Distraction (Finding Me #1) Read online

  Distraction

  (Finding Me – Book One)

  By

  Jada Crystal

  Copyright 2014 @ Jada Crystal

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written consent of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and products are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Cover image courtesy of [stockimages] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  Acknowledgements

  I’ve never been good at writing acknowledgements, but I want to take the time to tell you, my fans, how much I appreciate your support. Yes, writing is hard, and I know that most of you are accustomed to reading lengthy novels, but I present to you my artistic side in the form of this short, mini-series. Here’s why.

  I always dreamed of writing for a TV show or network and since that door hasn’t opened for me, I created my own door. I’m writing, putting my talent out there to the world in hopes that my work can entertain those of you who give me a chance to come into your lives. Via this mini-series (or episodes as I like to think of them), I present to you some real life drama to keep you entertained and begging for more, anxiously awaiting the next episode. Thanks so much for giving my work a chance! I’m forever grateful.

  Distraction

  Chapter 1

  Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

  I’m Kendra Watts. I’m thirty-one. I’ve been married for nine years and in those long, rather dreadful years, I’ve managed to be a faithful wife and mother of one – a little boy named Brandon. I love my family as a unit, but lately, I’ve been feeling invisible to my husband. Don’t get me wrong, Corey is a good man. He faithfully goes to work every day (albeit late, but better late than never, right?) and he manages the bills, but when he gets home, he’s a complete slob. He sits on the sofa, his feet smelling like Gods knows what, eating junk food like an acne-faced teenager while watching stupid YouTube videos and catching up on his friend’s Facebook statuses.

  I’m just getting started...

  People usually say in marriages, or any relationship for that matter, that it’s the woman who “let herself go”. In my case, it is the complete opposite. I keep my size twelve body tight with a regular routine of exercise. I make sure my hair is done, keep my nails looking good and I take good care of my skin and body.

  Corey, on the other hand, looks rough. Two years into the marriage, he tried to keep up with me and my style but then I guess his true style of dress came through – jogging pants that were two sizes too big, faded T-shirts and mud-dried flip flops. Besides his job, he has nothing going for himself. No goals. No ambitions. Quite frankly, I’m surprised he’s able to keep a job.

  I’m not a stay-at-home mom. I work, too, full-time, because one income can’t pay all of our bills. Three months ago, I was hired at a finance company and I absolutely hate it – having to basically force high interest loans on people, even if they didn’t come in for a loan. I must hit my quota, according to my manager, or else I’ll get written up. So all day, I’m basically under pressure, stressed out to the max, and to make matters worse, when I get home, there’s no relief. I have to do more work, entertain my son, vacuum, dust, sort through the mail, cook dinner, load the dishwasher, take my son a bath, take out the trash, shower then get in bed. Finally, peace and rest, right?

  Wrong!

  Corey slides up behind me, all three-hundred pounds of him, and rubs my back because that’s how he initiates sex every, single time he wants it. Every time. Mind you, he hasn’t showered, and I’m just too tired to even think about sex. So I brush him off and go to sleep.

  That’s been the routine for the past few years, the worst years of our marriage. I noticed the downturn in our relationship around year five, after Brandon was born. That’s because being a mom changed me. It showed me what unconditional love was all about. I thought I knew, but I didn’t know what love was until I had my son. I also came to understand what women meant when they said men were like children. The same way I clean up after Brandon, I clean up after Corey. I wash Brandon’s clothes. I wash Corey’s clothes. I cook for Brandon. I cook for Corey. I damn near spoon feed Corey and there’s no appreciation whatsoever. Not one ‘thank you’. Not a single gesture of appreciation. Some men just don’t know how to be husbands, and I got one of them.

  Now, I’m tired – tired of feeling like a roommate instead of a wife. Never in a million years would I have guessed I would be stuck in a dull, passionless marriage, one that left me wishing I had a man who appreciated me more. A man who was exciting. Who had drive. Someone who could have a conversation with me without it turning into a pointless argument.

  I’ve never been one to stray, to look at other men because it was just wrong. I had my beliefs and morals and marriage was sacred – meant to last forever, but what if the person I married was no longer the person I was married to? Wouldn’t that be a breach of contract by that individual? I upheld my end of the bargain. Corey just couldn’t hold up his end.

  Chapter 2

  A Welcome Distraction

  As much as I tried to prevent this from happening, another man caught my eye. He works at my company and he must’ve been pretty new there because I’d never seen him before. Or maybe it was because my eyes weren’t open in that manner, but now that I had issues with my marriage, I could clearly see that what I had wasn’t what I wanted. There had to be something better out there.

  Anyway, when I first saw him, I wasn’t trying to flirt or do anything to draw attention to myself. I simply smiled to be courteous and quickly looked away. I didn’t even open my mouth to speak to him. I smiled and that was that.

  However, I didn’t expect that I’d get stuck on the elevator with the man – just me and him. As the elevator doors closed, I felt a weird sensation fluttering around in my gut – butterflies!

  Where the heck did they come from?

