Safe Place Series

by Shani Greene-Dowdell

  Life was getting a little easier, and I could feel myself finding the space to breathe again. I literally couldn’t have thought up a better life. I had unexpectedly fallen in love with Jeb, and the kids didn’t have to deal with Rodney and his evil ex’s drama anymore, so they naturally had a little more pep in their step after shedding the unnecessary stress.

  The kids had been spending more time with their father since he returned home after his bout of amnesia, and the switch up had been life-changing. Eva no longer came home huffing and puffing, and Kevin found that his disappointments around his Dad had been a thing of the past. They were discovering that, with this new version of their father, they could depend on him. As a mother, I was thankful to Rodney for this. He just wouldn’t hear that from me, at least not yet.

  We pulled into a busy parking lot and searched the aisles for a vacant spot. I eventually had to resort to a spot half on the grass and half on the street. We climbed out of the car and waltzed into the school. We dodged and wove our way through the sea of parents and their children.

  Kevin lead Eva and me to his classroom, which was near the front of the school, thank God. I didn’t think I could handle another distracted parent bumping into me without a sorry or at least some sort of acknowledgment. Eva did her best to keep her eyes on Kevin as we waved through the crowd. They made a sharp turn into one of the classrooms on the left, and I blindly followed behind, only to be greeted by my ex, who was already immersed in conversation with Kevin’s teacher.

  Awww, fuck, I thought.

  I mean, I knew he was blossoming into this better version of a father since his accident, but damn! Did this really mean I had to see more of him?

  I rolled my eyes and proceeded into the room to meet Kevin’s teacher, a beautiful younger woman, who had obviously found herself smitten with Rodney’s charming ways. I could tell by the way she kept her eyes on him, the lackluster greeting I received upon entering her classroom, and the speed at which she returned her attention to her conversation with him.

  So instead of taking charge, as I was so accustomed to, I decided to let Rodney take the lead on this one. I was curious to see what this “new involved Rodney” looked like. He never came to these things. I’d forward him emails, send him text reminders about games and recitals, and for the most part, I had never even received a reply. For Rodney to be at this parent-teacher conference, without me begging him to come, and seemingly engaged in what Kevin’s teacher had to say had me in awe.

  After talking for the next ten minutes about how well-behaved Kevin was, Kevin’s teacher went on to hype Rodney up, giving him credit for our amazingly behaved child. I tee-heed at the irony.

  “Well, Ms. Smith, let’s not give credit where it’s not due. Kevin’s mom, Tameka, is an amazing woman who manages to do it all. The kids are most definitely who they are because of her,” Rodney said right before he turned to give me a huge grin.

  You’re dagg-on right I’m the reason, but don’t expect to be praised for your little confession either, I thought to myself as I smiled a polite smile in return.

  As Kevin’s conference came to a close, we stood up to say our goodbyes to his unashamed teacher. I shook her hand with a forced smile and headed to the door as Rodney stayed behind because she wouldn’t let his hand go. They went from a handshake to her caressing his sturdy brown arm. I always found amusement in situations where women would treat men so much better than other women and right in front of our faces. This teacher had no clue as to whether Rodney and I were together or not as she pursued him without remorse.

  I snickered and walked my ass right out of the door heading for Eva’s school next door. Both of my babies ran up to me from behind after we entered the building.

  “Ma, we’ll be in the Media Center while you talk to Ms. Jacob,” Eva said as she grabbed my hand and walked down the aisle until we reached the Media Center.

  Kevin went inside with Eva, but he wouldn’t dare hold his mommy’s hand like Eva. But it was cool, Eva was my girl, my mini-me, and had no qualms about showing her love in front of her friends or classmates.

  “Okay, babies, I shouldn’t be much longer. Eva, I’ll text you when it’s time to head back,” I said.

