This Could Be Us But You Playin'

by Cachet

  “Dre, get up,” she whispered while slipping on her t-shirt and underwear. “Dre?”

  “Huh?” he responded sleepily. His eyes opened slightly and he stared at her, wondering why in the hell she was waking him up.

  “Get up. I need to talk to you.”

  “Tell a nigga later. I’m sleep girl,” Deondre snapped, closing his eyes again. He was getting irritated with her because had just gotten his nut, and all he was ready to do was go to sleep. He wondered why she was tired, after he had just beat it up.

  Shanice sighed, “It’s important.” She knew she was pushing her luck, but she had to tell him something and that moment was the perfect time.

  “Damn, Nicy!’ Deondre yelled, opening his eyes and flinging his arms to his side. He sat up straight on the couch and stared at her annoyed. “What…what the hell is so important that you couldn’t just tell me in the fucking morning?”

  With a lump in her throat, Shanice looked him dead in the eye and whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

  

  The usual forty-five minute drive to his house took closer to twenty. Deondre sped all the way there, only stopping once he arrived at home. Pulling into this driveway, he jumped out of his car and slammed the door shut. His phone continued to ring in his pocket while he walked up the stairs to him home, but he ignored it like he’d been doing for the last twenty minutes. He knew it wasn’t anyone but Shanice anyway, and he didn’t feel like talking to her stupid ass. Once inside the house, he tossed his keys on the table in the foyer and kicked off his shoes across the room. Dominique wasn’t home to flip out on him about making a mess, so he took advantage of it.

  Deondre’s first stop was the liquor cabinet that they kept in the corner of the dining room because he definitely needed a drink. He didn’t even bother to grab a glass, opting to drink directly from the bottle of Jack Daniels, which was the first thing he laid eyes on. At that moment, what kind of drink it was didn’t matter, he just needed to ease his mind. Deondre plopped down on the couch and turned the bottle up. He shook his head and licked his lips as the brown liquid glided down his throat. What the hell have I done? He wasn’t prepared to hear Shanice tell him that she was pregnant for the second time. Although he was shocked, he really shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t like they had been using protection. He knew she was also not on the pill, so really, what did either of them expect? He understood that they were both at fault for her pregnancy, but he still found a way to place the blame on Shanice because in his mind, she should have known better.

  Deondre’s logic was that Shanice knew that he was in a relationship with her best friend, so he wondered why on Earth she would continue to sleep with him. He was a man and that was what men did, but she was supposed to be Dominique’s ‘bestie’, as they called themselves. Having sex with one another’s men and ex’s were off limits, yet she didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Shanice was already doing Dominique dirty by having her claim their child as her God-daughter, and now she planned to bring yet another kid into the mix. It was fucked up. There were all kinds of emotions running through Deondre’s mind at that moment. He was mad because Shanice should have never allowed herself to get pregnant in the first place. She should have gotten on the fucking pill, the shot, or something, he rationalized.

  Deondre was beginning to feel a series of emotions. One was fear. He hated to think about what would happen if Dominique was to ever find out about the two of them. Would she leave me and take my son away, or would she stay and try to work it out? These were questions that he’d asked himself, even though he never wanted to know the answers to them. Dominique was his world, and he couldn’t imagine his life without her, even if it was because of something stupid that he’d done. Deondre knew that he was fucked up, but wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Shanice was just going to have to keep that baby a secret as well. She knew what she was getting into from the beginning, so now just because there were two children involved, she couldn’t switch up. No, she had to continue to play her role.

  Deondre scolded himself for continuing to mess with her in the first place. The night that they fucked the first time, he should have told Dominique then and things would have been a lot smoother now, well, at least he thought they would have been. Even after she called and told him that she was pregnant, he should have gone ahead and confessed, instead of putting himself into even more messy situation. That would have been the most logical thing to do, but since Deondre was thinking with his little head, he allowed her to pull him into her deceitful game. He couldn’t understand how a girl, who claimed to love her best friend so much, could go behind her back and fuck her man, even if it was a mistake the first time, like she claimed. The crazy thing was that Deondre still didn’t know just how he ended up in her bed in the first place. The last thing he remembered was drinking, before he woke up naked beside her.

  Although he couldn’t prove it, he swore that Shanice had done something to do with them sleeping together that night. She was sneaky like that and that was why from that moment, he always kept his eyes on her. Even with that being said, Deondre just couldn’t stay away. It was something about Shanice that kept him coming back, and it wasn’t just because she had some good ass pussy. No, it was something else. Something he just couldn’t figure out for the life of him. Deondre talked all that big shit when Shanice pissed him off, but he couldn’t imagine his life without her either. He didn’t love her the way that he loved Dominique, but he loved her and cared about her wellbeing. At first, he used to say that it was only because she was the mother of his daughter, but after a while, he knew that it was much more than that.

