Chapter 13

As the first wave of the AYCE shrimp arrive, John immediately orders a second round of shrimp for both of us, before we have even had our first bite. He tells me that this is the way to do it and avoid being here two to three hours.

I ask John again, what he WANTS to do regarding Diane and the impending arrival of his baby, secretly hoping that it is his baby.

He shrugs his shoulders telling me he doesn’t know what he wants. He does want to ask Diane to marry him, but he’s sure that she’ll turn him down and then he’ll be crushed.

I suggest that the best way to achieve what you want is to show you are dedicated to her. It’s my belief that women must be able to trust you implicitly, no questions asked and if you ever break that trust there is no turning back.

John seems to be getting what I’m saying as he finishes plate number 11 of shrimp.

“John are you close to being done because I have an idea before we go see Jill,” I say to him.

He says he can stop at this point. He’s not full, but he’s ok with the amount of shrimp that he’s had so far.

I ask for the check and tell John to let Fred know we will be out in a couple of minutes. I pay the bill and we head outside. The young lady at the hostess stand puts her arms around John again, kissing him and asking him to call her. He politely smiles and gives her a hug back and we go outside to get into the car.

As John jumps into the car, I quietly tell Fred where I want to go before, we head to the hospital. He acknowledges and we head off to my destination.

John is floored when we pull into Isaac’s jewelry store. John looks completely confused. I tell him that I wanted to look for something for Jill, which he seemed to buy my story.

We go inside. The security guard, a huge man, who is armed says hello. I send John inside and stop to speak to the security guy.

“Um, hello. I’m trying to build my company’s security team. We’re looking for people who already have a carry permit and have done security work before. May I ask two questions before I go inside?”

“Yes, sir. How may I help you?” The large guy answers.

“Well, first may I ask how much you make per hour working here? Second, do you work for Isaac’s Jewelry or for the security company?” I ask.

“Um, I’m embarrassed to tell you that I make one of the top wages in the security industry. I make $12.35 per hour. To answer the other question, I work for the security company. They send me where ever they need help to cover the holes in their coverage. However, they only let me work 28-30 hours per week to avoid giving me benefits such as medical, which I need for my son.”

I reach into my pocket pulling out my business card. I write Roger Johnson’s name on it with Roger’s direct cell phone number.

“Call this man TONIGHT! Tell him that I had you call him. You seem to be just the type of guy we can use in our security team. If Roger hires you, you’ll get full-time hours, benefits, and other things that we’ll discuss in the future,” I tell him stressing that he call Roger tonight.

He thanks me and I head inside.

I see John looking at the wedding sets. Just looking and not saying anything to the guy that is following him up and down the glass case.

I ask if Jacob is here. The salesman leaves to get Jacob.

When Jacob comes out from the back, he greets me remembering my ambush of Jill, one of his favorite stories to tell prospective guys who are nervous about asking for his girlfriend’s hand.

John smiles when he hears Jacob validate my story.

“John, what three sets do you like?” I ask.

“Um, that one there, this one way down front and the one in the next case over.”

One by one, Jacob pulls each one out, letting John look it over. After looking at all three, he seems smitten with the very first one. Big solitaire, classic cut diamond with four smaller diamonds in the wedding band. The set to John represents the merge of the two families. Diane, the solitaire diamond. Jennifer, Marcus, Diane’s mom Nikki and John being the four smaller diamonds in the wedding band.

I’m proud of his thinking.

I tell Jacob that we’ll take the set, but to please put the solitaire diamond in a separate box.

John stands there completely stunned.

“Sir, I’m not asking for you to do this. I mean, I didn’t chat with you about this for you to buy it for me,” John says in a bit of a panic.

“John, John don’t worry about it. Two things can happen here. One, she says yes, and you will be the happiest that you have ever been. Two, she says no, and you return the rings.”

I hand Jacob my AMEX thinking to myself that tomorrow I need to call the bank and order up some Visa cards for my team to avoid another issue that Tina and Amy had today.

As Jacob rings up the sale, John paces back and forth like an expectant father, which he is, I think.

Jacob puts the charge slip in front of me. I sign it and he hands John the small plastic bag with the two velvet boxes in the bag.

John sets the bag down on the glass counter and give me a sincere ‘man hug’. We head out to the car where Fred is waiting. Off we go to see Jill. I tell him that he must bring the rings into the hospital, if he doesn’t show Jill, she will kick his ever-loving ass when she gets out of the hospital. He laughs.

I really didn’t look at the receipt that I signed for his rings. I pull it back out and look at it. $5485 is what I spent. I believe that it is a good investment in my protégé and Diane.

When we pull into the hospital parking lot, Fred stops in front of the main entrance. John and I get out and head inside.

As we traverse the hallways towards Jill’s room John is completely silent. I know he is stunned and now the pressure is on for him to figure out how to ask her. I don’t offer any suggestions. I believe that he needs to come up with a plan of his own to figure out the perfect way to ask Diane.

When we get to Jill’s room, she squeals with excitement seeing John, and of course me.

She sees the bag and asks John what’s going on. He explains that I sandbagged him and stopped at Isaac’s Jewelry store. He opened the engagement ring and showed Jill. She squealed that woman squeal when they get so excited. I even got a big kiss from Jill for helping John pick out the proper ring.

We chat for about an hour, before I see Jill yawning. Dr. Ronda makes an appearance kissing me over and over. Jill teasingly says that she needs to not ‘wear me out’ and save some for her. Both women laugh. I just smile. I know that tomorrow night will be one hell of a night and I wish that my Jill would be there.

I offer Ronda to join us, but she declines saying that she has a date with a doctor as she doesn’t see her and Marcus going anywhere. He’s nice enough, but he seems to not want any sort of long-term future, so she is moving on while they are still friendly.