  She reached up to kiss my cheek, and I smiled. Kevin was already in the Media Center talking to a friend. I kept walking down the hall alone, and my mind immediately went to Jeb. I hoped his meeting with Trey Cox was going well. He had always dreamt of opening another club in Atlanta, and this was his chance to make that happen if Trey’s background checked out. I was so excited to get back home to hear how it went.

  I was about to turn down the seventh-grade hallway when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see that, unfortunately, Rodney had caught up with me.

  “Ahh, so you escaped Ms. Smith’s room unbruised, I see?”

  Rodney laughed a laugh that I hadn’t heard in years. “Man, I had the toughest time trying to get my hand back from that lady and unscathed at that.” He shook his head as he chuckled.

  “The Rodney I knew would’ve milked that situation. But then again, the old-Rodney wouldn’t even be here,” I couldn’t help but to mention the facts.

  His laughing quickly subsided, and he looked at me curiously without saying a word. “You know, I have no recollection of a time where I didn’t love you deeply. And you haven’t heard this from me yet, so I want to make this clear, but I am terribly sorry for the way that I’ve treated you.”

  By this time, he had pulled me to the side of the hallway to get out of the way of the moving traffic of hurried and tired parents.

  “Regardless of if I remember who I was at that time or not, it happened. I was a jerk, and I didn’t love you the way I remember always loving you. So, for that, I apologize, Tameka. You didn’t deserve that. And the kids didn’t either.” By this time, he was holding my hands and looking into my eyes the same way he did when we recited our vows to each other.

  I tried to avoid the eye contact, so I looked down the hallway and then back to Rodney’s face only to see that he hadn’t stopped looking at mine as if he was searching for something, an emotion, thought, something.

  That’s when I suddenly realized my hands were no longer in a state of shock from him holding them. I quickly snatched them back into my personal space, letting them both find refuge in my pockets.

  “Thank you for the apology,” I found it in myself to mutter. “But I am truly over that Rodney. Not so much how you treated our kids, but I’m over the way you stepped out on me with Melody and how nasty you treated me as if you had never promised to love me for the rest of our lives. I’m over the nights I tried my hardest not to cry in front of the kids while I cooked dinner for my family, although you never made it home to eat it. Sometimes, you didn’t get home until 3 AM, and I had to get up the next morning and put on a face for the kids so they wouldn’t know I was miserable,” I said. “But what’s done is done. We both have moved on.”

  Rodney hadn’t stopped glaring into my eyes. He looked like he wanted to say more but couldn’t locate the words. I stared back into his eyes sternly so that he understood his apology was accepted but also that the Tameka standing in front of him was not the same woman he married.

  “I’ve healed from it, Rodney, but I appreciate your sincerity,” I said and didn’t wait for him to reply because Rodney was not about to pull me into his amnesia madness. Besides, we had to get to Eva’s parent-teacher conference next.

  I walked ahead while Rodney tried to keep up with me. As soon as I made that turn into Eva’s teacher’s classroom, I felt his fingers graze against mine from behind. I ignored his advancement and engrossed myself in conversation with Eva’s teacher. I took the lead this time, and it was a lot quicker and more efficient.

  As soon as I walked out into the hall, Eva ran straight into me, nearly knocking me down. Her torso expanded and contracted as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Stop running, girl!” I warned her. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask
ed.

  “Mom, can we go now? I already spend enough of my time here.” Eva panted as she continued to catch her breath. I snickered at my firstborn as she took a peek into her classroom to see her father in conversation with her teacher. “Oh, he’s still here??” she asked.

  “Hey, hey, now. Yes, he’s your father. Of course, he would still be here for you and your brother’s conferences. So quit the lip. I don’t wanna hear it.”

  She got one more huff in and hit me with an insincere, “Alright, mom.”

  “Go get your brother, and we can ride out.” I kissed her forehead, and before I knew it, she was off.

