Determining Possession (Connecticut Kings Book 3) Read online

  “Fuck that. What’s the next excuse?”

  I chuckled. “They aren’t excuses man, it’s just real. And everything else aside, I have to consider how it might affect Wil.”

  Shit.

  As soon as I said her name, Clayton’s eyes glazed over, and I didn’t have to ask to guess the visual that had come to his mind. I distinctly remembered the 2012 Olympics, where Clayton had been insistent on stopping everything just to watch the women’s track segments.

  “Nigga,” he’d explained, with his voice filled with the kind of wonder and excitement you’d expect from somebody waiting to get keys to a brand-new luxury car. “You ain’t seen ass until you’ve seen these asses, I promise you. And the thighs—Nigga, the ass and thigh combo – nah, the waist to ass ratio… Just wait, you’ll see. Goddamn works of art.”

  He hadn’t been lying either.

  I loved sports, but the Olympics had never been my thing. When they started introducing the women who were about do those sprints though, in those little ass shorts and sports bras… damn. Those were definitely the kinds of asses that could make a man a little emotional.

  That was actually the first time I saw her. Wilhelmina Cunningham, daughter of Carla Ann Cunningham – Olympic track royalty. While the announcer was going on about the legacy she had to live up to, speculating on if she’d be faster than her mother, earn as many career gold medals, etc, she was waving at the camera and the crowd with this sweet smile on her face, as if she didn’t know she was fine as hell.

  Actually, Team USA was fine as hell, period, and the island women too, in every shade of black we came in. Clayton had two in particular he was all about – Wil, and one of the Bahamian competitors, a woman named Soriyah.

  Five years later, he still wanted both of them.

  “Speaking of your fine co-host… I might have to pop up and visit you on set tomorrow. Use that as my excuse to give her my condolences on the end of her relationship… and help her transition into a new one.”

  “It’s barely been three weeks, man. Don’t come at her with that.”

  He waved a hand, brushing off my words. “Three weeks is plenty of time, old boy was a clown anyway. You saw who he was fucking, right? On what planet do you trade a perfectly cooked ribeye for a Big Mac?”

  “Women aren’t food, so… you lost me.”

  “Aiight Mr. Elevated Thinking,” Clayton laughed. “I forgot to put my realtor voice on, my bad. Gotta talk to you like I talk to these white folks – why on earth would that young man ruin what he had with a beautiful, successful woman like Wil in the pursuit of a shallow affair? Perish the thought.”

  “Nigga, I’m about to kick your stupid ass outta here,” I chuckled. “And I don’t know why that clown did what he did. I mean, Wil is…”

  Shit.

  Several not-exactly-“friendly”- descriptors ran through my head as I thought of all the reasons why she didn’t deserve what he’d done. Many of the qualities that made a person a good friend – positive energy, willing to listen, willing to push you when you needed, being a supporter, a comforter, somebody that could make you laugh, could tell your problems, understood you, etc – were the same things that made them a good romantic partner.

  The fact that she was beautiful, had an amazing body, and a warm, vivacious, comfortable sort of sex appeal that I had – mostly – mastered the art of ignoring on a day to day basis were not among those qualities.

  “I mean, the ass alone would have been enough to keep me loyal, if we’re keeping it all the way one hundred. Baby girl picked up a lil extra thickness since those Olympic days, but it went to the right places like a muhfucka. I saw those pictures a couple months ago, her and that fine ass Soriyah down in The Bahamas talking about some “hashtag, reunited”.” He bit his fist, being full on dramatic. “There was this video, bruh. They’re out in the ocean, Soriyah in a thong, ass looking like two scoops of chocolate in a dish just for me. I know you saw that!”

  I stopped cracking up long enough to nod. “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “So you feel me then! Hell, you see Wil damn near every day, and I don’t see how you do it.”

  My eyebrow lifted. “How I do what?”

  “Go day to day without putting your face in her pussy, that’s what.”

  “Bruh!” I laughed. “She just broke up with somebody she’s been with since before I even knew who she was.”