I whisper in Ronda’s ear that she should come to see me soon. She promises me that she will. I kiss her passionately. She grabs my ass as she turns and walks away.

I kiss Jill. John kisses Jill, I tease him about flirting with my wife. He gets a bit embarrassed before Jill tells him that I’m just teasing him and it’s perfectly fine. She goes on to tell him that she has no issues with me playing if it is a two-way street. She gets to play as well.

I could see John thinking that maybe him and Diane could reach this type of setup.

I kiss Jill again before we leave.

I tell John as we walk back to the car that I’m proud of him. He smiles and punches me in the arm.

We reach the main entrance just as the security guy is locking it up. He lets us out and Fred is waiting with the car. We get in and I tell him to head home, but first we need to drop John off at his home. Fred remembers where John lives and off, we head.

John keeps opening the ring box staring at the ring.

“David, when did you know you wanted to marry Jill?”

“When I was standing in the ER with her the night of her accident. They had her hopped up on pain medicine. She professed her love for me without even blinking. I found out she was pregnant, and she looked into my eyes with a look of fear that I was going to walk out on her. It didn’t matter to me that the baby belonged to someone else. If I wanted to marry her, I knew that I had to accept it. They came together as a package deal,” I said to him.

“You mean the baby she just lost was NOT yours? All this time, I thought her pregnancy belonged to you,” he said showing that he was completely shocked.

“No, I found out the exact same time she found out by the nurse in the ER. Jill wanted someone to stand there and hold her as the nurse told her she was pregnant. She bust out crying and all I could do was hold her,” I explained to him.

“WOW, I never knew,” John said.

“It was supposed to be that way. Had she kept the baby, she probably would have listed me as the father, or at least I think she would have. We never really talked about that, but it’s a moot point now,” I tell him.

We arrive at John’s house. He invites me inside, which I try to politely decline, but he insists.

As he opens the front door, I see a shocked and surprised Jennifer. She comes running over to me practically knocking me over as she leaps into my arms. She is kissing me profusely all over my face, my lips, my ears, my neck pretty much anything she can put her lips on.

“Um, David, I think my Mom is saying ‘hi’,” He says to me laughing the whole time.

“Jennifer, if you pack a quick bag, you’re welcome to come home with me tonight. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow night. We will all leave from the Commune about 5 for the show then go back to the Commune to spend the night. Our very first night there,” I tell her.

She tells me to hold on for just a minute and runs to her bedroom to put some stuff in an overnight bag. While she is in there, I tell John that he should show his Mom what he is planning. He agrees.

Jennifer comes back down to the living room. I tell her that John has something to show her. He pulls out the black velvet box from his pants pocket and hands it to his Mother. She hesitantly opens the box. Her eyes begin tearing up immediately. She can’t produce any words. She grabs her son and hugs him so hard that I thought she might break a rib of his.

She kissed his cheek several times saying how proud she was of him.

I suggested that since his Mother would be spending the night at my house, he might invite Diane over, but to put the ring away somewhere safe until he was ready to propose. He asked his mother if he could put it in her jewelry box, which of course, she agreed.

As I headed back out to the car, John thanked me for dinner and the ring. I gave him a wink and walked arm in arm with his Mother to the car.

We got in and Jennifer couldn’t keep her hands or mouth off me. She kept saying that she wanted to thank me for the beautiful flowers and that no one had ever given her flowers so beautiful.

While Jennifer is all curled up into me, I ask Fred how his nephews’ first day went.

“Spectacular, sir. Apparently, your assistant, Miss Dakota already asked them to join your group for tomorrow night’s concert. Do you need two or three stretch limos tomorrow night?” Fred asks me.

“Let’s go with two. I think I have about 16 people coming that puts 8 per car. Everyone is supposed to be at the Commune by 5pm. So, if you are there about 515-530pm, we will get to the Staples Center early enough to enjoy the suite,” I tell Fred.

I text Jill wishing her sweet dreams and telling her that Jennifer is joining me at home tonight. She texts back to enjoy the night and thanks me for bringing John to see her tonight. I tell her that I love her which she says the same to me as we sign off.

As I walk into the house, I see two very excited women waiting for me in sheer negligees. Amy wearing a light blue one, Dakota wearing a pink one. Neither of them had any panties, just the sheer top.

All I could do was smile. I had not anticipated Amy and Dakota waiting for me. It took Jennifer less than a minute for her to strip down to nothing.

Here I am standing looking at three gorgeous women all whom have set their eyes on me. I really didn’t know why the ambush from Dakota and Amy until I made it into the kitchen where I saw the big gaudy bouquets of flowers for each of them.

Dakota pushes me down the hall and tells me to go take a shower. She also suggests to Jennifer that she should join me in the shower to make sure that I am clean and ‘ready’ to play. She smiles her beautiful smile and takes my hand walking me down to the bathroom. Once inside, she begins taking my clothes off.

I hear two young ladies giggling in the hall just outside of the bathroom door.

Once I am naked, Jennifer takes my hand and leads me into the shower. She turns on the water, spinning me around slowly making sure that I am thoroughly wet before she takes a squirt of shampoo and tells me to lean down to her so she could wash my hair.

She does the hair wash slowly and sensually, kissing my face and lips while my eyes are closed. She tells me to keep my eyes closed as she is now going to soap up my body before she rinses out the shampoo from my hair.

I obey. There is something very erotic when you feel a lover’s hands caressing your body with soap and shampoo all the while having to keep your eyes closed.

She pushes me back. I am resting my back on the wall underneath the shower head. She begins soaping my body starting with my feet and legs.