For the Sake of Love Read online

  “We’ve got to do something to celebrate,” she said. Her face lit up.

  “Just being with you is enough.” He meant every word.

  They stood facing each other, holding hands. She touched the side of his face and showed him her even, white teeth. “That’s sweet, just like the flowers, but this is worthy of a celebration.” She backed away from him and took the lid off the pizza box. “Mmm, pepperoni, my favorite.”

  He knew it was her favorite; that’s why he got it. “Baby, let me change.” He went out to his car and grabbed a change of clothes; then he went into her bathroom and put on a baseball cap, a clean bright white T-shirt, loose-fitting jeans, and a pair of white-on-white sneakers so clean snow would’ve gotten jealous. Feeling more comfortable, he left his clothes in the bathroom and joined Bria in the kitchen.

  She picked up a slice and the gooey cheese dangled until she removed it with her finger. “Tell me everything. What label signed you? I want all the details.”

  She acted like she was talking to one of her girlfriends. He wasn’t about to give her details. He didn’t like to talk that much. She’d be lucky to get the CliffsNotes. “Big Ups Records,” he told her.

  “That’s huge.” She sounded impressed.

  He grinned. “Yeah, I think so. It’s all good.” He left it at that.

  “Okay. How about Six Flags this weekend?” she suggested, taking a bite of the warm pizza.

  Spade stacked three large slices on his plate. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Bria inserted the horror movie in the Blu-ray disc player. They took their food into the family room and ate on folding TV tray tables. While the previews showed they talked about their upcoming wedding.

  “I found the most adorable white flower girl dress for your cousin,” Bria told him, her enthusiasm evident.

  “Hold still,” he said as he kissed and licked away a string of cheese from her chin. Once it was gone he leaned back.

  “Before I forget . . . We have a cake tasting and meeting with the caterer to sample the menu.”

  He smacked his lips. When she mentioned the word cake, it reminded him of the Rihanna and Chris Brown song, “Birthday Cake.” He couldn’t wait until their honeymoon so that he could have his cake and eat it too. “You know as long as there’s food I’m there. Just let me know when.”

  “While my mom and I were out looking for the mother-of-the-bride outfit, which we didn’t find, we saw a really nice suit for your mom. I took a picture of it on my phone.” She got up to get her phone and showed him the elegant-looking outfit with rhinestones on the lapel.

  He took the phone from her to get a better view. It looked like something his mom would wear. “I like it. I think my mom will too.”

  She put her phone down and finished off her pizza. “One more month.”

  “Yeah, and all that booty will be mine.”

  They both laughed.

  “Anyway,” Bria said, “please don’t do like Chance did and forget to order your tux.” She sighed. Chance was her best friend’s husband. “He was so busy trying to make sure all his groomsmen remembered to order their tuxes that he forgot to order his own.”

  Spade was glad she reminded him, because with his packed schedule he easily could’ve forgotten too.

  Bria gulped down her drink and let out a burp. “Excuse me,” she laughed.

  Spade laughed too. People wouldn’t believe how silly and down-to-earth this intelligent, well-behaved, gorgeous woman could be, he thought. He attracted pretty women but most of the time they weren’t that smart or were real flighty or didn’t have good personalities. Bria, though, she was the complete package.

  She looked at him. “Six Flags tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  The movie started, and she snuggled up next to him. He felt like the luckiest man in the world, and nothing, certainly not some little ol’ lump, was going to change that.

  Two

  Bria had gone to Six Flags enough to know how to dress for the occasion. She pulled her straight hair back into a long ponytail, put on a sun visor, tank top, shorts, sneakers, and slathered sunblock on every exposed area of her skin.

  Spade picked her up in his Dodge Durango. During the ride they listened to the demo CD that landed Spade his contract. Bria enjoyed listening to him. His lyrics had depth, his flow was on point, and the beats were catchy.

  “I love all these songs,” she complimented him.

