Heat Wave

“Farewell My Summer Love” —Michael Jackson

Maleek never really thought it would end. Especially the day that it did. He was shaken to his core. He felt some anger, but mostly he felt helpless. He felt like all of his control was lost.

His heart was broken.

Blinking the sweat from his eyes, he shook Yuri, went to the left, and faded away for an easy jump shot.

Swoosh.

He didn’t let up, jumping up to roar as he grabbed the rebound and spiraled his tall frame easily into a dunk that shattered the backboard, sending glass raining down around them like rain.

“Shit, man, you happy now?” Yuri snapped, brushing the little squares of glass from his beefy shoulders.

Maleek kicked the ball away from him with force.

People say hindsight is twenty-twenty. He never saw any of this bullshit coming.

Love wished like hell she could blink her eyes, wiggle her nose, or click some heels to get the hell away from the liquor-induced male-bashing party that had invited itself to her home.

“Girl, at least you had fun while it lasted,” Oran said. “A man that fine, with all that money, and all that sexy body is worth the try . . . but men ain’t shit!”

Tashi and June toasted to that.

Love couldn’t say the same, and it was her pity party.

Even through her fears about getting involved with him, when that man looked at her and said, “Trust me” . . . she did.

So why in the hell was she blindsided by the bullshit?

Why did everything surprise her and shake her and devastate her?

Love rose to her feet. Three sets of concerned eyes fell on her. “Ladies’ room,” she explained, turning to make her way down the hall.

“Poor baby. When she gonna learn?” she heard June whisper.

“I hated to be the one to tell her . . . but I had to. Right?” Tashi asked, her voice not much lower.

“You had to, girl.”

Love was glad to close the bathroom door behind her and lock it before she slumped down onto the closed lid of the commode. She dropped her head into her hands, and her entire body shook as the tears flowed from her like she was trying to fill a river overnight.

Rewind Three Weeks

“I really shouldn’t be this happy about one of my brides damn near being left at the altar.” Love sighed as she adjusted her aviator shades on her face before undoing her bikini top and laying back to let the Bahaman sun kiss her nipples.

“If her wedding happened yesterday, we wouldn’t have been able to charter this yacht and spend the night making love in the middle of the ocean,” Maleek reminded her, lifting up off his stomach to lean over and outline her deep brown aureole with his tongue.

Both of her nipples tightened into buds as goose bumps raced across her body. “Maybe one year we can sail the summer away, huh?” she asked as she brought her hands up to massage the back of his head as he replaced his tongue with his lips.

Maleek lifted his head to look at her. “Definitely,” he agreed.

Love moved her hand to stroke his face. “Are we crazy to even talk about the future?” she asked.

“We would be crazy not to.”

She caressed his strong face, looked into his dreamy eyes, and smiled with all the happiness she felt.

“You ready, brothah? Maleek. Maleek? You ready? You’re on in five. Maleek?”

He finally focused his eyes on Brad’s reflection in the mirror behind him. “I’m ready,” he said, his voice cold.

Brad held up his hands. “Okay. A’ight man,” he said.

Maleek didn’t mean to be an ass, but the last thing he wanted was to be interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel. He didn’t want to be doing a damn thing.

Especially thinking about Love.

Not anymore.

Damn, he thought. We didn’t even last the whole summer.

“Now, he may ask you about your relationship with Nylah Lovely—”

Maleek shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks, his hands clenching and unclenching with the same wrenching of his gut. “It’s over. Love and I are over.”

It hurt to say the words and feel the loss, but what ate at him the most was her thinking that he hadn’t kept his promise. That he dropped the ball. That he let her down. That he didn’t appreciate the risk she took for him.

That she didn’t trust and believe in him.

Love licked her lips before she took another sip of her wine as she eyed the dozen different glossy magazines spread out over her bed. Either cover photos or features inside replaying her summer with Maleek. Out to dinner. Out shopping. At one of the outdoor festivals at Prospect Park. Even sunbathing on her rooftop.

