"You think I don't know when to call it quits
How could I not know after all this here
I spent so much time tryna find a signal but
It's safe to say it's no good
A nigga need to roll up

No, I don't wanna piss you off
No, I ain't tryna make you yell
Girl why you wanna kick me outta my natural element
No, I don't wanna piss you off
I ain't tryna make you yell
Now why you wanna kick me outta my natural element"

6lack – "Disconnect"

Kris gripped the cordless in her hand and walked back into the manager's office with it.

"Kris?"

His voice sounded breathy and all she envisioned was his lips on hers. She felt uncomfortable but she didn't think she could refuse his call. He was the boss and he called on a work line.

"Yeah?"

"Today was crazy, but can you meet with me and my cousins at the bar tomorrow?"

"I'm not working tomorrow."

Silence.

"Can you come to the ranch then?"

"I can't. I'm having a thing at my house tomorrow."

"A thing?"

She closed her eyes and rubbed her hand against her thigh.

"I'm having a fish fry with some co-workers so I won't be available."

"Oh."

"How is your ankle?"

"Better. I'll up and around tomorrow."

Kris's eyes glanced around the office. Blue had pictures of him and Erik on the wall behind his desk. Erik's beaming smile was so wide. He had saved her life. Picked her up in his powerful arms and made sure she was okay as a wild animal nearly ripped off his leg. She turned away from the wall and touched her forehead.

"How about this…you all come over to the fish fry. I can help you out and feed you for saving me."

"I don't want to make people uncomfortable—"

"We're just eating and playing spades. It'll be fine."

"What time?"

"Anytime after two."

"Okay. I'll let them know. Talk to you later."

He hung up and she held the phone to her ear until Blue walked back in. She set the cordless back onto the charger on the desk.

"All good?" Blue asked.

"Yeah."

"Y'all were lucky today," he said.

"You know about the cougar?"

"Erik called and told me. He let me know why you were so late."

"I better get back out there and make up for lost time," she said.

"Kris?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad you're working here. I hear nothing but good things from the customers."

He reached for his laptop and hit a button to take it out of sleep mode.

"Check this out."

Kris moved closer to the desk and Blue directed her attention to the saloon's web page. He scrolled to a comments section.

"Kris was our server last Friday night and we want to let your establishment know how much fun we had with her taking care of our party. She was funny, courteous, and made sure we had anything we needed to make our visit enjoyable. We'll definitely be back. You are so lucky to have great employees! Thank you for a great time!"

Blue looked at her after reading.

"I get a lot of these lately. Some of the staff are fighting to have you work in their stations because the tips are higher. Nice job."

"Thanks."

"I'm thinking about having you work the front more with Rekia. You two do well together."

"Great."

She walked out of the office feeling good about herself. Kris was still getting the hang of the place, but she was grateful to have supportive co-workers that she got along with. A lot of them looked forward to her fish fry gatherings with Jordan and she felt bad that many of them couldn't attend because of their work schedules.

Back at the bar, Brandy was getting an earful from Rekia and when her eyes caught, Kris, her cousin jumped up from her seat.

"How come you didn't tell me you and Erik were attacked?!"

"Lower your voice."

Brandy snagged an empty round table in front of the bar. Kris glanced back at her section and saw that her guests were fine.

Brandy had her cell out.

"I'm calling Erik myself."

Kris touched her phone, pushing it down onto the table.

"He's resting right now. He called to ask me to help his cousins on Saturday."

"Help them with what?"

"A gave them a reading and it didn't turn out so good. I'm going to give them some things—"

"I don't care about all that hoodoo and tarot stuff. You should've called me—"

"It all happened fast and I was caught up. Erik was lucky—"

"Why were you there with him?"

Heat bloomed in Kris's cheeks. Brandy's earnest eyes were filled with questions.

"I gave Caddo a reading and found out some stuff about his cousin Biandro. So they took me out to see Biandro—"

"To do what?"

"Biandro accidentally put something on them that is making their love lives bad. They want me to fix it for them."

"Love lives…Erik too?"

Brandy smirked.

"You've been ignoring him, so I guess it's bad."

Her cousin cackled.

"He wants you to fix it so that I run to him?"

"You aren't exactly the only—"

"The only what?"

Kris looked away.

"No…come on say it."

Brandy's flippant voice made Kris flinch.

"You know he sees other people."

"Sees them, but he doesn't want them. Cream always rises to the top."

Brandy tossed back her flat-ironed dark brown hair and waved over a server in that section.

"They're coming over Saturday."

"Good. You can watch me cuff him up."