  “Thanks, beautiful.”

  Every time he called her “beautiful” her insides quivered. She felt beautiful being with him.

  “Are you excited?”

  “I am, but it hasn’t settled all the way in yet.” He drove on I-20. “My manager has been inundating me with information and stuff to do. It’s a lot to take in. I mean, I have to meet with an image consultant, a stylist, a producer to listen to beats, write new music, and on and on.” He took a breath. “There’s so much that goes into dropping a CD. The label liaison is responsible for getting a release date for my CD. I’ve been told we’re going to have a CD release party and a full-fledged promotional tour. I didn’t expect it to be this intense. I just wanted to make music, you feel me?”

  “I understand,” Bria said. He had a lot going on, but she could tell he was still happy and excited. “I guess it’s true that stars aren’t born, they’re created.” Regardless, her man was a star in her eyes.

  They arrived at the park promptly at ten o’clock in the morning, and it was already starting to get hot. Bria tapped her phone to check the weather and discovered that the temperature was 78 degrees. She was glad that she had drunk plenty of water the night before and in the morning to keep herself hydrated.

  So much for trying to get to the park early on a Saturday. They stood in line behind thirty-five people. Bria knew the exact number because she counted them. She had just a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Because of it, she kept an immaculate house, would occasionally find herself obsessing about whether she unplugged the iron, and counted random things. They made small talk as they inched their way to the front of the line and purchased their tickets.

  Once inside, they acted like big kids trying to decide what roller coaster to ride first.

  “We gotta do Batman,” Spade insisted. No surprise there, considering he loved all things Batman. The same way talk-show host Wendy Williams adores Wonder Woman, Spade admired Batman. He even drank out of a Batman coffee mug every morning.

  “It’s your day,” Bria relented.

  So they headed to Gotham City. The line had a forty-five-minute wait posting, and they maneuvered their way through. Some of the areas smelled like urine. Bria imagined some drunken guy taking a leak in a corner, stinking up the spot.

  When they reached the front of the line and it was their turn to get on the ride, Bria felt excited. As soon as they were secure and ready to go she closed her eyes and held on tight. She felt some type of sonic wave on her insides. She had this ribcage thing going on where her largest body cavity, her chest and stomach, resonated like a guitar body. She screamed during the entire ride and didn’t open her eyes until they came back to the boarding dock.

  Spade was so stoked that he wanted to ride again. Bria didn’t like to ride the same ride back to back, but for Batman she’d make an exception. That ride was fun! Plus, she wanted to make Spade happy. They got back in line and did it all over again.

  Next they rode Mindbender, and then Goliath. Bria didn’t mind the long wait times, because the time passed by quickly. Especially the way she and Spade joked with each other and playfully touched each other. What she didn’t like were the unpleasant odors, mainly the funk emitted after people got hot and started sweating.

  Nearly four hours had passed and they had worked up an appetite. They sat down to eat smoked turkey drumsticks and drank Cokes. Those drumsticks were huge. They looked like something from the Flintstones, but they tasted like a piece of heaven on earth. All flavorful and juicy.

  A group of teenage gi
rls were gawking, pointing, and giggling in their direction.

  “What’s that about?” Bria said. She wasn’t feeling the rudeness.

  Spade shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.” He patted her hand.

  Two of the giddy teens came over to them. “Aren’t you Spade?”

  A smile wider than the moon appeared on Spade’s face. He licked his lips. “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh my God!” they squealed.

  The light-skinned one with strawberry blond hair said, “We’re your biggest fans. We met you when you came to our school for Career Day. And we have your mix tape. Can we get your autograph?”

  “Of course you can.” He looked around for something to write on and settled for a napkin. Bria handed him a pen from her fanny pack. “Who do you want me to make it out to?”

  She looked over her shoulder at her friends who were cheesin’ hard looking starstruck. She looked back at Spade. “You can make it out to me, Rasheeda,” she pointed at her friend standing next to her, “Porsha, and my two friends over there, Jasmine and Ebonee.”

