A Private Affair. Donna Hill

“And that’s the turn on. Isn’t it?” With Freudian accuracy she continued, “The other side of life that you only get to fantasize about. The whole good-girlsdon’t syndrome is tickling your imagination, like a bird feather flicking against your nose. Only thing is, sneezing is not what you have on…your…mind…to…do.”

      Nikita bit back a grin. Parris knew her as well as she knew the riffs and downbeats of her songs. Knew how to manipulate her as easily as she worked those notes up and down the scale. Parris McKay was a royal pain, and she loved her. “As usual, you’re reading way too much into this. We were just talking.”

      “When you believe it, so will I.” She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “Don’t look so lost, sister girl. Come back next week and you’ll see him right behind that piano,” she teased.

      “Very funny.”

      Parris moved toward the stage, a raised platform in the center of the room, when the MC announced her name.

      “See you in a bit.”

      “Parris,” Nikita hissed between her teeth.

      She turned, raised her brows in question.

      “What’s his last time?” Nikita asked, trying and failing to sound unconcerned.

      Parris smiled. “Parker, hon. Quinten Parker.”

      Chapter 5

      Wishin’

      Chilling on his nightly run with T.C., who’d become his regular partner, Quinn let his thoughts surf to Nikita. She was all that. A fine sistah. No doubt. Had a lot going on, and she was a writer. The first female, the first anybody, he’d ever met who actually wrote for a living. And she gave up being a doctor to try her hand at what she really wanted to do. That took heart. He dug that. Dug it a lot. Smothering a grin, he thought that maybe she wasn’t all high-toned and uppity, after all, even though he didn’t go for her type.

      He’d been a sentence away from telling her about his own writing and of Lacy’s dreams for him. Somehow, he knew that she would understand, like Lacy had. But truth be told, he hadn’t picked up a pen to write a single word since her death. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to do it. Everything related to his other life was tied to his twin sister. To write again would only reinfect the wound of her loss, as would his playing at the club. And that’s why he wasn’t going to do it.

      “Whatsup wit you, man?” T.C. probed, peeping Quinn’s silence. Generally Quinn pumped him for information about how he was doing in school, listened to stories about his sisters and brothers, and offered the kind of older male advice that he couldn’t find at home. T.C. had come to look forward to the evenings that he spent in Quinn’s company. Come to expect the feeling of brotherhood that they shared. Even though Quinn had to be at least ten to twelve years older, he never talked down to him, or tried to make him feel stupid when he shared his thoughts. More often than not, Quinn told him he needed to get out of this life and lifestyle while he still could, before the money got too good and it was too late. Yeah, money was part of the reason he continued to make the runs, but the real reason was that he’d come to look at Quinn as the older brother, a missing father, that he needed. He didn’t want to lose that.

      “It’s all good. You playin’ Jeopardy, kid?” Quinn slid from behind the wheel and out into the flypaper night. It was the kind of evening when everything stuck to you—the air, your clothes, bugs. Even the dank smells of the street rose, wafted and clung to your skin. He cut his eyes over the hood of the car and pinned T.C. with his gaze, waiting for a response.

      “Naw, man,” T.C. said, catching his breath after stepping out into the clawing night, from the cool comfort of Quinn’s ride. “My name ain’t Alex. You just seem quiet.”

      The corner of Quinn’s mouth tilted in a half smile. “It’s all good, like a said.”

      Quinn’s dark eyes scanned the length of 115th Street. Cars double-parked. Everything from run-down, rust-coated Chevys to this morning’s off-the-lot Lexuses. Music blasting from everything that could send out a tune. Pushed upward to their limit in the hope of catching a whiff of something, the gaping holes of wide-open windows, set against the run-down buildings, resembled the missing teeth of the pushcart pedestrians in constant search of a stray anything. People in every size, shape, color and design seemed to have been stirred up in a big mixing pot, then dumped out on the street, any which way. They were everywhere. Fish frying in week-old grease seeped out of Shug’s Fish Shack and hung around the mouths of the regular Friday-nighters gobbling down what looked to be their last supper. Gold twinkled around necks, in ears, on wrists and in mouths, as sure as the diamonds hidden in the mines of Africa.

      This was his world.

      He checked his left side and pulled his lightweight jacket securely over the bulge tucked neatly beneath his left arm. It was a calculated move. But necessary. Though he’d never had reason to use it in the past, everyone must know that he would and could in a heartbeat.

      Quinn wound his way around and through the pockets of would-bes, could-bes and has-beens, accepting high and low fives, brotherhood hugs, the flavor-of-the-day handshake and the proverbial “Hi, Quinn” from the red-mouthed, everything-squeezed-in-so-it-could-pop-out, weaved, curled and braided hoochies who vied for his attention.

      T.C. took up his post on Quinn’s left side, etching the “I dare you” glare on his sixteen-year-old face. Watching Quinn as he parted the sea of humanity, accepting his props, T.C. knew that he wanted to be what Quinn had become. He wanted the ride, the crib, the women and the clothes. He wanted the money and everything that it could buy him. In Quinn he saw all of these things and knew that if he paid attention, worked hard, he could take Quinn’s place on the street one day, or even have a territory of his own. But his mother wanted him to stay in school. “Get your education, boy. It’s the only way out of the ghetto.” Quinn even told him to stay in school, make something of himself. But he wanted that something now. Not ten years from now. Anyway, he’d probably be dead before he hit thirty. That was life.

      Nikita tried to stay focused. To make the words in her head, on her tape recorder and on her notepad come to life. She’d known Parris for years. They were closer than sisters. Why was she having so much trouble making her real?

      Sighing in frustration, she pushed away from her computer screen and stood up, stretching her arms high over her head and rotating her neck to get the kinks out. She stepped out of her calfskin sandals, immediately losing the added two inches that the heels gave her, and wiggled her toes. She padded over to the window, the cool of the wood tingling up her bare legs. From her second-floor perch, she could clearly see the lunch-goers, shopkeepers and local residents meandering up and down the block to their predesignated destinations. She pursed her lips and folded her arms beneath her ample breasts. One lock, weighted down by a seashell, dangled along the side of her face as she leaned closer.

      Maybe what she needed to do was take a walk, get a better perspective on what she wanted to write. She couldn’t let Ms. Ingram down, not after she’d promised she’d deliver the article. It had already been a week and she hadn’t strung together one sentence that made any sense.

      Be for real, sister, that annoying voice in her head whispered. She knew good and darn well what the problem was. Quinten Parker. Plain and simple. Every time she thought about writing the article, she thought about Quinn—the way his gaze rolled over her like hot lava, the way his dark eyes sparkled and crinkled when he laughed, the deep resonance of his voice that dipped down into her soul and shook it, and most of all, the way he listened and really heard her.

      She’d been back to the club twice but she hadn’t seen him, and neither had Nick. She’d even walked along his block, on the other side, of course, in the hope of catching a glimpse of him. No luck.

      Anyway, why was she stressing herself out over a man who obviously had no interest in her? He hadn’t asked to see her again and he hadn’t asked for her number. She didn’t have to be hit over the head. End of story.

      She tossed her pencil across