The sneer on Brandy's lip made Kris want to tell her that Erik kissed her. Her cousin was always acting highfalutin for no reason. She was indeed gorgeous, educated, and self-sufficient, but she could be so blind with men. Especially men like Erik. Brandy wanted to be the HBIC. Head Bitch In Charge. Kris knew Erik wasn't built for that type of relationship. He belonged to the streets marking up territory with his dick wherever he saw fit. He tried to lure her in for fun, but Kris wasn't falling for it.

Returning to her booths, Kris worked the remainder of her shift and made decent tips. She waited for Jordan in the parking lot when his shift was over, and as she watched him stroll over to her carrying a bag of food from the kitchen, she admired the relaxed smile on his face. Working had turned his entire life mood around. He was happier and paid for their bills so that Brandy could stay out of their financial stress. He was due to fly to California after she returned from North Carolina for his interviews, and the freelance consultant job worked out well for him.

"Quesadillas and carne aside tacos," Jordan said.

"Yay."

"Rekia and Blue told me what happened. I'm sorry I was a dick about jumping on you right when you came in. I was worried and you didn't answer my calls."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you right away."

"Let's just be thankful that you're fine."

Jordan bent down and kissed her.

"Let's go home."

He drove her car to the house and Kris tried to step out of the passenger side. Jordan grabbed her arm.

"Just wait a minute," he said.

"What?"

His eyes flickered over to the front door and then he looked back at her.

"Come sit on my lap," he said pushing the driver's seat back.

"Why?"

"We never have any privacy."

He grabbed her harm and forced her to straddle his thighs. His lips found her neck and his hands cupped her breasts.

"Let's take this into the house," she said.

"Brandy is in there and she's always up…"

His tongue wiggled in her ear as he unfastened her bra strap from the back. Pushing up her shirt, her full breasts fell against his chest. He tossed the bra onto the passenger seat.

Jordan's need to be more sexual with her increased with his having money in his pocket now. Their schedules flip-flopped he took her when he could. His tongue circled around her left nipple as he squeezed her right breast.

"Take your pants off…and those panties," he panted in her ear.

He helped her scoot back over into the passenger seat so she could take off her boots and shimmy out of her skinny jeans. It took her some time to get them off and when she finally had her bottom half-naked, Jordan's black chino pants were already down by his knees with his underwear. He held up his slender light brown curved dick and she could see that his foreskin had peeled back on its own because he was rock hard. He had a slim jim, but it was long. His nutsack was drawn up tight and ready to release.

"I'm not wet enough yet," she whispered darting her eyes around to make sure no neighbors could see them with a security light from the porch flooding into the front of the car windshield.

Jordan reached over and played with her folds and tweaked her clit. He didn't play with it long enough. His left hand fisted his stiffness as he manipulated her pussy lips that spread open on their own.

"You're dripping now baby."

Jordan dragged two fingers along her shaved mound.

"I like it when you keep your pussy bald."

She gave him a sweet smile but she internally rolled her eyes thinking of the razor bumps she had to sometimes endure just to feel sexy.

He sank his wandering fingers into her slit and moaned.

"Oh…Kris…you're ready baby," he hissed pulling her back over to him.

He lifted her easily and she squatted over his dick as he lined himself up with her opening. Dropping down, she took in the first three inches.

"Yes, baby. Fuck me…" he gasped.

She adjusted and sat down gently. Jordan gave her shallow thrusts to ease her into a steady rhythm. When she felt more lubricated, she sank down on him further.

"Take your time," he said.

Feeling more aroused, she concentrated on his face, but he was focused on her tits bouncing against his shirt. He gave a hard jab deep inside of her and she raised up.

"Easy, Jordan, I'm still—"

"I got you…I got you…ah fuck baby…tight pussy…"

It took her a long time to finally be able to sit all the way down on his dick with his balls slapping against her backside. By then, he was pushing her back making her bounce on his erection as he stared at her breasts jiggling harder from her exertion.

"I'm cumming! Push those titties together!" he shouted.

Jordan pulled out and jerked off against her stomach as she lifted her breasts and juggled them in her hands for him. His face turned a darker coppery brown as he grit his teeth.

"Ohhh….ohhhhh…ohhhh…" he moaned.

His glans had swollen bigger and his foreskin looked like it was strangling his tip in a turtleneck grip. It was lighter than his length and she watched it spew pre-cum over his fingers.

Jordan kept stroking and moaning and staring while she smacked her titties together for him. He shouted her name twice and she encouraged him with nasty words before he ejaculated all over her stomach and the underside of her breasts. Resting her forehead on his, Jordan's hand kept playing with his dick squeezing out whatever he had left.

"Oh, you were so good…" he crooned in her hair.

