Carry-on Baggage: Our Nonstop Flight Read online

  Our phone courtship continued for four weeks, but my mind was always on putting her next visit on the calendar. She was hesitant about me coming to New York, so I invited her back to Atlanta. Since I was in the middle of building Uptown, the arrangement actually worked better for me. I was excited to have her all to myself the second time around. I truly liked Cynthia and prayed she was being as truthful with me as I’d been with her. I needed everything to work out for us because I wanted her bad! We’d had quite a few steamy conversations about our sexual likes and dislikes. Some made me tense, but I longed to see if I remembered her pleasure points and how everything would go down when we finally got busy.

  On her return trip to Atlanta, I picked her up in what was officially my truck. As I cut the corner into the airport, she called to say she already had her bags and was waiting for me outside. Her voice sounded so pure. Young. Jubilant. Unencumbered. Pulling up, my eyes immediately caught sight of her long, shiny legs that filled up a pair of khaki shorts. All I could see was glistening skin. I remember thinking, “Look at all that woman, and she got an ass too!” Her beauty was criminal! I needed to meet her parents and see what they looked like. I just had to know the origin of all her crazy beauty. Her mama had to be fine as hell!

  I was having all these thoughts as she stepped out from the curb and walked toward the truck. It was just a three-day visit, but her bag was twice as large as the one she’d brought before. This time around, she must’ve packed the whole damn mall in her suitcase. But nothing mattered to me more than her finally being in the same city with me. I grabbed her big-ass bag, gave her a hug and opened her door. Her lips were shining like she had glossed them down with Armor All. They looked outrageously succulent. I wanted to stare at her the whole time I was driving, but I had to check myself before I hit something or somebody. I felt like the luckiest man on the planet. She’d come back to see me (and only me).

  In preparation of her arrival, I had been running around and didn’t have time to clean the truck. I asked if she would mind stopping by the car wash, and she graciously agreed. I felt like she was digging me to the point that she would have gone to the moon with me on a bicycle. It was only around eleven in the morning, and I needed to kill some time until her hotel room was ready. I figured it was a practical move that couldn’t hurt. The place was slow that day, and Cynthia and I lucked out having the whole inside waiting room to ourselves.

  I was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops. Standing barefoot next to each other, I stood an inch taller than Cynthia. However, in her stilettos and my flip-flops, she towered a clean four inches over me. I wasn’t trying to be standing up under her looking like Kevin Hart, so I took a seat beside her and went in. I kissed her like a beast and she kissed me back, ferociously. The flavored Armor All on her lips tasted as delicious as it looked, and kissing her was like a dream (come true). It was exactly how I thought it would be, perfect.

  We kissed for about twenty minutes. I felt like my pants were going to blow up. I was a grown-ass man making out in a carwash like a teenager at a drive-in theater. There was mad passion shooting through my whole body. I hadn’t had sex that meant something to me in over two years, but I was about to be all in with Cynthia. I knew it wasn’t just the physical with her, and it made me feel like a scared boy on the inside. I didn’t want to disappoint her sexually or otherwise.

  We had plans to go to dinner, but decided to bypass the burritos and get straight to the booty call. There was no way in hell I was gonna sit in a restaurant for two hours with that boner. Nor did I want to risk losing the sensation and rawness of the moment. I knew if my shit was crazy, hers had to be ridiculous. We both agreed that the hotel was the only possible next stop. I kissed her at every stoplight and kept my free hand plastered on her thigh. I couldn’t get to that room fast enough.

  I’d stopped by the hotel before picking her up to do an early check in and pick up the room key. We took the elevator straight to the penthouse and as soon as our feet touched the carpet, it was on. I backed her up against the door and held her hostage. By the time we’d passionately stumbled to the bed, not more than four feet away, we were both buck naked. I knew exactly what she was referring to when she asked if I had “something.” I was quick to whip out a condom to show her that I would not only be a great lover but also a responsible one. I went at her like a champion and she received it like a championette.

