A test of Love - Navaura Campbell (best management books of all time .txt) 📗

relevant to this conversation."
"Whatever, Denise. I just came to see if you wanted to go to a movie or something tonight, you know, chill out?"
Denise sighed, "What time?"
"Around Nine o'clock."
Denise nodded, "Only as friends, Derrick, nothing more."
Derrick held up two hands in truce, "No more than that. Believe me, I've given up on that status for now."
Denise glanced up at him, "What? No's bothering you now?"
Derrick shook his head irritated, "No, I know that you're with him and that's enough for me to back off."
Denise stared at him, her eyes surprised. Not sure what to say. With that said, Derrick stood up and exited the office.

Jordan clicked his answering machine on, checking the messages. "Hey, Jordan, this is Denise, I just wanted to let you know that I will be there tonight. I just have some business to take care of. I'll call you when I'm on my way." The answering machine beeped, signaling the end of the message. Jordan grabbed the keys he'd left next to the machine and went upstairs to his room.
Denise couldn't believe she was here. She couldn't believe that she was in a dark movie theater with a guy whom she considered a friend. A guy whom she had zilch feelings for. Sighing, she stared up at the vacant screen, wondering if she'd really done the right thing. Was she really supposed to be here on a date with a guy she knew had feelings for her, but wasn't him? Was she cheating? Were she and Jordan even together? Yes, they'd discussed things with one another, but hadn't really made anything official. It was liked they'd admitted to the past and some of the things that happened. They'd admitted their love for one another and even slept together. Did that mean they were together? Denise inhaled. Was anything to become of what was going on now?
Jordan flickered his light out after his shower. Setting the keys on his desk, his gaze settled on the clock. It read ten o'clock. How long was she going to stay at the office? He cut out the lights and went to bed.
Later that night, not even a half an hour later, Jordan felt the covers rustle as Denise slid into bed next to him. Reaching up and running a hand along her arm, he whispered, "How’s it go?"
Denise exhaled softly, feeling her weariness drain away. She felt as if she was on safe ground now. "It went fine."
"That's good."
Denise pushed her body as close to his as she could get it. When Jordan felt her body connect to his, he tried to think of something other than the feel of her skin next to his. "Jordan." She whispered.
"Yes." He answered.
"I love you."
He leaned in and kissed her hair. "I love you too, De-De."
With that, they both fell asleep.

A week before Jordan was to leave, Jordan and Denise cleared out his mom's room. They took the furniture and clothing to the attic. Opened the windows and then cleaned the carpet. They'd started early that morning around six am. and then continued on until three o'clock. Now, before Dinner was to be prepared, Jordan and Denise lay in the room, catching their breaths and relaxing.
"That was a lot of work," Jordan replied.
"That's nothing compared to what mom had Vicki and I do when we were kids. She used to have us hauling stuff out of our duplex to the dumpster, wash the walls down and pick our rooms up. Sometimes she even had us do lawn work, when Garrette couldn't get to it." Denise stated, a smile coming to her face.
"You know, " Jordan stated, turning to his side, so that he was above Denise. "I always wondered why you call Garrette by his first name and Vicki calls your mother mom."
Denise licked dry lips, "Well, Vicki was a baby when her mother died. So, she never really got to know her. She didn't have a female role model, so when my mom came along and started working with her on how to be a girl, Vicki took to calling her mom."
"Didn't that make you jealous?" Jordan inquired, a leisure look in his eyes.
"Heck yeah at first. When we first started hanging around them, Vicki was six in the first grade and I was seven, in the second grade. I had always wanted Stacy as a sister, because she and I got along great. Stacy lived with her grandparents because she'd been abandoned by her real parents at birth. But, that wasn't who I got. When my mom first started dating Garrette, I refused to even talk to him. I would sit in my room and stay as long as I could, till mom forced me to come down."
Denise laughed at this memory. She'd been such a selfish child.
"How did Vicki and her dad respond to this?"
Denise gave a lopsided smile, her gaze reminiscent, "Garrette continued to try and include me in conversations and take me along with them on some dates. He never once raised his voice."
Jordan's hands went to her neck, circling his forefinger around the front. It trailed down her throat to her clavicle bone.
"And Vicki just ignored me, till one day, we were left at home together, with Mrs. Jacobs our next door neighbor, while mom and Garrette went out on a date. I was in my room doing homework, and Vicki came in there to see what I was doing, to pester me. I told her to get out. She said no. I told her to get out again. She stood her ground. I told her that if she didn't get out, I was going to put her out. She challenged me.

