All Mye Queen's Men, Chronicles of Love - Volume II, page 14
“This is incredible. Did you cook all of this?” Queen interrupted as she takes a seat at the counter.
Relieved that she wasn't pissed, Christian pours her a fresh cup of coffee. “Yes, so please tell me that you are hungry.”
“Actually, I'm starving.”
“Good because I cooked a whole lot of food. I didn't know what you liked, so I cooked some of everything. Hey, where are the plates?”
“I'll get them.” Queen retrieves a stack of plates out of the cabinet and pours two glasses of orange juice.
“I hope you don't mind, but I cooked turkey bacon and sausage. I don't eat pork.” Christian apologized as he begin to set the food on the kitchen table.”
“I'm glad I'm chocolate.” Queen giggled as she took a bite of a piece of bacon.
Christian grins. “I'll keep that in mind.”
As Queen gets the silverware and sets the table, Christian takes the opportunity to enjoy the view from the rear. And what a fantastic view it was. Queen’s round romp looked edible in those oh so short shorts and Christian was officially as hungry as hell. However, he resisted the urge to come on too hard, too soon.
“You don't mind that I'm still here do you? I realize things are kind of complicated. I don’t want to create a problem for you.”
“I am so glad you are still here. Fine and can cook I might have to uncomplicate things just to marry you.” Queen joked.
Christian laughs. “Yeah about that… Not that I was nosing around or anything... But I can see that you are a huge Los Angeles Archangels fan.
“Oh yeah, I guess the giant pictures in the corridor tipped you off.”
“Yeah, it was a clue... Number eighty seven, that's Teddy Davine, right?”
“As a matter of fact it is.” Queen remains cool and continues to set the table, knowing exactly where the conversation was heading.
“You know… He's actually a very good friend of mine. I can get him to autograph those if you'd like. I could probably even arrange for you to meet him.”
“No, that want be necessary. Look, I'm not a crazy, lovesick, groupie, stalker or something insane like that.”
“I know. You're his girlfriend.”
Queen stops in her tracks. “I told you my situation was a little complicated. You're not going to hold it against me are you?”
“No, why would I? It just threw me a little.” He confessed.
“You must be his friend Chris from Atlanta.”
“And you must be his queen in Baltimore.”
Queen joins Christian at the island. “So, how didn't we figure this out last night? And why didn't Jade and Dorian tell you who I was?”
“I don't know I guess we saw what we wanted to see. And I think they thought we knew. In their defense they did try to stop us from hooking up last night.” Christian responded.
“They didn't try hard enough. I should have known that this was too damn good to be true.” Queen thought to herself.
“I know this may sound stupid but, whenever he'd say Mye Queen I thought he was referring to his girl as his queen. It never clicked that he was actually calling you by name and he never specified it either.”
“How did I not connect the dots that you were his frat brother from Atlanta that was a doctor? I can't believe this.”
“Well, you're right about one thing. This shit just got complicated as hell.”
“You have no idea.” Queen conceded.
“Good thing we didn’t…”
“Look, let's not even think about that. Let’s just eat. We're letting all of this food get cold.”
“You're right. This is nothing that we have to deal with right now anyway.”
“Thanks, for cooking for me. It looks delicious.”
Christian stares at Queen's lips and mumbles. “You're right about that.” He quickly recovers and begins to serve her. “It was my pleasure. Bon Appetite Mye Queen.”
Queen didn’t show it but she was extremely disappointed. Disappointed to the damn, damn, damn power. She thought that she had finally found someone who could take her mind off Teddy and Logic and all her unnecessary drama. Queen was so glad that she had the good sense to take her hot ass to bed alone last night. God knows she was a shaved cunt hair from inviting that chocolate covered, delicious man to her bed.
CHAPTER 17
It’s late Monday morning at Her Lady of Mercy Hospital. Queen is leaving a patient's room when her cell phone rings. It was no surprise that it was Jade. She had been calling Queen since Friday night. Queen purposely ignored all of her calls. Jade should have told her long before Christian walked into her life that he was off limits.
“Dr. Queen, may I help you?”
“Yeah, you can tell me why you didn't answer any of my calls all damn weekend.”
“Probably for the same reason I can't have this conversation right now. I'm busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Oh I don't know... I think they call it saving lives.”
“Don't play me you pretentious little trick. Please don't tell me you spent the weekend with your colleague Dr. Love.”
“Not the whole weekend, just Friday night and Saturday morning. Oh yeah and Sunday afternoon and evening.”
“I can't believe that you fuckin fucked him! Oh my God! Good for you! But you know that Teddy's going to beat that ass for fucking in his house.”
“You know me better than that. I didn't sleep with him!”
“You're right. You haven't had any dick in months. You fucked him all night and nobody got any sleep.”
“I'm hanging up now.” Queen declared unable to speak freely.
“Don't you dare! Not before you tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened Jade.”
“I thought you said you spent the night together.”
“He slept in the guest room. Again, nothing happened. And why didn't you tell me that he was Bear's friend?”
“You didn't give me a chance. How was I suppose to know that you were going to make him your BFF in one night.”