  Eva and her father had been getting along a lot better lately, so I knew she was only being protective of me. She was still pretty jaded about him though. She wasn’t as easily persuaded as her brother was and was a lot less optimistic about his new wave of behavior lasting for the long haul. She did like spending time with him a lot more now that Melody wasn’t around, but it hurt my heart to see this distrust in her at such an early age. That distrust triggered memories of the old Rodney.

  I marched out into the lobby, hoping the kids would hurry up before he had a chance to spot me again. Thankfully, when we reached the car, he was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter 6

  Jeb

  I hopped in my freshly cleaned whip and sped over to the club. I was excited about this meeting with Trey Cox, the investor I had been getting my entire staff ready to entertain for the last few weeks. When Trey first approached me about expanding, I was skeptical, but I did a little research on him, and he seemed legit.

  This investor meeting was going to set the stage for me to really dominate the Eastern Alabama area from an entertainment standpoint, as well as the downtown area of Atlanta with a new location for the twenty-five and over nightlife scene. This could be a game-changer for Club Elite.

  I pulled into the club’s parking lot to see it jumping already. It was flooded with tons of people outside parking lot pimpin’, pregaming as others lined up to get inside and experience the good time we had to offer them.

  Good, I thought. I landed right into my reserved parking spot and sat idle for a little while, not rushing to get out. I was super early, but I had to hype myself up a little and get my blood going. I finished my ritual with a puff of my vape pen and hit the streets.

  As soon as I walked into the club, crew member after crew member had questions out the ass for me that each one of them just so happened to deem as “urgent and pressing.” I put out as many fires as possible, and everyone slowly began to breathe again. We got into our flow, and soon, everything was like butter. I was in my groove, doing what I did best, and soon enough, I was in my office going over some last-minute numbers before Trey hit my door.

  I was skimming through another pile of papers when I heard a knock on the door. My evening manager, Renee, stuck her head inside and exclaimed, “Jeb, I think he’s here.”

  “What?” I hurried to my feet. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I rushed out of my office before she even got a chance to reply.

  I quickly trotted down the narrow dark hallway which was lined by floor lights and down the stairs to the club’s main floor where I noticed a crowded dance floor and bar lined with men ready to spend money on all the beautiful women in the club. I looked over at the bar area and saw lots of people spending guap.

  Perfect, I thought. The night was starting off just perfect.

  I scanned the crowd for the dapper-looking young man that was there to meet me. Trey always looked spiffy with a creased suit, a pair of sneakers, gold chains that dangled on his bare chest, and cologne that you could get a good whiff of before you even walked past him. When he was in public, he always had his crew tagging along, advisor in tow, security guard on his right.

  Trey had come up big as a doughboy back in the day but went legit as soon as he got the chance. He had made the East side of the city, his city. He had invested in multiple properties and was now the big man on the block. If any business wanted a chance at excelling, Trey was the guy to go to. He had mastered the art of flipping, and everyone wanted to work with him. Now, he was taking his fortunes to bigger cities using the formula he created here, and I wanted to get in on it.

  While my eyes tried to center in on even the slight resemblance of Trey, I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I turned around to see a woman in a fitted, red dress, wearing an all-too-familiar smile.

  “Jeb,” I saw her mouth my name. I sighed and turned to see my ex glaring back at me. “Long time, no see,” she spoke as she grabbed onto my arm.

  I pulled back and continued to look for Trey, trying to get her to take the hint. “Hey, Rochelle,” I said unenthused as I still searched the room for any sign of Trey’s crew.

  She appeared taken aback as if that wasn’t the greeting she expected from me. But things were no longer the same.

  “That’s all I get?” She looked offended. “A dry ass, ‘Hey Rochelle’?”

  “Yes, Rochelle, I’m working. What do you want?” I asked, highly annoyed.

  “I think the real question is, what do you want?”

  I walked off, and she followed me. Now wasn’t the time for riddles and puns. In the past, her persistence and assertiveness was something that turned me on, but now her straight-up relentless behavior was making her appear like the pest everyone had tried to hip me to back in the day. I grew increasingly irritated at the thought that she was even here on the night that I was meeting with Trey. I didn’t need any distractions, and Rochelle was all distraction. And from the jump, at that. I was literally ignoring this girl, but she continued to follow behind me like a little puppy dog who wanted a home.

