All I Want

(A CHRISTMAS SHORT)

Alexandria House

Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

Arkansas, USA

Copyright © 2019 by Alexandria House

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing 2019

Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

pinkcashmerepub@gmail.com

1

Navy

I stared out my windshield at the house, at the oversized decorations crowding the front lawn. Dormant strings of lights outlined this home, my childhood home, and on the roof stood replicas of Santa Claus and his reindeer. If I closed my eyes tightly enough, I could almost see my father standing at the end of the driveway admiring his handiwork, but he was gone—one of the reasons I tried to talk myself out of coming home. Reason number two’s vehicle was sitting on the street in front of the house.

My ex.

“Ma is just wrong for this shit,” I mumbled to myself.

Well, at least my sister, Heidi, had been considerate enough to send me a warning text message since she’d arrived before me to find him in the kitchen helping Ma, and the moment I read that message, my heart dropped. He was the last person I wanted to see—ever.

“Fuck,” I hissed to myself, gripping the steering wheel. After blowing out a breath, I sighed and finally exited my car, making my way to my mother’s front door.

Lakeland

I had moved from Mrs. Gina’s kitchen into the living room, and as I fell into an easy chair, I felt uncomfortable than a motherfucker, but I wanted, needed, to see my girl.

My ex girl.

Shit.

Every time I thought about her being my ex, my chest tightened. She should’ve still been mine, and this Christmas, I was going to fix this shit.

I was going to get her back.  I had to.

“Now, who are you, baby? You one of Gina’s kids? You don’t look like the other ones,” an older woman dressed in a pink track suit and white pumps loudly asked me as she dropped onto the sofa across from me, placing a huge pink handbag in her lap. I recognized her as Navy’s great aunt Princess. I was sure that was who she was because of the huge pearl earrings and necklace she wore, something I’d seen her wear before, but she evidently didn’t recognize me.

I gave her a smile, but before I could answer her, Navy’s younger sister, Heidi, who’d entered the room in time to hear Aunt Princess, said, “No, Auntie. He used to be Navy’s boyfriend. You don’t remember him?”

I tried not to flinch. I mean, it was the truth. What we had was definitely in the past, but the words sounded so diminishing, as if our time together was insignificant rather than a relationship that spanned a decade.

“Naw, but y’all young folks always got somebody new every time I see you. I can’t keep up,” the older lady said.

I refused to let that get to me. I wouldn’t let my mind wonder if Navy had brought someone else home to meet her family.  I had to keep it together if I was going to win her back.

“Me and my Delbert was together for sixty-two years before he passed. Y’all young folks just give up too quick,” Aunt Princess continued.

Heidi rolled her eyes and muttered, “And your Delbert had about ten outside kids, too.”

“What, baby?” Aunt Princess asked, cupping her right ear.

“Oh, I forgot about your hearing, Auntie. I said, that’s beautiful,” Heidi shouted.

I just smiled and shook my head. Then I took in my immediate surroundings. The living room was huge, just like the rest of the house. The seven-foot Christmas tree was beautiful as were the poinsettias and holly that decorated the room. Navy’s family didn’t play about Christmas and I loved it. The room began to fill up with more of the family entering through the front door, including a few cousins I’d met before, Navy’s brother, Junior, and his girl, Tatiana. Everyone but Navy.

Just when someone decided to cut the stereo on and Donny Hathaway began to serenade us with his plans for This Christmas, a knock sounded at the front door. Then the doorknob turned, and she walked in, still gorgeous…still beautiful, with smooth mocha skin. She was wearing jeans and a red blouse. The jeans hugged her ample curves, and although the blouse had a high neckline, her cleavage was more than apparent.

I licked my lips and straightened in my seat as her eyes rounded the room, eventually landing on me. “Hey, everyone,” she said softly, shifting her eyes away from me. “Um, Merry Christmas.”

Nearly everyone in the room chorused “Merry Christmas” in response, and as Heidi and Junior each pulled her into hugs, I took in her kinky-curly hair, the tall boots she wore, and her scent. Navy always smelled so good. It wasn’t necessarily perfume. It was just her.

She’d hugged virtually everyone in the room before settling her big round eyes on me again. “Hey, Lake.”

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I returned, “Hey.”

2

Navy

He greeted me in that deep voice of his, and I feared my knees would buckle. He looked just as handsome as I remembered, green eyes against a chocolate backdrop of skin. Long legs stretched out before him, a smile on his goatee-framed lips that I was certain could stop traffic. The whole room smelled like his cologne, or maybe not. Maybe my sense of smell just involuntarily homed in on his frustratingly familiar scent. And my heart? It was beating erratically. I had to get out of that room and away from him, so I excused myself to the kitchen where I knew my mother was stationed.