“Yeah well, I almost made him more than that. You know, it figures the one and only time I meet someone who could actually take my mind off of both Bear and Logic for a few minutes I find out he's Bear's BFF. Jade, do you know this man cooked for me? Hell, he even made me homemade biscuits. I awoke to find him standing in my kitchen, half naked, taking a pan of buttermilk, melt in your mouth biscuits out of my oven.”
“Damn! Sexy, good looking and can make biscuits. That man's a keeper. Oops! Too bad you can't keep him.” Jade laughed.
“I hate you! Do you know that? And When I see you I'm going to...” Queen stops mid sentence as she spots Christian coming towards her.
“Look, I got to go. I'll call you tonight.” Queen quickly hangs up as Christian nears.
“Dr. Queen.”
“Dr. Love.”
“How's your day going?” He smiled.
“Pretty good… All my patients are alive and thriving. So, I can't complain. What about you? How’s the practice?”
“Things are looking good. I just picked up three new patient consults.”
“Great. I think I’ll have another one for you after I see my next patient.”
“Why thank you. Look, I was wondering… Are you on call tonight?” Christian hesitantly asked.
“No, thank God. Why?”
“Will you have dinner with me.”
“When?” Queen asked without thinking.
“What about tonight at seven, at my house?”
“This isn't a date, is it?” Queen asked.
“No, it's dinner.” Christian winked.
“Good, make it eight. I have sign out rounds at six and I need to go home and change.”
Christian pulls out a pen and quickly scribbles his address and phone number on a piece of paper. He had mixed emotions about asking Queen over for dinner. Yeah, he knew that she was Teddy’s woman, but he liked her and he was tired of eating dinner alone. There was no harm, no foul befriending Queen. He was convinced that between the two of them they had enough self-control and common sense to keep their relationship strictly platonic; unfortunately fate would prove him wrong.
Great, here is my address and number. Call me when you're on your way.
“Should I bring something?”
“Just, that smile.” Christian grins as he pulls his patient's chart from the rack of charts.
“I'll see you then.” Queen said as she pulls a chart from the rack and heads for an empty spot at the nurse’s station.
Christian, however is instantly ambushed by an overzealous nurse who instantly goes into super fuck me now mode. Queen tries to ignore them, but she couldn't help noticing Christian shy away from the nurse's shameless advances. After seeing enough she takes out her cell phone and has Christian paged. The page operator calls Christian and connects him to Queen. Christian quickly excuses himself to take the call.
“Dr. Love you have an outside call would you like me to put it through?” The page operator asks.
“Absolutely. Please by all means connect us. Excuse me I have a very important call that I must take.”
“Okay well we'll talk later. Okay?”
“I'll see you around.” Christian politely blows her off all though she lingers for something more definite. “Excuse me one second. I have to take this right away.” Christian insists as he holds up one finger to indicate wait a minute bitch!
“This is Dr. Love.”
“For somebody who is called Dr. Love, you sure don't show the ladies round here much love. You’re too cute to be shy. What’s up with that?
“Queen?” Christian discreetly looks around and spots Queen on the phone.
“Yeah it's me. I thought I'd give you a way out without running away screaming.”
“I appreciate that, because I was about to.”
“Meet me in the cafeteria and I'll buy you some lunch.”
“When?”
“How about now? It'll get you away from Psycho Nurse Betty.”
“Sounds good to me… I'm on my way.”
~*~*~
Moments later in the cafeteria a midst all the stares, whispers, chitter chatter and plain old fashioned green eyed envy, Queen and Christian had lunch.
“I owe you one. Thank you for rescuing me. I thought she was going to drop to her knees and blow me right there in front of everybody.”
“That would have been entertaining.” Queen laughed.
“Yeah for you maybe.”
“So what's with the shy guy routine? Most men would be all over that. She was cute.”
“Yeah, if you’re looking for cute… But, I'm not looking for cute. I've had my fair share of cute. I'm looking for breathtaking. Hell no... I'm looking for awe inspiring.”
“Wow, you sure are setting your sights high for a small urban hospital. Lighten up and cut the girls a break.”
“My standards aren't too unrealistic. I'm just not into aggressive women. I enjoy the chase. In fact I love a good chase. It exhilarates me. That's the shit that makes my nature rise. Not some nasty trick telling me where she wants to put my dick!”
“Damn, you're mad at her.” Queen laughed.
“You laugh, but this shit ain't funny. I'm sick of overzealous women.”
“Okay I get that you enjoy the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of the kill. So what do you do when you finally catch one? Love them and move on? What?”
“I treat her like Mye Queen.” Christian raises his brow and looks into Queen's eyes for her reaction.
“Yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before.”
Christian laughed. “You walked into that one. But, I do. I treat my woman like my queen. I love and value women, that's why I don't buy into all the attention. I’m handsome, I get that. So what? But I’m all so very intelligent, extremely successful and I’m a good cook. But none of them will ever know that about me. These women are pushing sex not intimacy. I like to be intimate with my woman long before we have sex.”
“Yeah, good luck with that, because the millennium woman plays the only card she thinks she has left, the sex card.