  After nine years with the same man, who knew I still had butterflies hidden somewhere down under in the deep recesses of my stomach, hiding under leftover baby weight from my five-year-old? It surely shocked me, and in addition to the excitement factor, I felt my body temperature rise.

  Was I in a sauna or an elevator?

  The feeling of it all made me realize how much I missed the thrill of being newly in love or crazy in love...whatever they say nowadays. With Corey, I had no butterflies. My body didn’t even have a reaction when he touched me. I felt nothing – like someone had rubbed numbing cream all over me and I couldn’t feel a thing – a far cry from when we first met.

  Way back then, when he was a hundred pounds lighter and used to give a crap about his appearance in his efforts to win me over, a simple touch from him was enough to make me crumble to pieces. Now, um not so much...

  So as I stood there in that elevator, so nervous that I could have a breakdown, the guy backed into the left corner of the elevator. I guess he did it so he didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, but truth be told, it didn’t matter where he stood. Even if I was standing behind him, I would’ve been uncomfortable.

  What on earth was happening in this contraption?

  It’s hard for me to explain the chemistry I feel when I’m around him, so here goes – have you ever met someone and felt like you had an instant connection with them, even though you didn’t know them? Even though you probably shouldn’t have any sort of feelings for this person because they’re a complete stranger? Well, that’s the connection I have with this man, and no, I can’t fully explain it.

  With a Starbucks tall Mocha Frapp in my hand, I feel his eyes on
me, but I’m too shy to look up. My only hope is that this elevator can move little faster because I just might faint.

  “So you had to go and get the real thing, huh?” he asks.

  I smile, because for one, his voice is so deep, so intensely strong, I could listen to him talk all day long. And two, I didn’t think he would say a word to me, but I guess he fooled me.

  I respond, “It’s just so hot. I had to go and get a good, cold drink.”

  “Yeah, it is pretty hot to be this late in the Fall. But I’m not going to complain. The cold weather is right around the corner, then we’ll be wishing for some heat.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

  “I’m Tremaine King by the way,” he said, reaching to shake my hand.

  I transfer my cup from my right hand to my left and reach for his hand. It would be the handshake of the century.

  “Nice to meet you, Tremaine. I’m Kendra Watts.”

  Sticking to my business sense, I gripped his hand tight, looked him dead in the eyes and that’s when I noticed they were light brown. Amazing, I thought. Well, I was actually thinking more along the lines of tantalizing. Enticing. Magnificent. (And the list could go on).

  Back to the handshake...it was a long one because we were too busy eyeballing each other to realize that our hands were still connected. I almost felt like I knew this man, like we’d bumped heads somewhere before but I know that wasn’t the case. However, if you saw the way we were looking at each other, you’d think otherwise. And during this handshake, I swear it felt like we were transferring energy. He was giving me something I could feel via a handshake for goodness sakes. Could this be considered foreplay? In the elevator? At work?

  I have got to put an end to this.

  Finally, I summoned some of my own energy to pull my hand away from his and then – ding! – the elevator doors opened.

  I stepped off immediately, not a saying a word to him because I don’t know any elevator etiquette. I’m just focusing on getting to my desk.

  “I’ll see you around,” he said.

  “Yep. See ya,” I say, not even turning around to look at him.

  - - -

  After that encounter, the rest of my day seemed to be just fine and for the first time since I started working at this dreadful company, it didn’t bother me one bit that James, my co-worker who sits directly across from me, talks louder than Samuel L. Jackson. I could care less that I was scheduled for three, one-hour-long meetings and that I had close to two-hundred emails to sift through. I was unfazed. Why? Because I saw him and that made my entire day.

  Then I had to go home...

  On the drive there, I’m wondering if Corey has anything planned because, though I’m his wife, I’m the last person to know anything that’s going on with him. Sometimes, we’ll be sitting in the same room and he would be on the phone with one of his friends, telling them something personal about himself or his job and I haven’t even heard it yet. Yeah, it ticked me off, but it happened so often, I became accustomed to it – the same way I’ve learned to deal with his lack of home training, specifically while we’re in public – how he would yell across the restaurant for a waitress, or talk on his cell phone entirely too loud with a sickening laugh that one should be arrested for.

  So I call his office and wait...and wait...no answer. Being the proactive person that I am, I get home and start on dinner because mama always taught me that a man will look for a home-cooked meal after a long day of work. Then again, my mom didn’t have a nine-to-five...

  Just as I finish getting some chicken battered, my cell phone rings. I look at the display and it’s Corey, calling me back. Now, my hands are covered with chicken seasoning and flour, and there’s no way I’m touching my phone with these icky hands. I step over to the faucet, turn on the hot water, pump soap into my hands and scrub them together, snatching a paper towel to dry them. Then I tap his name in my missed call log and wait for him to pick up.

  Here we go.

  “Hey baby.”

  “Hey,” I say dryly. I try not to sound like I have an attitude, but I’m pissed that he didn’t answer my call earlier. He had caller ID. I know he saw my number flash on his high-tech, Cisco phone.