“Hey, Ma,” I greeted her, making her jerk into an erect posture from where she’d been peeking in the window on the oven door.

Spinning around, she gave me a huge grin. “Aw, it’s my Navy!” Then she pulled me into her fluffy body, the one I’d inherited from her, and enveloped me in the warmest hug. I’d missed her hugs while dodging the feelings being in this place induced. I hated my little efficiency apartment, which was all I could afford, but at least being in it brought me peace.

Backing out of the hug, she let her eyes survey me. “You look beautiful, sweetie, all except for that scowl playing at your lips.”

“Why, Ma?” I groaned.

Turning back to the oven, she chirped, “Why what, sugar?”

“Why is Lakeland Davenport here?”

“Because I invited him.”

Silence from me.

She turned back around to face me, and with a sigh, said, “Follow me.”

We ended up in her and my dad’s bedroom, and I couldn’t help but notice that all traces of him were gone. That wasn’t surprising, but it was sad. It was Christmas, and my daddy was gone.

She patted the bed. “Come. Sit next to me.”

I did as she said, taking a seat on the foot of the neatly made bed right next to her.

Grasping my hand in her soft one, she began to speak. “That boy loves you, Navy, and you love him. I still believe in love even after everything I went through with your dad. I also believe you need and deserve the love Lakeland wants to give to you. Me and him talk often over the phone. He’s always asking about you, and I invited him to dinner today so he could see you because I knew you’d be too stubborn and foolish to do it.”

“Foolish?” I squeaked.

“Yes, foolish.”

I blew out a breath and raised my eyes from the floor to her face. “Do you miss him?”

“Your father?” She shrugged. “Sometimes. But he made the decision to leave and move off to Bora Bora or wherever with that woman.”

“Florida?”

She rolled her eyes. “Same thing.”

I shook my head. “How can you just go on like he was never here?”

“What am I supposed to do? Sit around and mourn a man who is very much alive? I don’t have that in my DNA, sweetie. As long as I’m alive, I’m gonna live.”

“I don’t know, Ma. I guess I just can’t wrap my head around any of this.”

“It’s not your job to. Your job is to live your life to the fullest.”

“I am, Ma.”

“By hiding away from the world and only coming out of your apartment to work a job I know you don’t like or want?”

“I love working at the bookstore. It’s nice and quiet and—”

“Boring?”

“No, safe. Calm. Just what I need.”

“Okay, safety and calmness are good, but what about love? Is your job providing that?”

“Ma…”

“Tell me you don’t still love Lakeland. Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

All I could do was drop my eyes since I knew she could spot a lie from a mile away. “I do love him, Ma. That’s why I let him go…so he can be happy.”

“How can he possibly be happy without the woman he loves?”

“He’s better off without me.”

“And you’re better off without him?”

Before I could attempt to lie, Heidi’s voice pierced the relative peace of my mom’s bedroom. “Ma, your puppy’s whining. What should I do?”

Shooting my gaze from Heidi to my mother, I said, “Puppy?”

“Yes,” Ma replied with a grin. “Bring her here, Heidi, so I can introduce Navy to her.”

A minute or so later, Heidi returned with the tiniest, fluffiest, most adorable little white and brown puppy, handing it to my mom.

After making kissy sounds at the little ball of fur, Ma said, “Navy this is my new baby, Bitch. Bitch, this is your big sister, Navy Jane DuBois.”

As she handed the puppy to me, I asked, “You named it Bitch? Really, Ma?”

“She’s female, so to keep it simple, I call her Bitch. What’s wrong with that?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.” Then I turned my attention to the puppy and cooed, “Heeeeey, Bitch!”

Lakeland

Navy was doing a really good job of avoiding me. I hadn’t laid eyes on her since she first walked in her mom’s front door. And when I finally caught a glimpse of her quickly cutting through the living room to get in the kitchen, Junior was in my face before I could move from my chair, recruiting me as his spades partner. I tried to tell him he didn’t want me for a partner, but he didn’t listen, and three lost games later, as he sat and glared at me, I said, “I told you. I was raised in the suburbs. I don’t know shit about spades or dominoes.”

Junior shook his head as his cousin—Tut, I think—laughed and talked shit since it was him and his brother, Tomcat, who’d easily defeated us. These folks and their names…

“Nigga over here talking ‘bout he from the suburbs. Shit, we in the suburbs right now!” Junior muttered.

