A whole month later and I was well into my relationship with Eric. We’ve been on countless dates attempting to get to know each other. Too bad I made a mental boundary inside of my head forbidding myself to fall for him. He did everything right by treating me like a lady, giving me his undivided attention, and going out of his way to make me laugh. But I felt as if he didn’t really get me. Or maybe it was me? I don’t know. All I know is that he doesn’t make me feel the same way I feel around Jason. And that’s the problem. I compare every single thing he does to fucking Jason Jameson. What a miserable thing to go through? Realizing you’re in love with someone when they’ve already moved on.

Ever since I came to realization that he was dating that…woman, everything came clear to me. They were all over the news, she always showed up at the office, and I have to sit through an endless amount of conversations dealing with the two of them. It made me want to literally ball up into a shell and stay in my apartment all day. Having to work for the source of all of my headaches made things so much worse. Seeing him kiss her induced vomit.

Now, after I said all of that, you would think that I’m not glad for Jason…but I am. I’m happy that he’s with someone that he has the potential to be happy with. He can show her off to the world and take her wherever he wants to take her. Considering the fact that he never had the opportunity to do that with me, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t be perfectly content with his life right now.

“Keyshia, babe, did you hear anything I just said?” Eric asked, knocking me out of my thoughts.

“What? Sorry, I sort of dozed off.”

“I was saying that the train is going to take longer than expected, so we might have to take your car into the city if you want to be to work on time.”

“Parking is way too expensive and it takes forever to ride through Times Square.”

He sighed and leaned back onto the rusty green bench. We were patiently waiting for the Metro to show up at the station. Eric insisted that we start riding to work together, counting that as time spent together. Both of our jobs are demanding so whatever time we could spare, we definitely made use of it. “You have that nice ass Benz and you never drive it. What’s that all about?”

“There’s no point in driving into the city. It’s a waste of gas.”

“Yeah. I guess I know what you mean…but if I were you, I’d just ask my boss for gas money. I’m sure he won’t mind giving you some type of raise.”

“He already gives me so much. I don’t want to ask for anything else from him.”

After a few seconds, Eric looked over at me and shook his head. “Let’s just take my car. I’ll pick you up when you get off. I don’t like being late.”

And with that, he stood up and started making his way back towards his apartment. I had to break out in a slight jog in order to catch up with him.

Jason

“We have enough time, Jason. Please.”

“No” I calmly denied Alyssa’s obscene request. She wanted to have a little morning quickie before I left for work and I didn’t have time. I was already late.

“Why are you trying to get to work ‘on time’ and you’re the boss? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. Why should I expect my employees to show up on time when I can’t even do it?”

“Ugh. It’ll only take like five minutes. Let me suck your dick or something.”

I gave her a look of disbelief and lifted myself out of the bed. “As appealing as that sounds…I have to get ready. And you mentioned something about a photo shoot, right? My driver will drive you to wherever you need to go.”

“You suck.”

I wanted to say something sarcastic, or maybe even rude back to her, but I hated arguing. That’s all we seemed to do: have sex and argue. And the sex was, quite frankly, mediocre so it definitely wasn’t worth it.

For the next thirty minutes, I quietly resumed to getting ready. Alyssa got fed up and decided to leave. It wasn’t like her company was much needed. Honestly, the woman feels like a dead weight that I don’t have to carry. I’m forcing myself to move on and out of all of the choices I’ve had to make, this definitely fell into the “unwise” category.

When I arrived to the office, Keyshia met me first hand with a piping hot cup of black coffee. She looked absolutely beautiful in her form fitting navy blue pantsuit. Her soft plump breasts were peeking out of the opening of the jacket. It was obvious that she had no undershirt on. “Jason?”

“Hm? What?” I took the cup out of her hand and adjusted my stance.

“You have to call your dad back, some guy from France called, and you have about three news reporters on hold.”

“Okay. Take the reporters off of hold and tell them I’m not answering any questions. I’ll call the guy from France back first…and I’ll handle my dad. Thanks.”

