Crazy in Love 2 Read online

  Brandi pulled off and grabbed her cell phone. As soon as she went to dial emergency, her phone went completely dead. “Noooooo!” she wailed out in despair, throwing the phone in the back seat of her truck.

  She turned left onto Stuyvesant Avenue, unsure of where the neighborhood precinct was. Just as luck would have it, she spotted two cops walking around the corner from Sean’s block. Brandi beeped the horn to get the police officers’ attention. When they walked over to her truck, she told them what was going on at Sean’s house. They immediately radioed for a patrol car to go directly to Sean’s address and they began running in that direction. Brandi pulled off, in an effort to meet the police there. She just hoped that it wasn’t too late.

  Inside of Sean’s house, Yadira was pacing back and forth with the loaded gun still in her hand. She listened intently as Sean talked about how much he really cared about her and even suggested that he was just stringing Brandi along. For a brief moment, it looked as if Yadira wanted to believe everything he said.

  “So, come on, Yadi, put the gun down, baby girl, please,” he said, in an attempt to coax her with his soothing words. He even managed to smile at her. “You don’t need the gun anymore! We’re good now! Brandi is outta here!”

  Now it was the infatuated Yadira’s turn to smile. Instead of putting the gun down, she walked over to Sean and tried to kiss him on the mouth. But he wasn’t interested in kissing Yadira. He was just trying to smooth talk her into putting down the weapon. The idea of actually kissing her made Sean’s skin crawl and he quickly turned away from Yadira’s puckered lips. She was taken aback by the gesture and Sean just sat there, unable to hide the disgusted look on his face.

  “Oh, Sean, Sean!” she said, shaking her head, after realizing that he was playing her. “You are such a stupid man! Do you think that I’m gonna let you get away with playing with my feelings . . . again?” Yadira went from being angry to pleading with him. “Sean, we should be together, baby! We both can live in this house together and eventually I can become your wife! Don’t you want me to have your baby, Sean? We can make such beautiful babies together!”

  Sean was getting more and more upset by the minute. He slowly put his right hand behind his back and gripped the handle of his own gun. Yadira was a very lucky woman; she was supposed to have been dead. But Sean didn’t really want to kill Yadira. He couldn’t see himself sitting in a courtroom full of jurors trying to claim self-defense on a woman who was only five feet five inches in height and almost a hundred pounds lighter than him. And he thought about Jada, Yadira’s five-year-old daughter. Not only would the prosecution hang him by his testicles but he could never live with himself knowing that he killed that little girl’s mother. Yadira didn’t need to die; she needed help.

  Sean frowned. “What in the hell are you talking about, Yadira? How do you even have the nerve to talk about being my wife and starting a family with me when you got a motherfucking gun pointed in my face?”

  “Because . . .” Yadira began, after she became aware of her contradictions. She started waving the gun over her head again. “You know what? I’m tired, Sean! I’m just tired of everything! I’m tired of y’all trifling-ass men taking advantage of me! I’m tired of people talking about me. I just wanna be happy, you know what I’m saying? And is that a crime to wanna be happy? I wanna be able to love somebody and they love me back! Is that so hard?”

  “You want someone to love you back, huh? What about trying to love your damn self, Yadi? Look at what you’re doing now! You’re trying to force me to be with you. Is that supposed make me love you?”

  Sean paused. He knew that he was coming off too harshly. “At one time, I thought that you were a complete package,” Sean calmly said. “You’re a gorgeous woman and you was a good friend to me; what more could I ask for? And you had me thinking that this baby daddy of yours was some fool for messing things up with you. So when you decided to leave him, I opened up my door to you and your daughter with no problem. I wanted to help you. But after one moment of weakness, one lovemaking session, you turned into this weak-ass, whining basket case, always wanting a nigga’s undivided attention and shit. It’s like . . . It’s like you can’t function unless you got a nigga up under you twenty-four hours a day!”

  Yadira’s bottom lip began to quiver, as if she was about to cry. She pointed the gun at Sean. Unable to take any more of her intimidation, Sean finally got up from the couch and pointed his Ruger in her face. Now it was Yadira’s turn to be petrified.

