Pastor Needs a Boo (25 page)

“Isn't that kinda fast for a fox-trot?”

“It is. But it will be different and fun to learn the dance to that song,” Marsha answered. She started to collect her things.

“Here, let me help you with some of that stuff,” Denzelle told her, and grabbed an armful of her belongings.

“Thank you, Denzelle.”

“You are welcome, Honey,” he said, and leaned down to kiss Marsha on her cheek. “Do you have your keys, Marsha?” Denzelle asked. He had heard Marcus fussing about his mother and her keys always being stuck somewhere down in one of her big purses.

Marsha held the keys up and followed Denzelle to her car. He opened the door, put her things on the passenger's seat, made sure she was in the car, and closed the door. He waited until she got her seat belt on and started the car.

“You call me when you get in your house. And call me from the house phone—not your cell. You understand, Marsha?”

“Umm … hmm.”

“So what did I just say?”

Kelly Price's “You're Not My Daddy, You're My Man” was playing on the radio. Marsha turned up the volume, looked at him, and said, “I'm grown, Denzelle. I heard you and will do as you asked.”

“You think you grown. One day I'm gonna show you some grown, Marsha.”

All evening Denzelle had been putting down one player card after the other. Marsha had always known he had a way with the ladies. But she'd never really gotten more than a passing glimpse of that side of Denzelle Flowers. Tonight, he was all the way live. She wondered how they were going to fare getting ready for the competition, if he kept this up. Learning to compete in a dance contest was going to put them together a whole lot. It was also going to put them in very close physical proximity with each other.

Marsha tried to shake the image of dancing close to Denzelle. She put her car in drive and said, “Dayeesha will give you all of the dates you'll need. She'll catch up with me if there are any problems with the schedule. I hope you can dance right, Denzelle. Because you are going to have to bring it, if you are expecting to do that dance with me.”

“So, you know how to do the fox-trot?”

“Yes, Denzelle. I've been taking ballroom dancing for several years now. Remember, I'm single, and I don't have a man. So I have a lot of time to do lots of different kinds of things.”

“Well, maybe I need to think of some ways to trim that busy bee to-do list of yours,” Denzelle told her.

Marsha backed out of the driveway, thinking, “He is a pistol.”

Denzelle stood in his driveway watching the back of Marsha's car until her red lights were no longer distinguishable from the lights on the other cars. He looked up at the midnight blue sky. Tonight was so clear. The air was fall crisp, with just enough of a hint of a warm breeze flowing underneath.

The artistry of the sky practically took Denzelle's breath away. He began to try and count as many stars as possible—a game he had started playing between himself and the Lord when he was a little boy. It always fascinated Denzelle that he couldn't count even a tiny fraction of the amount of stars in the sky. Yet the Lord knew the exact number, location, name, and a host of other statistically oriented data about each and every star in the sky. Imagine knowing all of that like someone knew their phone number.

“What a mighty God we serve,” Denzelle whispered.

He strained his eyes down the street, knowing Marsha was well on her way home. Denzelle sighed. He wished she wouldn't have left so fast and early. It would have been a good thing to be able to sit with her in his family room and watch a good movie.

A good movie with his arms around an A
+
girl. Denzelle hadn't had that kind of experience in a very long time. He'd been out with a lot women. And before he got himself back right with the Lord, Denzelle had slept with a lot of women. But it had been eons since he was able to sit back and relax and enjoy the company of a good woman. He had no one to blame but himself, though.

Back in his playah days Denzelle avoided a woman like a Marsha Metcalf like he would have avoided a full-blown Tea Party rally. Now he wished he hadn't been so rash and fearful of the very thing he needed. He surmised that being a Marsha Metcalf type of woman couldn't be easy—not even for the genuine Marsha Metcalf.

Denzelle had noticed that women like Marsha had to spend more time alone than some of the other women he had encountered. And he knew why. Men ran from Marsha until they were ready to commit.

He looked up at the sky one more time before going back in the house.

