Heaven Forbid (20 page)

“Hey, hot chocolate,” Lavon said as he walked into his wife’s spacious executive office in the MLM Network building.

“Hey, Hershey,” Carla responded, using one of the many pet names she gave her husband.

“Good show today.” Lavon leaned down and planted a warm kiss on Carla’s waiting lips.

“You think so? My mind was so distracted that if it hadn’t been for the cue cards, I wouldn’t have even known who I was interviewing.”

“The cameras couldn’t see that, baby doll, and that’s all that matters. What was on your mind?”

“Brianna. I’m not trying to be a snoop or a spy, but I just happened to look on her computer when I was in her room the other day….”

“Oh, I see. That computer jump up and trip you, did it, while you were on your way out of your daughter’s room?” Lavon plopped down in the large cushiony seat in Carla’s brightly decorated office. The mustard-yellow chairs complemented the other bold colors of purple, red, orange, and green. Used incorrectly, these shades would have collided, but each complemented the other. An eight-foot-long striped couch using all of the colors pulled the palette together beautifully.

“More like what I saw on her computer tripped me. You know how photos from our picture file are our screen saver?” Lavon nodded. “Well, Brianna’s is that same way. There was a picture of her in a bikini, in a very suggestive pose. I guess it was taken last month when she and that group from school went whale watching, because she was on a boat.”

“So, she was in a bikini. Weren’t they all in bathing suits?”

“I guess so, but that’s not my point. This picture was overly sexual, in my opinion. Her little butt cheeks, which aren’t so little anymore, were spilling out of her bikini bottoms, and she was proudly displaying her
ass
ets.” Carla emphasized the first syllable while turning back with a seductive smile. “So the next thing I knew, I was looking at her MySpace account.”

“Wait a minute. How did the computer jump from the screen saver to online?”

“My hand just fell on the mouse,” Carla said, laughing. “And when I looked up, there was her MySpace page.”

“I don’t know, Carla. What you did sounds precariously close to snooping to me.”

“I don’t care. I’m her mother, and I don’t like what I saw on her page. All of her pictures, well most of them, anyway, look as though she’s advertising. I need to have a talk with Miss Thang and remind her that she’s only fourteen years old.”

“Now, baby, you aren’t gonna like this, but the apple don’t fall far from the tree. You’re the sexiest woman alive. Just stands to reason that your daughter is gonna be all kinds of sexy too.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. I started screwing at fifteen, and let me tell you from personal experience, that’s way too young to start experimenting sexually. See, the problem is, you think you’re grown at that age—you think you know everything—but, baby, you haven’t even begun to live. And by the time you find that out, it’s too late. A woman can never get back her innocence, and nine times out of ten, the first man who pops the cherry is the least deserving of it. Because if he was, he wouldn’t be popping it, right?”

Lavon leaned forward. “Do you think Brianna is sexually active?”

“I don’t know, but that’s why we’re getting ready to start a conversation. I can’t be telling millions of people how to handle their daughter if I can’t handle my own. I’ve got a call in to Tai, to get some hands-on advice. She and Princess went round and round for a minute, but it seems the two now have a close relationship. Her younger daughter, Tabitha, is just a year or so older than Brianna, I think. So she’ll be good to talk to.”

Lavon rose from the chair and walked around to Carla’s side of the desk. He opened his arms. “Come here.”

Carla eyed the love of her life, smiled, and gladly rose to be in his arms. Lavon gave the best bear hugs. He could make a woman who weighed three hundred pounds feel as if she were light as a feather. Carla was every bit of one eighty, yet Lavon picked her off the floor and swung her around, until she squealed like a teenager. “Put me down, man!” Yet when he did, she stayed in his embrace.

Lavon kissed Carla on the lips, once, twice, and again. He kept her hand in his as he walked over to her office door and locked it. He walked to the speaker phone and pushed a button. When a voice answered on the other end, Lavon’s directive was simple: “Hold our calls. We are not to be disturbed for any reason.”

Once he’d ensured their privacy, he led Carla over to the sofa. He rearranged the pillows on it, lay down, and pulled Carla on top of him. They enjoyed exploring each other’s mouths with their tongues for long moments. Lavon reached down and cupped Carla’s thick backside. A side from her over-flowing mounds, her luscious lips, her large shapely legs, and her beautiful face, her “baby got back” was one of the things he loved best about her. He kneaded it gently, even as Carla began to grind into his already hardening manhood.

