Pitch black in her room she lay bundled up in her blankets, snuggled with her legs at a comfortable bend. The body heat under the blankets was like an incubator and the idea of getting up and stepping into the cold brisk air, kept her in the bed for probably another 10 minutes as she battled with the choice of getting up to go pee or stay in her warm bed. If she did not fight the cold air, she would spend the rest of her night tossing and turning, and trying to hold her bladder at tilt just to avoid having to be bitten by the winter chill on her way to the bathroom. Disappointed by the interruption of having to get up, she exhaled her distaste for having to walk into the cold bathroom, and sit on the cold toilet seat, only to have to wash her hands in cold water ruining her chances of falling back to sleep with ease. When she finally pulled her covers back it was quite apparent that the gas she had passed in her sleep was waiting for it’s quiet escape. She smiled to herself because in an odd way, although it smelled so bad she kind of liked it.
She finally crawled out of bed and stepped onto her carpeted bedroom floor. Thank goodness for the carpet in her room, because the rest of the house was hardwood, which really is a shocker when you mix cold hardwood floors with the many nerve endings on the bottom of the feet. “Why is it so cold?”, she thought to herself. She did turn the heater on before she laid down. For a second she thought maybe her husband had turned the temperature down. He is so good at doing that. They’ve been fighting over the thermostat every winter for years now. He is set on having it at sixty-six degrees, and she felt like anything that started with a sixty was too damn cold. She preferred at least seventy-two degrees. To end the ridiculous battle they agreed on sixty-eight degrees. “IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PAST 68″ he would always say with annoyance. So when he is home she keeps it at 68, but when he’s gone it’s 70’s all day.
She looked at the thermostat on the way to the bathroom. This meant she would need to turn on the hall light, and she could kiss her continued sleep good by the minute her pupils were kissed by the off beat red light bulb in the hall way. LOW BATTERY displayed across the screen of the thermostat. “Great” she thought to herself, sarcastically. She knew she couldn’t go back to sleep without doing something about the heat, so after using the bathroom, she went into the kitchen to find some batteries.
“Why do we never have batteries, like readily available?” She pulled open the junk drawer in the kitchen, where batteries among other things like non working pens, un-sharpened pencils, broken crayons and dried out markers and a whole bunch of pennies took up space. She started swimming around in the drawer hoping to find a battery, but she found herself getting pricked by something sharp in the drawer. She pulled her hand back and immediately put her pricked finger in her mouth to sooth the shock and stop the bleeding. It was a jagged staple. Well looks like if she had any chances of going back to sleep those chances were dismissed very quickly. She looked up at the time on the Microwave, and realized that it was only 2:30a.m. All of this and it was only 2:30 in the morning.
She picked up one of the baked cookies she and her husband made after the kids went to sleep. They always baked cookies after the kids went to sleep. It was one of their little fun things they did together as a married couple. Fresh baked cookies and a good streaming choice on Netflix, and the bonding session was in full progress.
Chocolate chip cookies were Kimmie’s weakness, and there was no use in pretending like she was trying not to indulge when it came to delicious sweet fresh baked cookies, and milk free of lactose. She grabbed two cookies, her pretend milk and the lap top from the kitchen counter. She walked into the living room grabbed a throw and kicked her feet up on the couch as she bit into her cookie and checked her Facebook page.
To her shock, someone she used to work with had been killed and everyone was posting their regards on the site. She immediately felt heavy in her heart, confused and uneasy. “R.I.P. Jordan, What?” Kimmie pulled her feet up close to her core, and began to fiddle with her toes as she tried to wrap her mind around what she was seeing. “Jordan?” “Killed?” She clicked on one of Jordan’s online photo albums. There were pictures posted from their last outing. They all hooked up for Karaoke a few months back. Kimmie found herself being sucked into that exact moment in time in her mind.
She could recall that night at the Karaoke club as if it had just happen. “For real Jordan, you thought you were jammin’ up there didn’t you?” She remembered laughing to herself and teasing Jordan because he had just song “Stay” by Jodeci. He was loving every minute of it because he was faded for one, and for two he had the ladies at full attention because he was so good looking. “Boy you know you not really a member of the group right” “Shut up Kimmie, don’t be hatin’” “Okay Jordan which one of those ladies do you have your eye on?” Jordan just looked at Kimmie, and she looked at him right back. “Boy you better stop acting like I don’t know your style. We’ve been doing Karaoke here for a minute, and every-time-you-see- a potential hottie you go and pull out the Jodeci card” Everybody at the table just started laughing and even Jordan had to admit, she was right. “Watch and learn little sister” He always referred to her as “little sister”. Kimmie’s Husband was actually Jordan’s good friend, and they all ended up gelling together when Kimmie and Jordan worked for the same firm. Jordan walked over to a thin pretty young woman who looked to be in her early 20’s. Everyone from the table where they were sitting just watched the show from a distance.