“No problem” she said, scattering away back to her office. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to avoid any type of contact with me. As if she suddenly remembered something, she turned back around and continued with the list of things I had to do today. “The tree expert man called up asking about a tree you were looking at the other day and wants to know if you still want to purchase it. You have to call the Georgia contractor back and there’s a stack of invitations I found in the mail today. They’re on your desk.”

I sighed and nodded my head. And to think that this is what my usual day consists of. “Gotcha. Anything else?”

“Nope. I think that covers everything. Although, you might want to make a call up to your publicist. She didn’t seem too happy when she called earlier.”

“She’s never happy…but thanks darling. I’ll see what I can do about all of this stuff.”

Keyshia flashed a weak smile and started to make her way back to her office. This uncomfortable relationship just can’t do. It’s actually really frustrating. “Hey!” I called back to her.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing for lunch?”

“Um. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll order something.”

“We can order something together.”

“No that’s fine…you-“

“Keyshia…”

“What?”

“You’re avoiding me and I don’t like it.”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“Looks that way to me.”

She gave me a frustrated look and shifted all of her weight unto her left leg. “I’m not avoiding you Jason. I promise.” And with that, she left me alone and went inside her office.

Halfway into the extremely busy workday, rain began to pour down outside. I think we even had some type of flash flood warning going on. The downpour brought in an unwelcome gloominess to the workplace. Everyone kept to themselves and I guess since they knew that I had a shitload of things to complete, no one wanted to bother me. The hours flew by so fast that I missed lunch and the next thing I knew, it was dark outside and all of my employees started to leave. I didn’t have anything else left for Keyshia to do today, so I let her go home an hour before she was scheduled to get off.

After finishing up a phone call with a prominent hotel owner from Paris, I grabbed my umbrella and headed out of the hotel. Pleased to not be bothered by Alyssa all day, relaxation was much needed. When I rounded the front of the hotel at around ten o’clock, I noticed the image of a small woman crying on the bench. The rain poured down on top of her as she wept. As I stepped closer to her, I noticed that it was Keyshia.

“Keyshia?”

Her head immediately shot up with a surprised look on her face. All sorts of questions popped up in my head to why the hell she was allowing herself to get soaked and why the hell was she sitting out here when I let her go home nearly two hours ago. “Jason” she responded through shivers. Without second thinking myself, I came to her side and provided her shelter with the umbrella. At this point, I was getting soaked as well.

“What the hell are you doing out here? I let you go home a while ago.”

“My boyfriend’s supposed to be on the way.”

“I’ll give you a ride. Come on. My car’s right there.”

“No…he’s supposed to be here. I have to wait for him.”

“Keyshia, listen to me. You’re shivering and I don’t want you to catch a cold. I need to get you out of this rain.”

She started to cry harder than she was before. “I have a ride. He’ll be here any minute.”

“He’s not coming” I whispered. As each second passed, I grew even more pissed off. What fucktard would leave their girlfriend out in the rain like this? If I knew what this idiot looked like, I would find him and give him a good ole crack to the neck.

“You’re practically convincing yourself this. Here, let me help you up.” I got up and reached down to accompany her.

“Jason no!” she screamed. “I don’t fucking need your help, okay? I don’t need you!”

Taken aback by her sudden outburst, I pressed my lips together. “Keyshia if you don’t get up right this second, I will throw you over my shoulder and leave you with no options. Now get the fuck up!”

She ignored me and shook her head. “I don’t need you” she softly murmured.

“You might not need me, but I need you” I bent down and held her chin between my index and thumb fingers. “Now I’m going to tell you one more time…come with me.”

Without putting up a fight, she slowly lifted herself up and leaned against me. I held her closer to my chest and supported the both of us as I made my way to my car. Luckily, there weren’t any paparazzi out due to the heavy rain. Even if there were, that wouldn’t faze me. The only thing I had on my mind was getting Keyshia to a warm dry place.