“Um, careful, you about to start something we can’t finish right now.” Lavon rolled out from under Carla and positioned her on her stomach. He knelt beside the couch and began a massage from her shoulders down her legs and back.

“Ooh, Lavon, that feels so good. This is exactly what I needed.” They enjoyed a companionable silence, broken only by Carla’s oohs and ahs.

Lavon was almost finished, when his hands went still. “Baby…”

“Hum?”

“I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“Forgot to tell you about a call I received, something very interesting I might add.”

“What?” Carla asked drowsily. Lavon’s strong hands and expert ministrations were putting her to sleep, and she couldn’t think of any kind of news she wanted to hear at this moment.

“Friend of mine saw Stan kissing a dude in the Cathedral’s church parking lot.”

This news woke Carla right up. “What?” she asked, lifting her head from her arms.

“Well, actually, the dude kissed Stan. But that was after they had some kind of intense conversation. Stan was trying to leave and the man—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Carla said, sitting up. “You’re talking about Stanley Morris Lee, my ex-husband, father of my three children, pastor of Logos Word Interdenominational—”

“Yes, yes, and yes!” Lavon sat down next to Carla.

“Kissing a man you say?”

“Bryce Covington.”

“The politician?”

“The one and only.”

“The pretty boy?”

“Ah, I don’t know about all that…”

“That fine, light-skinned brothah who’s so pretty he looks like a cross between Rick Fox and Vivica Fox?”

“Ha! Woman, will you stop focusing on fine foxes and let me finish telling you what I heard?”

“Wait a minute. Who did you hear this from? You know I don’t believe one bit of gossip I hear, especially coming from church folk. I’ve been the subject of that, remember?”

Lavon fixed Carla with a look. “How can I forget? Anyway, this news comes from someone reliable, a friend of mine. We used to work media together in a ministry in Minneapolis. He’s now the media director at the Cathedral. He was sitting in his car in the parking lot, talking on the phone, when he saw this all go down.”

“All of what go down?” Carla’s mind was reeling, even as her intuition had her more believing the story than not. It would explain a lot of things about Stan Lee, particularly when it came to the demise of their marriage.

“That’s all. Just this dude kissing Stan…on the lips. Stan was walking to his car when Bryce called out to him, and my friend said at first it looked like Stan wanted to get into his car. But Bryce kept holding him back. They talked quietly for a few minutes, and then Bryce kissed him, they hugged, and then—according to my source, who shall remain nameless—they both got in their cars and left.”

“Oh, my…,” Carla said, her hand to her chest. “My, my, my…”

“So what do you think? Stan’s a down-low preacher? You know that as quiet as it’s kept, there are more than a few—”

“I don’t know if I can believe this, Lavon. Isn’t Bryce married with children?”

“Isn’t Stanley?”

“Touché.”

“And more than that. Bryce is no longer married. He divorced his wife last year and came out.”

“Came out?”

“Admitted he was gay. He didn’t do it in a grand way, with a press release and news conference, but he doesn’t try and hide it either. My friend tells me he’s seen around town with a young, dark, super handsome brothah—his partner, I guess. That’s why my informant was so shocked to see Bryce kiss Stan. He knew Bryce was gay but had no idea that Stan might roll that way.”

The intercom interrupted their conversation. “I know you said no interruptions, Lavon, but it’s Princess Brook on the line and you said—”

“And I meant it,” Lavon said, a smile in his voice. “Good job, Susan, we’ll take the call.”

Carla shifted back into talk show host mode and spent the next half hour conversing with her good friend’s daughter. She could tell she was going to love doing the show with Princess, who had the right blend of straightforwardness and personality that made one a star. They decided to air the show live, on the same day the book came out. If everything went the way Carla and Lavon planned, Princess’s book would make the
New York Times
bestseller list.

Shortly after they finished the call, the Lees decided to leave the office and handle anything else that needed attention from home. Aside from work, there were several matters that demanded their attention. They both were concerned about Brianna and decided to talk to her that night. For Lavon, he also wanted to finish what he and his wife had started in her office. When it came to Carla, Lavon was insatiable. There was no place he’d rather be than on top of her.