The blog posts on YBF, Necole Bitchie, and Bossip were just as numerous. She didn’t dare venture into the comment sections. Tashi had warned her against it because the blog commentators were . . . outspoken with their opinions.

One of the mags even questioned Byron about his opinion on her new relationship. Love could only sigh in relief when his publicist released a brief statement wishing her nothing but the best.

The entertainment shows had had a ball running through Maleek’s long list of “reported” girlfriends. That had been . . . interesting—especially when Maleek had been honest about which of the reports were true.

Love used her foot to kick the magazines to the floor and slammed the laptop closed before she climbed out of bed. Her steps out of the room paused when she saw a pair of Maleek’s size-fifteen sneakers by the closet door. She extended her leg and nudged one of the soles with her bare foot, hating the sadness that weighed her shoulders down. The shoes and God knows what else were in her house, just like his presence lingered in her life.

Love brought her hands up to wipe the weariness from her face. “All the signs say that, ever since the day that we laid eyes on each other, baby, you’re the one for me,” she sang in a whisper.

She looked up at her reflection in the mirror and laughed bitterly.

Rewind Two Weeks

“Maleek, if it’s not true, then why are there pictures of you smiling like a fool with this woman damn near in your lap?”

“She was a fan who asked me to pose for a picture at the same party I asked you to attend . . . and you didn’t.”

“The same night you didn’t come back to my house.”

“Because I had a carload of groupies on my damn tail and my sister’s house in the gated community is more secure than yours,” Maleek explained . . . again. “That’s why I rented this house for the summer. To protect you.”

Love looked around at the living room. “Listen, you said you wouldn’t ask too much of me,” she reminded him, lowering her voice.

Maleek dropped his keys onto the table as he leveled his eyes on her. “Have I asked too much?”

Love took a deep steadying breath before she answered. “Yes,” she said softly.

Maleek frowned deeply.

“I moved out of my house for the summer to spend time with you in peace,” she began, ticking points off on each finger. “I have the press bombarding my phone lines with questions and interrupting my business. When we go out, I have groupies and shit stampeding me to get to you. And now on top of the garbage that press is lying about, I’m getting these random ass e-mails and phone calls from some chick that knows a helluva lot about you and your every move. It’s too much, Maleek. It’s too damn much!”

Maleek paced the length of the spacious living room almost as quickly as he ran the length of a basketball court. He shook his head in disbelief as he looked over at her standing in front of the fireplace. “Have I done one damn thing to make you not trust me?” he asked, coming to stand in front of her. His presence and his anger were overwhelming.

Love felt her happiness slipping through her fingers like sand. It scared the shit out of her.

“Have I?” he roared, his eyes blazing.

Love looked up at him and shook her head. She felt tired and drained from the arguing, from the press. From all the changes in her life.

Maleek threw his hands up in the air and stalked across the room, away from her.

She felt the distance as if it were a hundred miles. “How did she know that you went to the Vanity Fair party and left early? Huh?”

Maleek looked at her like he didn’t know her.

“And the day you went to the graveyard with Ayannah, was the press there?”

Maleek bit his bottom lip. “No.”

“I guess she spotted you there too, right?”

“So no matter what I say, you’re gonna beat me in the head with this bullshit?” he asked, his voice actually tinged with pain and disappointment.

Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . .

Love stiffened as her BlackBerry vibrated and lit up on the table. Her eyes shifted to the clock. It was close to midnight.

What the hell? she thought.

Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . .

She snatched it up and opened her messages. She couldn’t do anything but laugh. “Wow, guess who?” she snapped, holding up her BlackBerry. “Another update from maleeksprungonthis at yahoo dot com.”

Maleek came across the room. “Don’t open that bullshit, Love. Don’t let whoever that is mess this up,” he said, his tone serious.

Love wanted to fling the BlackBerry against the wall, but she fought hard to regain some of her composure. “You said you wouldn’t ask me for too much,” she repeated.