  “Which makes her a single woman, fuck all that other stuff. I’m serious about coming up there tomorrow. If you aren’t going to handle that, I will.”

  “Hell nah,” I shook my head. “You aren’t going to be handling a goddamn thing. Not with that one. No sir.”

  Clayton put a hand to his chest like he was offended. “Damn, it’s like that? Blocking ain’t even your position.”

  “Ruling on the field stands, nigga,” I warned. “She’s still heartbroken over the clown, and you think I’m about to let you line up a shot?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again and he slumped back, sighing. “I want to act like I don’t know why you wouldn’t want me around her, but shit, it’s been a long day. I’m too tired for the Oscar-worthy stuff today.”

  Clayton was my homie – one of two people I consider damn near my brothers, the other being my cousin Reggie Jr., who was my Aunt Phylicia’s son. As such, we had a policy of telling each other the truth, and the damn truth about Clayton was that son was a hoe. I couldn’t front like I hadn’t had my fun too over the years, but Clayton was very much still living that life, and that wasn’t an assumption. I heard the stories, saw the pictures, had made a habit of never trying to guess their names if I ran into him while he was out with somebody. I said the wrong name once, which got Clayton socked in the eye, and I hadn’t made that mistake since.

  “Long day? You double book your lunch dates or something? Keisha saw you out with Shawna while you were waiting for Monique?”

  His eyes popped open. “Damn, did I already tell you about this?”

  “You’re gonna get your ass popped in the eye again,” I laughed, pushing myself up from my chair. “You kicking it or not? I was about to order some wings and turn this game on.”

  “You already know my order,” he called after me. “But uhhh… why aren’t you at the game? Y’all aren’t covering the preliminaries or something?”

  “Nah, they’re just giving us a break since we’ll be out in Oakland Sunday for the next two in the series. Don’t get back until Wednesday, and then we’re in the studio every day after that, live-tweeting the other games. We get a break Saturday since we’ll be at the Bailey wedding, and then right back to the grind.”

  Clayton snorted. “Live-tweeting? You actually get paid for that shit?”

  “Part of the show. They’re filming our play-by-play reactions in the studio, but even tonight, I’m supposed to be talking preliminary finals on social media. Not that it’s a chore, but… still work. Builds the audience of our show.”

  “Builds the audience of somebody else’s show, cause you’ll be on the Kings’ starting lineup for pre-season. Mark my words.”

  “Chill.”

  “Nope. I told Ms. Debbie I wasn’t going to let you off the hook about that promise, so ain’t no chill, nigga.”

  I stopped my perusal of the wing flavor options to look up. “What?”

  Clayton’s head turned to meet my gaze. “You heard what I said, and you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yeah, I heard you, but what the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, rounding the counter to approach where he was sitting.

  “You told her – promised her – that you would go back. She never liked that you left in the first damn place, but she accepted it because you said – “once you kick this thing, I’ll go back, I promise.” Those were your words, bruh. I listened to you say it.”

  I scoffed. “But she didn’t kick it. It kicked us. I’m supposed to act like the shit didn’t happen?”

  “Nah, you’re supposed to keep
your damn promise,” he shot back, shrugging as if it were really that simple. “You’re making all these excuses for why not, and I was going to let you cook since I get it, man. I know it’s still fresh, but bottom damned line – your ass promised. And if you’re pissed, wanna kick me out, that’s cool, but I’m gonna see you get your swole ass back on the goddamn field because I promised. You aren’t the only one that lost her.”

  “I know that shit Clayton,” I growled, shaking my head. I stalked back to the kitchen and snatched up my phone, trying to distract myself, but I couldn’t even get my eyes to focus on the damn screen anymore. “When did you talk to her?”

