“I love the ’90s R&B. People really sang songs that had feeling back then,” I said, bobbing my head to the well-produced beats.
“Yeah, I have to agree with you. Songs meant something. When Jodeci said, ‘My heart belongs to you,’ they totally meant it.”
“I agree. Even though I’m sure their hearts belonged to groupies back then.”
Porter laughed. “True, but we didn’t know that. There was no social media all in celebrity business.”
There was a glimmer in his eye as he laughed. Had I done that? I didn’t know why but I wanted to keep making him smile until his cheeks hurt and his eyes sparkled. I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. The job. The project. Rebuilding my life. Those are the things I should focus on, not this man.
“Not to sound like an old lady,” I began, looking out of my window. “But why is it that every male singer these days sounds like a whiny, horny teenager?”
“Yep, and you can’t tell them apart. Nothing about them sounds special. Back in the day, you could tell your D’Angelo from your Maxwell.”
I shook my head in resounding agreement. “Yep. And producers created well-crafted songs. I mean, there was innuendo. Nothing too overt.”
Porter scratched his beard as he thought. “Hmm. I don’t know, Ari. Don’t you think the lyrics to ‘Freek’n You’ are overt?” It was playing on the radio at that very moment. We went quiet and listened to K-Ci croon his heart out.
As soon as it got to the chorus, we broke out into a fit of laughter. Without thinking, I slapped my hand gently on his thigh. Realizing I was about three inches from his penis, I quickly pulled my hand back into my lap. I felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“Oh. Sorry,” I said, twisting to look out the window. “I didn’t mean to…you know.”
“It’s fine. Really, Ari.” We rode down the highway in silence for several minutes until Porter cleared his throat.
“Remember when guys would give girls mixtapes or CDs to tell them how they feel?”
I felt a sour expression making its way across my face. “I wouldn’t know because I never received a mixtape from anyone.”
Porter’s eyes widened. “Really? Not one mixtape? That’s hard to believe. If I liked a girl, if I wanted her attention, I spent all my allowance on blank CDs or cassettes. I gave a mixtape to a girl to ask her to prom. I recorded all these mushy songs, and the last track was me asking the girl to the prom. Man, was that cheesy! But at least she said yes. A girl like you, Ari. You should have had a stack of mixtapes from guys. Just collecting dust in an old CD case.”
A girl like you.
Heat rose in my chest as I registered the last part of his sentence. I stared at the lights on I-20, trying to shake the feeling. “Mixtapes to ask a girl to the prom? Nah, I wouldn’t know about any of that. I didn’t go to prom, either.”
Porter shook his head slowly in disbelief. “You’re kidding! Seventeen-year-old me? I would have asked you to prom. With the mushiest mixtape ever. In a heartbeat.”
In the moonlight, I could feel my toes curling as heat rose from the depths of my chest to the top of my head. I never knew a woman my shade of brown could blush as much as Porter made me blush tonight. He really knew how to make a woman feel like she had his undivided attention. It wasn’t well-crafted game from years of playboy behavior to seduce women. It was genuine to a fault. This was Porter being Porter.
By the time we pulled up onto the quiet streets of my neighborhood, the opening chords of Silk’s “Meeting in My Bedroom” reverberated through the speakers. Really? This song. This playlist wasn’t playing fair at all. Fuck.
“I think my fraternity brothers and I performed this at the spring step show in ’99,” laughed Porter. “The things we did to win that show. I’m not proud.”
“I think I remember that show. It was my sophomore year and oiled up guys in towels make a big impression on a young, innocent girl.”
Porter laughed, lowering his head in shame. “Wow, you remember that? Yeah, that wasn’t my finest moment. But I’d do it again…you know, for charity and stuff. Service to All Mankind. But I assure you, my stripper days are behind me.”
I felt myself getting flush at the thought of Porter as an amateur stripper. His skin glistening behind a crisp, white towel. A happy trail inviting eyes lower. Gyrating to a syncopated beat. I snapped out of it as I felt the car slow to a halt in front of my house. I’d obviously seen Magic Mike far too many times.