Tall Dark and Bad : Full Edition: Full Edition

By Crystal Evans

Follow Saf and her new love on a thrilling modern adventure. Contemporary caribbean romance has never been this good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781105623219

Book preview

Tall Dark and Bad Full Edition

Introduction

I was introduced to watching interviews  by bestselling authors by a rookie novelist like myself and after I watched their (celebrity authors) bio-stories, I conceded that their lives very much mirrored mine.

Novelist- A person who creates a fictional world, the voiceless in a world filled with loud, obnoxious and cruel people found comfort and power in prose and words.

I have no formal education in writing, I’ve had people denigrate and downplay the efficiency of my writing since it’s fraught with ‘grammatical errors.

English is the language of trade for my nationality but very few Jamaicans speak the formal or archaic English and as such my writing is in broken or pidgin English.

I do make errors, I won’t deny that, because my brain goes faster than my fingers, I guess that’s where the editor should come in.

I am not trying to win any Pulitzer, I am trying to tell a story, i call my novels. Book Therapy.

As a human being, I find people interesting whether it’s watching my grandmother make sense of a modern world while I wonder with repugnance(much to my own distaste) at the leathery nature of her senescent skin.

I wonder if she notices that her body has changed, the way I am aware that I’ve gained weight. If she remembers what her youthful carriage was like and if she worries about the looming, inexorable death.

I listen to my father make plans to start a new business, one he hopes will take off and give him the financial freedom he seeks, and I am afraid to tell my father that his ideas are exhausted and generic, I fear his time in business has passed. If he didn’t have small children, I would have told him to retire and I would try my best to at least get him food money every week.

I frown at my children, they are rambunctious, inquisitive and engender periods of elevated blood pressure. I wasn’t like that as a child or maybe I don’t remember.

I am told by folks that they are being children, normal children but why is it that what they are interferes with my thought process and wreaks havoc on my nerves.

Why does the nature of my children conflict with the serenity I seek?

Believe me, having children has made me understand my mother in ways I never would have or maybe that is my new excuse for my bouts of hatred of motherhood.

To be a mother is the eternal struggle between genes and my developed personal values.

I have created a town, Glambas, fictional but  representing a town I grew up in, with people like my older relatives hanging on to an expired post colonial past and the emerging millennials with debauch lifestyles rippled with flashy cars, seedy gangs and burgeoning badmind.

I have sought to make sense of this chaos, I do it a lot, writing this piece I drown out the shouts of my tyrannical grandmother trying to prevent my intransigent four year old from eating out the Lasco.

I ignore it, for many times, the people in my life, big or small are overbearing and my otherwise quiet and reserved nature makes me resentful of their loud, despotic and intrusive ways.

My grandmother ask me questions about people I don’t know or should know, my granny isn’t the brightest, in our small immediate (not extended) family, I am possibly the first with any real, tangible formal education.

My granny frequently pesters me with questions about things I have no time to explain, her enquiries are at best innocent and at worse frivolous.

I met someone I like a lot, I like him mainly because of how he is physically, the shape of his mouth, the precision cut of his beard, his eyes, dark brown, soft like the soil type loam.

He is a good soul, but rough around the edges, he has made it clear to me that if it’s perfection I seek, he is not the one for me.

Even he isn’t all he professes to be, his current posturing to be that of a Christian yet he is such a villain in many stories about his past interactions.

Because of who and what I am, because of what I have been through, I cannot love him and I am force to, not by choice, mostly bolstered by his own engineering, to ponder if the wise thing to do would be to let him go.

He remains flawed yet still the man of my dreams.

Tall Dark and Bad I

Tall

Dark

and Black

Crystal Evans

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Thre

Preface

Men don’t grow up. The amount of compromise and emotional labor required to deal with them becomes increasingly difficult with age. So most of your friends who are getting married now will be getting divorced by the time you’re my age because they settled before they knew enough to want more for themselves. Fuckboys are terrible. But....Good guys will be worse. They will expect extra credit for being minimally decent. Asserting standards of reciprocity is the perpetual struggle. Be prepared to compromise A LOT...often with no reward. OR be prepared to learn to be content by yourself A LOT. There is no in between. any woman who tells you different is lying to herself and you. 