He wound down as she sat on his lap still feeling the tension in her clit that wouldn't release. It sat swollen against his sweaty balls. Tapping three fingers against her lower back, he shifted her weight off of him.

"Let's go in," he said.

Jordan fixed his pants and Kris put hers back on feeling his cum wet up her clothes. Once they were in their bed together, she listened to Jordan snore next to her as she tried playing with her nub. Her mind and body were exhausted by the day, so she gave up playing with herself and snuggled up against her man's side and slept.

###

Fish grease popped along with the music inside the little white house.

Kris pulled cornbread from the oven as her co-workers pulled apart cornmeal fried whiting and Brandy's four-cheese macaroni. Everyone talked and joked in the back yard sitting on old tan metal folding chairs.

Kris fanned herself with a paper plate to cool down when she saw Monroe, Caddo, Biandro, and Erik standing outside the open front door peeking through the locked screen door.

"Hey!" she said walking over and letting them inside.

Monroe handed her two bottles of fancy white wine and Kris saw nothing but big wide grins from all of them. Lord. Those Stevens men had smiles to seduce birds out of the trees.

"Just in time to get some food," she said pointing to the kitchen where the spread was laid out for everyone.

They were not shy about tucking in and she was glad that she made Jordan buy extra of everything because these fools were piling up sky high. They went outside where the others greeted them with warm smiles and shouts of "Hey now!" Kris watched Brandy act coy with Erik as she sauntered over to him. The two of them talked and her cousin looked like she was indeed the cream of the crop. After the initial mingling, Biandro wandered over to her.

"Do you believe I'm at fault?"

He wasn't wasting any time getting down to business.

"Come with me," she said.

Biandro followed her to a small side room that she used as an office and to do the readings for her co-workers. It was right next to the living room and had a window that looked out onto the street outside. It was too small to be another bedroom or a real sitting room but the nice lighting and her decorations made it look like a sacred space that was inviting for anyone. She used a small card table in there covered with a thick mud cloth print tablecloth with two yellow tulip chairs and orange cushioned seats facing across each other.

"Sit down," she said.

Biandro took a seat and she studied him. He had the softest looking and saddest looking eyes she had ever seen on a man. His wide pyramid-like nose and fleshy lips softened the intense stare he gave her. He had a face that reminded her of Black folks back in the 70s photos her grandmother had in her photo album. A handsome old school face. One of those throwback genes that made him look wise and understanding. But there was so much pain there. She picked up sorrow as thick as blackstrap molasses wafting off of his aura. Granny May was better at aural color readings than she was, but she was able to catch flashes of it when she concentrated. Biandro gave her glimpses of a pale murky orange. Low self-esteem. Obsessive behavior.

His eyes glanced down at her tarot cards already sitting in a neat stack next to some other tools.

"I don't really believe in this stuff," he finally said sitting back.

He didn't fold his arms across his chest, but his energy did. Defensive already.

"You don't have to. But that doesn't negate its power."

His eyes had a glint in them when she said that.

"My Nana told me that the other day."

"She's besties with my Granny so she knows what's up."

She leaned forward a bit.

"You're the oldest out of your male cousins."

"Erik tell you that?"

"No. Selena. You are very protective of them and they look up to you. That's your power," she said.

She reached into her coochie cutter shorts and pulled out her green lighter and lit the two candles on the table. She moved very slow and deliberate. Lulling him in. People always lowered their defenses when she began to create a circle of protection around them. The dark blue incense bottle to her right curled out white smoke as she lit up the dragon's blood incense stick stuck inside of it. The cloying aroma of vanilla and spices filled the small room. It reminded her of the odor of her grandmother's other house.

"Tell me exactly what you said to Erik in anger."

Biandro gave a deep annoyed sigh.

"I didn't say all that much—"

"Tell me what you said. At least what you can remember."

Biandro's eyes darted to the right of her face as his mind tried to pull back the unwitting conjuring he did.

"I said….I said….I told…"

"Take your time, Biandro."

"I told him that he and my other cousins play with women. They don't respect them. They never have. They fuck around with as many as they can because that's all they want to do. I only want the mother of my child."

"What else?"

"I told him that he didn't know real love. He wouldn't know it if it smacked him in his slick face…"

Biandro clasped his hands together in his lap.

"Relax your hands," she encouraged.

He rested his hands on his thighs. Those sad eyes trapped her with their dew-like glow.

"I told Erik that I hoped he got his heart broken and dragged like mine. I said that for all of them, but Erik is the main one. He's too…callous. I hate that about him more than anything."

"I see."

"I've cursed him and the others out before. Their female trouble is just natural law catching up to them. I didn't put no bad juju on them."

Kris smiled.