  “You got it.” He wrote their names and Thanks for your support. Love, Spade. He handed the young girl the napkin.

  Pressing the napkin next to her chest, she asked, “Can I please get a hug?”

  Spade looked at Bria who gave him the go-ahead. Who was she to come between Spade and a fan? This was his life, and she needed to get used to it. What choice did she have? He was about to blow up even more. She was certain that after his CD dropped, his popularity would soar. Fans asking for autographs would become standard practice.

  He briefly hugged the girl, and before he could sit back down, her friend spoke up, “Me too.”

  So, he gave her an innocent hug as well. One would’ve thought they had just met the king of the south the way they ran off all giddy.

  Bria smirked at him. “Well, that was interesting, Mr. Superstar.” She could tell that made his chest stick out a little further. “Oh, Spade,” she teased, “may I please get your autograph?” She squeezed his bicep.

  “Yeah, okay. But my girl is a little touched in the head.” He made a circling motion with his index finger at the side of his head. “She doesn’t take kindly to women touching on me.”

  That got a chuckle out of her. Slurping the last bit of her soda, she asked, “What’s next?” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a couple walking by pushing twins in a stroller. Her eyes followed them. That would be ideal for her, she thought. One pregnancy, two babies. A double blessing.

  Spade studied his folded map of the park and said, “We still have to ride the Cyclone, Superman, and Ninja.”

  “Don’t forget the Great American Scream Machine,” Bria added as she pointed to it on the map. She wiped sweat from her brow with a napkin. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  There were restrooms across from them, so they both went. A few minutes later they met back up and went on to the next fast, wild, gut-wrenching ride, leaving Bria feeling nauseated. The Superman ride proved to be too much for her, as she threw up at the end of the ride, grossing Spade out. Those turkey legs come up tasting nothing like going down. Lucky for her she always carried a travel toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash in her bag. Those items came in handy today, so she didn’t have to walk around with vomit breath.

  At six o’clock in the evening they were winding down and rode a splashy water ride to cool off. No sooner than they got off the ride the clouds opened up and poured buckets of water on their heads. They tried to run for cover but there was no use. The raindrops stomped on them with a vengeance. They were completely soaked, so they just made a mad dash to the SUV. Spade had a couple of towels in his trunk. They spread the towels over the leather seats before sitting down. That didn’t matter. Water still got on the seats.

  “That was fun,” Bria said, then burst out laughing.

  “I prefer my showers in the privacy of my bathroom, thank you very much.”

  “Did you have fun?”

  He leaned over the console and kissed her soft lips. “The best. What do you want to do about dinner?”

  “We obviously can’t go anywhere looking like this.” With both hands she gestured from her head down. “Let’s just go through a drive-thru somewhere.”

  “That’ll work.”

  About ten minutes into their ride the rain subsided.

  “I think you should move in with me and let your dad find a renter after we get married,” Spade suggested.

  Bria didn’t say anything. She was trying to find a tactful way to say what was on her mind. She enjoyed living away from her parents during college. After she graduated her father insisted she move back into the family home until she got married. Her dad was old-fashioned like that. Spade had already proposed to her, so she could’ve easily married him just to get out of her parents’ house. But, she didn’t want to do that. Yes, she loved Spade with all her heart, but she wanted to accomplish more before she got married. So, she enrolled in an accelerated graduate program where she could complete her MBA in one year. And she did.

  Recently, one of her family’s rental properties became vacant. Since the home was in a desirable neighborhood and had been well maintained, she convinced her father to let her move in.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “I’ve been in my house less than a year. It doesn’t make sense for me to leave a house and move into a condo. I don’t want to share walls with anyone. Plus, we’d have to move again anyway after we started having kids.”

  “I hear you, but I’m a grown man. How does that look for me to move into my girl’s house?” He was resolute and unswerving.