Chapter  One

Love happened when you least  expected it, i was in traffic, at the stoplight coming from Montego Bay’s hip strip when a guy in an Audi jeep pulled up in the parallel lane at the intersection of bottom road, middle road and top road.

Justin Bieber’s Yummy tune blasted from my speakers, these days i made an effort to keep my windows half up, so i would get some breeze and a little music to keep my mood up.

I glanced at him, i licked my lips, he was cute, perfectly handsome. He was my type of guy.

Dark skin, facial hair, wooly pretty hair, bushy eyebrows. I looked at him again and he stared at me with those obsidian eyes.

He was so cute, the facial hair enhanced his dark good looks.

He mouthed. The yummy cah share!

I laughed, i grinned, i hiccuped. He caught me by surprise and i choked on my reply.

He winked, i checked the lights at the intersection of      bottom road leaving from the hip strip, i hated waiting here for the lights took long to go on green for the bottom road, letting the middle road and top road traffic through before us leaving the strip.

I smiled at him. His eyes widened in amusement.

I wondered if i looked as stupid as i felt. The green light came on, i pulled away and headed out of the city, i glanced in my rear view mirror to see if i had outrun him on the highway.

He was behind me.

I looked in my side mirror and i saw his hand, outside his window, motioning for me to stop.

I chuckled and flicked on my indicator to take a stop at the Rubis gas station.

He followed suit.

I muttered to the ceiling.

‘Father God’.

He came to the side of my van, god he was perfect. Clean, smooth, urbane and debonair.

He looked as if he lived in an air conditioned unit, his face was without a single pimple.

Father God, I thought; let this be it.

How yuh doing? He said in a low drawl.

I blinked, nah, i grinned like a big idiot.

Am okay, my hands gripping the steering wheel of my van.

What could a man like this want with me. I sucked in my high belly. Lord God I didn’t wear my waist trainer today. Today of all days.

He didn’t seem to notice.

Where yuh from? He said in a crisp Jamaican, uptown accent.

Savalamar! I managed with a smile.

He nodded, his eyes locked mine.

West u live? His accent shifted to a gangsta tone.

Father God, this ya man ya too cute. Yes!

Give me your number! He demanded.

I gave him. I watched him, he added my number and name, he was cute from every angle, his head hung, he was still handsome.

Its such a pity man have to die.

This good looking creature didn’t deserve to die.

Yuh on Facebook? He asked without looking up.

I paused before replying, i found that rather weird.

Yes my name is ...

He went on Facebook and found me.

He chuckled. Me ago add yuh!

He retreated from my van driver’s door, he kept smiling at me.

That smile was taped to his face.

I checked my phone and his friend request was there.

Be safe! He shouted before pulling out of the gas station parking space.

That was how i met Jason.

Jason called me that very night on Facebook messenger.

He looked the same in his pics as he looked in person.

He was a weird guy.

Me like fe see who me a talk to!

He video called me.

I guessed his phone, i later learned was his iPad was on some sort of stand or gadget since i saw that he was cooking while talking to me on video chat.

I wondered why this handsome man with the Victorian bedroom set in the background was interested in someone like me.

Before i went to Jason’s house i had a fair idea of how his place was set up, from the bar like table in his living room to the hardwood headboards in his bedrooms.

He was a man of remarkable taste.

He was a man wid things.

He was a married man, no he was in the middle of a divorce.

Why me?

Jason was too good to be true.

Jason played no games, at least none that i could detect.

I followed him everywhere on his phone, to the bank, to the atm, to his business place by the Freeport.

He remarked one night. Yuh know seh me neva do this wid no woman yet?

I asked. What?

He laughed. Talk all day and all night on video

Parts of me believed him, I wanted to, i checked out his profile, he was one of those Facebook celebrities that got hundreds of likes on his pics. Women flooded the comments section with cute and handsome commentary.

He told me they filled his dm with messages about how cute his children were, he knew it was a ploy to look him. I chuckled.

He could have any woman he wants.

What the hell did he want from me?