  She was perfect and everything I’d ever wanted. When I made love to her, I felt like I was dreaming. I found myself saying everything a man would say while making love to a woman he loved. After two or three ravenous bouts, I got up to take a shower. While I was under the water she called out, “Peter?” I yelled back, “What?” She said, “I love you.” I froze. Did she say she loved me? After a solid minute, I asked back, “Really? You do?” She assertively confirmed my question. I was shocked. The moment felt unreal. Was it possible? Could she actually be in love with me? I didn’t know if it was the loving I’d put down or what. I knew it was good, but damn!

  From the way she touched me when we made love, I believed her. I knew my life had just changed. Making love to her was the point of no return and an unspoken pact that neither of us wanted to be with anyone else. Even though I hadn’t returned her revelation, Cynthia and I were indisputably in love with each other. The sex was off the charts and we were past the formalities. No discussion was necessary – Cynthia was going to be my wife. This wasn’t random sex between two people, and I felt it was time she considered relocating to Atlanta.

  Cynthia’s One-Way Ticket

  Telling Peter I loved him was submitting to my uncontrollable urge to let him know how I felt. I had to speak the words or I was going to burst. Looking back, it was also one of my subconscious methods of testing him. From experience, I knew that a man hearing those three little words after a first sexual encounter would either get a rise in his pants or shit in them. I wrestled with my inner self, waiting to see which Peter would prove to be.

  He was definitely good in bed and it had been scientifically proven that we were sexually compatible. The intimacy placed a different level of focus on the relationship for me. I wanted things to be serious and exclusive between us. My typical behavior wasn’t to fly into a city, have sex with a guy I’d officially met twice and throw up deuces. That wasn’t my style. I could only hope Peter felt the same, but I wasn’t sure. Besides, I wasn’t about to be flying back and forth to Atlanta every month on a weekend booty pass. I could get sex all day long in New York and didn’t need to get on a plane to get my rocks off.

  My goal was to end the trip with a mutual agreement that we were more than cut buddies. My inner voice told me the way he’d turned me inside out, it wasn’t just sex for Peter. Everything just felt so right, and I was game to go with the flow of the weekend. Anything that felt that damn good had to be going somewhere. I stayed centered, promised myself I’d be honest about everything and laid back for the ride. Pun intended.

  When you turn forty, you lose the luxury of time. It’s a sobering reality that forces you to separate the shit that’s real from the shit that ain’t. I knew Peter was real because he made me feel safe. In a perfect world, I would have liked for things to have transitioned slower between us. Everything in our courtship seemed to have moved at breakneck speed, and I felt powerless to stop it.

  Originally, I’d gone to Atlanta on a weekend excursion to sell my truck, but got hooked on this dude instead. A month later I went back, we did the nasty and I told him I loved him the first time. More terrifying, the madness wasn’t over! Peter had me contemplating the thought of uprooting my daughter and life in New York for a move to Atlanta. Then, twenty-four hours after Peter and I made love for the first time, he took me to meet his parents. WHOA!

  It never crossed my mind that I’d meet Peter’s mother and father during that trip. His urgency for me to meet them before I left was just as brazen as my confession of love t
o him. It was the ultimate sign that he wanted to be in it with me for the long haul. Though neither of us verbalized it, I left Atlanta that weekend knowing I was Peter’s woman. I headed home to initiate the process of Operation Shutdown. I was on a mission to tie up all my loose dating ends back in New York. There weren’t any serious suitors, but a few hopefuls that needed to be pink-slipped. I wanted to concentrate all my energy on the likelihood of a future with Peter.

  Several anxiety-filled weeks after my second visit to Atlanta, I got up the nerve to invite Peter to New York. It only made sense for him to stay at my home during his visit. We’d already slept together, and making him check into a hotel would have been a waste of valuable time. I wanted to wake up next to him each morning and spend every possible moment together. I was also confident in showing him what I looked like in the morning on my own turf.

