Primal: Part One

● ● ● ● ● ●

He grinned and reached to rub the hair on the top of his head.  He stroked it backwards, towards the rubber band that held his dreads together.  His biceps were huge.  His triceps were too.  His forearm looked strong enough to crack a skull.

“I know you not getting jealous,” he said.  “You said you got a man.”

“I’m not jealous,” Monica said, frowning again.  “Why would I be jealous?  I don’t even know you – not like that.”

“I have to be available to women,” he explained.  “It’s business, or it could be.  You never know.”

“What the hell does that mean?”  In addition to being insanely sexy, Jovan was a walking question mark.

“Where you headed?” he asked.  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“I gotta go to work,” she said, blowing him off.

“Where do you work, that you have to be there at eleven o’clock at night.”

“One of my clients has a gig,” she explained.  “On the weekends I work as late as three in the morning.”  She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to explain herself.

“What club?” he asked.  “Can I go?  I’ll meet you there.”

“Why do you wanna talk to me?” she asked, growing exasperated.  “I already told you ain’t nothing happening between us.”

His mouth fell open.  He closed it and smiled good-naturedly.  “Monica, I respect your relationship.  Trust me.  I want to talk about
business
,” he insisted.  He was as calm as she was agitated.  “How much are you making off your client tonight?”  Before she could respond, he said, “I know it’s not as much as you can get working with me.”

Monica stared at him with her mouth ajar, eyes unblinking.  “How do you know that?  You still haven’t told me what you do, Jovan.  Sing, dance?  You a stripper?”

He shrugged.  “I do a lot of stuff.  Does that mean you wanna talk business?”

● ● ● ● ● ●

PRIMAL

PART 1

KEITH THOMAS WALKER

KEITHWALKERBOOKS, INC

This is a UMS production

KEITHWALKERBOOKS

Publishing Company

KeithWalkerBooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 331585

Fort Worth, TX 76163

All rights reserved.  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this manuscript in whole or partial in any form by any mechanical, electronic, or other means, not known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, xerography, and recording, or in any information retrieval or storage system, is forbidden without written permission of the publisher, KeithWalkerBooks, Inc.

For information write

KeithWalkerBooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 331585

Fort Worth, TX 76163

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author and all incidents are pure invention.

Copyright © 2015 Keith Thomas Walker

Manufactured in the United States of America

Visit us at
www.keithwalkerbooks.com

This book is for the Bold Doula

MORE BOOKS BY

KEITH THOMAS WALKER

Fixin’ Tyrone

How to Kill Your Husband

A Good Dude

Riding the Corporate Ladder

The Finley Sisters’ Oath of Romance

Blow by Blow

Jewell and the Dapper Dan

Harlot

Plan C (And More KWB Shorts)

Dripping Chocolate

The Realest Ever

Jackson Memorial

Sleeping With the Strangler

Life After

Blood for Isaiah

Brick House

Brick House 2

One on One

NOVELLAS

Might be Bi (Part One)

Harder

POETRY COLLECTION

Poor Righteous Poet

FINLEY HIGH SERIES

Prom Night at Finley High

Fast Girls at Finley High

Visit keithwalkerbooks.com for information about these and upcoming titles from KeithWalkerBooks

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Of course I would like to thank God, first and foremost, for giving me the creativity and drive to pursue my dreams and the understanding that I am nothing without Him.  I would like to thank my wife for being my first and most important critic, and I would like to thank my mother for always pushing me to be the best I can be.  I would like to thank Janae Hampton for being the best advisor, supporter and little sister a brother could ever have.  I would also like to thank (in no particular order) Beulah Neveu, Deloris Harper, Denise Fizer, Shelee Stevenson, Melissa Carter, Cathy Atchison, Lanita Irvin, Ramona Weathersbee, Jason Owens, Sharon Blount, BRAB Book Club, and Uncle Steven Thomas, one love.  I’d like to thank everyone who purchased and enjoyed one of my books.  Everything I do has always been to please you.  I know there are folks who mean the world to me that I’m failing to mention.  I apologize ahead of time.  Rest assured I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith Thomas Walker, known as the Master of Romantic Suspense and Urban Fiction, is the author of nearly two dozen novels, including
Life After, The Realest Ever,
the
Brick House
series
and the
Finley High
series.  Keith’s books transcend all genres.  He has published romance, urban fiction, mystery/thriller, teen/young adult, Christian, poetry and erotica.  Originally from Fort Worth, he is a graduate of Texas Wesleyan University.  Keith has won or been nominated for numerous awards in the categories of “Best Male Author,” “Best Romance,” “Best Urban Fiction,” and “Author of the Year,” from several book clubs and organizations.  Visit him at www.keithwalkerbooks.com.