Jason was a man of my own soul.

He was broken like i was, his struggle had just begun and i was almost out of the woods in my healing.

Jason was in the middle of a bitter divorce.

I didn’t know what to believe but I listened to him complain about his ex-wife trying to take his two eyes out and lead him.

He didn’t bash her, he sounded as if he still loved her and was only angry at her decision to leave him.

Yes she left him and it broke his heart.

He cried. Me neva like her when me meet her

Saf!

When me finally start love the woman, she left me!

She left me!

I didn’t pry, i found her on Facebook. She was tagged in some older pictures of his, she was a plain woman, i chuckled for we sort of resembled.

So he had a type.

I was his type, i grinned, maybe i reminded him of his ex wife.

Chapter Two

Cion was my girl. I missed her. I missed her so much I unblocked her on whatsapp and sent her a message. 

I hope she had not blocked me. 

Hey yuh no miss me! 

I chuckled, imagining how she would laugh when she sees it and reply. 

I didn’t see her profile pic, the message was sent with one ticky and not delivered.

By end of day i figured she blocked me on whatsapp. 

I sent her a sms message. 

Me: Yuh no miss me? 

I woke up the morning to a reply on WhatsApp. 

Cion: Hey me wifey 

Cion: How da kids 

Cion: A wah day deh me a seh a only Saf me cudda talk to bout this inno.

Cion: A miss yuh so till. 

I decided moving forward, i would not mix business or money with friendship.

I gave a man many chances, it wouldn’t kill me to give my friend another. 

Cion and i picked up from where we left off as if we didn’t speak for three years. 

Naturally she was the first person to tell about my new beau. 

I told her and Janice over grilled chicken and margaritas at Pimentos Negril. 

Janice licked the barbecue sauce from her fingers before reaching for my phone to take a better look at my bae. 

I claimed him before he made it clear. 

He was my boo hoo. 

Gal! Janice spoke with excitement. A so him look good! 

People ago mad! 

"Man nice u fenneh! 

Ah clean! 

Cion chuckled. Gyal me seet seh yuh happy! 

Yuh just a glow!

Enjoy it girl!

Yuh deserve it! 

I grinned. I felt my eyes getting wet. I got like that when people told me I deserved a good, nice, clean and stable man. Sometime ago i was made to feel I didn’t deserve anyone. That no one wanted me. I knew that notion wasn’t true for i curved men everyday. 

I just wanted the one that i want to want me. 

I wanted him to be an upgrade on my ex, in my opinion, you didn’t win, couldn’t win if you didn’t find a better man. 

My favorite tune was Ed Sheeran’s Perfect, i knew i would be alright this time. 

I asked a male friend of mine from the city if he knew Jason. 

Kelz: Yes mpc 

Me: Yuh know him

Kelz: Yea man 

Kelz:  A married man that inno Saf 

Kelz: Good youth still 

Me: He is divorced 

Kelz: A lie 

Kelz: U sure? Me know him wife did deh abroad 

Me: Yes its even on Facebook. 

Kelz; Hold on deh a did me bred in law on time inno 

Kelz; Me ago ask me sister 

Me: okay 

I knew his marriage would be an issue for most folks and his pending divorce would raise eyebrows.

Why is she divorcing him? 

A supp’n him do. 

Woman nah walk weh from man like that just so. 

Kelz: Yea man dem mash up 

Kelz: Me mek two link 

Kelz: A good space still 

Kelz: Just enjoy yourself and keep your eyes open. 

Me: Yes he is okay 

Kelz: A your type a man that inno 

Kelz: A face bwoy

Me: Yuh no easy at all. 

Yes i loved that face, his body was perfect too, not slim, not too thick with speckling of baby hair that tapered off behind his name brand boxers. 

I admired his handsome face when he called me one morning while he was in the shower. He placed his iPad behind the shower sprinkler. 

Bwoy, no, Man have a buzz. 

He stepped back and i saw he was endowed. 

I laughed so hard, he responded with a smile, bit his bottom lip while he massaged soap into his groin area. 

I died with laughter, god i was falling hard and fast. 