“Lord,” he whispered. “I'm going to need a whole lot of help from you to keep my hands off of Marsha. Lord, the girl makes me want to wrap myself around her right before I fall asleep at night.”

 

Chapter Seventeen

Tatiana ran her heel up and down the sheet on the bed. She thought it a lovely color, even if it was rough on her foot. Dove gray with navy satin piping added a classic touch to fine linens as far as Tatiana Townsend was concerned. She reached under the cover and rubbed her heel.

“What's wrong, Baby?” Xavier Franklin asked his woman.

He had been involved in many affairs during his twelve years of marriage to Camille. Not one of those women (including Camille) had managed to do what Tatiana Hill Flowers Townsend had done—make Xavier wish he could fall in love with her. Reverend Xavier Leon Franklin was forty-seven years old, and he had never, ever been in love with any woman. He had fallen in love with himself over and over and over again—but never with any woman in his life.

If asked, Tatiana would have sworn Xavier loved her almost as much as she loved herself. She knew no man's love could compare or come close to the intense emotions she felt for herself. But Xavier had managed to make Tatiana feel like his love was so great, he wouldn't even notice that she was incapable of loving him as much as she believed he loved her.

If asked, Xavier and Tatiana would have declared they were soul mates of sorts. They were two of a kind—ruthless, unprincipled, unscrupulous, and greedy. Xavier had never encountered a woman who, like him, would do any- and everything to get what she wanted out of life. In fact, Xavier secretly believed Tatiana could go way past anything he was capable of to seize what she believed was her due.

Xavier couldn't figure out why Tatiana kept scraping her foot across the sheet and tossing around like she was in great distress. He touched her leg to stop all of that movement and asked again, “Baby, what is wrong?”

Tatiana sighed. This was not going to be the easiest thing to share with her man. She was going to have to choose her words carefully.

“Xavier, you know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” he answered carefully, not sure if he was going to like where this was going.

“Well,” Tatiana began with another sigh and some trepidation in her voice. “I thought you told me that this was a five-star hotel. Remember, I kept asking you and asking you, Xavier, to be sure and pick a five-star hotel.”

Xavier sat up in the bed and looked around the room. They were in an executive suite at a premiere hotel and spa in Cary, North Carolina. It was hard to top this hotel and its amenities.

“Baby, we're at the Umstead for the day. What part of five star and luxury don't you get, Tatiana?”

Tatiana took the edge of the sheet that made her wonder if the Umstead was really all that it was purported to be, and dabbed at her cheek.

“Well,” she began with a tiny sniffle. “These sheets. They are not Frontgate's Roma Luxe Sheets, Xavier.”

Xavier ran his hand across the sheet. Tatiana did have a point. Roma Luxe sheets were six-hundred-thread-count sheets that were made in Italy. These sheets were a far cry from a Roma Luxe.

“You are right,” he said, now feeling a twinge of guilt. Xavier had bragged about the Umstead, and worked hard to convince Tatiana to meet him here rather than at a fancier hotel out of state.

“This can't be more than a Fleur-de-Lis sheet. Baby, you would think a hotel like this would be able to spend the minimal seven hundred dollars for a bare basic like Roma Luxe.”

He wrapped his body around Tatiana's. “I'm so sorry, love.”

Tatiana dried her eyes. It had been very upsetting to think Xavier would have her lying up on some cheap, three-hundred-dollar sheets. But she knew he would never, ever do anything like that intentionally. That is what made him such a wonderful man—he understood the importance of such things.

Xavier would never act like her ex-husband, Denzelle, who would have asked Tatiana if she was crazy to get all bent out of shape over some sheets. A good set of sheets from Target worked just fine for Denzelle. Neither would Xavier act like her current husband.

Todd would let her rant and carry on until she got tired. When he grew weary of listening to Tatiana's tirade, he would pull out his iPad and load up her American Express Black Card with some bonus cash. Then he would tell her to go and buy the darn sheets if it would make her happy, and end all of that fidgeting in bed.

