It took Kendrick longer than it normally would to set up, but he wanted everything perfect before he began Nicole’s tattoo. “I’m going to start now. If at any time you want me to stop because it hurts, just let me know and I’ll take a break. I’m thinking we need to do this in two sessions. The outline today and the color later.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
Ten minutes into the tattoo, Kendrick realized that although Nicole may have gotten other tattoos before, she was experiencing how much more painful it was to get a tattoo on the hip bone.
“Can you talk to me?” she asked. “To take my mind off the pain.”
“Sure,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Hmm.” She closed her eyes until he finished the line he was tattooing. “Can you tell me why you created your rule about not dating people you work with?”
He glanced her way before continuing what he was doing. He knew it would come up sooner or later. “I created that rule because of what I’d gone through with two of my exes,” he said. “With Veronica, I’d met her in film school, but we’d only been friends at the time. We ran into each other a couple years later when we were both vying for the same assistant director position. At the time, I think it meant more to her than it did to me, but I still really wanted the position. The hiring process was three months long, and I’d never applied for a job that had us go through so many trials before someone was chosen. In that time, Veronica and I grew even stronger and quickly started dating. Round after round, only her and I remained until finally they were ready to choose the winner. At this point, I thought I was in love with her, and I told her it didn’t matter who got it.”
“She got it?” Nicole asked. “Veronica got the job?”
“Nope, I got it. And after I accepted, we grew even closer and I moved into her place at her suggestion since it was in a nicer part of town. I dated her for two years before I realized she was only using me to further her own career. The day she landed a director role was the day that I should have been excited for her, but when I went home, I knew something was up. She sat me down and told me that now that she’d landed that position, she no longer needed me and I was holding her back from reaching her full potential.”
“Man,” Nicole said. “That’s a tough pill to swallow.”
“It was,” he said. “I’d always been more of a serious dater than the player type, so I was completely caught off guard by what she’d told me. I’d spent thousands of dollars on this woman because she claimed she couldn’t afford to pay her bills and rent. At the time, I didn’t think to ask her how she’d been getting by before. I’d never met her parents, so I hadn’t known she came from money and was cut off financially until she’d finished telling me that I was no longer wanted in her life and that she’d reconciled with her parents. She handed me a box of my belongings, then told my ass that I could pick up the rest the following week.”
“That’s crazy,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “I would have given her a piece of my mind.”
“I was upset for a long time, especially when new blogs and magazines released information about her dating a famous actor. But then when I thought more about it, all I could do was pity the poor soul who ended up with that gold digger and move on with my life.”
Nicole was still shaking her head when he tightened the screws on the tattoo machine.
“You mentioned exes as in plural,” Nicole said. “Who was your other ex who contributed to you creating the rule?”
“Amanda,” he said, shaking his head. “I met Amanda back when we were kids and I was still living in Chicago. Back in the day, we used to be inseparable. We both got jobs sweeping the floors at a corner store in the neighborhood. Then, in our early teens, we both got a job stacking the fruit at a local grocery store. When we turned sixteen, we both got jobs at the mall at a popular shoe store. She was one of the good girls in the neighborhood. The one who everyone wanted to be around because she represented a purity that was rare in our community.”
“So you two were really close friends?”
“Yeah. At least it started off that way.” Kendrick thought back to when he first asked her to be his girlfriend. “Remember when I told you I was involved with the wrong stuff and crowd back then?”
“Of course.”
“I guess you could say that in order to fit in, I had to do some things I wasn’t proud of. As I’ve said before, my mom was prideful and she didn’t want to ask her family for money, but financially, we were in trouble when the factory she worked at closed down. Since I wasn’t making the amount of money I needed to make, I turned to other avenues, which meant I had to sell some things I’d rather not sell. Associate with people who I didn’t necessarily want to be associated with, but did because it was better to keep your enemies closer. I’ve always been smart, and it wasn’t until I’d had a serious eye-opening conversation with my grandparents that I realized the path I was headed down didn’t fit me.
“When you’re at the top of your game in the streets, everyone wants to be your friend. It’s only when you start to want another life for yourself that things begin to fall apart. Then suddenly instead of having people who watch your back, you discover you’re the only one watching it.”
Nicole nodded. “We didn’t go through the same situation, but I understand how you feel.”
“It was tough,” he said. “To want to be accepted by a crowd while at the same time wanting to stand alone. It was a weird place to be. Amanda was one of the people who had my back, but the minute I started wanting more, craving more, doing better in school so that I could raise my GPA and get into a good college, she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. When I found out she was pregnant by one of my closest friends, it was around the same time my mom told me we were moving to LA. Even though I had family in LA, I hadn’t wanted to leave Chicago. And the only time I’d seen my cousin Bryant was at family reunions, so he and I didn’t share the bond we have now, back then. He was clean-cut around the edges, whereas I... I was...”
“You were more jagged...”