He came towards the Ipad, i could see his eyes and his soapy hands came up close to the camera, it seemed he was doing something on the screen. 

He glanced at the camera. 

I felt as if he was looking at me in real life with... 

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Dexta Daps song. 

I had never heard that one before. 

It must have been new. 

"

We up all night speaking on the phone...

She open up like a window

I literally shook, my body convulsed and i felt myself getting wet when Dexta Daps said... Foot iinna ceiling like a shingle... her whole body just a tremble so

I folded up in the feotal position in my bed. I laughed so hard and watched his reaction. 

He laughed too, more like a seductive grin. 

Father God. 

Weh this ya man ya come from? 

How could a woman leave a man as engaging as he is ? 

Kelz: Sound like u like him man 

I grinned. 

Me: Yesss 

Kelz: A good energy man

Kelz: Yuh deserve it

Me: Yes cuz 

He showered, i kept my eyes on him, serotonin coursing through my endocrine system. He slid the shower glass door aside, then the images on the screen were topsy turvy. He was moving. 

He placed the iPad on the face basin area i assumed for he was looking straight ahead with a white towel, drying his hair, naked as the day he was born except for a gold chain around his neck and two knobs in his ears. 

He came towards the Ipad and pulled up the song. 

His ding-a-long was before my very eyes, he made a quick duck and grinned at me. He must have realized. 

I love his energy. 

He wrapped the milk white towel around his waist, perfect contrast to his chocolate skin, his penis imprint made me burst into peals of ecstatic laughter. 

He danced, rocked his hips and his phallus dangled. 

I thought if it so long and it dead. 

The more he moved, it seemed to bulge more as if he was getting hard. 

He advanced towards the camera and i got a good look at his tool. 

He ducked again and grinned at me. 

What a man!!! 

He lowered his head and smiled. His face was close to the camera and he had a black paste like, glue looking thing on his face. 

Yuh like bathe wid me? He asked as if we were in a physical space. 

Yes baby! I heard myself say. 

He took the Ipad up and he was using massaging the black mask onto his face. 

Me name baby now? He replied.

See wah yuh wah eeen? Jason asked with a wide grin. 

I replied with rings of laughter. 

U cah laugh een? He asked with a sly smile. 

He brought the Ipad to his face. 

I saw that the hair on his face was growing back. 

Looked like a three day stubble, he brought a Gillete branded shear to his cheeks, he glanced at the Ipad before the shear touched his jaw lining. 

He was using the ipad as a mirror. 

The hairs on his hand were pretty and laid flat against his dark skin. 

I smiled. 

I found the Dexta Daps song on Audiomack. 

Vent. episode 2. 

I would be playing it all day at home and in my van. 

He stared at the camera on the Ipad with such intensity and a said to my surprise. 

A gwine give yuh some F@&$! 

I nearly died of laughter. 

Me a shave off me face!

Me soon call you back! 

He paused, look into the camera with a boyish grin on his face then the call ended. 

‘Me mek she dash weh d dildo’

Chapter Three

After our first talk on messenger October nineteen, the world would not believe I didn’t hear back from Jason until the end of November. 

He didn’t add me on whatsapp. 

He didn’t call. 

I saw him on messenger and wondered what was this? 

He came online and he said nothing to me. 

I began to wonder if he took my number as a souvenir. 

I was tempted to text him and ask about it. But I didn’t want to seem desperate, i liked his pics and hope he would remember me. 

He watched my statuses but said nothing. 

Something told me I was under surveillance. 

I baited him, he fell for it. 

He replied to one of my photos. 

Jason: Beautiful 

Me: Thanks. 

Jason: U good. 

Me: Yes

I looked at his pictures again and said a man like him could never want me. 

Seemed highly unlikely, i put him out of my mind. 

I started to convince myself that i am going to be a single accomplished woman like a lot of high powered women in media and industry. 

I would invest my energies in building my empire. 

I would take care of my children and family. 

I made peace with myself until i posted a pic of me in a long sleeve, leopard print dress and got an incoming video call from Jason. 

I answered. Hey!

I wanted to say something else. ‘

Something like ‘Yuh memba me?’