Keyshia

I tried my hardest not to accept a ride from him, but I gave in because I knew Eric’s stupid ass wasn’t going to show up. When he dropped me off, he promised to take me to a nice, candlelit dinner and a movie, now look what happened. He left me hangin on probably one of the worst days. I was vulnerable. He wasn’t there when I needed him, but Jason was. Jason’s always there when I need him.

As we traveled through Manhattan, I remained silent and tried to call Eric for the fourteenth time. There could be many reasons to why this fool didn’t pick me up, but the only one I could think about was the probability of him ignoring me. Did he get tired of me that fast that he had to leave me out in the pouring rain?

I cried because everything seemed to be falling apart at this moment in my life. I lost the chance at love, my family wants nothing to do with me, and my new boyfriend is a jackass. I know that’s not the worst thing that could happen to an individual, but having to deal with such a stressful job and basically having a nonexistent social life, it’s pretty bad.

I blinked back into reality when we pulled into the parking garage of Jason’s condominium complex. “What are we doing here?” I asked, taking in the heat of his car.

“I told you that you’re coming with me. I’m going to take care of you.”

I opened my mouth and quickly shut it. Shit, if he wanted to take care of me, why not?

We pulled into a parking space and Jason got out of the car in order to open the door to my side. Being the perfect gentleman, he grabbed my hand and assisted me out of the car. I whispered a short “thanks”.

Approximately ten minutes later and we were walking through the door of his luxurious apartment. Jason was the first to speak.

“I’ll make your favorite tea. Go ahead and get comfortable.”

I nodded my head and walked further into the living room. Since I was wet, I didn’t want to ruin his pricey furniture by “getting comfortable”, so I just stood there with my arms crossed over my chest. For a few seconds, I watched Jason take off his suit jacket and move around the kitchen. He looked damn sexy with his wet hair and slightly damp shirt. I could feel my body beginning to respond to his stimulating appearance.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking ssomewhat concerned.

“Nothing. I don’t want to mess your furniture up because I’m wet. I’ll just stand here.”

“Follow me” he simply said before starting to walk through the hallways and into the huge closet.

I followed him and waited as he pulled out a grey t-shirt and a pink pair of shorts. They looked too small (and girly) for him and then I remembered that I used to leave my clothes at his house while we were dating.

“And you still have these because…?” I joked.

“Hey, you never know what could happen.”

I took the clothes out of his hands and smiled. “Well thank you. I really appreciate all that you’re doing for me.”

“No problem.”

Jason

I took a few seconds to acknowledge her vulnerable aura and how fucking beautiful she looked. Biting my bottom lip came as an involuntary action. She noticed what I did and I could tell she was blushing. We were like two hormonal teenagers. If I didn’t know the risks, I would push her up against the wall and claim what’s mine…but now would be the wrong time. Both of us are a bit confused to what’s going on between us and kissing her would only create more problems.

I broke the silence and grabbed a pair of comfortable clothes for myself. “If you want to take a shower, feel free.” Just the mere thought of putting her and shower in the same sentence made me hard as a rock. Damn.

“Yeah...I’ll take one. I feel gross” Keyshia responded, hurriedly rushing out of the closet and into the closest bathroom.

Keyshia

“Oh shit!” I shouted as I barely caught myself from falling in the shower. Catching Jason gaze at me with that look in his eyes sent me over the edge. I know this sounds immature, but this man did all kinds of things to my body. Things I’ve never experienced before. If he stared at me any longer, I probably would have came right on the spot. So in the shower, I made the impulsive decision to free my body of the long overdue built up sexual frustration. As soon as I was about to hit my climax, my foot decided to slip and sent me flying backwards. Fortunately for me, there was a shower bar there for me to grab.

Jason busted into the bathroom seconds later and pulled back the shower curtain, revealing my naked body. “What happened? Is everything okay?!”

“Jason!” I screamed with wide eyes, snatching the curtain back and wrapping it around my body. “What the hell?!”

“Did you almost fall?” he smirked.