  Even with all of the love that he had for her, Shanice wasn’t and would never be the ‘wifey’ type for Deondre. She wasn’t someone that you would take home to your mother or hell, even your father. Not only was she hot in the ass, but she had an aura about her that made you think that she thought she was better than you. It may have been from the way she was raised because she had always been spoiled rotten, but even then, her parents never acted like that. No matter who you were, they welcomed you with opened arms and never judged you, well that was at least how they acted when Deondre was around. Whether fronting or not, Shanice was the total opposite.

  She looked her nose down on almost everybody because she thought that they were beneath her. Deondre wasn’t sure, but maybe that was why he was so drawn to her. She was nothing like what he was used to. The bright colored weaves she usually wore were always extremely long and hung all the way down past her butt. Shanice also wore makeup all of the time, and even though she was a pretty girl without it, you would never know because she always had it caked on. Then it was that ugly ass septum nose ring that she thought was so cute. Even that became sexy to him after a while, although he would never tell her that. Shanice thought she was the baddest thing walking and even though she was a pretty girl, with a sexy ass shape, she had nothing else going for her. All she wanted to do was look pretty, talk like she was big shit, and spend money, and that was something that Deondre grew to accept.

  It pissed Shanice off to know that ‘plain Jane’, the named that she always called Dominique behind her back, had stolen his heart. Deondre was no fool. He always knew that Shanice had a crush on him when they were younger, he just never looked at her like that before. She stayed in his face during every family function and no matter where he went, she was there smiling and shit. Deondre really started to notice when she began to wear tighter jeans, shorter skirts, and lower cut shirts. Even still, he ignored her as much as he could, until he saw that she was slacking up with the flirting. That was cool with Deondre though because he was trying hard not to hurt her feelings. What Shanice didn’t realize back then was that she was just like all of the other girls that he never paid attention to, always flashing and wanting to be seen.

  As he took another swig from the bottle, he thought about what he was going to do about his new situation. His phone vibrated in his pocke
t. Removing it, Deondre glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was, in fact, Shanice calling him once again. After she hung up, he went to her contact and blocked her number. He knew that Shanice would be mad when she figured out what he had done, but he didn’t give a damn. He had to get his mind right. He was only going to keep her there for a few days. He had just grown tired of her calling back to back. Not only that but he knew that he needed a few days away from her, so that he could get his mind right.

  With the bottle in his hand, he stood up from the couch and made his way across the room, before taking the stairs two at a time. Inside his room, he removed his clothes and left the heap in the middle of the floor. Deondre climbed into the bed and laid down on the pillow. His head was starting to spin from the effects of the alcohol, and it only intensified his headache. He was stressed out. Although he was sure that Shanice wasn’t going to say anything to Dominique, he knew that this situation could not really be a lifelong secret. She was already nagging him about not spending time with his daughter like he did with DJ. His family didn’t even know anything about London at all and that was something that Shanice didn’t like. While she knew she was only the side chick, her child was not. Sooner or later, his infidelities were bound to come out, and Deondre wasn’t sure what he was going to do then. At that moment, he just wanted close his eyes. He’d figure out the next step when he woke up the next morning. When his phone vibrated alerting him of a text message, he shook his head because he thought that somehow Shanice had found a way to get through.

  Baby Luv: Goodnight Dre. I love you.

  When Deondre saw that it was Dominique, he smiled before he immediately started to feel like shit. There she was, out clubbing with her sister and thinking about him, while he was at home trying to figure out how he was going to hide yet another baby that he’d had on her. Deondre wasn’t sure of exactly what he was going to do, but he knew that he needed to get his shit together. The number one thing on the list was to stop fucking her best friend. Deondre knew that he couldn’t honestly marry Dominique while he was still dealing with Shanice, so he had to find a way to break it off. That was a task in itself. His heart hurt just thinking about letting her go. There was no doubt that he was selfish. He wanted his cake and ice cream too.

  Shanice had already proven herself to be a snake, so he had to choose his battle wisely. There was no telling what she could do once she realized that she had nothing left to loose and that was what scared Deondre. Shanice held secrets of his that he never wanted anyone to know. Even though she swore to never tell a soul, he couldn’t be too sure. Women do crazy shit when you fuck them over and that was exactly what she would feel he did. Shanice couldn’t even be loyal to the person who she called her best friend, so what would make him any better? Deondre had to think of a plan and soon, before his entire world blew up in his face and he lost everything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It’s packed as hell in here!” Dominique yelled over the music. “It seems like everybody in Georgia is in attendance,” she joked, looking around at the mass of people all around her.

  She had just finished texting Dre and wished like hell that her ‘goodnight’ really meant it for herself because she really didn’t want to be there. She and NiChia were at the bar that NiChia had told her about and it was packed. It was just the two of them because Shanice claimed that she didn’t feel well and couldn’t tag along. Dominique knew that she was more than likely full of shit because when she spoken to her earlier, she didn’t say anything about feeling sick. Her fake ass illness was probably triggered by her no-good ass baby daddy coming over. Dominique started to drive over to her house and do a pop-up, just to see what the hell she was doing, but changed her mind at the last minute. She had promised her sister that they were going to kick it, and she wasn’t going to mess that up chasing after her best friend, who didn’t want to be bothered anyway.