I had planned on curving him if he contacted me again, i would ghost him after. 

But i was caught off guard when i saw he was standing a feet or so at a doorway, more like passage way, looking down at my face on his screen. 

I still don’t know how he does that, stare at you as if he is looking at you in real life. 

I chuckled. 

A wah happen? I asked, with nothing else to do. 

He advanced towards the camera, he stood to the side and i heard water running. 

He must have changed the direction of the iPad for i was looking up him with a glass in his hand. 

I scanned the background, he was most likely in the kitchen. 

I heard water running again, and looked up to see him smiling down at me while washing a wine glass. 

Yuh happy fe see me? He asked in a deep voice. 

I smiled. Me think yuh forget me!

Jason shook his head.  No me did go up fe three weeks fe deal wid some issues wid me divorce and lawyer and child support and all kinda shit!

I nodded. Okay! 

Neva wah get yuh inna that! He added. 

Spend some time wid me pickney dem! 

I detected a hint of hurt in his voice. 

Okay that’s good! I replied. 

Wah gwaan wid yuh? He asked playfully. 

Yuh no find no man? He continued. 

Ya liad inno? 

I cringed at the accusation, I couldn’t tell if he was being humorous or he meant it. His tone was cutting. I believed the latter. 

No!

Me deh ya wait pa yuh! I fired back. 

He chuckled. Wait pa me! 

Me ago add yuh to me WhatsApp!

A hope i can trust you! 

Yuh notice me no add yuh all now! 

I wondered the same thing but I didn’t make him any wiser. He had his phone in his hands. I guess i was on his iPad. 

A text came in, i saved his number. 

A me digits that! He said with a grin. 

Okay sir! I gave him a little smirk. 

When last yuh have sex? Jason asked out of the blues. 

September! I blurted out. 

So weh that deh man deh deh? He continued his interrogation. 

A did me babyfather! I shouted in defense. 

Yea? He looked at me with a mischievous stare followed by a sly smile. 

Uno soon at it again! 

I sucked at my teeth. Nope! 

I looked at his face and saw that he was watching my reaction. 

We were on and off for years our thing expired and i am ready for something new and exciting and toe curling... 

He was still studying me.

He has done things and give way to things i can no longer feel pass them! 

I stared at him and he gaped at me while wiping the glasses. 

So a just it that! 

Anything yuh seh! Was his only reply. 

It was my turn to get some perspective from him. 

Weh yuh wah wid me sah? 

He shot me his charming smile. 

Yuh know how long me a watch yuh a the stoplight a dance to yuh song! 

Yuh pass me a Queens drive earlier!

Me a seh anno Bay yuh come from cause me neva see yuh yet!

I chortled. Really! 

He was watching me. 

Me realize nowadays a pay big van unno woman wah drive! He added with grin. 

Uno stop buy the little car dem? 

I love your energy and your vibes! 

Based pa wah me see, yuh a wah woman me cah build wid! 

Like me cah go far inna life wid! 

Plus me know yuh anno ediat! 

Yuh no average! 

I grinned, trying hard to hide how excited i was to hear what he had to say. 

Plus yuh baxide big ah round! 

I laughed out loud. 

Me haffi go stock up pa me campari and soursop juice fe climb that deh moutain deh weh yuh have!  His eyes glistened. 

I couldn’t contain my laughter. 

Campari? 

Dat deh disgusting sinthing deh! 

He didn’t seem to hear what i said about Campari rum. 

Ya fe well saddle up ah cah hang on good or you will drop off!

So yuh done know me haffi saddle fe the ride! 

I laughed so hard, i coughed. 

Wah happen to yuh baby? 

A corona yuh have? He asked with a hint of mischief. 

Hang on deh baby! 

Me ago tek deh call yuh back! He said before i could catch a reply. 

I ended the call. 

Two minutes later, i glanced at my phone and saw about four missed video calls on whatsapp. 

I opened the app and it was my baby cakes. 

I called him back. 

Yuh think me a beg call? He said a little too serious for my liking. 

The phone no ring! I said defensively. 

A must beg me a beg call! He replied in a softer tone. 

