Simply Cheris. . .

Aretha smiled slightly as Shun and Drea walked into the kitchen. She’d seen that kiss and wasn’t happy about it. Aretha knew two things about military men, they’d break your heart or they were loyal but would still break your heart with loneliness. She didn’t want Drea to latch on to Shun, a guy she just hours ago couldn’t remember, and get her heart broken. Her daughter had dealt with enough sadness and heartbreak. Losing Quincy McClain had been so hard on Drea and Aretha. He had been a man who loved his wife and daughter. He’d been near perfect in Aretha’s eyes and a hero to his young daughter. A training exercise at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina changed their lives forever. Quincy, an instructor with the 82 nd Airborne Division had taught thousands of privates to jump, but on June 14, 1994, something went terribly wrong and Quincy’s chute malfunctioned. Drea had been inconsolable and spent most of that summer in and out of the hospital. She had to be home schooled f...

             Drea lost herself in the weeding of the garden. She hadn’t even noticed the white car that pulled into the driveway as she tugged at a group of pesky dandelions. Once upon a time she’d thought they were the flowers and actually used to cry when she saw her dad tossing them away. She threw them haphazardly to her left.             "Wow, it's like that?" a deep male voice said, causing Drea to bolt upright and shield her eyes from the sun. She allowed her eyes to wander his tall, lean yet muscular body. He wore a white tank top that made his dark brown skin glow in the sunlight. Grey basketball shorts that hung past his knees. The black aviator glasses that covered his eyes placed the focus on his lips. Full. Thick. Oh shit, wet because his pink tongue just licked them.             "Sorry about that," she said. "But, umm, who are yo...

When Drea and her mother finally made it home to Elmore, South Carolina, she couldn’t help but think that after a year in Atlanta, she was in store for a summer that would consist of watching grass grow. After dropping her bags in her room, which now seemed smaller than ever, Drea stripped down to a pair of cut-off shorts and pulled on a faded purple tee shirt with Prince’s face plastered across the her chest. Today, she’d just lounge around and do nothing. It was hard to party and maintain good grades. She’d done pretty well for a freshman experiencing freedom for the first time. While she’d made two good friends at school, Shannon Kelly and Zahra Brown, she couldn’t wait to see Yashira McIntyre and Tracy Davenport, her best friends since middle school. They’d decided to go to school in South Carolina, Yashira at Claflin in Orangeburg and Tracy at Wofford in Spartanburg. Drea had wanted to get away from what she was familiar with. After all, as a journalist, she’d be traveling the wo...

It was 1995, Drea McClain had just finished her first year at Spelman College and wasn’t happy about having to return to her small South Carolina hometown. She wanted to stay in Atlanta, get a job and go to summer school. Anything to avoid going home where there was a curfew and endless days of boredom. “So,” her mother, Aretha McClain, asked as they rode down I-20, “how was school?” “It was amazing,” she replied with a smile. Aretha nodded. “I can tell, so proud of that 3.5 GPA. But I know you were having a good time in between studying.” Drea shrugged; definitely not ready to tell her mother about her clubbing adventures, her fling with the captain of the Morehouse College football team and her flirtation with alcohol. “Kind of,” she finally said. Aretha snorted. “All I have to say is be careful. Atlanta is a big city and I’m sure the people there would love to take advantage of you. But, you’ve always made smart decisions. You do use a condom every time you have sex, right...

Restless and suspicious, Drea decided tonight was the night to finally admit the truth. Shun was never going to marry her. Their relationship was as dead as the batteries in her vibrator. Rising from the sofa where she'd spent the last hour sitting and cutting up the pictures she had of him from his time in Bosnia, she grabbed her leather motorcycle jacket and the keys to her motorcycle. She needed to clear her mind and she didn't give a damn about the threat of snow and the chilly temperatures on the Charlotte streets. Pulling her leather gloves on as she headed walked out of her town house, Drea brushed away a warm tear and crossed over to her bike. She hopped on the cycle and started it up just as the first drops of freezing rain began to fall. She should've gone inside and forgotten about riding to Shun's house to confront him about his latest cheating incident. How many times had she found out about him sleeping with another girl, most of the time by his own admi...