“Lake is being modest. His folks are rich. If he’s from the suburbs, then we’re from the slums.” Her voice made my dick twitch., something it had always done, to be honest. I had it bad for Navy DuBois, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

Hopping up from my seat, I turned to see her standing behind me and locked my eyes with hers. She’d dumped my ass, broken my entire damn heart, and despite all of that, all I wanted to do at that moment was kiss her full lips and pull her into my arms. I’d missed her, missed her soft body and the sounds she made when I pleased her. Shit, I missed her pleasing me. I’d been with a couple of other women since we split three years earlier, but not one of them was her. Maybe it was because she owned my heart.

She opened her mouth, then let her eyes drop to the floor. “Lake…”

I leaned in close to her ear. “Can you come with me? Just to talk?”

Lifting her gaze to meet mine, she didn’t speak for a good minute, and in that short amount of time, I recognized that the living room had fallen quiet. No more sounds of a card battle although another of Navy’s cousins had claimed my seat. The Christmas music that had been flowing from the stereo had been muted, and a quick glance around the room told me that all eyes were on us. When I gave Navy my full attention again, she nodded, and I led her out the front door.

3

Lakeland

We were in my Tahoe, and after I’d started the engine and turned on the heat, I shifted my body to face her. “I’ve missed you,” I confessed.

With her eyes on the windshield, she shook her head. “You shouldn’t.”

“But I do. A lot. I miss you so much that it physically hurts, Navy.”

She sighed. “Then I’m sorry. Give it some more time and you’ll forget all about me.”

“How? I’ve loved you since I was seventeen years old.”

She bit her bottom lip and finally faced me. I could see tears in her eyes. “I thought I could do this. I thought I could talk to you, but I can’t.”

“Because it hurts? Because you still love me?”

She blew out a breath and reached for the car door handle.

“Don’t leave. You owe me this, Navy. You dropped out of my life like I wasn’t shit to you. Dumped me and never looked back. You owe me this.” My fucking voice was loud and shaky, filling the inside of my truck with pain.

She dropped her hand, and as she looked at me again, a tear rolled down her cheek.

Navy

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, as I wiped my face with my hand, my heart breaking more than it already had even though I was sure that was impossible. “I told you why we can’t be together.”

“No, what you told me was some bullshit.”

“Me having a mental illness is not bullshit, Lake! It’s devastating and life-changing! I will never be normal again! When I broke up with you, I was in a damn mental ward!”

“So the-fuck what?! You think I’m that weak? Is that it? You think I don’t love you enough to handle whatever comes our way?”

“I was trying to free you from-from a burden, from me becoming a burden to you, because you do realize that’s what the future holds, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t have to, Navy!”

I wasn’t trying to hear that unlikely, bright-side shit, so I kept talking. “You’re young and handsome and smart and successful. I’ll only drag you down. My life is meds and appointments. I’m always self-conscious, always afraid, always…careful not to appear crazy. Always scared I’ll have another damn episode. I was hearing fucking voices, Lake! And they were so real. And they were saying some crazy shit. You know how terrifying that is?”

“It’s a disease, baby, just like any other disease.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Doc.”

“Navy—”

“You wanna marry me? Have kids by me and risk them being crazy like me and my father?”

“You love your dad, Navy. I’ve never heard you say anything bad about him.”

“That’s because my mom made sure he took his meds, and when he decided he didn’t want to take them anymore, he left her. After all the years she gave him, he left her. I…I don’t wanna be like that.”

“Then don’t be, baby.”

His eyes…there was so much pain and love in them that I was rendered speechless.

“Navy, I want to be here for you. I’m not stupid. I know it won’t be easy, and I know you’re scared, but please, please let me help you carry this burden.”

Shaking my head, I whimpered, “Lake…”

“And yes, I want to marry you. As far as kids? We can figure that out later. We can adopt if that’d make you more comfortable, or we don’t have to have kids at all. I just want you. I want the only woman I’ve ever loved back. Please.”

In response, all I could do was cry, and when he wrapped his arms around me, I didn’t resist. “But I tried to kill you, Lake. I can’t forgive myself for that!”

4

Navy

“That wasn’t you, baby. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know that I know that? You were sick,” Lakeland stated.

“I was fucking psychotic! I thought you were poisoning me!”

“But right now, you know I wasn’t. And no offense, but I wasn’t gonna let your short ass kill me, Navy. I might be weak for you, but I’m not weak weak.”

I rolled my eyes and backed out of his arms. “I had a weapon.”

“You pulled a fork on me, baby. A fork,” he said, with raised eyebrows.

