The Sunday Only Christian: Still Divas Series Book Three Read online

  With the exception of the actual book release, most authors’ tour schedules started out of town; then they worked their way back home. Lynox’s three-month tour had wound down and now he was doing a lot of local signings and readings. The reading tonight was the last event listed on his calendar for now. So Deborah felt it was her last opportunity to do what she needed to do.

  “Well, don’t think you have to come rushing back,” Mrs. Lewis told her daughter. “He can even spend the night if you want.”

  “We’ll see, Mother,” Deborah said, only to appease Mrs. Lewis.

  Ever since Mr. Lewis’s passing several years ago, Deborah’s mother had spent time doing whatever she could to keep busy: taking craft classes at Jo-Ann Fabric, going to bingo regularly with one of her dearest and oldest friends, and volunteering in nursing homes. Once Deborah returned from Chile with her baby in her arms, Mrs. Lewis had been filling most of her time tending to him. Deborah knew this was to keep her mother from feeling lonely.

  Deborah gave her son one last kiss, then gave her mother one too before she was off on her mission. By the time she arrived at the library the moderator was taking the last question directed at the bestselling author.

  “Was it easy getting an agent and getting a book deal?” a gentleman in the audience had asked Lynox just as Deborah stepped in the door.

  A few people turned around and looked at her, but then turned their attention back to the guest author. Lynox, on the other hand, stared at her until she was comfortable in the nearest seat. She wasn’t technically comfortable—a little nervous about the pending confrontation—but no one could really detect it.

  “For those of you who might not have heard,” the moderator spoke, “the question to Mr. Chase was whether it was easy getting an agent and a book deal.” She then turned to Lynox and smiled. “Go ahead, Mr. Chase.”

  “Well truthfully,” Lynox started, “I always knew I had a bestseller on my hands. I felt it when the book was just an idea in my head. I felt it when I was writing it and I felt it even more so after I completed it. Some might say I’m a pretty confident man, so in all honesty, I thought there wasn’t a sane agent or publishing house that would turn me down.” He buried his eyes deep into Deborah’s. “I was wrong. I tracked down one of the, in my opinion, best literary agents in the world. I mean, I felt as if I had the best product, so I wanted the best representation for my product.”

  Now it was visible Deborah wasn’t all that comfortable in her seat as she began shifting around both her bottom and her eyes. She knew where the story was heading, but was unsure as to exactly where it would end up.

  “Like I said, I was as wrong as Kanye West was for interrupting that Taylor Swift girl’s acceptance speech,” Lynox continued, receiving a chuckle from the attendees. “She rejected me flat out.” With his eyes still pinned on Deborah he said, “I thought I had her there for a minute; thought I had convinced her that she’d never find anyone else out there like me. She entertained me for a while but then, like I said, she just flat-out rejected me. Guess something better came along she felt she needed to direct her attention to. Couldn’t give me the attention that would be required in order for this thing to work—to be as successful as it could be. As it is now.” Lynox took a deep breath. “But I eventually found an agent willing to work with me. And as they say”—he picked up a copy of his book—“the rest is history.”

  There was a thunderous applause as Lynox wrapped up.

  “I bet that agent who rejected you is kicking herself right about now,” an audience member shot out.

  “Hmmm,” Lynox said. “I’m not sure. But you can ask her if you’d like.”

  Once again, his eyes focused on Deborah and she wanted to die. This man was not about to do what she thought he was about to do.

  “She’s right there.” Lynox pointed to Deborah and every eye in the room followed to where he was pointing.

  He did it! He actually did it, Deborah thought.

  Once again, Deborah felt embarrassed and humiliated. God is not my friend!

  Chapter Seven

  Was it possible that like a true earthly parent, there were times when God had to be Daddy and not friend? For Deborah, was that time now? A friend would have warned her and told her, “Girl, don’t you go to that library and try to check that man. You better let God handle it.” Or in this case, if it was God speaking He would have said, “You better let me handle it, vengeance is mine”—something.