I didn’t see the call! I pleaded. 

I smiled at his pretend to be upset handsome face. 

God must have spent a little more time on him. 

He removed his shirt, it was more of a sweatshirt that he rolled up at the elbows. It made him look like a sexy black American in a Hallmark Romance or Bet Movie. 

Today he sported a gold Jesus pieces around his neck and a wrist watch, dark brown leather band, black and gold clock face. 

He looked deliciously well-off. 

What a man like this want with me. 

We were the same age. He was two months older than i. 

We both had three kids. 

He was fairly intelligent. 

Me used to cry day and night fe me family! 

I felt sorry for him. 

Me wife mek me come a fahrin left me good house and a run me outta her place! 

Me haffi go look place rent! 

Me people dem tell me fe come back a yard come run daddy business! 

A every two week she give me likkle wife!

Me a seh just as me decide fe go back inna me church and love this ya woman ya. The woman no bodda wah me! 

Yuh a hurt her long time!

So she can’t take it no more and she can’t believe Or doesn’t believe you will change! I offered in her defense. 

He frowned. She say me ride one a har cousin! 

I laughed. Did you? 

He chuckled. Longtime that before me and har married! 

Yuh dweet! I said between peals of laughter. 

First when she ask me? Jason said between grins. 

Me deny it! 

No she ask me and me seh yes!

Then she say her cousin a seh nothing no go so! 

The gal tell her seh nothing no go so!

After me admit it!

He started to laugh. 

Man cah win inna this! 

She suspected you guys! I said with a smile. 

Something give!

We have a way fe pick up on those things! 

I was laughing as hard as he was now. 

And she tricked you 

When he managed to catch himself. 

The cousin send me message pa Facebook!

Dutty, suck crotches Jay! He said in a falsetto voice. 

After me and me cousin a live good!

Ya try mash we up!

That’s why woman no fe give uno crotches!

Dutty bwoy! 

A cah manij! I said, saliva pooling in my mouth.

He lowered his body and leaned  a top the counter. 

His elbows on the top surface. He stuck his tongue out to my surprise. Damn. I thought. 

I stuck my tongue out too. 

On any good day the tip of my tongue could go as far down as my chin. 

I watched as he admired my tongue work. 

I wanted this man. 

I was going to show everyone that i could get a hot cute man to commit to me. 

We laughed together. 

Me like you! Jason continued. 

Like yuh vibes! 

Love how yuh loving! 

Yes baby! I cooed. 

He kissed at me. I caught it and ate it. 

We were in high school again. 

Me no understand why she left yuh! I said and regretted it as soon as it was out of my mouth. 

Jason’s lips pursed into a thin line. 

She seh me cheat pon her nuff!

She say me tell her hurtful things! 

He shook his head. Me a did twenty four year old when we married! 

Me a seh a girl inna her church and she a study a fahrin and a get her stay mek me go a fahrin, nutten no wrong! 

Me no seh me no hurt her but as me get older me change!

Me no like lose an argument!

The last time me and her ketch up, wah me tell her seh she bawl fra Supermarket come a har yard!

Me tell miself seh me nah go hurt nobody dem wah deh again 

I wanted to believe him. 

I understood what the that last cry his wife made was about, she was done with him. He didn’t know because she had always loved him more. He thought she had reserves, she would never leave him because she loved him even when he didn’t love her. 

Jason was wrong as wrong as my ex was when he thought i was still crazily in love with him when i accosted him with a woman he told me he was not seeing anymore. 

I did it out of anger and frustration. He missed the point. He didn’t understand until i rejected his sexual advances. 

Jason did too. 

Men understood too late. 

Too little, too late. 

A just life! Jason said smiling at me. 

In that moment I understood that the worse thing you could do was to be with someone in their youth, you become target practice for youngsters. They do their trial and error on you and learn from their mistakes and become better partners for other people. 

I didn’t hate this phantom woman, I empathized with her, Jason is a hearthrob, cheating comes with his good looks territory. 

I am sorry for what she had to go through so that i could have the man that i have now.

If indeed, she has created a better man for the next woman. 