The worse thing about Todd was that he wouldn't even notice the new sheets were on the bed after she bought them. He would have come home after being in surgery for ten hours and collapsed into a deep sleep. At least Denzelle would have known there was something different about the sheets. But that would be right before he raised hell about Tatiana spending what was a month's rent for some folks on some sheets.

That's why, more and more, Tatiana wished that she could be married to Xavier. But there were two huge barriers to fixing that problem. First, Tatiana was already married, and to a very wealthy man who gave her everything she wanted.

There weren't a lot of men out there with the kind of resources Todd Townsend had. Xavier wasn't exactly broke by most people's standards. But Todd had the kind of money most people only dreamed about. His petty cash checking account was probably quadruple the amount most folks had in their family savings account.

The other major problem facing Tatiana about marrying Xavier was his wife, Camille. She had a whole lot of money and used it to help her hold on to Xavier. Tatiana knew one reason Xavier stayed with Camille was because he craved living the good life. The second reason keeping the Franklins together was the clout that came with being married to the late Dr. Creighton's daughter, and an heir to the Classy Clean Car Wash Company fortune.

There were very rare times when Tatiana wished she and Xavier had met when they were younger and unencumbered by legal ties to other people. That would have been before she met Denzelle Flowers. They would have been some kind of team, and a force to reckon with in the denomination.

The only couple Tatiana knew of with the kind of power and presence she wanted in the Gospel United Church was Bishop Sonny Washington and his wife, Mother Glodean Benson Washington. Tatiana had always admired Mother Washington. And she often wondered why people in their church were always saying negative things about Mother Washington, and avoiding her like she had some kind of plague disease.

As nice as it would have been in theory for them to get together earlier, it wouldn't have worked too well in practice, however. Tatiana and Xavier didn't have the kind of financial resources they craved. The only way they could get that kind of money was through their marriages to Todd and Camille.

While life with Denzelle Flowers had been good on many fronts, it fell short where the money was concerned. Denzelle made a good living, but he didn't, at least not back then, have an income that could afford the American Express Black Card.

The hardest part about leaving Denzelle for Todd was giving up those warm and passionate nights (and days and afternoons and mornings and daybreaks and sunsets) Tatiana had shared with her first husband. No man had skills like Denzelle. He was the best lover she ever had—better, in fact, than her soul mate, Xavier. Now, Xavier was no slouch behind closed doors, but he was no Denzelle Flowers, either.
Nobody
was a Denzelle Flowers behind closed doors.

“Talk to me, Tatiana,” Xavier said, in a soft and loving voice.

The one thing he adored about Tatiana was her ability to make him talk sweet talk without ever having to ask that from him. Xavier never felt this way about Camille. Even though he'd talked a good game of sweet talk with his other other women, none inspired these heartfelt words like his Tatiana. More and more he wanted this woman in his life twenty-four/seven, and wished that she, and not Camille, was the one standing by his side when he began his official run for bishop in the Gospel United Church.

“Oh, Xavier,” she answered him in the sweetest voice. “I wish we didn't have to sneak around in a hotel with substandard sheets like this.”

Xavier kissed Tatiana's shoulder. It was so soft and such a beautiful color—like a shade of light-brown sugar. It tasted like brown sugar, too.

“You're wearing my favorite scent,” he said, and kissed her shoulder again.

“Brown Sugar and Vanilla Body Butter,” Tatiana replied, and turned to face Xavier. She kissed his eyelids.

“Xavier, it's getting harder and harder to live without having you with me like you're all mine. I don't like sharing you with Camille. And I hate it that she is the one who gets to stand by your side at church events.”

“I know, love,” Xavier whispered in between planting more kisses on Tatiana's shoulders. “Do you think it's easy for me to know you are with Todd?”

“But I'm always thinking of you. I tried to pretend he was you but couldn't. Todd doesn't have it going on like you do, Xavier.”

“Don't flatter me like that, Tatiana,” Xavier told her, with deep anger lines buried in his forehead. “Why don't you start doing like I told you to do, and cut him off at the knees?”

“I can't do that, Xavier. Todd can't know I'm not true to him—not right now. He just let me buy my Black Diamond Cadillac CTS-V Coupe.”