  I discussed his visit with Noelle’s father, because I knew Peter would be meeting our daughter. Leon grilled me with all the questions a doting, protective father would be expected to have. It wasn’t a hard sell. He trusted my judgment and knew if I was comfortable bringing a man around our daughter, that person had to be upright. Sharing Peter’s impending visit was more of a courtesy than a request for permission, because I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone. I was an adult, it was my house and I paid the rent. Without question, Peter would be staying there.

  There was just one other small issue I needed to iron out. Small as in eight years old, but hardly a matter I considered little. In fact, this was a giant issue. Noelle had her own bedroom, but had slept in my bed since she was a baby. She wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of resigning her post, and it was hard to explain this new man that had popped into my life. I never brought random men around my daughter, but for the right man (and Peter was), I made it a priority to explain my decision on a level Noelle could understand.

  I told her I’d met someone that I really liked and he was coming from out of town to see me. Noelle had never witnessed me give anyone else the type of attention I usually reserved solely for her. I knew Peter’s visit would be a definite adjustment. She seemed pretty accepting of it all until I got to the part about him staying at our place and sleeping in my bed. She was all too happy to offer up her room as a sleeping option for Peter.

  I gently explained that adults who like each other usually sleep in the same bed. Translation: she wouldn’t be sleeping with mommy during Peter’s stay. The decision was ultimately mine to make, not my eight-year-old daughter’s. Anyway, it was a perfect time to break the cycle and start weaning Noelle from my bed. After all, one day she would be going away to college and I probably wouldn’t be her roommate.

  It was a luxury to step right into Peter’s car, curbside at Atlanta’s Jackson Hartsfield Airport, but folks didn’t get picked up from the airport in New York. Being a New Yorker himself, Peter knew the ropes and took a taxi to my apartment. It couldn’t have worked out any better, because I wanted to use the extra time to reassure Noelle. This was a different experience for her, yet I could tell she was curious to meet Peter. Noelle loved her dad and was at an age where she often questioned why we weren’t together. She was a typical, outspoken, charismatic New York kid who would’ve replaced Peter with her dad in a heartbeat.

  When Peter finally arrived at our home and I introduced them, she was polite but very reserved. She basked in the opportunity to get me alone and ask why my new boyfriend was so old. I believe her exact words were, “He’s nice Mommy, but he’s an old man.” I explained that Peter and I were just a few years apart in age. She challenged my explanation by asking why Peter had a gray beard if he wasn’t old. I laughed hysterically on the inside, but fell short of finding the right words to answer her logical question.

  Peter and I took Noelle on a trip to the zoo, and afterwards I conveniently dropped her off for a sleepover at her friend’s house. Returning home without Noelle felt unsettling, but Peter had a way about him that relaxed me. I loved watching him in my home. He acted so comfortable, like he was supposed to be there. Something about being in Atlanta made what we shared feel like a fantasy. New York was my home, and now it was all starting to feel real for me. It was really my life, Peter was really there with me and he’d met the most important person in my world, Noelle.

  We were very much into each other and our union was quite natural. Peter was never shy about sharing his feelings with me. He used every opportunity to bring up the topic of me relocating to Atlanta. In all honesty, I had reached a point in my career where I didn’t have to be in New York to work. The more I was with Peter, the more I felt like I’d been there, done that with New York. I’d experienced the VIP scene, spent the summers in the Hamptons, traveled the world and been exposed to so many outlooks, cultures and people. Peter was absolutely right when he said it was time to cross New York off my mental to-do list.

  Do the damn thing in New York City?

  Check!

  Peter’s One-Way Ticket

  Cynthia’s second trip to Atlanta was only for three days. I had a lot of ground to cover before her departure. I showed her my Uptown project and we spent time driving around and looking at homes. I wanted her to know my taste and offer her a glimpse of what life with me in Atlanta would look like. It was important for me to establish a standard before she boarded that plane back home. I was serious as high blood pressure about this woman.