  But that hadn’t happened. God had not stopped her, on either occasion, from getting in her car and going to see Lynox. He had not stopped her when she’d gone to the bookstore and He had not stopped her now. And now here she sat, mortified, with accusing eyeballs stinging her very being.

  “A he, he, he, he, he.” Deborah tried to play it off with a fake laugh. “Isn’t Mr. Chase just the comedian?” She glared at Lynox, her eyes forcing him to play along—to take back his comment—or else.

  “I’ve been told I have quite the sense of humor,” Lynox commented. “But there was nothing funny about the way you crushed me when you rejected me.”

  Here we go again, Deborah thought as she realized that once again Lynox was probably alluding to their relationship versus his manuscript submission. Well Deborah was tired of it; sick and tired of it. If this joker had something to say . . . if he was holding some vendetta against her, then he needed to just spit it out. He needed to stop hiding behind an illusion of words and just say what was on his mind. And what better time than now? Heck, he’d already put her on Front Street. She might as well take them to their final destination; then she could sever any dealings with this man once and for all. And just to think, this all started when she initially wanted to perhaps get back into his good graces. Now she couldn’t get far enough away from him.

  “Rejection? So you’re not too good with rejection, Mr. Chase. Is that it?” Deborah stood, taking control of the room. “So what hurt the worst? When I rejected your manuscript, or when I rejected you?”

  There was an echo of gasps throughout the room. There were some heads turning, eyes bucking in surprise, and some whispering once everyone realized that what was going down was far from fiction. It was a real, live lover’s quarrel going down right before their very eyes. And it was a fact that reality television was a growing addiction, so this kind of thing was right up some of these folks’ alley.

  “Is that why you called the police on me and had them showing up at my door like I’m some common criminal?” Deborah spat.

  Lynox said nothing. He’d learned a long time ago that if he allowed a person to do all the talking, there was a chance that they’d end up making his case for him.

  Deborah, falling right into his trap, continued. “You’re mad, angry, jealous, and bent out of shape because you chased after me for so long, and then just when you thought you’d caught me, you had a blow to that big ego of yours when I sought interest in someone else. Oh that probably just ate you up inside, didn’t it? Mr. Lynox Chase, not getting what he wants. Mr. Lynox Chase having to walk away with the ‘L.’”

  Lynox still said nothing. This just fueled Deborah on even more. She had the complete stage. It was like Deborah was a third-grade bully who was actually the size of a sixth grader. And there stood some defenseless classmate who was actually the size of a first grader. And all the other kids were gathered around to witness the pooch go up against the pit bull. Deborah was eating it up as if she wasn’t the child of God she was supposed to be. She was eating it up like Satan in all his beautiful glory before he got kicked out of heaven.

  “Running into me again outside of that bookstore just brought it all back up again, didn’t it?” Deborah said boastfully. “And then over at the urgent care. You weren’t trying to return my shoes. You were just upset that I hadn’t tried to come crawling back to you, begging to give you and me—us—one more chance. You were just using the shoes as an excuse to talk to me again. Then you tried to make everything seem like it was all good af
ter that little fender bender. But once you got home, your blood got to boiling all over again. It was payback time in your mind. So you sicced the cops on me just so we’d have to deal with each other again.” Deborah laughed snidely as she now stood face to face with Lynox. She crossed her arms, a sign that she was done, that the floor was all his for his comeback.

  Yet and still, Lynox said nothing.

  Deborah felt like she had the “W”—the good old-fashioned win. “Got nothing to say for yourself, huh, Mr. Chase?” She sucked her teeth. “Figured as much.” Deborah let out a harrumph, rolled her eyes, and felt like she’d gotten the weight of the world off her chest.

  “Are you finished?” Finally Lynox spoke.

  Deborah was stunned to hear his voice. She’d been used to just hearing her own for the last five minutes. “Huh? What?”