“So, what about you? I don't see you playing the sex card? And God knows you have a lot of sex cards to play. You're trump tight with sex cards.”
“Thanks, but I folded my hand a long time ago. Besides, I don't have to. Some of us are born sex goddesses. We're so sexy we don't even have to try. Not to mention, I got a man.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes really. Why did you say it like that?” Queen asked confused.
“I don't know... Other than those disturbing, life size photos of number eighty seven in your house, I don't see one around.”
“You know why he's not around. He lives in LA.”
“I know where he lives and I also know him. Very well!”
“I told you it was complicated.”
“So why are you here?”
“What, here with you? We're just having lunch.”
“No, I mean here in Baltimore when he's in Los Angeles?”
“I had to do my Internal Medicine Residency. I didn't get a match in LA. That's not true... I didn't get a match at the hospital that I liked in LA. So, I had to come to Baltimore and leave him there. Now, the shit is all upside down. Unlike you he doesn't give a damn who chases who… just as long as he doesn't get caught with his pants around his ankles.”
“So, why do you put up with that bullshit?”
“I don't. I mean we have, check that we had and open relationship until recently. He's ready to get married and have children, well at least that's what he said.”
“Oh really?”
“I know what you're thinking, but he's actually starting to settle down and play nice. Besides, my heart won't let me leave him. I love him. You know that larger than life, charismatic nigga can charm the panties off of a nun. Even beyond that, Bear's a real hard man to replace.”
“That's probably because you never really tried.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but who has time? You know what a Resident's life is like. I'm at the hospital everyday at least sixteen hours a day. I just don't have time to go looking for love. Even if I did have time, there’s nothing out there for me.”
“You don't always have to look. Sometimes love will just find you. I just think that you deserve to be treated better. No, I take that back… I know you deserve to be treated better.”
“Perhaps, but Bear and I have this inexplicable bond. Every time I think about walking away it just snatches me back. It's been that way every since Paul was killed. You knew Paul, right?”
“Yeah we were great friends. I didn't want to bring it up, but I need to know. Dorian told me that you were his girl when he died.”
“No, we had just broke up about a month or so, before it happened.”
“So, what happened? I know what the papers reported. Teddy and Dorian won't even talk about it. But, I don't get how it went down and why it messed Teddy up so bad.”
“It's a long story. And you probably won't understand.”
“Try me. Just give me the abridged version. I realize it’s probably still painful, but I think it’ll help figure out what’s up with Teddy.”
“The long and the short of it is that while we were in college we had altercation with some guys from another college. One of them stuck his hand up my skirt. Naturally, I ticked off and beat his ass. But he wouldn’t stop talking shit. When Paul found out what had happened he confronted the guy. He was absolutely furious. We weren't dating, but he was still in love with me.”
“I can see why.” Christian interrupted. “I'm sorry go ahead.”
“Anyway, one thing lead to another and Paul knocked the guy out cold. Well, his brother who was with him pulled out a gun and just started blasting. Even after Paul’s body hit the ground bullets continued to fly. Bear stood in front of me like Super Man shielding me until the shooting stopped. When everything was over Paul was gone and Bear and I were devastated.”
“So, the gun ran out of bullets?”
“No. It just didn't fire. The police said it was still loaded. They say it must have jammed, misfired or something. It was just by the mercy of God that we were not all killed.”
“Wow, that's amazing.”
“So after the funeral I was so distraught that I couldn't eat, or sleep. Hell, I could barely speak. It felt like I stopped breathing. I just lost my will to exist. Bear watched me withdraw more and more. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He took me to his ranch and we screwed like rabbits until we both were exhausted. We've been attached to each other every since then, clinging to each other for comfort as if our lives depended upon it.”
“I can see why he never talks about it. Watching your friend being killed before your eyes is traumatic.”
“He can't and he won’t talk about it. Hell I don’t talk about it either, it’s too painful. Bear thinks it was his fault. He blames himself for not doing anything to stop it. I on the other hand know for a fact that it was all me.”
“That's crazy. It's neither or your faults. A crazy prick with a gun killed Paul, not you or Teddy. Look Queen, nothing either one of you did could have changed what happened that night. Paul died and you survived. Don’t dishonor his death by refusing to live. Cut yourself a break and get on with life.”
“You know, I'm trying, but Bear just can't. His self destruct button has been stuck ...”
“Stuck on stupid. Stop giving this nigga an excuse to treat you like trash. Hold his ass accountable. Don't enable him to be a dick.” Christian growls.
“I know. You're right, and I'm trying, but it's not easy. With all his bullshit he really loves me and he takes good care of me and puts up with mine.”
“Oh, you mean the house, the cars and all that other bullshit he gives you in place of his fidelity.”
“No, it's more than money between us. You wouldn’t understand. I know he's got problems, but so do I. Between the two of us we're just dysfunctional enough to make it work.”
“I can say one thing for sure. He really loves you. In fact I don't think that he's ever loved anybody but you. It's easy to see why. Look, take my advice and hold him to a higher standard. He'll do better if you stop letting him off the hook. Make him step up or go.”