  “I guess we’re both gonna die tonight,” Sean said through clenched teeth.

  Yadira stood her ground. She didn’t say a word but did not take her eyes off Sean, either. After a few more seconds of their showdown, her hands began shaking. Sean watched as she started to crack under the pressure.

  When Yadira finally broke down, Sean was able to carefully remove the loaded gun from her hands. She collapsed to the floor and began moaning in despair. In the meantime, Sean gripped the handle of his Ruger for dear life, afraid that it might slip from his sweaty grip. He was unsure what Yadi had up her sleeve or if she had another gun on her. Instead of patting her down, he let her sit on the floor and continue to cry. Sean hid Yadira’s personal firearm behind the bar.

  “I am so sorry, Sean,” Yadira whispered, finally expressing some remorse for her actions. “I know that I fucked up with you. It’s just that I love you so much. You have always been good to me and I’m the one who took our friendship for granted. After I broke up with Devin, I needed somebody. You were that somebody! I thought that there was a possibility that you and I could be together.”

  Yadira’s wild hair framed her face, as she shook her head in anguish. Even at her worst moment, she was still strikingly beautiful. “I just needed to be with somebody, Sean. Don’t you understand? I didn’t want to be alone,” she whispered, while breaking down in more tears.

  Sean knelt down and began rubbing her back. For a fleeting moment, he felt sorry for Yadira.

  “First of all, Yadi, you don’t need me or any man to make you feel complete. You have a family and a daughter who worships the ground that you walk on. Forcing me to be with you is not going to make me want to build this imaginary life with you. Sometimes you just have to accept things as they are and move on.”

  Yadira buried her head in hands again. Sean sat on the nearby barstool and just watched as she cried her eyes out. From the moment he welcomed Yadira into his home wreaking havoc was the only way that she had repaid him for his good deeds.

  It was a clear fall night in 2009 and Brown Sugar, a local Brooklyn bar, located on Marcus Garvey Boulevard, was buzzing with patrons. Inside of Brown Sugar, Sean and one of his childhood friends, Unique, had just finished playing a few games of pool. The two friends were having a few beers and catching up on each other’s lives, as they waited for the weekly comedy routine to appear on the small stage.

  But Sean didn’t need the comedy show to laugh. Unique, who was visiting from Atlanta, had all the jokes that he needed. He was a temporary escape from the situation with Yadira. And Sean needed his friend’s advice. He figured that Unique would know what to do in circumstances like that.

  “What’s up with that psycho chick? Is she still bothering you, man?” Unique asked.

  Sean took a gulp of his Corona beer. “Man, that broad is a certified lunatic! Straight Fatal Attraction, man,” he said, shaking his head.

  “And I’m the black version of Michael Douglas, man!” Unique laughed. “I’m just waiting to walk in my kitchen and see a fucking rabbit boiling on my stove!”

  Unique choked on his beer from the laughter. “Yo, you are stupid!” he replied. Sean laughed, too. “That Fatal Attraction movie was the shit, though and Glenn Close was one sexy bitch! She was giving up that pussy any- and everywhere! On the kitchen sink, the elevator . . . Old-ass Mike couldn’t resist that ass, neither!” Unique said.

  They slapped each other five then Sean got serious. “Maybe that shit was sexy for the movi
es, but in real life it’s not. And don’t get me wrong, Yadi is a gorgeous woman, man, but the things that she does and the way that she’s been carrying herself is not sexy or cool! What makes it even worse is she could have any man she wants! I’m just trying to understand why the fuck does she keep bothering me?”

  Unique put his beer on the bar and looked at Sean. “Look, man, I hate to tell you this but homegirl don’t want any other dude! She wants you, homie! She don’t care nothing about looking like a fool because she’s doing exactly what she wants to do! In her mind, you and her are already in a relationship with each other!”

  Sean stared into space. “Damn, I didn’t look at it that way, man.” He shrugged it off. “But anyway, fuck her feelings! She’s not my woman and I wish that she would just leave me the hell alone! I have a woman already and her name is Brandi. Yadira has no other choice but to get me out of her system so that me and Brandi can move on with our lives!”

