The Pool Boy_BWWM Romance Series Page 3
“Yes! Yes, girl, yes!”
She was more excited than I was. Shontal shrugged.
“I don’t understand you two.”
“Oh hush!” Tasha shushed her, “this is a moment to celebrate.”
“A toast?” I suggested.
Shontal reluctantly raised her glass and we toasted…
“To Kishawn finally getting it in!”
I gave my girl friends all the details I could until the sun started to set and they had to head home.
That night before bed, I wrote one last note on my to-do list for the next day.
CALL POOL BOY.
The End
2
FREE SAMPLE: The Plumber
I stewed all the way home thinking about what Kishawn told us. Her pool boy?! Kishawn!?
Y’all gotta know Kishawn for a minute to really hear what I’m saying.
Kishawn hadn’t looked at a man since she pledged herself to that asshole, Quincy. Even when he was cheating on her, she never broke a single one of her marriage vows.
If a pool boy could get her to unwind like that… he must have had something special.
The whole incident had me fantasizing about my own pool boy.
I don’t know… I’m not one for blonds. I imagined him being tall, dark-haired with a gruff beard or something. Maybe he’d have green eyes.
At home, I called my daughter, Beulah. She was studying at my Alma Mater on the East Coast, MIT. We spoke every night. Beulah kept me informed on her latest robotics project and I stayed up talking to my baby girl until midnight.
Then she asked me a question that sent me over the edge.
“Mama? Has daddy sent the tuition check yet? ‘Cause they’re saying there’s a hold on my account but he was supposed to send it.”
My blood pressure skyrocketed. Of course, Gerald hadn’t sent it.
“I’ll talk to him, honey. You get some sleep. It’s late.”
My daughter hung up and I fixed myself to give Gerald a piece of my mind. I wasn’t a quiet girl like Shontal or a classy lady like Kishawn. I tried to keep myself put together but when I needed to go off on someone, my earrings would come off and I’d be ready to scrap.
My ex-husband and deadbeat baby daddy Gerald was always trying it with me and with our daughter.
I called.
“GERALD!” I screamed into the phone.
“Yes?” he mumbled as if I’d just woken him up.
“Did you send the check for Beulah?”
“Tasha, it’s midnight. What are you calling me for, girl?”
“It’s midnight? You think I don’t know that? Get your ass up and get that check in an envelope now. Beulah has a hold on her goddamn account and you’re sleepin’ like it’s Sunday Service. GET UP!”
“Damn woman, I’m up, I’m up,” he mumbled.
“Why haven’t you sent the check yet?”
“That ain’t none of your business.”
“None of my business? Our daughter is at MIT! Think about her future for five minutes!”
Gerald lost his temper with me.
“See that’s why you still single you stupid bitch! You stay calling my phone, yelling at me at all hours of the night for no reason! The divorce said it all. I got hoes! I got hoes lining up at the door but you an ol’ dried up, crusty ass, lonely bitch!”
Silence followed. My hands shook. I couldn’t muster up a response.
“Good night, Gerald,” I said quietly, hanging up the phone.
I could fight with him like that again, I was too old for that. When we were younger we both had so much energy… for fighting… for fucking.
Now, I was just tired. I wanted everything to be simple and all I wanted was to take care of my daughter.
I rolled over in bed and hugged my pillow. Screw Gerald. He always had to get so mean when he was upset. He knew just how to cut me so it hurt.
As long as he paid that damn tuition…
In the morning I woke up to a loud, gushing sound. In my sleepy daze, I thought I was near a waterfall. Then I sat up with a start. No waterfall, just my three bedroom house, and a loud gushing sound.
I raced down the stairs to my kitchen. Water sprayed up from the sink like a frigid geyser.
“AIEE!!” I screamed.
My kitchen floor was already covered with water and wires ran right through the growing flood. Crap. Just what I needed after forking over my share of the tuition.
I was cash poor and now, I would have to call a plumber. I rushed upstairs and called work to let them know I wouldn’t be coming in. I ran a successful café downtown called Crumb Cake and the baristas could handle brunch rush without me.