  The answer didn’t matter. He hadn’t said anything that wasn’t the truth. I just wanted to… gauge the timing. I didn’t have to wonder if she knew it was coming, if she’d felt that something had shifted. I’d sat at her bedside while she gave me an early goodbye I didn’t want to hear, that filled me with a kind of rage I’d never, ever felt,

  Her current round of treatment wasn’t even finished, and she was fucking giving up. I tried to understand it, but all I could – selfishly – think about was the fact that I was losing the person who had been, from inception, my everything.

  I made the promise because I would have promised her anything. Three years ago, I’d left the game because she was sick – because the doctors said she was dying. I’d been on the field too many times with my head only halfway in the game because my heart was across the country with her, in a quiet room receiving chemo treatments. I played through the end of my contract and gave them nothing more – height of my career be damned.

  My presence was needed somewhere exponentially more important.

  She found out on TV. I was barely out of the meeting with my pissed-off agent and pissed-off coaches and pissed-off GM and pissed-off lawyers before it was all over TV, with the team releasing some fake ass statement of support. I hadn’t even had a chance to breathe, let alone call anybody to say anything, but I knew what that was – getting ahead of the story, being “nice”, making it seem as if they allowed me to do anything. That way, if I said anything negative, I would look like the bad guy.

  But it was pointless – for one, my mother raised me to understand the value of silence, and secondly, I didn’t have shit to say to the media about their damned club anyway. They were the ones who’d written the contract. Shame on them for giving me an unrestricted out in the first place.

  It seemed like I was the only one who was happy though.

  My mother was furious that I’d put her health before my passion for the field, but I meant it when I told her football could wait. That was when – as Clayton had reminded me – I’d made the promise to get back on the field, when she was healthy again. Maybe she already knew, or suspected back then, but I was optimistic. I honestly believed we would see that day.

  But it never came.

  “About a week before,” Clay finally answered, and I nodded, understanding that he was referring to what was easily the worst week of my life. Lots of family, and flowers, and phone calls, none of which could distract me from what was inevitably happening. “Lena had stopped by. You were outside talking to her and Ms. Debbie was pissed,” he chuckled. “Whew, shit, your mama couldn’t stand that girl.”

  I couldn’t help the grin that came to my face. “She was perky as hell for a good two months when I told her I’d broken off the engagement.”

  “Can’t say I blame her. Lena was… a lot, bruh. Still don’t understand your thought process on that one, but she is still bad as fuck. Aiight… so maybe I do understand your thought process.”

  I shook my head. “It definitely wasn’t because of that.”

  “I know, I know. Head of the fine and bougie committee shows some interest in a dude from the hood, had you thinking she was the one. She got her hooks in you early,” Clayton laughed. “She was fine and smart.”

  “Cold and calculated is more like it,” I quipped back, then shook my head. “What am I putting in this wing order man?” I asked, completely changing the subject. I didn’t want to talk about any of it right now, if I could help it.

  Because Clay was who he was, he twisted his mouth into a smirk to make it clear he knew what I was doing, then nodded. “Spicy lemon pepper. It’s been that long, you forgot?”

  “Just double-checking. You know your tastes change with the weather – weather being whoever your flavor of the week is.”

  He laughed. “I can’t even argue that.”

  I put the phone to my ear to place the order, and a few minutes later I was opening the fridge for beers. I hadn’t yet arrived to a place where talking about my mother didn’t leave me exhausted, so I was glad for the distraction of my responsibility to talk about this game.

  It was much-needed.

  “I see you’ve still got that speed, boy!”

  I grinned at the welcome I received from Wil’s father as soon as he opened the door. His words were accompanied by a hug and handshake, with a grip strong enough to intimidate a lesser man – a lesser man being the clown Wil was going to marry. He had gleefully told me the story of leaving ol’ boy with watery eyes every time they crossed paths, which had been often.

  Obviously, he wasn’t a fan.

  But Wil was his one and only, his baby girl, and for the most part, if she was happy then so was he. This was my first time seeing him in the month since the cancelled wedding, so I wasn’t surprised at all when the subject immediately changed from my viral, impromptu mini-camp video to an explanation of the violence he wanted to enact on his daughter’s former fiancé. When he wanted to, Jackie Cunningham was a man that held a certain sense of… don’t fuck with me or mine that people tended to abide by.