“A serving fork!”

As we stared at each other, I could see the twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t make me laugh, Lake. This is not the time for laughing.”

With a grin, he said, “Okay. Well, consider this: it’s insulting that after all these years we’ve been together, all the years we’ve loved each other, you would shut me out when you needed my support the most. I backed off, because I could see the truth of what you were feeling. You were ashamed. You still are, but you shouldn’t be. There’s no need for you to be. I’m a damn doctor, Navy. I understand more than anyone that it’s a disease, one you inherited. You didn’t do anything to make this happen.”

“Lake—”

“But yeah, I backed off. I gave you time to settle all of this in your mind, but I’m back. It’s Christmas, your favorite holiday, and…and I’m not leaving here today until you take me back, until you’re my girl again.”

“Lakeland, I…”

“I love you, Navy.”

All I could do was stare at him.

“You still love me?” he asked.

Dropping my eyes, I softly uttered, “You know I do, Lake. My love for you is why I pushed you away, why I’ll continue to push you away.”

“You can push—” He shrugged. “But I ain’t budging. Not ever again.”

I had opened my mouth to respond when a knock on the passenger side window made me jump. Turning my head, I found myself face to face with Heidi. Lakeland let the window down, and I asked, “What’s up?”

“Dinner’s ready. Ma told me to come find you, and I need you to convince her that that damn puppy don’t need to sit at the table with us.”

I had to smile at her annoyance. “You don’t like little Bitch? I think she’s adorable.”

“Yeah, she’s cute as hell, but I ain’t breaking bread with her little furry ass. That’s some pure Caucasian shit right there.”

Through giggles, I said, “Be right there.”

Before I could exit Lake’s truck and follow Heidi, he rested a hand on my arm. “Navy—”

“I’ll think about it, Lake,” I offered.

“Will you think about this?” he asked, and then his mouth was covering mine, and the memory of how this had always felt kicked in. That, plus the fact that I hadn’t touched a man since we were together three years earlier made me grab the collar of his coat and try to pull him across the center console. In what felt like milliseconds, my hand was in his pants, his hand was in mine, and we were stroking each other, panting, whimpering, and filling the warm air of the vehicle’s interior cabin with our natural scents. Then he let his seat back, yanked his pants down over his ass, and as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, I struggled out of my own pants and climbed onto his lap, sliding my panties to the side and easing down on his shaft as he gripped my ass. We both released tortured moans upon contact. He felt so good that I forgot we were parked in front of my mother’s house or that my family was waiting on us. All I cared about was that Lakeland was inside of me, how I’d missed this, how right this was, and how badly I needed it. As he massaged my breast through my blouse, I threw my head back and sighed, riding him nice and slow.

“Navy,” he groaned, a frown on his handsome face as he began to thrust upward.

“Ohhhh,” I hissed, lowering my head to kiss his lips and neck.

“I missed you so much, baby,” he said, as I trailed kisses from his neck back to his mouth. “So much…”

“Uh!” I replied.

Grabbing my hips, he closed his eyes and moaned my name repeatedly as the sound of him invading my pussy again and again played around us.

When it was over, I still straddled him as we stared at each other, our breathing labored, love being transmitted between us in the silence.

“Uh…we should go in,” I eventually managed to say.

He reached up and rested his hand on my cheek. “Yeah.”

After making a pit stop in the bathroom, we both walked into the dining room, and on weak legs, I made my way to the furthest seat I could find from Lakeland’s.

5

Lakeland

“Father, we come to you inconspicuously and with ripened hearts, humbly apprehending your face, our transitions laid bare before you.  We anticipate your absolute congruence as we concurrently ask that you reach down and conscious our extrapolated ways. Lift our circumcisions. Fix our disembowelments, as they discombobulate our entrancements, and erase our interments that we know not what we menstruate! Oh, Lord…give us this day, our accoutrements as we set forth to do your inevitable calisthenics! Ah! Oh, Lord… we pray…we pray that your will be done as it is in the affirmations of the sun.  For we are clandestine to your will and only your will. In your mighty mighty name, amen.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing at Navy’s late grandmother’s “friend”, Deacon John-Fred’s, blessing of the food as I raised my head. Heidi was fighting so hard not to laugh that she was in tears.

“Uh…thank you so much for saying grace, Deacon,” Navy’s mom said.

“It was my insubordination, Gina,” Deacon John-Fred returned, with a proud bow of his head.

Mrs. Gina gave him a smile. “Okay…well, eat up, everyone!”