Carla was juggling those two issues, and one more. She had to find out the truth about Stan. Was he gay? Perhaps bi? And if he wasn’t down low, just how much about this other relationship did his wife, Passion, know? Some would say it wasn’t her business, but Carla was making it hers. She and this man had two natural children together, and he’d adopted Brianna as well. His being gay would also totally explain his aversion to having sex with her. Yes, Carla was making Stan’s bedroom business her business. And soon, she knew, it would be time to have a conversation with Passion Perkins Lee.

Kelvin settled back into the seat of the plane he’d chartered to return to Phoenix. A pretty nurse/assistant and a personal trainer sat in the back section; his best friend, Brandon, occupied the seat next to him. It was hard to believe that he’d spent over a month in Los Angeles, but the truth was, the stay had done him good. Ever since finding out at the age of sixteen that Derrick Montgomery was his biological father, the two had experienced a turbulent relationship. He was like his father in many ways, and being stubborn was one of Derrick’s traits that Kelvin had inherited.

Kelvin had gone to live with his father shortly after receiving an athletic scholarship to UCLA. At first, things had gone smoothly. While Kelvin’s uncle Geoff was wealthy and lived in a very nice home in Santa Barbara, Kelvin loved the cosmopolitan vibe of his father’s Beverly Hills mansion. He loved being twenty, thirty minutes from the action: Sunset Strip, Malibu, Bel Air, Hollywood, Universal City, and places to shop on every corner. Another fifteen minutes and he was in the heart of the hood, where some serious balling went on and where he continued to get his hair cut until he moved to Phoenix. Kelvin became close to his half brother and sister, and loved the homey atmosphere his stepmother, Vivian, created.

Some say nothing good lasts forever. Six months into his stay, Kelvin and Derrick went head-to-head on a matter on which neither would budge: Derrick demanded that Kelvin attend church regularly, and Kelvin countered that he didn’t need God or church. Kelvin moved out, and it was a rocky road—paved with their mutual love for basketball—that eventually brought father and son back together again. But then Kelvin got drafted by the Phoenix Suns and moved to Phoenix. He and Derrick had tried to remain close, but their busy schedules made regular conversations difficult, especially since he couldn’t seem to get his dad into the texting mode. Spending this time now under the same roof had helped them bond again. Kelvin was doubly thankful: for the stepfather who loved him like a son and for the biological father who’d helped the boy become a man.

“Mr. Petersen, can we get you a drink before takeoff? A light snack, perhaps?”

“Some orange juice would be nice,” Kelvin replied. “Buckle up, man,” he said to Brandon, who was busy doing business on his laptop. “And put away the books…chillax for a minute.”

Kelvin’s vibrating satellite phone interrupted him. He immediately thought of Stephanie and smiled when his phone listed the caller as unknown. That sometimes happened with international calls.

“Hey, beautiful!” Kelvin said, by way of greeting.

“Wow, Kelvin, I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder.”

Kelvin’s smile turned upside down. “What’s up, Fawn?”

“Oh, so I take it that greeting wasn’t for me.”

Kelvin ignored her comment. “Is Little Man all right? I was going to call you anyway. I’m headed back home, to Phoenix. I was hoping the nanny could drop him off tomorrow.”

“Sounds like you’ve missed your son.”

“Of course.”

“What about his mother?”

“Fawn, must we always go through the baby-mama yip-yip? I just want to have a cordial conversation about Kelvin.”

“All right.”

“All right? Just like that? Maybe I do need to ask if you’re okay.”

Kelvin and Fawn laughed. It was a rare moment of civility, reminding them that at one time they’d actually liked each other.

“I am calling about Kelvin,” Fawn continued.

Kelvin sat up straighter in his seat. “What about him?”

The flight attendant stopped in front of him. “Sorry, Mr. Petersen, but we’re ready to take off. If you can end this call until after we’re airborne, that would be wonderful.”

Kelvin nodded at the flight attendant, and spoke into the phone. “Look, I gotta go, but will call you back in a few minutes. But just tell me, is my son okay?”

“Yes, Kelvin, he’s fine. But there is something going on that I need to talk with you about.”

Kelvin ended the call, his brow furrowed as he looked out the window. Fawn said nothing was wrong with Little Kelvin, but she still needed to tell him something? Kelvin couldn’t wait until the plane reached cruising altitude and he could call Fawn back. His heartbeat probably wouldn’t return to normal until he found out exactly what was going on.