phil, pt. 1

i met him through a good friend of mine. actually, the 'good friend' was my senior prom date, who was a correctional officer. in a girl's mind (okay...maybe only in my mind) that meant he had alot of guy friends who looked cute in uniform.

so the good friend, 'toine, threw a cookout at his place and invited all of his co-workers and other friends to share in the food and drink. i got there two hours late as per my usual steelo, and stepped into a sea of fine brothas. i had been there maybe ten minutes when i saw 'him' standing in the crowd over by one of the card tables (cuz you know the spades was dropping all over the place). i raised an eyebrow and made my scan of him from head to toe. about 6'2, 220 lbs of muscle and mayhem, skin was golden brown like nutmeg, and his hair was cut low and brushed so thoroughly that the waves in it glistened beneath the summer sun. he had on a pair of baggy jeans and a button-down shirt and was leaning over the table to peep somebody's cards, a heineken bottle curled tightly within his grasp.

niiiice.

i like nice. i especially like nice when it's got a tight ass attached to it.

so then the game begins. i saunter over to the card table and stand to his left, making covert glances in his direction to make sure the perfection i viewed from afar wasn't an aberration. luckily he was just as fine up close as he was from across the yard. i breathed in deeply and my nostrils were assuaged by his cologne, a combination of sandlewood notes threaded with a hint of cinnamon.

i smiled.

cuz there ain't nothing like a good smelling man. a good smelling man is someone who thinks of the small things like washing his scrotum thoroughly. then again, he might be that cat who thinks he can just splash some cologne down there to cover up the stench of sweat caking up in the crevices. meanwhile, it usually has all of the effectiveness of placing a bandaid over a gunshot wound.

i frowned.

cuz now i was thinking about him camafloguing his sweaty balls with cologne. then i started thinking about how sweaty balls sprinkled with cologne taste. frankly, it's nasty. it's like getting a serving of meatballs only to find out somebody dropped them on the floor prior to putting them on your plate. you think to yourself 'god made dirt, and dirt don't hurt, right?'...so you decide to take a bite of it only to discover the same fool who dropped them on the floor thought they could cover up the move by first immersing them in a vat of drakkar noir.

wait...that didn't even make any fucking sense. aiight, back to the story.

i'm standing there with the frown on my face, eyes staring unfocused into the distance as the remembered taste of salty scrotum dipped in drakkar noir had my visage crumpled into the beer face. i didn't even feel the tap to my shoulder until his voice was close to my ear.

"hey, nikki."

i turned my head quickly towards the direction of the voice and smacked my forehead up against his chin.

"ouch!" i exclaimed, as i grabbed for my forehead to rub it. here we go again.

the fact of the matter is that i'm clumsy. i fall down steps. i fall up steps. i've even fallen through steps. shit, i'm sure i've invented new ways of falling on steps. and it's not just steps, either. i've tripped over cracks in the sidewalk, both real and non-existent, fallen into ditches, tumbled into lakes, crashed through ceilings, and almost broke my neck once when i tried to flip onto a couch during one of my 'i'm gonna impress my boyfriend' moments.

so hitting my head against the brotha's chin was yet another installment in the 'chronicles of nikki's clumsiness'.

anyway, once my eyes refocused, they were looking right into the face of the guy i had up until been checking on the sly. him. and he somehow knew my name!

"uh, hello?" i asked dazedly, still rubbing the sore spot on my forehead. he was rubbing his chin, a wary look in his eyes. ut oh...he's already thinking i'm a clumsy idiot.

"yeah," he started, "how you doin'? my boy 'toine told me you'd be stopping by."

what? so the brotha's been asking about me? sweeeet! then i started feverishly trying to figure out where he'd seen me before. he must have seen that look of 'where do i know you from' on my face, cuz he grinned and continued.

"the super bowl party at jermaine's house earlier this year," he stated, "i was there with my ex-girlfriend, so you probably don't remember me."

i damn sure didn't remember him. as soon as i see a guy with another girl, he's persona non grata as far as i'm concerned. there are way too many men in the world for me to be getting all caught up in someone else's man. then i noticed he said 'ex'...which meant he was nice and available.

i grinned with all the cheese i could muster.

"'ex', huh?" i said. see, i gotta confirm i heard correctly. no drama needed in nikki's world, feel me?

"yeah, 'ex'. we broke up a few months ago," he stated, his eyes holding mine intently. "and i've been single ever since."

"is that so," i said matter-of-factly, my hopes rising. "cool."

i stepped away from the table and he took the hint and fell into step with me as i walked towards a shaded area next to some trees.

"i definitely remember you from the party. you had on a short skirt that showed off your amazing legs." he had a sly look on his face as he made a slow perusal down my body.

i grinned again. uh, that's what the short skirts are for, papi. as we took a seat beneath one of the trees, i pulled down the short skirt i was wearing right then (why fix something that ain't broke, right?) and extended my 'amazing' legs before crossing them in front of me.

"i'm sorry, but i don't remember you at all." a smirk was spilling from my face as i tried to blunt the blow to his ego. "but it's all good. i didn't need to notice you if you had a girlfriend."

he chuckled as he dropped to sit next to me, his back settled against the trunk of the tree as he turned his head to face me. we just stared at each other. i noticed the smile on his face ended with a dimple in his left cheek. oh shit, but this cat was getting cuter by the minute.

"so you know my name and i don't know yours," i stated mischeviously, trying to coax him into giving me what i wanted without straight up asking "so what yo name be?"

"my name is phil...," he answered, then he added, "better known as the brotha who's gonna be monopolizing all of your time for the rest of the day."

ohhhh...it's like THAT now? you know nikki wasn't mad at that. not mad at all...

my chest puffed up a little as i realized i was being pursued for once by the same guy i had my eye on instead of that guy's less attractive friend whom he dragged to the party to show him how the other half lives. not that i haven't dated unattractive guys. actually, every guy i've dated has been attractive to me. it's just that sometimes it took a while for my eyes to warm up to the view of his missing teeth or crossed eyes or the hump protruding from his back.

but not this time. no, this time i was talking to the cute guy with the engaging smile and perfect teeth and the nice ass. and the nice ass. THE NICE ASS. *sigh*

"so you think you got it like that, do you?" i asked him with a fake note of indignance in my voice. meanwhile there was another voice screaming inside my head "hell yeah you got it like that you tall drink of fuckable chocolate. yes you do!"

"of course i've got it like that. you didn't know?"

then he winked at me.

look at this smooth mothafucka here...

the smile on my face grew as my imagination started running laps around reality.

oh yeah, this is gonna be nice indeed...