Read Online Can't Get Enough of Your Love by J.J. Murray - Free Book Online

“Are you breaking up with me?”
    I wasn’t breaking up with him. I just wanted him gone so I could get some me-time. “Just go home, Juan Carlos.”
    â€œI am not going home. This is just an argument, and tomorrow you will think differently.” He slipped out of his pants and pulled back the covers on the bed.
    This was not going well. I decided to resort to “The List,” a list of things a man is not supposed to say to a woman … only I have to flip it around some. “Juan Carlos, if you were a woman, you would always be on your period.”
    He gasped.
    â€œIf you were a woman, Juan Carlos, you would have a terminal case of PMS.”
    He jumped out of the bed.
    â€œIf you were a woman, you would be a bitch, Juan Carlos. The dictionary must have your picture next to the word ‘bitch.’”
    His jaw dropped.
    â€œNo one tells me what to do in my own house, Juan Carlos. You’re … not … my … daddy!”
    I have never seen Juan Carlos move so fast. He dressed, said “You … you” a couple times, eventually called
me
a “bitch” and a “bunta,” and tore out of the house. I watched dirt flying up from behind his mama’s rusty old Bonneville and sighed when the taillights finally disappeared.
    Later, alone again with a glass of iced tea, standing at the edge of the pond, I hummed some old Bessie Smith blues as the tiny waves of the pond lapped at my feet.
    The next day, Juan Carlos returned with a dozen long-stem roses and some outstanding takeout from ElRodeo. He also apologized to me all night long for his bad attitude.
    I likes me some drama.
    Juan Carlos is good for that.
    And he dances horizontally just fo-ine.

Chapter 7
    I have never almost “lost” Karl like that, mainly because Karl is so hard to find sometimes. But when I do find him, I usually have to take a day off from work and life in general afterward. We, um, we tear it up.
    I’ve been with Karl the longest, about eight months. I was between men when I first met him while jogging through Washington Park on a hot August day. Our first few conversations intrigued me mainly for what he
could
have said but
didn’t
say, and for what I
could
have said but
didn’t
say.
    To stay in shape for the upcoming tryouts for the Roanoke Revenge, I used to park over at the Addison Middle School track and run a loop from there through a neighborhood down to a creek and up the hill to the Washington Park pool and the field beyond, where I did some wind sprints. Thus, Karl saw me for the first time at my absolute worst that hot, humid August day. I was sweaty. I was stank. I was shiny. I was funky.
    He was sitting on the hood of his Blazer wearing awhite wife beater, long black baggy jean shorts, and tan Timberland boots. He had a little bling going on, but mostly he was tattooed and muscled from the neck down and he was fo-ine.
    And I looked like shit—except for my running shoes—in some old green mesh shorts, an oversized gray long-sleeved shirt, and a black Nike visor, but that’s how I usually work out. Why do so many women try to look cute when they can’t possibly look cute, all sweaty and stank, when they work out? Why ruin a “she-she” hundred-dollar jogging outfit with sweat when any old pair of sweats will do?
    Okay, okay. I didn’t match that day. My “she-she” running shorts and top were already dirty, and my “outfit” (such as it was) was the best I could find. Besides, I didn’t expect to meet anyone, right?
    As I neared him that day, he called out, “What you running for, girl?”
    I played the shy girl, pointing at myself.
    He smiled. “Yeah, I’m talking to you.”
    I could barely catch my breath. That hill was a killer, and so was his smile. “Hey,” I said. I
didn’t
say, “Is this your ride?” or “Do I know you?” or “What’s your