“Yeah. But I caught myself. Now will you get out!” My eyes instantly shot down to the enormous bulge in his basketball shorts. The Lord is testing me.

“Sorry. I uh…I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” He needs to get out of here because if so much as utters the right word, I will be all over him. “Please get out so I can get dressed” I said, breathless.

Jason nodded and walked to the door. “I made tea and ordered some food. Let me know when you’re finished, okay?”

“Yeah.”

I tried to hold in a fit of laughter when he uncomfortably walked out of the bathroom in slight pain. Men.

Jason

I looked up from drinking my tea and almost choked on the hot liquid. Keyshia walked into the living room with the tight pair of shorts and t-shirt that I gave her. I don’t remember them being that tight before…

“Either I gained weight or something’s up with your washing machine” she said, vocalizing my exact thoughts.

“You look good. I don’t see a problem with them.”

“Of course you’d say that” she smirked and stepped deeper into the living from. I had to occupy my eyes with something else that didn’t involve staring at her cute, perky breasts.

“We need to talk” I said after placing the black coffee cup beside me on the table.

“Uh oh. Sounds serious” she joked.

“Somewhat. Please, take a seat.”

She gave me a skeptical look and sat down on the plush leather chair directly across from me. “What’s up?”

“First thing’s first. Why were you crying out there?”

“I’m not obligated to answer that. Next question.”

“Keyshia, this isn’t an interview. I’m speaking to you as a friend.”

“Friend?” she began to laugh. “Ha!”

“I don’t see what’s so funny. Just answer the question.”

“How would you feel if your boyfriend left you hangin like that? I felt like a piece of shit. Like I amounted to nothing. I thought me and Eric had something good going on…he won’t even answer his damn phone so I guess I was crying out of frustration.”

“I would never do that to you.”

“Yeah, well it’s not about you…stop saying shit like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like what you would do if we were together or how much you care about me. Where is all of this even coming from?

 “What do mean where is it coming from? Why is it so hard for you to understand that I care about you? Do you know how much shit I would do for you if you allow me?”

“Jason, seriously. Please stop.”

“Stop what?! Since we’re pointing things out now. That’s all you say to me. Stop this, stop that. I’m not going to hold back my tongue!

“You have a girlfriend!”

“So?!”

“I didn’t come over for this and if I knew that we were going to start arguing, I would have walked home.”

I stared at her for a few seconds and pinched the bridge of my nose. Keyshia is the one and only person that I will tolerate when it comes to fighting. With Alyssa, things are different. “You’re acting as f I’m asking for your hand in marriage. All I did was say that I care about you. And that’s true. I don’t really care for many people so-“

“What? Am I not supposed to take your ‘caring’ for granted?”

“I’m not saying that. Listen to me, I care about you more than anyone I’ve ever cared about…and to be honest“ I paused for a moment. “you’re my best friend.”

I looked up to see her reaction. All she did was slightly part her lips and raise her perfectly arched eyebrows. “How?”

“You know everything about me. Literally everything. You’re the only person that makes me feel all sorts of emotions…and this is going to sound gay as hell, but you understand me.”

She looked a tad emotionally overwhelmed so I continued to speak. “If I lose you… I honestly don’t think I could go on with life because you’re the greatest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Jason…” she started, choked up with tears that she obviously tried to hold back. I lifted myself out of my seat, walked over to her, and knelt down to meet her gaze.

“You’re my life Keyshia Renee Reynolds” I whispered. She allowed my hands to rest on her knees as I rubbed them up and down in a continuous motion. Just like old times, she placed her hands on each side of my face and leaned her forehead against mines.

“I miss us” she simply said, with teardrops creeping down her soft face. “You made me so happy.”

That’s it, I thought. I’m going in. There’s nothing she can do or say that will keep me from getting a taste of those luscious lips.

Keyshia prepared herself for the incoming kiss by licking her lips and moving in closer to me. As soon as I tilted my head and felt the softness of her lips, there was a loud knock on the door.