  He hadn’t earned the nickname “Jackhammer” as a professional boxer for no reason. Jackie Cunningham was known for the lightning fast speed and persuasive power of his fists – not a man you wanted to be on the wrong side of.

  Hurting his baby girl couldn’t get you any more wrong.

  “You know he had the nerve to call my damn house?” Jack asked, speaking in a low tone. According to her last text, Wil was still upstairs with her mother, getting ready. “Talking about he wanted to apologize to us. I told him if he called here again, I was kicking that apology up his ass. You think he got the picture?”

  I snickered. “Yes sir, I’m sure he probably did.”

  “Fucking knucklehead,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I welcomed that sonofabitch into my house for eight years. You think he appreciated it? Hell no. Because he was stupid. I mean… look at my little girl,” he said, motioning to the wall by the stairs. The Cunninghams were unquestionably proud of their daughter. The opposite wall prominently featured her accomplishments – diplomas, Olympic golds, NCAA track, and other regional medals. But the wall he was pointing to was a gallery of framed pictures in varying sizes, with one subject in common – Wil.

  He pointed to one in particular, a recent, obviously professional shot of Wil and her mother that fulfilled that whole cliché of “looking more like sisters than mother and daughter”. “That is a beautiful girl,” Jack continued. “Talented, smart, good head on her shoulders, not no damn pushover.” He waved a finger at me. “But that right there, that was likely the problem. Weak man like that? Can’t handle a woman like the one we raised.”

  I gave a noncommittal nod in response, to avoid getting him fired up, but… I strongly agreed with that. As genuinely warm and sweet-natured as Wil was, she was nobody’s punk. She couldn’t be, not in our business, where she regularly dealt with men who would pat her cute little head and ignore her if she let them. She wasn’t the type to sit back and take bullshit, and the clown seemed like the type who wanted a woman who would.

  The shit just didn’t match.

  “Ramsey! Baby you sure can wear the hell out of a suit!”

  I was smiling before I even turned around in time to see Wil’s mother heading down the stairs. Well, just her feet at first because of the spiral stai
rcase, but a few seconds later, I was able to see the woman herself.

  “I peeked at you from the landing,” she told me as she pulled me into a hug. “What is my husband down here fussing about?”

  “I ain’t fussing, I’m telling.”

  “He didn’t come here for that, he came to get Wil,” she scolded, shaking her head.

  Me? I was just trying not to laugh at them, especially when Jack not-at-all inconspicuously pinched Carla’s ass, making her yelp.

  “Will you stop it?!” She half-whispered half-laughed, clearly pleased as she stepped closer to me – probably not realizing I knew what had just happened. “This gray suit is sharp on you, sweetheart, and these dusty rose accents in the pattern of your tie are a perfect match to Wil’s dress.”

  I frowned. “Match? Is that why she asked for a picture of what I was wearing a few days ago?”

  I really meant to ask that question in my head, but Carla nodded. “She’s your date, you’re supposed to coordinate a little. You two are going to look so good together. Wil!” she shouted, stretching out toward the stairs as if that made her louder. “Are you coming down or not?”

  “Yes! Trying to buckle the shoes you said you were going to help with!” Wil yelled, and Carla’s eyes went big.

  “Sorry baby, Ramsey distracted me. I’m coming!”

  I shook my head as Carla rushed back up the stairs, and Jack moved to stand beside me.

  “You know,” he started, and just those words let me know something awkward was about to happen. “I really did always think you were a better man than that Darius, especially after I met your mother when y’all did that parent’s day segment on your show. Fine woman, with a beautiful spirit, and she raised you right,” he said, leaning in like he was telling me a secret.

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I nodded. “Thank you sir.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Jack grinned. “Between you and me – I’d love to have you as a son-in-law. Think about it – Jackhammer and Sledgehammer. Wouldn’t that be something? They’d probably write an article about us.”