Brothers and Wives by Cydney Rax Read Free Book Online Page B

what you say?”
    “What do you want?”
    “Promise me you’ll take me out one last time, for old times’ sake.”
    His eyes glaze over. “Promise.”
    Satisfied, LaNecia extends her arms toward his waist. “Hug?”
    She places her head on his chest, closes her eyes, and squeezes her arms around him so tight that he can feel herbreasts. For a second, Scottie’s mind leaps back in time. Back then, he savored how it felt to caress LaNecia’s young, hot curves—a feeling so good it made him forget where he was sometimes.
    He coughs and loosens himself from LaNecia’s grip. “I’ll holler at you later. I think it’s easier for me to go ahead and listen to what you have to say than it is to have to watch my back and wonder when you gonna jump out the bushes like the damned Bigfoot.”
    “Ha-ha. That’s the Scottie I know. That’s all I want,” she says in a barely audible voice. “I want to see and still hang out with the man I used to know.”
    “Um, yeah. Anyway, I’ll call you.” Scottie waves at LaNecia, then slips back inside Dani’s apartment.
    He returns to the living room to find Dani sitting on the sofa, blankly staring at a Viagra commercial.
    “Everything okay?” she asks.
    “Everything is A-okay. You all right? You need something else to drink?”
    “What did she want?”
    “What do you think?”
    “What did you say to her?”
    “It’s too damn long of a story.”
    “It is
not
. You weren’t outside long, Scottie Meadows.”
    “Long enough to get the job done.”
    Dani gasps, then giggles. “You didn’t kill the bitch, did you?” she says jokingly.
    “You’re silly, you know that? You really think I’d kill for you, Mariah?”
    “Word on the street is that you’re a bad boy….”
    “I’d love to show you how bad I am once you become mine. You know that’s gonna happen, don’t you?”
    Dani’s cheeks flush red and she doesn’t respond.
    Scottie continues talking as Dani leans against his broad chest while he tells her stories of his life. How his mother, Sola Meadows, met his father, George Foster, when she’d already had Neil by another man, a man she never married.
    “We grew up in a single household. My mom got jerked around by her boyfriends, but she raised me and Neil to treat a woman with love, respect, kindness. That didn’t always happen, of course.”
    Scottie admits to Dani that as a young boy, he felt lonely at times, because his only brother was quite a few years older. Sometimes Neil would let him tag along; other times he didn’t want to be bothered.
    “Did you wish your mom would’ve had another little boy and not just Vette? Someone you could play with?”
    “You can’t miss what you’ve never had, Dani. But I missed you from the second I laid eyes on you.”
    “Eww, sounds like someone is running game on me.”
    “Not running game. I’m the real deal, Mariah.”
    “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
    “Okay, future Mrs. Meadows.”
    “Ha-ha.” Dani laughs. “I never thought I’d hear anyone refer to me as
that.”
    “You weren’t supposed to hear that until you hooked up with me, lovely one.”
    “Scottie, you don’t have to lie to kick it with me.”
    “Oh, so you doubt me? Where’s your faith? You gotta have faith to be with me.”
    Dani doesn’t say anything.
    “I’m not hearing anything,” Scottie says softly.
    “I’m not saying anything.”
    “Then do something. You don’t have to say a word. Do something.”
    “Do what?” She frowns.
    “Wait a second.” Scottie lifts himself up from the couch and strolls over to the music. He knows music and the spines of CD cases so well, it only takes him seconds to find what he wants.
    He slides the CD case from the tiny shelf and pulls out the disc, carefully placing it in the CD player and searching until he sees the track he wants to hear.
    He turns off the television, then walks over to Dani and lifts her to her feet.
    “May I have this dance?”
    “Oh,