  “I’m busy, Rochelle,” I finally stopped walking through the crowd of people and confronted her. “Can’t this wait?”

  “Not if you’re finally ready to make all your dreams come true, Jeb,” she spewed as she crossed her arms. I finally got a better glance at her, now that she was standing in front of one of the lights that reflected off the stage in the back of the club. She looked the same, still a pretty face with her long hair just grazing the top of her plump bottom. My mind flashed back to when I used to fuck her from behind.

  But she had let a lot of men in our town fuck her from behind. I remember the exact moment I received a text message with a video attached of her fucking my former bartender. And when I went to her place to confront her, I found her fucking my friend. I had been so embarrassed by the whole ordeal, I couldn’t even imagine telling anyone about the video I’d received. And to think I had been looking at rings the weekend before. I shook my head as I came back to my current reality. There was no use in revisiting the past.

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Rochelle? I told you that I didn’t even want to see you again, and here you are in my fucking club?” I was inching towards yelling at this chick, but I rapidly brought my tone and pitch down. She wasn’t worth a damn thing to me. She didn’t even deserve a reaction.

  I turned to walk away when I finally saw Trey and his notorious crew.

  “Trey Cox!” I walked up to him, leaving Rochelle behind in a flash. I shook his hand the way old friends reuniting would greet each other.

  “My man, Jeb! Owner of this bangin’ ass club!” He leaned in to shake my hand as well, and we dapped up like we had known each other for years.

  That’s when Rochelle walked up from behind and put her arm around Trey as he rested his arm around her waist.

  “Hey, baby, I was looking all over for you,” Rochelle said to Trey.

  I was astounded and upset at the same time as Trey leaned in to kiss my ex who seemed to have a knack for trying to fuck up my life. She smiled and then gestured to me.

  “I went to get Jeb for you and saw him looking around the club like a stray cat. Then, I couldn’t find you,” she added.

  “That’s my baby, always looking out for her man,” Trey said with a smirk plastered on his face. “Now go and get us some drinks.” He sl
apped her ass as she walked back towards the bar.

  She looked back at me as she sauntered off, and not in the least bit sneaky way, I might add. I shook my head in complete disbelief. I couldn’t believe I had to deal with Rochelle again. Now, I could only hope that Trey was the kind of man that kept his woman out of his business affairs. I felt that Rochelle would try to sabotage this deal just because of the spiteful person she was.

  When I broke up with her, she played dumb like I hadn’t caught her fucking my friend. She went berserk and broke into my condo the next day and trashed it. Drama was indeed her style, and I expected nothing less with her hanging around Trey. Nonetheless, I shook it off and worked to get my focus back to where it needed to be, on securing a new location with the help of Trey’s investment.

  “Come on, man, let me give you a tour of the club with the best nightlife experience in East Alabama!” I said, snapping back into business mode.

  “Now, that’s what I like to hear. Please lead the way,” said an excited Trey as I led him around my pride and joy.

  Club Elite was my everything up until I met Tameka and the kids. I had put sweat and tears into seeing it come into fruition. I didn’t want a regular juke joint style club like the ones I had been a victim to during my twenties. Our city was lacking an experience of luxury that I was confident in my ability to provide, so I went out and made it happen.

  Club Elite wasn’t getting by week by week, it was thriving. It popped every night with men who wanted to spend their hard-earned money and women who wanted to have a lit time with their girls. From the music right on down to the menu, I was anal about every decision pertaining to the club.

  Tameka helped me ease up a little by showing me how to use other people’s gifts to enhance what I’d already done, but I was still involved heavily in the day-to-day operations. Working with an investor who shared my vision would mean making some compromises, but I kept telling myself that successful bosses always put the right people in place to win.