last time you come face to face with the IRS.” Leon paused and smiled. He was already handsome, with his medium shade of brown skin, closely cropped black hair, shiny black eyes, and movie star Blair Underwood–type features, but his smile and expensive suit made him look even better. “In more ways than one,” he added, with a wink that made my toes tingle.
“Do a lot of people really lie on their taxes?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation neutral. This man was breathtaking, and I didn’t know how long I could keep my hands off of him.
“Sister, if I had a dollar for every lie I’ve been told by taxpayers, I could retire, move to Italy, and live like a king.” He even sounded like Blair Underwood. Compared to Leon, Robbie looked like one of the Muppets.
I sniffed and tried to appear not too interested. “I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said.
“So if I ask if you’re married, you’ll tell me the truth? And please tell me that you came here alone tonight,” Leon said, with a pleading look on his face. His neatly manicured hand covered mine and squeezed.
“I’m not married,” I replied, with a shy smile. “But I am…uh…there is someone here with me.” I didn’t see any reason to tell him that I was out with another woman.
Leon released my hand and gave me a disappointed look. “Is it somebody I need to be worried about?” he asked, looking behind him, and then over my shoulder.
I shook my head and grinned. “I don’t think so. There is nobody in my life that you need to be worried about.” I didn’t feel good about what I’d just said. The truth of the matter was, Robbie was no threat to Leon. He was not even a challenge. A feather could have knocked Robbie out of first place in my heart. I felt somewhat better when I told myself that Robbie was too good for me.
Leon took both of my hands in his and led me to the dance floor. And that’s where I stayed for the rest of the night in that club, wrapped in his arms.
CHAPTER 9
“Woman, have you lost your mind? You don’t know a damn thing about this Leon Webb,” Inez said two days after the night she’d taken me to the Victory Club. She and I were the only ones in her nail shop. She had closed for the day but had agreed to give me a manicure after hours. “Now here you are planning to spend the weekend with him! What about poor Robbie?” Inez asked, filing my nails so hard, it hurt. I didn’t complain or even flinch, because she never charged me to do my nails.
“Forget about poor Robbie. What about poor me! Look, you are the one who made me go out to meet other men so that I could be sure I wanted to marry Robbie. And that’s what I did. If I don’t like Leon and decide I still want to marry Robbie, that’s my business.”
“I don’t like this Leon. If I were you, I’d stay as far away from him as I could get. He’s not what you think. Trust me.”
“Do you know something that I don’t know?” I asked, puzzled. Inez had been acting like a fool ever since I’d told her about Leon. She had been making off-the-wall comments about him and trying to divert my attention.
“I know a lot of things that you don’t know,” Inez said in a mysterious tone of voice. She blew on my nails for a few seconds. Then she started filing them again, twice as rough as before. This time I did flinch and yell out in pain, but she ignored me and started buffing my nails like she was shining the shoes on the feet of a man she didn’t like.
“Do you know Leon Webb?” I wanted to know.
“Um…yeah. As a matter of fact, I do know him, and he’s not your type. He’s a friend of my cousin Earl, the one who has been in and out of jail half his life. You remember Earl, the pimp and drug dealer.” Inez kept buffing my nails, glancing at my face every other second.
“But Leon went to Morehouse,” I said thoughtfully, defending a man I knew very little about.
“So? There are a lot of educated thugs out there,” Inez insisted.
“Well, is Leon a pimp and a drug dealer, too? Like your cousin Earl?”
“Not that I know of,” Inez admitted. “But he’s not for you. Trust me,” she added, as she narrowed her eyes and gave me a quick nod.
“Do me a favor, and let me worry about Leon. I am still a single woman. And I am a grown woman. I can make my own decisions,” I said firmly.
“But, Renee—”
“But nothing,” I snapped, cutting Inez off. I snatched my hand out of hers. As far as I was concerned, the manicure and the conversation were over.
Leon wore suits and ties most of the time, and I liked that. And, he was very family oriented, one of the most important qualities that I looked for in a man. His wallet contained pictures of everybody, from his daughter to his elderly parents. He loved his family so much that tears formed in his eyes when he talked about them. His only brother, Stanley, had been killed in action during the Desert Storm War. His older sister, Carrie, a bitter divorcée who had packed up her three kids and left them on her ex-husband’s doorstep, now lived with his elderly parents in West Cleveland. There was a look of sadness on Leon’s face when he talked about how he was ready to settle down. And how he hoped that that would happen, before he turned thirty. He was currently twenty-nine. I didn’t tell him, but I was hoping to do the same thing.
Leon didn’t take me to the fancy restaurant like he had promised when I agreed to spend the weekend with him at his house. But that didn’t bother me at all. His house was the kind that I had been dreaming about living in all of my life: a cozy four-bedroom brick sanctuary on a quiet, tree-lined street occupied by professional people. He took me on a tour of his house, leading me by the hand. Every room in his house had the same thick beige carpeting. Each piece of furniture looked new and expensive. I was glad to see that Leon was also a neat housekeeper. Robbie’s shabby apartment, situated on a dead-end street between a greasy rib joint and a place that sold fishing worms, always looked like a train wreck.
As soon as I stumbled back into Leon’s spacious living room, he was all over me. He wrestled me down onto a plush brocade sofa, knocking a large potted plant off the end table to the floor, where the beige carpet was so thick, it felt like I had stepped onto a cloud.
“Oh, baby, I’ve been thinking about doing this all day,” he managed, rubbing my breasts. The only time that Robbie ever touched my breasts was when I climbed on top of him. Even after I’d done that, I still had to guide his hands.
I felt like I was made out of rubber in Leon’s arms. I was so limp, he could have tied me in a knot. I swooned when he lifted me off the floor and carried me upstairs to his bedroom. He slowly undressed me, kissing me all over. When he ripped off my panties, I knew there was no turning back.
Robbie was an easy man to lie to. I didn’t even have to put forth that much effort when I lied to him about why I had suddenly become so unavailable each time he wanted to take me to the Ponderosa Steakhouse or fishing. “I’ve been tutoring one of my students. The boy has potential, and I want to make sure he takes advantage of it.”
“That’s nice, baby. I am so proud of you. I hope this boy and his folks appreciate the sacrifices you make. I sure do,” Robbie told me.
An hour after I got off the telephone with Robbie, I was back in Leon’s bed, wallowing on his satin sheets, and squealing like a stuck pig.
The more I saw of Leon, the more Inez protested. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Renee,” she said the next time I stepped into her shop.
“What is your problem?” I yelled, grabbing an opened can of Diet Pepsi out of her hand and taking a sip.
“I have a lot more experience with men than you,” she reminded.
“Tell me about it,” I hissed, finishing her soda with a loud burp.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve learned from my mistakes. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” Inez started