  Unique shook his head. “Don’t you and this Yadira chick work together, man?”

  Sean sighed. “Yeah, we do. Shit’s got so bad at work that she started messing with Brandi’s son.”

  Unique looked confused. “Brandi’s son?”

  “Brandi’s son ended up getting jumped by some general population inmates because he was in the wrong area. Yadira had some new jack officer bring him to the unauthorized area and now that poor officer is about to be brought up on charges. He might even lose his job behind that shit! And it was all because Yadira was trying get back at me and Brandi!”

  “Damn, man! She’s doing all of that? You need to write the bitch up!”

  “And say what? It’s her word against mine! I’m really ready to choke the life out of this bitch but I have to chill. I have too much invested for me to lose everything because of this ho.” Sean looked Unique up and down. “Maybe I should hook her up with your black ass!”

  “Hell no!” Unique exclaimed, almost choking on his drink. “I don’t want no stalker chick following me all the way back to ATL! You can save that bullshit, man!” They both laughed at the thought.

  “Man, I just gotta get this woman off me! Judging from the way that things are going down between me and her, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the things that she used to tell me about her daughter’s father are a lie.”

  Suddenly, Unique turned his attention away from Sean. His eyes went to the entrance door of Brown Sugar.

  “Damn! Who in the hell is that?” Unique said.

  Sean turned around and his jaw dropped. It was none other than Yadira. Before he could say anything to Unique, she was bouncing her way over to the bar. Sean turned around and leaned on the bar. He put his head in his hands.

  “That’s her, Unique, that’s Yadira! I don’t believe this shit!” he said with an attitude. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

  But Unique wasn’t paying Sean any attention. He was too focused on the sexy Yadira. “That bitch is bad as hell, nigga, damn!” he said, still staring at the woman.

  Yadira walked up to the two friends and looked at Sean with a smile on her face. “What’s up, Sean? I went by your house to see if you wanted company but you weren’t there. I figured that you would be here.” She peeked over their shoulders and saw their beers on the bar. “Care to treat me to a drink or two?” she asked, fluttering her long eyelashes.

  Unique couldn’t take his eyes off Yadira. A few other male patrons at the bar began checking her out too.

  “How you doing, miss?” Unique said, reaching for her hand. He put the back of her hand up to his lips and kissed it. “I’m Unique, sweetheart, and your name is?”

  Yadira blushed, relishing the attention. “The name’s Yadira but you can just call me Yadi. Nice to meet you, Unique. How you doing, honey?”

  Unique let her hand go and slowly walked around her. “Girl, I’m fine but damn, I ain’t as fine as you! You are gorgeous, baby!”

  Yadira rolled her eyes up in her head, as if he was telling her something that she heard a million times a day. “Thank you, Unique. You seem like you’re a really sweet guy, unlike your boy here,” she said, looking back at Sean and rolling her eyes. “He don’t appreciate none of this!”

  Sean began to walk away from them. “Look, Unique, I’m going back over here by the pool tables.”

  Yadira clapped her hands. “Oooh, I love playing pool!” she said. “Do you wanna play me in a game of pool, Unique?”

  Unique walked toward an empty pool table. “Sure, baby doll! I’ll play with you!” he said, with a sly look on his face. He couldn’t wait for her to bend over the pool table in her short skirt.

  As Yadira and Unique walked to the table next to where Sean was standing, he grabbed her by the arm. “What in the fuck are you doing here, Yadi? I thought I told you to stay away from me!”

  Yadira snatched her arm from Sean’s grasp and pointed her manicured finger in his face. “No, baby, you told me to stay off your property! And right now, we are in a public fucking place and you don’t have the right to tell me to leave, okay? I have a right to be here so get the fuck over it!” As Yadira started to walk toward the pool tables, she turned around and blew a kiss at Sean. “Oh, yeah, and just because we had this little tiff, it doesn’t mean that it’s over between us!”

