You broke up with me, remember?”

  “That doesn’t mean that you have to treat me like you don’t know me.”

  “That’s not what I was trying to do,” I tried to explain. “I hate to admit it, but my feelings were hurt. They still are.”

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” she said beginning to get emotional. “I was just scared and confused.”

  “I know, baby,” I said quickly, not wanting to see her cry. “I know.” I pulled her in and she allowed me to kiss her. It felt so good to do that again. There were still some things that we needed to work out between us, but the way that we kissed each other mirrored the passion that we felt.

  When we finally broke our kiss, I stroked her face as she looked into my eyes.

  “Tell me how you feel about me,” she said.

  I looked away as I released her and took a step back. “You know how I feel about you,” I told her.

  “But I want to hear you say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “That you love me.”

  “What? You think that’s
going to fix everything?”

  “No, but it’s a start.”

  I took another step back from her and dropped my hands into the pockets of my slacks. Natalie’s eyes pleaded with me to just say the words, but I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t.

  “Natalie, the issue with us is not whether or not I love you. I’ve already proven that I do,” I told her. “The issue with us is that you don’t know if you’re willing to stand by me no matter what.”

  “Don’t try to turn this around on me, Darius,” she said. “When we got together I had no idea what I was getting into.”

  “Had you known, would you have still made the decision to be with me?” She thought on it for a minute and I could tell that she was unsure.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t know, but yet you want me to profess my love for you,” I stated.

  “Either you love me or you don’t. It’s that simple,” she said, challenging me with her eyes.

  I sighed as I ran my hand across the top of my head and contemplated what to say next. She was right; this was a simple equation. But things in my life were more complicated than they had ever been and maybe it just wasn’t a good time for us to be together.

  “Natalie, I do. I love you, okay. But there is a lot going on right now,” I told her. “I don’t know if I can give you what you want out of this relationship, and you obviously don’t know if you can stand by me through this. So maybe we just shouldn’t do this for the time being.”

  “What are you saying?” she said disappointedly.

  “I’m saying that I hope that you can wait for me to handle all of the bullshit that’s going on before we can be together.” I knew that it wasn’t what either of us wanted, but to me it was our only option. I didn’t want to lose her, but I knew that she didn’t want to get caught in the middle of all this crap. What other choice did we really have?

  She walked up to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. My hands naturally found the small of her back and I began to caress her there.