“He really thinks he gonna get some play with little girl over there”, said Michael, Kimmie’s husband. “I know right, who’s i.d. did she use to get in here anyway? I bet she ain’t even old enough to be in here.” “Well it looks like she’s old enough for something because look”. Jordan was smooth, his looks helped and before the table could even blink they were already exchanging smart phone information. Jordan and Bridgette started dating soon after that.
Bridgette was only 22 years old and Jordan was 38. It was kind of weird to see, she remembered as she reflected on her friend. Jordan had been divorced going on 2 years. He was a mess during the time it took to kind of heal after his divorce, and get reacquainted with being single. In the short time since he knew Bridgette, his feelings began to mature for her rather quickly. She was beautiful, but she was so young and for him to be a mature divorced man with two little daughters 9 and 12 years old, seeing him with her was kind of unsettling. It did not matter what Kimmie thought of his new relationship, but for Kimmie something in her core did not sit well when it came to Bridgette.
Kimmie pulled her throw blanket up around her shoulders and kept reading the post. “When did this happen?” She wanted to pick up the phone and call someone but it was too late. She noticed one of her friends who posted her condolences was available for instant chat.
What happen 2 Jordan? I’m just now hearing about this.
Yeah, crazy, it doesn’t make any since.
Okay, so do u know what happen?
He was shot and killed while leaving the grocery store earlier this evening?
What? Can I call you.
I can’t talk because I just got the twins bk 2 sleep.
Okay, I understand. So What else?
That’s all I know. He was loading his groceries into the trunk of the car and he was shot in the process.
At that moment everything hit her at once, and she felt the pain was real and she knew that this was real, and it hurt and she started crying from her heart and she found it hard to breath because of the cold air and immediate congestion from crying. Michael walked into the living, he was awaken by her sounds. “What’s the matter?” “It’s Jordan” she replied, “What about him Kimmie” “He was killed earlier this evening”
NAH NAH NAH! Shit, WHAT??!! Michael sat down on the couch next to Kimmie, he held her close as she cried into his chest. “Man!!” He said out loud. “He had been trippin’ lately about Bridgette” “What do you mean “trippin about Bridgette” Why”? “Well” he said, “apparently Bridgette was pregnant when she met Jordan. That’s why she wasn’t drinking that night we first met her. The father of her baby is a Menace to Society type Kat. From what Jordan told me she and her ex were no longer together because of his violent temper, and that he didn’t even know that Bridgette was carrying his child. I guess he had got locked up in county over some mess, and by the time he got out he wanted her back. She told him she was pregnant, but she also told him that Jordan as the father. I guess Oh Boy went nutty and started harassing both of them.” ” How come I don’t know about this?” “To be honest, I’m just now finding out about this shit myself. It’s on some grown man business. He didn’t really want everyone knowing he got caught up in some bullshit after hanging out with this young woman. He was embarrassed. What did you hear?”
“According to Jen he was killed while putting his groceries in the trunk of his car. Do you think this has anything to do with Bridgette and the dude you were telling me about?” “Baby, I don’t know” Michael laid back on the couch looking up at the ceiling. Kimmie laid with her head on his chest and listened to the beat of his heart.
It dawned on her that the sweet sound of his beating heart was the most beautiful thing she had appreciated in a long time. She lay there as the rhythm of his heart, beat against her temples, and the wave of each of his breaths eventually lulled her back to sleep.
They laid there comforting each other until the morning. In the morning they had both received text messages stating that the killers had been arrested. “Killers??!!” Michael read the text out loud.
After a few weeks had gone by, they found out that Jordan was a victim of a well thought out crime. Come to find out Bridgette and her Menace to Society boyfriend, were Cons. She used her beauty to play men and get them to let down their guards. Once the guards were down, they would clean out the bank accounts belonging to their victims. She usually would say she was pregnant even though that was untrue. She would tell her sob story and get the latest victim to feel sorry for her. She would get their victims to pay for her “abortion” that never really took place. She would use her “depression” from the ordeal of “having to go through with an abortion” to get closer to the victim. Once the victim was totally under her spell, they would usually kill the victims after taking all of the victim’s money. Killing Jordan was not part of the plan that day, but Jordan had figured out the scam before he could get scammed further. They killed him so they wouldn’t get caught, but ended up getting caught on the grocery store parking lot surveillance camera.