Preseason Love Read Online Free Page B

stick around and take the chance that it could get worse. When I got back to the table, I gave Dev the un-spoken signal that I was ready to go and figured I’d explain why once we got home.
    On our way to the car, I secretly asked Dev if Mel was planning to drop us off at our house. She quickly assured me that he would. However, for some reason I had a strange feeling about her answer. She didn’t make me feel confident in her response, but since Mel was Dev’s boo, I let her take the lead and coordinate our trans-portation.
    After riding for some time, I noticed that we’d left the city, which was essential to getting to our apartment in Jersey. But something was off. I wasn’t a native New Yorker and I had only been living in the area for a minute, but the route definitely did not seem like the way home.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I said finally.
    Mel swiftly replied, “Back to my place in Queens.”
    I shot Dev a glare that could have pierced through an ice sculpture had there been one in the backseat with us. She shrugged her shoulders as if she was slightly clueless and that’s when I really started to get pissed. All I wanted to do was go home and be in my own space and use my own bathroom and sleep in my own makeshift bed.
    â€œI don’t feel like driving back to Jersey tonight, then going all the way back to Queens,” Mel stated. “You guys can stay at my place and I’ll take you home in the morning.”
    I sat in silence. I could not respond without rambling profanities. By that time, we were on some highway or another and basically out of the city and sure as hell out of my comfort zone, so what was I to say? I felt like I had a one-way ticket to hell.
    After roughly five minutes of silence, I blurted out, “Well, do you have some place for all of us to sleep? How is this going to work?”
    I knew that Mel had an extra bedroom, but in the few times that I’d gone to his place, I never saw him so much as crack the door open. It was always closed. I joked to Dev once that he was probably hiding a huge weed-growing operation.
    â€œDon’t worry, you and Dev can share my bed. Que and I will sleep on the futon.” Clearly, Mel had everything preplanned and mapped out.
    I thought to myself, yeah right. Since when have you known a grown man to give up his bed to a chick that he is trying to get with and her friend; only to have to turn around and sleep on the futon. I don’t think so. At that point, all I could do was take his word for it and keep my eyes on Que who was not to be trusted.
    Mel lived among a sea of apartments. Each one looked like the next. When we finally arrived at Mel’s apartment door, I wanted to go to sleep as quickly as possible. Mel gave us T-shirts and shorts to sleep in and he was very hospitable. However, it didn’t take long to figure out that the plans had changed yet again. Dev and I would be sleeping on the futon in the living room. After Mel gave me a blanket, I grabbed my purse, went into the bathroom and hastily changed, obviously leaving on my bra. When I climbed on the futon and into my corner for the night, I could hear Que still running his mouth and trying to get some attention. Needless to say, I had no intentions on being polite and entertaining his ass. It was four in the morning, the sun would be coming up soon and all I wanted was sleep.
    The last thing that I remembered before dozing off was Dev lying on the futon next to me. Mel was sitting on the floor by Dev and they were watching TV, chatting it up about the night. I must have been extremely tired. Normally I could not fall asleep with so much activity going on.
    I had been sleep for what felt like hours when all of a sudden, either I was dreaming or actually feeling hands touching me. A warm body was attempting to spoon me.
    My reflexes shot into action and I jumped up. “What the hell are you doing?”
    Dev and I didn’t get