CHAPTER ONE

THE MIXER

Monica Wyatt sat at a table for four in a conference room at the downtown Hilton.  She considered all of the other places she’d rather be as she made small talk with the ladies at her table.  Across from her sat Jennifer Wheatfield.  To her right was Veronica Mitchell, and to her left was Phyllis Millsap.  Monica hadn’t seen any of them since graduating high school, but she kept up with Veronica from time to time on Facebook.

The glorious event that brought the women together (as well as seventeen other members of their graduating class), was the
Finley High Class of ’95 Mixer
.  It was promoted as a smaller version of an official class reunion, which was probably due to the lack of interest the class of 1995 had in reuniting, even if only for one night.

But what was the point of seeing these people again?  Who goes to high school reunions anyway?  From the looks of it, not many.  Monica hated high school, all the way up to her senior year.  Her adolescence was tragically awkward.  She remembered sucking in sports, surprise menstrual cycles, several broken hearts and mean girl cliques that kept her relegated to the outskirts of popular events.

The idea of a reunion meant she would want to
reunite
with the same people who alienated her at a time when she sought acceptance the most.

So why did she come?

Monica imagined she was there for the same reason everyone else had come:  She wanted to see if the head cheerleader had gotten fat, if their valedictorian had become a rocket scientist and if any of their schoolyard bullies had gotten what they deserved in life; which would preferably be incarceration or one of those long, dark dirt naps.  Sure, that was morbid, but Monica didn’t think she was wrong or alone in this line of thinking.

But instead of determining whether her former classmates got their comeuppance, the Finley High mixer proved to be as big a bust as Mrs. Hodges’
Let’s have class outside for the rest of the year
initiative in ’94.  That little project sent Peter Wessel to the ER with anaphylactic shock after Javier Nunez found a wasp nest and a poking stick and put two and two together.

Monica grinned at the memory.  Peter’s face had swelled to the size of a pumpkin, while Mrs. Hodges completely freaked out.  If she had any emergency training, she forgot about it that day.

Good times
.

It would’ve been nice to bring up that incident at Monica’s table of four, but neither Peter nor Javier nor Mrs. Hodges attended the mixer.  No one else in the conference room was in her history class that semester, so Monica sighed and forgot about the wasps and continued to nurse a Long Island iced tea – which was one of the few positive things she could say about this event:  The drinks were free, and the bartender didn’t skimp on the alcohol.  Monica had been at the hotel for nearly an hour.  She would’ve left thirty minutes ago if not for the bar, which she’d already visited twice.

The conference room was decorated with blue and white streamers, banners and posters; all reminiscent of what students might find hanging in the halls of Finley High before a pep rally.  The DJ busied himself spinning tunes from the early nineties.  The women at Monica’s table were mostly quiet, but as the liquor coursed through their veins, they became a little more eager to speak on the failure of their twenty-year reunion.

“I thought more people would show up,” Jennifer commented.  She was a mousy woman with rosy cheeks and small teeth that didn’t fit her face well.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Monica agreed as she looked around the mostly empty room.  “Weren’t you on the organizing committee?” she asked Veronica.

“I was,” Veronica confirmed.  She hadn’t changed much since high school, except for an extra thirty pounds that was distributed nicely around her body.  “It was me and Hasan.  But we weren’t getting much interest early on.  That’s why we decided to have a
mixer
, instead of a full-fledged reunion.”

“I got the invite on Facebook,” Phyllis said.  “I started not to come, since I saw that only about twenty people had confirmed it.”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Veronica asked.  She looked as if the event was a personal failure on her part.

“The drinks are good,” Monica said.

“Oh yeah, these are definitely worth it,” Phyllis agreed.  She downed the rest of a fruity concoction and placed her glass on the table.  “I’ll be here till midnight, as long as y’all keep serving free liquor.”

The ladies laughed at that.

“They should be serving dinner soon,” Veronica informed them.  “I’m sure things will liven up after that.”

Monica doubted that.  Most of her former classmates seemed to be just as shy as they were in school.  The boys didn’t want to approach the females, the Asians were all sitting together, and no one wanted to raise their voice above the sound of the music.  It was high school all over again!  The only difference now was no one was anxious to graduate and take the world by storm.  They tried that already, and their dreams had been crushed by the establishment.  Now they were simply living check-to-check lifestyles, like their parents and grandparents had done before them.