  “I wanted to know if you were finished talking so that I could now speak. Ladies first, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  Deborah swallowed hard. Her stomach began to rumble with nervousness. What could he possibly have to say? Nothing was what Deborah had hoped. The plan was that she’d come there and say everything she had to say and walk away feeling some sense of closure. But for some reason, she felt as though she’d just opened a whole new mess of things. “Uh, yes, I am, uh, finished.” She tried to muster up a look of confidence, but it wasn’t looking so good. “The floor is all yours.” With a wave of her hand, she presented the floor to Lynox.

  “Well, if you really want to know the truth, I have no vendetta against you. Vengeance is mine thus sayeth the Lord.” Lynox looked up and then looked down again at Deborah. “And I think He’s doing a pretty good job at it if I do say so myself.” He chuckled, which made Deborah feel a couple inches shorter. He then continued. “I wanted to give you your shoes because I had a date later that evening and didn’t want to have to explain why I had a pair of four-inch stilettos in my car.” He raised an eyebrow and a few members of the audience laughed. “And I called the police because when I tried to file a claim with my insurance company, the first thing they said was that a police report needed to be filed. It was done out of protocol, not because I’m going to claim I have whiplash and try to sue you for injuries. So see, Ms. Lewis, you were all wrong about the situation. But if you don’t mind, with your permission I’d love to use your theory in my next book.” Again, members of the audience laughed.

  Deborah was losing count of how many times she’d felt like a fool when it came to Lynox. It was clear now; she’d made a mistake. She’d left Lynox for Elton and there would be no second chances when it came to picking up where they’d left off. So now all there was left to do was pick up her face and take off.

  “I hate to put an end to this little dramatization,” the moderator said, “that I honestly don’t think was planned, but who doesn’t love a great improv?” She chuckled and so did some others. “But we’re already over time. We’ve got to give this meeting room up. So if there’s nothing else . . .” She looked from Deborah to Lynox and waited for some type of response.

  “No, there’ll be nothing else,” Deborah said. “It’s over.” She looked into Lynox’s eyes. “It’s over.” This time who was alluding to something else? Deborah slowly began to walk away as folks began to gather their things. The walk to the door was long and painful. The closer Deborah got to the door, the farther away it seemed. She couldn’t get out of that room fast enough.

  “Actually, there is one more thing,” Deborah heard Lynox say just as she made it to the door. His voice seemed to be right up on her now, as if it was haunting her.

  “Oh, God, now what?” she looked up to the heavens and mumbled, debating whether to stop. Hadn’t she had enough? She didn’t know what else God had in store for her, but figured she’d take her punishment now, so she turned in order to see the final blow coming. “What, Lynox? What is it? Let’s just get it over with so that we never have to see each other—”

  Lynox cut Deborah off—with his tongue. Not with words falling from his tongue, but literally with his tongue as he planted the most passionate kiss on her she could ever remember receiving. The kiss seemed to go on forever as the room froze.

  When Lynox finally removed his mouth from Deborah’s he asked her, “What is that you were saying?”

  Deborah, all starry eyes, finished her sentence. “Again.”

  “So we never have to see each other again?” Lynox questioned.

  “No. Again. Kiss me . . . again.”

  And that’s exactly what Lynox did. He took Deborah into his arms and gave her the kiss she’d read about in fairytales—that she’d seen in the most romantic movies ever. But could this all be real? Could Lynox be her true knight in shining armor, riding into her life on a white stallion to rescue her from single, saved, sexless sista-hood? She didn’t know, but what she did know was that she wanted the kiss to last forever. Not even the thunderous handclaps roaring throughout the room could interrupt the tender kiss.

  As the participants moved out of the room, Deborah and Lynox remained lip locked as they heard someone say, “Now that’s what I call a book signing.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Thanks for agreeing to come have coffee with me,” Lynox said to Deborah, who sat across from him at the coffee shop they’d gone to immediately after leaving the library.