I took it and we started fighting. We fought from upstairs in my room, down the staircase, and into the living room, where Mrs. Jacobs was sleeping. Vicki popped me in the eye. I guess it must have made me mad, because I yelled at her and then grabbed her by her head and pushed it into the floor. She then started crying but instead of giving up, the little twerp managed to pull me down too. We fought like that for an hour. She was biting and punching, I was kicking and hitting anywhere I could. When we finished, we both lay there crying and shaking."
"What about your babysitter? Surely she must have heard you." Jordan stated, his gaze on Denise.
"She'd tried to break us apart, but we were too strong for such a frail woman."
"You were in first and second grade, Denise." Jordan replied, disbelieving.
"Yeah, and our weight combined equaled hers. She was really small.

When she couldn't get us away from each other, she called our parents. They told her to let us fight, and they'd be home to deal with it. Well she did. When we did finish fighting, Mom and Garrette came through the door. I don't think I'd ever seen either of them pissed off before. Mom asked Garrette to spank us. He said he didn't know if he should, considering that he wasn't my father. Mom told him he was going to be her husband and my step father, so he may as well break me in. When mom said this, I was so angry, I kept thinking if that jumbo giant put a hand on me, I'll kill him. Well, he took me and Vicki both to the room he and mom shared and grabbed a brush off the dresser. He wore my butt out. I couldn't get away from him although I tried and everything. When he finished, he talked to me and said that I needed to learn how to accept him and Vicki, because we were going to be a part of each other lives whether I liked it or not.
I told him I hated him and he wasn't my daddy."
"Why would you say that?" Jordan was curious.
Denise sighed, a tear falling down her cheek. "Because he was around more than my real daddy and I hated that. I hated that he showed more interest in me than my own father."
"oh." Jordan's hands undid the button on her blouse.
"I was a force to with at that age." Denise sighed.
"Did you and Vicki get into a fight after that?"

Denise licked her lips as his fingers got to the last button. "Not for a long time. For about six months we put up with each other. The last fight we got into was when I was in fifth grade and she was in fourth. What made it bad was that a couple of her friends were over. They were having a sleep over. I tried to stay in my room and mind my own business, like normally, and she came up to my room when I had taken a bathroom break and took a sweatshirt and a pair of pants from my closet. That made me so mad, because she was always grabbing stuff from my closet and never asking. So, I marched down there, confronted her about it. She said she wanted to borrow the pants and shirt. I said why? I don't want you borrowing my clothes. She said she and her friends were going to the mall that morning and she wanted to borrow it. I told her that she was only ten. What could she possibly get at the mall? She said she wanted a new c.d. that had come out. I told her no and to give me my clothes back. She grabbed the clothes from her bag and threw them at me. Maybe if her friends hadn’t laughed at me, I would've left it at that, but I went up to her and smacked her so hard in the face, she had a red print left when I was done. She just stared at me, not really saying anything. I mean, she looked shocked, like she really hadn't expected it you know."
Jordan sighed, "Did she hit you back?"
Denise gave a sour smile, "No. She just left me alone." After that, her friends didn't like me at all. What changed my mind about Vicki, was she stopped talking to me. She wouldn't even acknowledge I existed. She'd talk to mom and Garrette and that was it. Finally one day, I went into her room and asked her why was she mad at me, when she'd thrown my clothes at me."
She said that she only wanted to borrow the outfit, she was going to give it back."
I asked her why did she take it? I didn't like her taking my things without asking.
She said, we were sisters and that we should be able to borrow stuff from one another. She'd always thought she'd have a sister like punky bruster."
Jordan laughed, "Punky Bruster?"
Denise laughed, "She was absolutely obsessed with that show. I was equally bad with Francine Pascal's sweet Valley Twin Series."
"Oh really?" Jordan laughed again. Francine Pascal? He could imagine Denise into those books.
"Yeah, those, R.L. Stine, The hardy boys Mysteries and Lurlene McDaniel."
"I thought you said you didn't like Romance Novels?"
"Lurlene McDaniel always wrote about kids dying and romance."
Denise laughed, "Maybe so, but she spoke to the heart, that's what I love."
"You know she still writes."
"I know."
"Anyway, tell me what happened after that?"
"Well, I sat down and talked to her. I apologized to her for behaving irrationally like I had. She said that she just wanted someone who could be nice and fun to hang out with."
Jordan sighed, "Ok."
"I felt really bad then. After that day, I made an effort to at least be cordial to her."
Jordan shook his head, "Even then you were feisty." He gave a soft laugh.
"Ha, ha, ha. I was greedy back then ok? I don't like to share. I didn't want to share my mom with anyone else. I was used to being with her and me. That's a hard thing for a child to accept."
Jordan pushed open the blouse. "I'm tired of talking now."
Denise laughed, "Well, thanks for caring."
He blew over her bare chest,