“Yeah, exactly. But despite what I wanted, I knew there wasn’t a reason for me to stay in Chicago anymore. It will always be home, but I needed a change. To this day, I don’t know if my mom was telling the truth when she said that she’d gotten an opportunity to work at an educational foundation in LA or if she saw the path I was headed down and was willing to do anything she could to redirect it.”
“I know I only met your mom once,” Nicole said, “but I bet she probably came to LA for you and maybe the job opportunity came shortly after.”
“You’re probably right,” he said. “That was also the first time I’d seen my mom ask for help from a family member. Our first year in LA, we stayed at my uncle’s winery.”
“Did you ever see Amanda after you moved?” Nicole asked.
“I sure did,” he said. “She moved to LA.”
“She moved to LA?” Nicole said in surprise. “How did that happen?”
Kendrick adjusted his hand so that he could tattoo the lines of the sweet peas. “I’d just completed my first commercial with the agency when Bryant called and said she was at the winery. She knew that my uncle owned it, so it wasn’t too surprising. I hadn’t seen her in over twelve years at the time, and after that drama with Veronica, I was happy to see her. We decided to go out to dinner to catch up. She updated me on how folks were doing in the neighborhood, and we laughed at some of the crazy things we did as kids. It was like old times.”
“Did she tell you why she was in LA that night?”
“Yeah, she did. My ex-friend and the father of her son had been in a bad accident and was paralyzed a year before. She said she’d been so distraught that her son was staying with her parents. I’d heard about it from someone I still kept in contact with from Chicago, but I’d thought they weren’t together at the time. She told me that she’d moved to LA to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress and once she’d bettered herself, she would move her son here.”
“Are you sure he isn’t your son?” Nicole asked. “Given how everything went down between you both.”
“I had a paternity test done when her son was born. He isn’t my child.”
“Oh, okay.” Nicole adjusted her head on the reclined chair. “So, the only thing she came to LA for was to become an actress? Nothing else?”
“If you’re asking if she came to LA so that we could get back together, then that answer is yes. Amanda wasted no time apologizing and letting her intentions be known. I’d always had a weak spot for her because I’d known all the hardship and trouble she’d gone through. So within weeks, we’d fallen back into our old pattern and decided to try a relationship again. She moved into my place, and I welcomed her into my world. My mom couldn’t stand her. They’d never gotten along. But everyone else liked being around her. Even Monty and Angelica developed a friendship with her. And her acting career took off, as well. Before I knew it, she was starring in independent films.”
Nicole’s eyes widened. “Is Amanda Mason your ex?”
“Yeah,” Kendrick said. “You’ve seen her work?”
“I have. I’m a sucker for independent films. But didn’t Amanda go to rehab a few years ago and then appear on two seasons of that rehab reality show?”
“She did. The first time she appeared on the show, we were together. I’d watched her go down a downward spiral the minute she began booking movies and shows. She began coming home late, and when she did, I could tell she was on drugs and drinking heavily. Then one day, she didn’t come home. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into an entire month. Then one day, I receive a random call from someone who rattles off the address of where she is. When I get there, I check out the house first. When I got to the back of the house, I saw her in the window having sex with another man.”
“Oh, no.” Nicole’s hand flew to her mouth. “That’s terrible.”
“Even worse, she was so high at the time, she didn’t even know who I was when I told her I’d come to take her home. I spent that car ride with her kicking and screaming for me to let her naked self out the car and me telling her to calm down. When we got home, I practically had to lock her in the bedroom until she fell asleep. I hadn’t talked to Amanda’s parents since she’d arrived in LA, so I called them, unsure of what else to do. That’s when I learned that they had full custody of her son and hadn’t spoken to their daughter in years.”
“I had a feeling that may be the case,” Nicole said in a soft voice. “I hate that you had to go through that.”
“Me too,” he said. “But as you’ve said, apparently it was a lesson I had to learn. Now I see what I failed to see all those years ago. For Amanda, it had never been about us as a couple or the love I had for her. It was all about the image she wanted to portray to the world. It was about what I could do for her and connecting her with the contacts I was making in the industry. I haven’t seen her in two years, but last I heard, she was trying to get her acting career started again. And although I wish her the best, I could never go down that road again.”
Nicole grew quiet.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about how much we had in common. I know it shouldn’t keep surprising me, but it does. You’re so amazing, I just don’t understand why you’ve had such bad luck in relationships.”
“I could say the same about you,” Kendrick said with a smile. “You haven’t had the best of luck either. But meeting you has opened my eyes to more than I ever thought possible.”
She tilted her head toward him. “And what’s that?”
Kendrick let his eyes roam over her body as she lay on the reclined chair, stopping at her eyes. “I learned that despite the obstacles I’ve had to face, I still have a lot of love to offer a woman...the right woman... You helped me see that. Hell, you helped me see a whole lot more than just that, but opening up my heart to love again is definitely at the top.”
He went back to tattooing her hip as she lay there, observing him. He was sure her brain was trying to process what he’d just said, and he hoped she understood one thing and one thing only. It may not be soon. It may even be months from now. However, one day, he was going to make her his, so she’d better be prepared when that time came.