  Sean was on fire but he realized that Yadira was right. There was nothing that he could do about her showing up at Brown Sugar. It was a public place. But for her to appear at one of his local haunts wasn’t just some coincidence. She was definitely following his every move. Sean knew that if the shoe were on the other foot, he surely would have been arrested by now.

  Sean stood there and watched as Unique shared laughs and had a ball with Yadira, the same woman who was giving him a hard time. Unique was like so many other men who thought that because Yadira was such a beautiful woman, there was no way that she could be as crazy as what Sean described. But she was and no amount of beauty could overshadow that.

  After calming down, Sean walked over to Unique and gave him a pound. “Look, U, I’m outta here, man. I’m a little tired,” Sean said.

  Unique looked disappointed but then he looked at Yadira, who was bending over the pool table. She was wearing a red lace thong under the short mini-skirt she had on.

  “All right, my dude, you do that. You go on home. I think I’ll be okay with Miss Yadira over here,” he said, unable to take his eyes off her plump rear. “You’re gonna hang out with me tonight, right, Miss Yadira?”

  Yadira struck a yellow ball with her pool stick. “Yes, sir! We’re going to be just fine!” she replied, flashing a million dollar smile.

  Unique grinned from ear to ear. “Yeah, baby girl, that’s right!” He looked at the annoyed Sean and winked. “Okay, see ya, boy. Call you later!”

  Sean shot Unique a strange look and shook his head. He couldn’t wait to give him a serious tongue-lashing.

  As Sean was driving home, he couldn’t keep his mind off Yadira’s antics. A part of him didn’t care about her dealing with any man, as long as it wasn’t him, but not one of his best friends. He didn’t want Unique to be subjected to any of her craziness.

  Ten minutes later, Sean pulled into a parking space near his home. He opened the front door, walked into the foyer, and pressed the code on the burglar alarm. Then he went upstairs to his bedroom. He stripped down to his birthday suit and ran the shower inside of his master bathroom. Before stepping into the tub, he turned on the CD player. He was in the mood to hear some slow jams. The soft, sultry sounds always calmed his nerves.

  While Sean lathered up and sang along with the singer Joe, he never heard his downstairs door being opened. The intruder pressed the code on the burglar alarm, just like Sean had done a few minutes before. They slowly crept up the steps and walked toward the bathroom. By the time Sean hit a high note, the intruder was standing directly outside of his bathroom door.

  The intruder tiptoed inside of the bathroom and peeked into the slightly open shower curtain. Sean had his back facing the do
or and was temporarily blinded because of the soap all over his face. And the music was so loud, he hadn’t heard a thing. That was when the unthinkable happened.

  The intruder took the blunt object that they were holding in their hand and came crashing down on the back of Sean’s skull. Sean fell forward and banged his forehead against the tiled wall before slipping in the tub. The intruder swung the object again. This time, they hit the fallen Sean on the other side of his head.

  As the fatal blow was about to be administered, police cars passing through the block with their sirens blaring startled the intruder, who hurriedly ran back downstairs and out of the front door. The unconscious Sean lay slumped in the bathtub, stained with his own blood.

  The following morning, Miss Miller, Sean’s mother walked into the quiet house with her spare key. She and Sean, her youngest, were supposed to meet for an early breakfast but he didn’t call her or answer his phones. When Miss Miller walked up the stairs, she heard the shower running in the master bathroom.

  “Sean?” she said, calling out his name. Miss Miller walked into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. She screamed loudly when she saw her son, slumped over in the tub with blood all over his face. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “My baby!”

  Suddenly, the upstairs bell rang. Sean prayed that it was Brandi with the cops. He walked over to the staircase and looked back at Yadira. She was still on the floor, balled up in a fetal position and crying in front of his fireplace. Sean hesitated to leave the emotionally unstable Yadira unattended but it wasn’t the time to babysit. He ran up the stairs to open that door.

  When Sean opened the door, two police officers walked in his house with Brandi following closely behind them. Thankfully, she had already filled them in on what was happening. The officers came more than ready to remove Yadira from Sean’s residence, in handcuffs. One of the officers looked down and spotted the Ruger in Sean’s hand. Instinctively, the officer’s hand went to the Glock in his holster.