"Biandro, you have a natural gift within you that I can see even without using my cards. Because you are looked up to by the others, your words to them carry tremendous force. You put a root on them by accident. Your anger was justified, and your intention to vent that anger to Erik was not meant to be malicious, but they stuck onto him. Imagine that Erik, Caddo, and Monroe have sticky paper on their chests. Most of the time that sticky paper isn't strong enough to hold onto anything so stuff drops away from it or bounces off of it. But when something is directed with so much power toward it…whew! It catches everything. Your cousins are walking around with sticky paper full of junk that you put there. You have to help them get it off."

Biandro chuckled.

"I told you I don't believe this stuff—"

"But you believe in love, right?"

"I do."

"Even when the object of that love isn't in front of you?"

"What that mean?"

"Monette. She's not here. You don't see her at all. So since you don't see her, then love must not be present since she's not here—"

"That's not the same—"

"Touch your heart…go ahead…touch it…"

"This is—"

"Touch it."

Biandro placed his right hand over his heart.

"Feel it?"

"It's beating—"

"Monette. Do you feel her there?"

Biandro's eyes regarded her for a moment with a bewildered look.

"She's not physically present in front of you, but do you feel her there? What about your little boy? He's not in front of you either, but do you feel him inside of that muscle with her? Do you feel their power in there?"

His bottom lip quivered and then water pressed from his eyelids.

"I do!"

He burst into tears and covered his face with his hands. Kris stood and walked around the table and knelt by his seat. She placed a loving arm around his shoulder and allowed him to cry with just her touch to comfort the release.

Kris gave him plenty of time to purge it all and when his breathing became less ragged, she lifted his chin up.

"You can feel all of that, but you don't believe that you have put something on your cousins that they can feel and that affects them even when you're not around them?"

Biandro's red eyes revealed an understanding. But it revealed something else. He relished that power now.

"They deserve to feel failure now," he said.

Pushing his back against the tulip chair, his eyes were wide with mirth behind them.

"That's not right," she said going back to her chair.

"I don't care. This is a good lesson for them to learn. I'm not reversing anything!"

A tap at the entrance of the room drew Kris's attention. Brandy stood there with a grin on her face.

"Everyone wants you to come outside and re-enact the whole cougar attack. Monroe and Caddo are telling the story and it's so good. I mean, it was scary for you, but we want to live all the drama!"

"Be there in a minute," Kris said.

Brandy left them.

Biandro stood up and headed for the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"Taking a walk. Clear my head. I know you want to help them and you can do any of your hoodoo stuff if you want."

She watched him leave.

"Kris!"

The shouts from the backyard beckoned her.

Kris stepped out onto the back porch and saw her co-workers and the Stevens men watching her. Her eyes were stuck on Erik. Biandro wanted him to suffer the most. His soft dimples appeared in his cheeks as he pointed to where he wanted her to stand for the re-enactment.

Poor thing.

He had no clue the mess he was in because of his fuckboi ways.

Kris was pretty sure she could ward off the troubles that Caddo and Monroe had with a few Florida Water sprays and rue soap to bathe in as well as some crystals to keep on them.

But Erik.

She would have to make him a mojo bag until Biandro could release his hold on him.

Erik's hands circled her waist again as they did at the ranch. She could feel his fingers digging into her flesh and she felt the thrill of his strength once more as he lifted her up. When he dropped her back down to her feet and joked about how her face looked, she punched him in his chest playfully.

"We both thought we were goners!" he said eliciting laughter from everyone.

She rolled her eyes and Erik crowded her for a second before pushing back and grabbing a beer from a cooler. She turned and walked toward the back porch. Brandy grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the side of the house.

"What's up with that?" Brandy asked.

"What's up with what-?"

"I thought you weren't interested in him."

"I'm not."

"Does he know that? Because it looked like you two were feeling each other, Kris. Did anything else happen up at that ranch?"

Her cousin's height blocked out the sun from Kris's face and she tried to figure out from her body language if Brandy was upset or just inquisitive. Her energy felt neutral.

"Brandy, we work together and we experienced a terrifying thing together. I've gotten comfortable around him. And no…I'm not feeling him. Are you kidding? Look at my man."

Jordan stood near Erik and Caddo and her boyfriend was gesticulating wildly like he was telling one of his terrible jokes. Both Erik and Caddo ran away with laughter when they heard the punchline and Jordan held his stomach as he fell out laughing too.

"I have Jordan. Tall, gorgeous, and in love with me."

"Are you sure? I'm not trying to have a blood feud with my favorite cousin over some dude—"

"I have a man. You want him…have at him."

Kris left Brandy outside as she went into the house. She walked back into her tarot card room and was about to blow out the candles when she felt the urge to do a reading.

For herself.