  Deborah smiled. “No problem.” And it was no problem indeed. Heck, little did Lynox know, she would have gone to the moon with him if he’d invited her.

  “I just felt we really needed to talk and explain some things without an audience.”

  Deborah chuckled. “I agree.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And about that; I really am sorry for the way I just showed up at your book signing with my ammunition on my back like that. It’s just that the more I thought about the police showing up at my door, the angrier I got.” She thought for a minute. “Then again, I’m not sure if it was just anger, or a little mixture of disappointment. I mean, you’d agreed that we wouldn’t call the police, and take care of it ourselves through our insurance company. So I guess I kind of felt like you lied to me; led me on to believe we were going to do one thing, then changed your mind and did something else.”

  Lynox sat there nodding, taking in Deborah’s every word. “Umm, hmmm. I could see how that could disappoint you—even hurt you.” He exhaled. “I know what it’s like to feel like you are being led in one direction and then swoosh . . .” Lynox used his hand to drive a straight path toward Deborah, but then when his hand got close to her, he turned it quickly as if making it do a U-turn.

  Deborah was about to take a sip of her coffee but then she paused. “Wait a minute, are we talking about something else here?”

  Taking a sip of his own coffee and looking at Deborah over the rim of his cup, Lynox shrugged his shoulders.

  Without ever taking that sip of her coffee, Deborah placed the cup back down on the table. “Okay, look, if we’re going to do this—really move beyond the past—we’re going to have to talk about it.”

  “I agree,” Lynox said. “So talk.” He spread his hands as if giving her the floor to speak.

  Deborah decided that she wanted to hear what Lynox had to say and then base what she needed to say as a response to him. “Me? Why can’t you go first? I went first at the library.” They both thought about her comment and then laughed.

  “I guess you’re right. I’ll go first.”

  “No, no, no.” Deborah rested her hand on Lynox’s. “Let me, because this is long overdue.” In that instant, she wanted to say what needed to be said to him a long time ago; what she would have said to him that day at the bookstore if everything had turned out all right. She didn’t want to wait and end up being a coward and backing out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry the way I ended things with us when I ran off to Chile. I made a mistake. It was a huge mistake.” Deborah figured right here she’d allow Lynox to get a word in edgewise if he wanted.

  He cleared his throat, then decided to take Deborah up
on her unspoken offer. “And at what point did you realize you’d made a mistake?”

  “From the moment that plane took off,” she said without hesitation. “But it was too late. I felt like I was at the point of no return. I couldn’t turn back and listen to all the ‘I told you so’s.’”

  “Now that really hurts.” Lynox looked down and kind of slumped in his seat.

  “What?”

  “The fact that you felt you couldn’t come back to me, and if you did, I was gonna hit you with an ‘I told you so.’” He shook his head. “I just thought we were better than that. I thought I’d made it clear how much I wanted you in my life, no matter what.”

  “And you did, Lynox. Really you did. I felt it. When it came to you, once I just let everything go and let you in, for the first time since I could remember both my head and my heart had agreed on something. That something was that you were a great man.”

  Lynox sat upright again. “Well, I guess LeBron was just greater.” He pretended to be swooshing a basketball.

  “Stop it now, Lynox.” Deborah raised an eyebrow at his jealous schoolboy antics.

  He put his hands up in defeat. “Okay, I’m sorry. My bad. I know your boy is probably over in Chile winning up all types of championship rings with his skills. So consider my calling him LeBron as a compliment.”

  From the first moment Lynox had laid eyes on Elton, which was when he’d interrupted Lynox and Deborah’s date at a restaurant, Lynox had always thought the cat was too flashy for his own good. The expensive clothes, the jewelry, just seemed a bit much for Lynox’s taste, and he thought Deborah would have had better taste as well. But she seemed to be drawn to that life. He couldn’t imagine what in the world would have made her leave all that behind. But he was about to find out.

  “Actually, Elton is not over in Chile winning all kinds of championship rings.” Deborah’s tone became somber. “He’s dead.”