  I kept telling myself to tread the waters lightly, but in my heart I was putting all my hopes out into the universe. My attention slowly shifted to figuring out her transition from up north to down south. We weren’t spring chickens, and I wasn’t about to play house with Cynthia. As badly as I wanted to share the same space with her, my lack of income would prevent her from moving immediately. With Macy’s in New York being a huge chunk of her modeling work, she had more of a financial cushion than I did. Still, we both agreed she would be the one to relocate, since my restaurant build-out required that I stay in Atlanta. After leaving my ex in South Florida, I was in a phase of reinventing myself. It was a fragile time. I was on a mission to adequately provide for my five biological kids, the eventual addition of Cynthia as my new wife and her child. I put on my game face, focused on getting Uptown opened and the paper flowing.

  Cynthia was a healthy distraction that kept me focused and motivated. On her second trip to Atlanta, I can’t explain why it was so important for me to introduce her to my parents, particularly my father. I didn’t grow up feeling close to him because he worked a lot, but he’d always been present for the big moments in my life. He watched me struggle with being a young father of two children in my first marriage. Then, he bailed me out of a dark place when promiscuity ended my relationship with the mother of my third child. We never married after she had our daughter, but she was an upright woman who deserved more than I gave. During our relationship, my unquenchable thirst for women got the best of me. She ordered me to get the hell out of her life when my fourth child was conceived with a one-night stand.

  As with all my previous relationships, my dad had a front-row seat to the devastating breakup with my fifth child’s mother. I was in Atlanta, while she was living in Miami with our son. She wasn’t speaking to me or allowing me to see our son as often as I wanted. It was a bunch of silly bullshit that had my moods swinging on a pendulum, waking up mad and going to bed sad – or vice versa. I was constantly trying to find ways to block out the pain. Where I was concerned, my dad had seen it all!

  My exchange with women paralleled his struggles with fidelity. He fathered four children outside of his forty-something-year marriage to my mother. I guess it’s true that we become the things we hate most in life. He was my father and I would not have replaced him with anything in the world – but I never wanted to be like him in that way. Deep down inside I always felt he understood me on a level no one else could.

  All my life, it had been difficult for me to discuss my dad without becoming emotional.
He never said it, but I’d always felt like he didn’t achieve what he dreamed for his life. When his parents died young, he took on the responsibility of raising his nine brothers and four sisters. He had a grit that ultimately made him more financially successful than any of them, but he wasn’t happy.

  Growing up, I witnessed him coming home drunk on the regular. He was never abusive and only physically disciplined me twice in my life. My mother did the physical chastising, but my dad could give a verbal lashing that felt like an old-fashioned ass whooping. He wasn’t mean-spirited in his punishment. He just had a way of talking that made you feel bad and never want to make the same mistake twice.

  My father was a carpenter by trade. His daily routine consisted of rising at three in the morning, returning home from work around four in the afternoon and repeating the same shit the next day. Sometimes his workweek would include the weekend, and he would take my younger brother Earl and me along. I held a deep reverence for the struggles and sacrifices I saw him suffer. I can still remember the day our youngest brother was struck by a car and killed. I was only fifteen years old. The pain of his death was forever etched in my parents’ faces, especially my dad’s. I really felt for him.

  Losing my baby brother destroyed a part of him, while the monotony of his daily grind slowly chipped away at what was left. He worked hard, never abandoned his children and was always present in a broken kind of way. Providing for his family seemed to be the only happiness in his life. It would not have been a stretch to say he was depressed. He numbed his frustration and pain with an intoxicating cocktail of alcohol and women. I could always smell the overpowering scent of his unhappiness. I guess it’s why I never judged him for having children outside of his marriage to my mother. At the end of the day, I was just a kid who loved his dad.