After I called them, I rang my usual plumber, Bob Earl.
“Bob? I have an emergency! My pipe is spraying water into the air! My entire house is flooded and—“
“Ms. Woodstock, calm down and speak in a slow voice. What seems to be the problem?”
I got calm and explained everything to Bob.
“Sorry,” he replied, “I can’t come in today—“
“What?!”
“Calm down,” he said, “I’ll send my nephew. He’s very competent and just moved down from Oregon. He could use the work.”
“Are you sure he can handle this?”
“Yes. He’ll be over in twenty minutes. Stay calm.”
I remained glued to my window like a kid waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. My eyes snapped into focus when a camo pickup truck that could only belong to a plumber pulled into my driveway.
I rushed downstairs, standing on the last step as he knocked.
“YOU CAN COME IN!” I screamed.
“It’s locked!”
Right. I forgot. I rushed back upstairs and tip-toed through the water that had made its way into my living room. I opened the door to find a man standing before me far too fine to be a plumber.
I folded my arms.
“Are you Bob’s nephew?”
“Yeah, Brock Carlton. Nice to meet you.”
He stuck his hand out and I eyed his palm skeptically before reaching for his hand and shaking it.
“Right… and you’re a plumber?”
“Sure am and it looks like you’ve got a burst pipe.”
“Yeah, come on in.”
He wandered into the kitchen with his rubber boots and marched straight up to the sink. He pressed his thumb down and closed off the source of the leak.
Ripping off a piece of duct tape from his tool belt, he covered the leak with a temporary silver band-aid.
“Now,” he said, “Any clue how this happened?”
“No,” I replied, “I woke up and there was water everywhere.”
“This should be an easy fix.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
He crouched down and opened my cabinet to take a look at the guts in my sink.
I stood awkwardly with my arms folded as he got to work.
“Are you sure you can fix this?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“Do you always micromanage this much?”
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe it would be best if you wait in the living room.”
This man did not just shoo me away in my own damn house, I thought.
But the water soaking into my feet was reason enough for me to flee. I returned to the living room and watched him work from a distance.
How the hell could this be Bob Earl’s nephew? They were nothing alike. Bob was 5’4” with a mullet and a beer gut and an old man’s ass that hung out of his trousers while he worked on my pipes.
Brock was no old man and he wasn’t short either. He had the physique of a bodybuilder clearly visible through his thin white work tank. His ass stayed firm in his work pants and I mean firm.
“You still watching?” He called after twenty minutes.
“No!” I lied, “only checking if you need anything.”
“Only peace and quiet.”
&n
bsp; Message received. I hung back but continued to watch him work. He had a short and trimmed chocolate brown beard and pale ivory skin. His muscles bulged out of his tank and his back flexed as he wrenched my pipes free.
“Do you ever clean these?” He yelled.
I shrugged, “I call Bob when I need him.”
“You need to stop throwing shit down there.”
“Excuse me? Do you pay my mortgage lil’ boy?”
He screwed something back on then stood to his feet towering over me.
“Who are you calling a lil’ boy?”
Sweat pooled on his brow and he wiped it off on my good kitchen towels. I grit my teeth and folded my arms, prepared to deal with this cocky little plumber.
“Listen, are you finished?” I sassed, “‘cause I don’t have all day to listen to your attitude.”
“Your attitude ain’t anything sweet either.”
“Excuse me? You’re up in my home providing a service to me. I can get as mouthy as I want to.”
“You talk to everybody like that?”
“Only men who get too big for their britches.”
He grinned.
“You think you’re all that, huh?”
“No, I don’t think I’m all that. I know I’m all that.”
“You’ve got sass. I like that.”
“Sass?”
“Uh huh. Sass and good looks, two things I like in a woman.”
My mouth hung open. Was this young man daring to flirt with me? Kishawn’s experience was fresh in my mind but it couldn’t have happened anything like this. She’d been swept off her feet not taunted by a childish man.
“Are you flirting with me?”
“Why? You gotta problem with that? You look hot, I flirted. What’s the issue?”
“That’s how you treat all women?”
>END OF SAMPLE<
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Afterword
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