  “It’s not all that uncommon. Besides, why do you care what anyone thinks?”

  “I don’t. I’m just sayin’.” He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

  “When is your lease up again?”

  “In June.”

  “We’d have more space at my house, and you could have a home gym and studio.” She tried to make the offer sound enticing.

  He seemed to ponder the idea. “That could work. I don’t even know why I’m trippin’. At the end of the day it’s not going to matter where we live right now anyway. When my checks start rolling in, I’m buying you a mansion.” He showed her his teeth.

  Bria loved the fact that Spade wanted to give her the world, but what mattered most to her was their love and happiness.

  Three

  Sunday morning rolled around, and Bria had a hard time getting out of bed. All those hours at the amusement park in the hot sun had worn her out. She would’ve loved to have stayed in the bed and hugged the pillow tighter just a little while longer, but she knew if she cancelled out on going to church, so would Nya—her best friend ever since the fifth grade—and Chance. She didn’t want to give them an excuse.

  She fixed herself a cup of hot coffee hoping it would help give her some “get-up-and-go.” She cracked the blinds over her sink. Maple cabinetry with an antique white painted finish kept the kitchen light and airy.

  As she sat at the breakfast bar reading the Sunday paper and sipping her Java, her cell phone rang. She perked up when she saw Spade’s picture pop up and the caption “My Man” underneath. She immediately answered.

  “When you get back from church I’m coming over. Put on something casual like jeans and flats. I have a surprise for you,” he said.

  She liked surprises as long as they were good. But she acted like a young child in the sense that she wanted to know what the surprise was in advance, and if no one told her, she’d spend a lot of time thinking about it, trying to figure it out.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Didn’t I tell you it was a surprise?” He sounded like he wanted to add “duh” on the end.

  “Fine.” She pretended to pout. “Are you going to church today?”

  Spade attended church on his side of town, which was about forty minutes away from Bria. “Yeah. I’ll be headed out in a few. It’s my Sunday to direct the youth choi
r.”

  She liked the fact that he was using his musical gift to give back to the kingdom as well. “Okay. I love you. Represent for the family.”

  He laughed. Whenever they had something important going on, they always told each other to represent for the family. In other words, do good.

  “Love you too.”

  Bria got off the phone feeling more in love than ever. She looked forward to the day she could wake up next to Spade and cook him breakfast.

  She drained her cup and called her mom to tell her not to expect her for Sunday dinner. As an only child Bria maintained a close relationship with her parents. She spoke to her mom every day whether she wanted to or not. That was her obligation as the dutiful daughter. And she usually reserved some time on Sunday to spend with her mom and dad.

  Bria, Nya, and Chance met at their usual spot next to the enormous potted fern at the front entrance of the sanctuary. Chance stepped out first looking like the Jolly Green Giant with Nya nipping at his heels. Bria thought it was kind of corny but cute the way they wore coordinating outfits. As soon as they greeted each other with hugs and kisses on the cheek, Bria started cracking on Chance.

  “Chance, the Jolly Green Giant called and he wants his outfit back.”

  “Here you go. Can a brotha get in the church good before you start?” he said. Being from Boston, Chance tended to act like the letter “r” wasn’t a part of the English alphabet, and when he did use the letter it was often misplaced. It sounded like he said, “Heah ya go. Can a brotha get in the chuch good befah ya staht?”

  They chuckled before going inside and taking their seats near the front. They preferred to arrive a few minutes early so that they could fellowship with some of the other members as well as get good seats.

  Church opened with prayer; and then the choir sang three songs. Bria remained on her feet the entire time, clapping, singing, and praising the Lord. She could hear Chance singing off-key, but she wasn’t about to joke. Oh, how badly she wanted to say, “Chance, your voice may not be best suited for singing.” But she refrained, certain that to God he must’ve sounded like an angel. All that mattered was that he was in the house of the Lord praising His holy name, she reasoned.