  “I know! I told you this bitch was gone be jumping!” NiChia responded, raising her voice as well. “Let’s go get a drink!”

  Together, they made their way through the crowded club and over to the bar. As they walked closely together, Dominique could feel a pair of hands grabbing at her. She turned up her face to the ugly light skinned guy who had the audacity to grab her arm as she passed. He smiled and pulled her closer, while trying to whisper something in her ear, but she smacked his hand away. Thirsty ass muthafucka! she thought to herself, while rolling her eyes. NiChia noticed what had gone down and laughed at her sister, whose face was still twisted in an evil scowl. It took them a few more minutes and a couple more ‘excuse me’s’ to make it to the bar, and when they got there, they saw that even that was overcrowded.

  “I don’t see why you like shit like this,” Dominique complained. “It’s too many people in here to do anything.”

  “I know. I didn’t think it would this crowded,” NiChia agreed. “It’s mostly these stankin’ booty ass bitches. Remember I told you that it’s free tonight for ladies, and they get to drink for free. You know these hoes love free.”

  “Heffa hush! Yo’ ass act like that wasn’t the main reason you wanted to come,” Dominique put her on blast. “You gotta lotta nerve.” She laughed.

  “Fuck you, Nikki, with yo’ stankin’ ass,” NiChia rebutted. “Just for that, I ain’t ordering you a drink.”

  “So bitch, you act like you buying it. They free anyway.”

  NiChia rolled her eyes before she turned around and tried her best to flag down the bartender. It seemed like he went everywhere other than where they were standing, and she immediately got irritated because she knew that he more than likely didn’t see her short behind over the crowd of much taller people.

  “If they let one mo’ muthafucka in here, the Fire Marshall gone fuck around and shut this bitch down.”

  “I don’t think that would be a bad thing,” Dominique mumbled.

  They had only been there for less than a half hour and she was already ready to go. It was too many people in one place, and she couldn’t see herself having fun at all, especially since there was only enough room to stand. With the heels she was wearing, she couldn’t picture having to be on her feet for the rest of the night, but by the looks of things, that’s exactly what was going to happen. While NiChia continued to try to get the bartender’s attention, Dominique turned and looked around the club. Other than being extremely packed, it was a pretty nice place to party.

  There were two levels to the club. In the middle of the first floor sat a very large oval shaped bar that was surrounded by lights. Two others were on each opposite end of the room, yet they were only about half of the size of the main one. There were large round lanterns hanging from the vaulted ceiling, which gave the place just enough lighting to set the mood. Marble pillars with beams were placed sporadically around the building hosted a few strobe lights that rotated all around the floor. Even though there were around twenty or so long suede couches aligning the walls and around the dance floor, there were so many people that there were literally no available spaces left. It was so bad that there were chicks propped up on their friend’s laps, just to have somewhere to sit down.

  What really caught Dominique’s attention was the VIP section that was on the second floor away from the normal crowd. From where she was standing, she could tell that there were eight of them because the only thing she could see was the balcony. Each appeared to be extremely spacious. They had to be because each two took up an entire wall of the rectangular shaped building. Even though there were people up there, it was a lot less crowded than it was on the first floor. Dominique smacked her lips because that was where she wanted to be.

  “We need to be up there!” Dominique yelled to NiChia, who was still struggling to get the bartender’s attention.

  “You do.” She heard over her shoulder. “You can come up to my section if you like.”

  Dominique blew a bunch of air out of her mouth before she turned around, ready to tell whoever it was in her ear that she was not i
nterested.

  “I’m good. I’d rather…” she stopped when she realized who the mystery man was.

  “How you doing, Nikki?” Kaleb said with a sly smile.

  He and Desmond had been sitting upstairs in their section when he caught a glimpse of her standing in the middle of the floor. When she started to walk away, he feared that she might have been leaving, so he damn near broke his neck to catch her. Desmond came along to see who the sexy ass female she was with was. He had never seen her before and wanted to feel her out.

  “It’s Dominique, and I’m doing alright.” She smirked. It was hard to pretend that she wasn’t happy to see him because she was. “What are you doing here?”

  “What’s up, Nikki!” Desmond interrupted as he stood behind Kaleb.

  “Hey Des, how have you been?” Dominique asked, reaching her hand out to shake his hand. She jumped when he pulled her towards him and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Don’t try to play me like that girl. Yo’ nigga ain’t here, you can show yo’ boy some love.” Desmond laughed, squeezing her tight.

  When Desmond let Dominique go, she turned around and was met with a strange look from NiChia. The look clearly asked who the hell dude was, and why did he have his hands on her.

  “Peanut, this is Des…I mean Desmond,” Dominique started her introduction. “Desmond, this is my sister, Peanut.”