Chapter 4

Sheryl called Cricket the first chance she had to tell him that they'd been seen together by her brother.

"It don't mean nothin'," came his confident reply. It was obvious that he wasn't upset in the least. "I'll handle it. In the meantime, I can always pick you up somewhere else where we won't be seen."

His answer brought several questions to her mind at once.

"What do you mean by 'you'll handle it'?" She didn't like the way he'd said it, and it was the question that disturbed her the most.

"Just what I said, it means don't worry 'bout it."

From the way he answered, Sheryl guessed that he didn't have a plan but didn't want her to worry about it because he would think of something. At least, that's what she hoped he meant. She wanted to tell him not to do anything stupid, but figured it would only make him angry if she did.

'He's too smart to do anything rash anyway, ' she told herself, and asked, "Where can you pick me up where we won't be seen?"

"I don't know. Jus' think of someplace where no one you know'll see ya. You can always come by my crib yerself ya know. Jus' be sure ta call first in case I'm not home, or busy."

'That means in case you're busy fucking someone else, ' she thought. Sheryl quickly pushed that thought from her mind. "All right; I'll talk to ya later. I gotta go back to work now."

"Okay, later Babe."

The way he said it made her think that him saying, 'it don't mean nothing, ' meant that it didn't mean anything to him, and that he wasn't very concerned about it. It was another question that she didn't ask, and in the end, she decided that she didn't really want to know the answer to that question either.

Sheryl spent the rest of the day fretting about how Cricket intended on solving the problem, and by the time she got on the bus to go home, she thoroughly regretted telling him about it in the first place.

'I should have just waited until the next time we were going to get together and have him pick me up from work or something, ' she thought. 'Oh well, it's too late now. I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid!' That was a thought that had come back to her time and time again throughout the day.

She wasn't sure why his words had made her so nervous. After all, Cricket was just a player, and as far as she knew he never really did anything wrong.

'That's the thing though, ' she thought. 'As far as I know he's never done anything really wrong. It's not like he's a gang banger or anything like that. But still, I wish I knew a little more about him.'

That thought made her realize just how secretive he was about his personal life. On the one hand, he never seemed to have any money, but on the other, he drove a decent car and had a nice apartment, too, yet she knew he didn't have a job.

In the end, she decided she'd better find out a little more about him.

'Besides, since I'm starting to spend more time with him, I should know more about the man, ' she thought.

Since Cricket seemed to know everyone, that meant that almost everyone knew Cricket, and she figured it wouldn't be too hard to find out more about him just by asking around. Sheryl wasn't exactly without friends, either, and she thought that what she couldn't find out on her own her friends could.

She thought about her old neighbor Chemise, and then there was Kali, a friend she used to work with. There were others, also, but the first person she thought to talk to was Georgette. She was the one friend that Sheryl knew she could talk to without having to sugar coat anything. She just had to remember not to tell the woman too much about her own personal business. She knew that Georgette would do just about anything for her, but the woman also got carried away with her gossip at times. Therefore, Sheryl knew that she had to be careful not to tell her anything that she didn't want the whole world to know.

"Girl, you don't want to know anything about Cricket! That is one man you don't need ta be messin' around with. 'Sides, what do you want with him anyway? You already got yerself a man."

Sheryl was expecting Georgette to say something like that, and had already thought of an answer for her.

"I'm not sayin' I want to have anything to do with him. I just heard so much about him lately that I was curious, that's all."

Georgette gave her friend a sidelong glance that told her that she didn't believe a word of it.

'It doesn't really matter whether she believes me or not, ' thought Sheryl. 'As long as I said what I said, I can always say, 'I told her I wasn't interested in him.' '

Georgette saw Sheryl was looking expectantly at her, so she began telling her everything she knew about Cricket.

"Well the man's a player; that's for sure."

"What I want to know is where does he get his money? I heard he doesn't have a job, but he's got a nice ride, and I'm sure he has to pay rent to someone. I mean, I don't think he lives with his mother."

Georgette laughed. "Cricket? Oh no! That man wouldn't be livin' with no one, 'specially his mother!"

As Sheryl had planned, mentioning him living with his mother got Georgette started on telling all the gossip she'd heard about the man, forgetting about why Sheryl wanted to know.

"You know, that boy's fucked just about half the women in the city, and he gets money from everyone he fucks, too. Cricket don't give up that dick unless he's goin' ta get somethin' out of it beside just sex. I heard he gets quite a lot of money from some of those women, too. I heard once that he goes over and fucks this one lady, and she gives him whatever he asks for, and she gets the money from her husband! Even though he don't know what she's usin' it for."

Georgette told Sheryl a lot of stories about Cricket. None of what she heard surprised her. She'd always suspected that was how Cricket survived. She just didn't ever want to think about it before. As hard as it was for her to hear what Georgette had to say, she was even more relieved to not hear anything about Cricket being a street thug. But deep down, she knew he wasn't the violent type. She just had to hear it from someone else for her own piece of mind.

After talking to Georgette, Sheryl still didn't have any idea how Cricket was going to "take care of it", but at least she wasn't worried about it anymore. She pushed away any thoughts she had about seeing Dr. Jameson again, also. She still knew that eventually, she'd have to make a decision about which man she was going to end up spending her time with, but it didn't seem to be quite as urgent just then as it did before.

Georgette had given her so much information about Cricket that she didn't even feel like she had to ask anyone anything else. Sheryl wasn't that surprised, though. Georgette always seemed to know everything about everybody. In fact, the woman prided herself on knowing everything about everyone.

Chemise once said, "The woman could practically write a biography on anyone she comes into contact with."

That evening, Sheryl took a bus to see Cricket. She told Shawn that she was going to go hang out with Chemise and Georgette, and would give him a call when she got back.

"Don't forget me now," he replied. "You know I'll be missin' you and will be waiting for you call."

'Sometimes, I get so sick of him crowding me, ' she thought, but then she thought of the way he treated her. She liked the way he treated her, but when she thought of Cricket, she began to get that certain itch between her legs, and was glad that she was going to see him and not Shawn.

'If only I can get Shawn to be a little more like Cricket--or maybe get Cricket to be a little more like Shawn!'

That last thought made her grin. 'So what if he won't go down on me, ' she thought. 'That doesn't mean I can't get him to treat me a little more like Shawn does.'

Naturally, Cricket was waiting for her when she got there. He buzzed her in, but wasn't waiting for her with the door open. Instead, she found him sitting on his couch when she walked in.

"Look at you!" he exclaimed. "Now why don't you jus' bring yo' fine self over here, and let Cricket make you feel nice and warm."

Sheryl planned on asking him why he never opens the door for her, but seeing him sitting on the couch in his sweat pants and t-shirt the way he was, made her change her mind.

'I'll talk to him later about it, ' she told herself, walking over to him.

As soon as she was near enough, Cricket reached up and pulled her down onto his lap and began kissing her. All thoughts of talking to him about treating her better disappeared when she felt his fingers digging under the waist band of her slacks as they made their way towards her crotch.

She wasn't even sure how it happened, but it seemed only like a few seconds had passed before she was naked on the floor with her legs wrapped around his broad back. She had no idea how it went from his fingers in her slacks to him pounding into her on the floor in such a short time, but he felt so good in her that she didn't care, either!