  He grins. Well, it sounded more like a grunt. “You sound happy to hear from me,” he says sarcastically.

  “I’m trying to cook. What time are you going to be here?”

  “Oh...that’s why I was calling. You don’t have to cook. I’m going out with some coworkers tonight. The manager put this little thing together to celebrate Wilson’s promotion. You know today was his last day. He’s going to the Rock Hill branch.”

  I frown. Wilson? The only “Wilson” I know is the soccer ball from that movie Cast Away. And I don’t care that today was Wilson’s last day and I don’t give two farts about his stupid promotion.

  “And you couldn’t tell me that yesterday? Or this morning, even?” I ask him.

  “I meant to. It slipped my mind. Sorry.”

  “A lot of things have been slipping your mind lately, like that fact that you said you were going to get the oil changed in my car on Saturday, but you played basketball with your homeboys.”

  He sighed and said, “Here we go.”

  “No,” I say livid. “It’s not here we go. You need to be more considerate to this family. I’m tired of planning every aspect of my life, and Brandon’s life, around your schedule. It’s not right, Corey!”

  “For goodness sakes...I’ll get your oil changed on Saturday.”

  “Yeah, if my engine doesn’t blow up before then!”

  He sighed. “Look, I’m going to this thing, I forgot to tell you. My bad. I’ll try to do a better job next time of making you aware of my every move.”

  “Ha, ha, ha...funny,” I say.

  “No, it’s not funny. It’s sad that every little thing I do, I have to run it by you first. Next you’re going to want to know which pair of boxer briefs I have on.”

  I laugh. “I already know that. You’ve worn the same pair for six days straight now. I think that’s a new record.”

  “You’re full of crap.”

  “No, that would be your boxers.” Even though I’m pissed, I still find it in me to laugh. I’d rather laugh than cry.

  “I’m glad you find this funny...all because I’m going out with some coworkers. You really need to grow up, Kendra.”

  “Whatever, dude.” I hung up the phone because I’m already teetering with this broken marriage, and I’m not about to let him ruin my Monday. So I immediately stop cooking, get Brandon dressed and we head to get takeout.

  Chapter 3

  The Invitation

  The next day at work, I don’t see Tremaine at all which means that my day has already started out wrong, not to mention I spilled coffee on my favorite white blouse. So much for trying to be cute...and I dressed especially nice just in case I ran into him again.

  Bummer...

  To add to my angst, Corey was being overly sensitive this morning, telling me how he didn’t deserve to be yelled at and hung up on yesterday evening when he called to tell me about his last minute plans – talking about how he’d never hang up on me...blah, blah, blah. I could rattle off a ton of things I didn’t deserve – like the fact that he puts himself and his needs before the needs of his family and only comes to bed at a decent hour when he wants to have sex. Yeah, that’s romantic...

  - - -

  Towards the end of my work day, I’m so exhausted, I feel like I’ve been beaten. I’m sore, my legs hurt, my eyes are droopy and my booty feels like a seat cushion is permanently glued to it from sitting for so long. Who says white collar jobs are easier? I digress.

  When the clock strikes 4:55 p.m., I began packing up my things and as I walk down the hall, I see Tremaine. My heart starts to race like he has some sort of hold on me. I don’t even care about the stain on my blouse any longer. I’m just so thrilled to see him.

  When I look at him, I can’t look away. H
e’s tall, I would guess about six-three, has those brilliant light brown eyes and a bald head that suits him well. His lanky body is well hidden under his clothes, but I can tell that the man is in shape. He looks like he might even play sports. Basketball or football even. His voice I remember being deep and strong. He’s dressed nice too – has on a pair of khakis and a preppy sweater – looked like he just walked off an Ivy League school campus.

  I secretly admire and appreciate him for dressing so well, because while society emphasizes how glamorous a woman should look – with false eyelashes, Botox injected lips, weaves, wigs, fake nails, tons of makeup and red bottom shoes – not much stock is placed on how a man should look or dress, so when I see a man who takes the time to dress nice, I appreciate it.

  I wish Corey would dress better. The only time he dresses nice is when we’re going out of town. If we were heading out to a movie or to dinner, he’d wear some dirty jeans, a shirt with some stupid tag phrase on it, socks and flip flops. I remember our conversation once when we were getting ready to head out and try out a new restaurant:

  “Oh crap, you’re dressed up,” Corey said, watching as I emerged from the bathroom.

  I’d just finished putting on some makeup, eye shadow that matched my blouse and fluffed my hair in place just right.

  “I’m not dressed up. It’s just a blouse, a pair of jeans and some wedges,” I responded. I had on gold bangles that matched my long necklace and hoop earrings. A few rings and the right makeup did the rest.

  He smacked his lips in disappointment. “Now I’m gon’ have to go change clothes.”

  You should change clothes. You look like a bum. That’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I was just trippin’ over the fact that, instead of complimenting me on how nice I looked, all he did was complain about how he had to change his clothes because he thought I was too dressed up.