“They can wait” I groaned.

“Get the door” Keyshia said, leaning back in the chair away from me.

“Whoever the fuck that is better be important.”

I swiftly rushed to the front door and swung it open without checking through the peephole.  

“Surprise!” Alyssa shouted, pushing past me and walking into my condo. I slammed the door behind her and looked her over. Before I could say anything, she ripped the crème colored trench coat off and let it hit the floor. Next thing you know, I’m staring at a naked tall, size double zero, no-ass-having, supermodel with crazy heels on. “Enough with the staring. Fuck me already.”

I shook my head, picked her coat up, and tried to put it back on her. As I was slipping it back on her, Alyssa grabbed me and began to lay kisses all over my face. “Alyssa stop! What are you doing?”

“No…what are you doing? No one rejects me, okay? So tell me now. Be honest Jason. Are you gay? You have to be. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

Right as I was about to answer her question, Keyshia rounded the corner and noticed Alyssa’s half naked physique. “What the hell is your assistant doing here?”

“She-“

“I’m actually about to leave” Keyshia replied, acting as if she were searching for her shoes.

“That didn’t answer my question. What the fuck is she doing here?”

“Because I asked her to come over and help me with something I didn’t finish at work” I quickly replied.

“Well she looks mighty comfortable here to just be your assistant. What’s going on?” Alyssa actually looked a little hurt with that last sentence.

“Nothing is going on. You know I’ve been busy these past few weeks and Keyshia, being a saint, decided to do overtime and I didn’t feel right with her being at the office alone.”

“Oh” was all she responded with. “So I guess I should come back at a later time?”

“Yes!” I nearly shouted, content that she finally came up with a reasonable suggestion.

Keyshia jumped in and stood between Alyssa and I. “You can stay. Like I said before, I was about to leave, so-“

“Keyshia, I need to talk to you for a second.”

Without protesting, she allowed me to guide her into the kitchen. I backed her up against the marble countertop and blocked her in with my arms.

“You’re staying the night. I don’t want you going back into that storm and plus, all of your clothes and shoes are wet.”

“I can manage.”

“You’re staying here” I repeated, gazing down into her beautiful brown orbs. “We have a lot of shit to talk about.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

I moved away from her and went back to the door to dismiss Alyssa but she had already left. I’ll handle that tomorrow.

“She’s gone?” Keyshia asked, walking up behind me.

“Yes. Finally. Come here.”

She walked closer to me and stood about two inches from my body. “What?”

“Would it make things weird if I kissed you right now?”

“Very. You’re still my boss and you have a girlfriend. I think we’re both a little confused and it’s probably for the best of us that we’re seeing other people.”

“Having Alyssa as my girlfriend does not reap any benefits.”

“I can name three.”

“Really?”

“Your dad loves her, you can take her wherever you want to, and she’s freakishly gorgeous.”

“None of that makes me happy. I still feel empty when I’m with her…but when I’m with you…-“

“Don’t start with that Jason. Look, I have an idea.”

“What?”

Before she could share said idea, her phone began to vibrate. I took a peek at her caller ID and the name “Eric” popped up on the screen.

“I have to take this.”

Keyshia

“Where were you?” I said into the phone, once again on the verge of tears. “You left me out there for two hours.”

“Sorry baby. My car broke down and as soon as I was about to call you, my phone died on me.”

“You could have at least taken the bus to my job. I can’t believe you let that happen to me!”

“I will never forgive myself for this, babe. I can only imagine how you felt. Where are you now? I need to see you.”

“I’m still in Manhattan. I’ll be home tomorrow. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“And that’s understandable. But-“

“Bye” I hung up on him and sighed. “I don’t believe him and I don’t know why.”

Jason came closer to me and pulled me into his arms. “Why don’t we forget about them for just this one night? We can ignore the fact that we work together….and ignore everything that prevents us from saying what’s on our minds. I need to say some things and I know you have some things you need to tell me. Sooo….what do you say?”

“I’m all in.”