Chapter Four

The view on WhatsApp video call went from seeing the road ahead to me staring at a bulge clothed with a H for Herme belt atop it. 

What the hell. 

He brought it back to his dashboard. 

A wah dat? I asked albeit i had already guessed. 

Me front! Jason replied. 

Yuh nuh see how me front fat! 

I choked on my spittle. I didn’t know if i should breathe first or laugh. 

Yuh front! 

Okay sir! 

Jason licked his lips. Yuh a do that to me inno! 

Yes!!! I  felt flattered. 

Those were the good days when he was jovial and engaging and then there were days i felt the clouds had set in.

I could feel it. He would call me and chat for five minutes then excused himself to do something else. 

I’d get a text at the end of the night. 

I was halfway between whether it was another woman or his breakup still affecting him. 

Maybe he was stressed from his shipping business. 

Whatever it was, some days he pulled me closer and sun broke from behind the clouds. 

Me no have no woman Saf! He cried. 

Me just no inna no talking mood! 

Those days i went into my think box, its hard to love someone that doesn’t love you and even harder to love someone who is in love with someone else. 

This would be an uphill battle, his healing won’t come anytime soon. 

Was i wiling to ride those waves? 

What if when his healing came? He changed his mind and decided he didn’t want me to apart of his transition. 

Who says he was in love with her? 

Some days... 

Him: U good baby 

Him: Busy so 

Me: Hey handsome. 

Jason hated when i missed his calls. 

Him: Messenger nah work, whatsapp nah work... nothing nah work. 

Him: Coming like u lock dung. 

Him: A hope when me lock dung yuh no vex 

Him: Alright do yuh thing 

I returned his call. 

Me notice seh me only get to fe yuh phone when yuh feel like Jason barked. 

I giggled. No me neva hear it a ring! 

He looked at me. I laughed some more. He was so handsome. His nose was sort of big but it fitted right in with his face. Weird. 

Jason stared at me. 

A weh yuh pretty up a go! 

Ahh he noticed. 

Pon the road! I replied with a smile.  

Yuh must get a man today! He spat. 

Then one day I didn’t hear from him for over fourteen hours. He called after four the Saturday afternoon and bae disappeared until around ten am the next morning. 

I missed his presence. 

Cion chuckled. Hmmm!

Some gal him lock dung wid!

I sighed. I. shouldn’t feel anyways because we didn’t have sex as yet. But i was angry and jealous. I was human.

I tried not to show it up but i texted him about his absence.

Saf: What a way u lock down?" 

Saf: U think u easy 

Saf: Do yuh thing. 

Jason didn’t see them until two hours later. 

He video called me while he was making what appeared to be his breakfast in his kitchen. 

I smiled at his handsome face, searched his features for any sign of guilt. I laughed. He was unreadable. 

Yuh tarment? Jason asked after a long pause, gaping down at the iPad. 

I sucked my teeth. Me nah put yuh pa me head cause we nuh deh!

Yuh cah put me pa yuh head! He replied. Yuh neck we broke , a two hundred pounds me weigh! 

I sighed loudly, he was a staggering six feet. 

Wah that deh behavior deh fa? 

Me no tell yuh seh me bredda cum dung ah we a keep a house party! 

Yuu know how long me no f$&@@

And yuh nuh look like yuh out fe help me out anytime soon!

Me cah manage that deh behavior deh right now!

Cut yuh crap!

Me no like fool fool woman! He slammed me. 

Yah no ediat! 

Yah likkle pickney!

I said nothing. We  endured an icy silence. 

When ya come look fe me? Jason said, pouring milk from a condensed can into a white cup. 

Yuh wah me come instead? He added. 

If he think i was going to let him off the hook that easily. 

Alright no ansah! He said after a while and i laughed in response. 

A gwine tired yuh out mek yuh sleep all day! 

Betta yuh come!

Yuh pickney dem nah go mek me come near yuh! 

Spend wah two day wid me! 

I chuckled. When yuh ready!

No more fool fool argument! He cautioned. 

His face was stern. 

Me no like fool fool woman! 

Yuh anno idiot!

Cionne laughed. "Yuh haffi work