Maleek’s eyes squinted as he looked at her. “And you said you would give me all that you could,” he countered.

Love looked incredulous. “What more do you want from me?” she asked.

“Your trust. For you to believe in my actions and my words. To not fall for the bullshit. To have my back.”

Love stepped close to him, her finger pointed at her chest. “I moved out of my home to stay here with you. I’m getting e-mails from your groupies whether they are lying or not. I am not the celebrity, big-time superstar loving the lights, camera, and action. All I wanted out of this was you . . . not the rest of this shit, and you knew that, Maleek!”

He patted his chest with both of his strong hands before he opened his arms wide. “And you have me. You have all of me,” Maleek told her with conviction that was written all over his face.

Love wanted nothing more than to step forward and wrap her arms around him so tightly and close her eyes and pretend like everything would be fine. But she couldn’t. “This isn’t just about the groupie e-mails or whatever. It’s everything. It’s too much, Maleek. It’s . . . the . . . life.”

Maleek dropped his strong arms to his sides and stepped back from her until there was nearly two or three feet between them. “I won’t beg you to be in my life anymore,” he said, his face serious.

Love’s heart broke in two as she stood there looking at this man who had so quickly captured her. As the silence between them continued, she grabbed her keys, pocketbook, and cell phone before walking to the door.

“Go ahead and run, Love. You weren’t ever ready for this anyway,” he said angrily.

Love opened the front door.

“But I’ll tell you this, there was nothing no one could have said or done to make me walk away from what we have.”

Love looked down at her cell phone and opened the e-mail.

Tell my man I’ll see him in Hollywood tomorrow.

Maleek indeed was flying to the West Coast for some television interviews in the morning.

On that note, Love stepped out the door and closed it behind her.

“Are you sure you want me to go instead?”

Maleek nodded, not taking his eyes off the movie screen even though for the life of him he had no clue what film he was watching in their theater room.

“Even though I’m happy to see you so much, you can’t sit in this house all day . . . every day,” Ayannah said, coming deeper into the room to sit on the arm of the theater chair he reclined in. “Thank God your camp at St. John’s is coming up. And the party.”

He missed the hell out of Love. He missed her and he felt hurt that she threw his affections back in his face. He just wanted to get through what turned out to be the worst summer of his life and get back to some normalcy on the basketball court. “I’m straight,” he lied, ignoring the dull ache in his chest.

“Liar,” she said affectionately and with a touch of sadness as she rubbed the back of his head before she rose to her feet and left the room to go handle the favor he requested of her.

Love arranged and rearranged the items on her desk a million times in the last twenty minutes. Her nerves were shot and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She looked out the window at the soft drizzle of rain.

Bzzz . . .

“Ms. Lovely, your eleven o’clock appointment is here.”

She rose from her seat and smoothed her pencil skirt over her hips before coming around the desk to open the door. Her heart pounded so loudly that she thought she might go deaf.

“Thank you, Faryn,” she said into the intercom, her palms sweating with nerves.

Moments later there was a double knock on her door before it opened.

Love busied herself sliding on her glasses, looking up to find Ayannah standing before her. Love’s eyes quickly shifted to the empty space behind her.

Ayannah gave her a sad smile. “Uhm, he’s not here. He sent me instead.”

Love tried her best to recover quickly. “Sure, that’s understandable,” she said, hating that she stammered.

Ayannah stepped forward.

Love rose to her feet long enough to wave at one of the empty club chairs before her desk.

“There’s just some last-minute decisions with it being less than two weeks before the party,” Ayannah said.

He doesn’t want to see me. He didn’t even want to lay eyes on me.

That stung and she blinked her eyes rapidly to keep a tear from even welling up in her eyes. It didn’t work.

“Oh, Love.” Ayannah sighed, standing up to come around the desk and wrap her arm around Love’s shoulders. “Girl, we need to talk.”

And the dam broke with Love burying her head against Ayannah’s shoulder as her own shook with her sobs.