“Well, what have you all been up to?” Veronica asked the women at her table.  “We don’t need three hundred people here to catch up with each other.  Most of the ones who didn’t show up were assholes anyway…”

The ladies agreed that was true, and they did have a good time trading stories with each other.  A few minutes later the servers began to deliver their meals, which further helped to brighten their moods.

After dinner the guests began to move about a bit more.  The DJ couldn’t entice anyone to dance, but the former classmates were talkative and laughter could be heard from all corners of the room.

Monica was about to start offering her goodbyes when one of the ladies at her table grabbed her arm (rather roughly).  With her free hand, she pointed at the entrance of the conference room.

“Ooh! 
Ooh
!”

Monica turned and stared at her with a perplexed expression.  It took Phyllis a few moments to get her words together.

“Look!” she said.  “Isn’t that
Jovan
?  That’s him! 
That’s Jovan
!”

Monica’s face flushed with heat as she followed Phyllis’ gaze and saw that Jovan Crist, one of few ex-boyfriends who actually
didn’t
break her heart in high school, had indeed entered the room.  In addition to heated, Monica wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt unsure of herself and short of breath.  It probably had a lot to do with the fact that Jovan had aged better than fine wine.  It only took a brief glance to see that he still carried himself with the air of a king amongst peasants.

“Holy shit,” Veronica muttered.  Everyone at their table was watching him now, the whole room was.  “He’s fine as hell.”

“For real,” Phyllis agreed with a slow shake of her head.  “Girl, I know you mad for letting that one get away.  Do you still keep up with him?”

Monica frowned as she pulled her arm away – not that Phyllis noticed.  Her eyes were glued on the mixer’s new main attraction.  Monica didn’t think she would’ve gotten much of a reaction if she slapped the woman in the face, which, coincidentally, was something she felt like doing.

How did she let Jovan get away?  What the hell kind of question was that?  She dated the boy when they were
eighteen
.  Did this bitch expect them to grow up and get married?  What was the percentage of high school sweethearts who did that?  And it wasn’t like she and Jovan were
head-over-hills
at any point.  They never even had sex.

Monica thought Phyllis’ question was out of line.  Or maybe she was taking it too seriously.  That’s what people did at reunions, right?  They ask a bunch of stupid questions that don’t mean shit because they’re not shit, and they don’t have shit going on!

Monica shook her head and tried to let go of an unexpected fit of anger.  She wasn’t sure where it had come from.

“No, I don’t keep up with him,” she replied to Phyllis.  “I haven’t seen the boy since we graduated.”

“Really?” Veronica asked.  “I thought you two were a great couple.  I just knew you’d stay friends after graduation.”

The ladies at the table continued to watch Jovan as he greeted old classmates; offering handshakes, brief hugs and a megawatt smile that he definitely improved upon since graduation.  He wore dark pants with a tan shirt that went well with his golden brown skin.  The shirt was short-sleeved, exposing powerful arm muscles that weren’t there twenty years ago.  He had his shirt unbuttoned nearly halfway down, which was obviously to flaunt his huge pectorals.  Those muscles weren’t fully developed in high school, either.

Jovan had a short afro when he and Monica dated.  It didn’t look like he’d cut his hair at all in twenty years.  Tonight he had it styled in thin dreadlocks that were tied back behind his head.  His features were a lot stronger than Monica remembered.  His jaw line was definitely more rigid, his eyes more serious.

But there was no doubt this was the same boy she made out with in gym class and almost gave her virginity to in the twelfth grade.  His smile revealed an innocence that hadn’t changed over the years – despite the fact that everything below his smile was the exact opposite of innocent.  Monica had to say her high school sweetheart looked downright sinful.

“He didn’t have all those muscles in school,” Phyllis noticed.  She was practically drooling over him, which pissed Monica off even more.

“No, he was skinny,” Jennifer agreed.  “I don’t know where he got all
that
from!”

“Did y’all ever have sex?” Phyllis asked, looking Monica’s way again.

Monica couldn’t believe this heifer’s gall.  She and Phyllis weren’t friends in high school.  In fact, Phyllis hung out with a group of pretty girls who did everything they could to make
normal
people like Monica feel marginalized.  If Monica had been raised just a little bit differently, she would have brought a can of whoop-ass to this mixer and popped it open for bitches like Phyllis.  That ass-whooping was two decades in the making.

But Monica never was one to fight, so she stood instead and told the women at the table, “Y’all are too much,” before she headed for the bar.  One more drink and she was out of there.  She would’ve left without it, but she didn’t want anyone to think it was Jovan’s presence that drove her from the building.