“Who?” Aunt Princess shouted.

“She said it’s time to eat, Auntie,” Junior yelled.

“Yeah, I’d like some tea, baby. Now whose boy are you?”

I’d heard Junior explain to her who he was about five times, but he did it again without hesitation and without an attitude.

Navy had made sure to sit far away from me, and that messed with my head, made me feel like our conversation in my truck and what followed it hadn’t made a difference. The logical thing for me to do would’ve been to leave—to leave her mom’s house and to leave Navy alone, but love wasn’t logical. I was a doctor, a surgeon. I had everything in the world going for me, but it meant nothing without her.

Absolutely nothing.

The food was good, but then again, Mrs. Gina could always burn. Being around Navy’s family never failed to make me smile. They were real, genuine, nothing like the uptight world my parents had built for me, a world I wanted nothing to do with. They’d never approved of Navy, or as they’d put it, her lack of pedigree. Never mind the fact that she was brilliant and beautiful. She’d been in grad school when we split, pursuing a masters’ degree in mathematics, and was breezing through the coursework. Her smile could brighten a room more than the Christmas tree full of lights in her mother’s living room, and I was convinced her laughter could save the world. She was different now, subdued, sad, maybe even a little broken, but she was still Navy. My Navy was still inside of her, and I loved her. I would always love her, rain or shine.

Schizophrenia could be managed. It wouldn’t go away, but it wasn’t necessarily fatal. What couldn’t be managed was the hole she left in my heart when she pushed me away. What was fatal was the pain I carried every second I had to be without her.

Navy

I hugged the last of my cousins and turned to see that the only stragglers left in my mother’s house were me and Lakeland. Through a sigh, I said, “It was good to see you, Lake. It wasn’t easy for me, but I can’t deny that you’re a sight for sore eyes. I—we, I don’t want you to be confused because of what happened in your truck. I still—”

“Navy, be sure to lock up for me when you leave! I’m headed to bed!” my mom shouted from somewhere in the house.

“Okay, Ma! Tell Bitch I said goodnight!”

“I will!”

“Your mom is a trip. A dog named Bitch?” Lakeland asked through a smile.

I shrugged. “Whatever makes her happy.”

“What would make you happy, Navy?”

“Lake, don’t—”

“It’s a simple question, baby.”

I dropped my shoulders and sighed. “What I want more than anything in this world is for things to be like they were…before. Us together in our apartment, me living a happy, normal life.”

“It can be like that if you’ll let it.”

“I can’t not have this disease, Lake. It isn’t going away.”

“But you can have me—us. You can have us. You can get back in school, take some online courses if you want. You can move back in with me. I got us a house now. And…” He dropped onto one knee. “You can marry me.”

As I clamped a hand over my open mouth, I heard my supposed-to-be-in-bed mother shriek, “Navy Jane, if you say no, I’m whooping your whole, complete ass!”

Lakeland and I both laughed and then I fixed tearful eyes on the beautiful ring he held out to me, shifted my gaze to his handsome face, and couldn’t find the words to answer him.

“I love you, Navy, have loved you virtually since I first laid eyes on you back in high school. I can’t stop loving you. You are embedded in my soul, baby, and I need you. I want to love and support you. I want to be there for you, to protect you.”

“Protect me from who? Myself?”

“If I have to, if that’s what it takes. I just want you, baby. All I want is you, no matter what that means, no matter how hard things might get.”

With tears flooding my face, I admitted, “I love you, too.”

He stared at me, pleading with his eyes.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ll marry you.”

“Oh, thank God!” That was Ma, who was now standing directly behind me. So I first hugged her, then Lakeland.

“Thank you, Navy,” he said, gently kissing my lips.

“Thank you, Lake. Thank you so much.”

Just then, my mother’s tiny puppy ran into the living room, yapping all the way. While folded in Lakeland’s arms, I heard her sing, “There’s my little Bitch!”

A southern girl at heart, Alexandria House has an affinity for a good banana pudding, Neo Soul music, and tall black men in suits. When this fashionista is not shopping, she’s writing steamy stories about real black love.

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Also by Alexandria House:

Them Boys Novella Series:

Set

The McClain Brothers Series:

Let Me Love You

Let Me Hold You

Let Me Show You

Let Me Free You

Let Me Please You (A McClain Family Novella)

The Strickland Sisters Series:

Stay with Me

Believe in Me

Be with Me

The Love After Series:

Higher Love

Made to Love

Real Love

Short Stories:

All I Want

Should’ve Been

Merry Christmas, Baby

Baby, Be Mine

Always My Baby

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