An Unexpected Love (Women's Fiction/BWWM Romance)

by Stacy-Deanne

  “I’ll call you back,” Aliyah muttered into the phone and hung up.

  “Those are some snug pants.” Layla pointed to Aliyah’s jeans. “I’m surprised you can breathe, let alone walk.”

  Aliyah smacked gum. “I can do more than that in them.”

  “Just cool it, Liyah,” Shanti said. “Be nice.”

  Aliyah pointed to Layla. “I didn’t do anything, and she’s starting with me.”

  “Who is ‘she’?” Layla squinted. “I know you’re not talking about me in that tone.”

  “Come on over here and have some cake.” Warren started cutting it. “Stop all this foolishness.”

  “What are we supposed to eat the cake on?” David asked. “Our hands?”

  Warren leaned up. “Goodness gracious, Nessa.”

  “What?” Vanessa asked.

  “I thought you got the plates.”

  “You did not ask me to get them.”

  Vanessa stomped out of the room as Warren glanced at Corrine. “I love your momma. But I swear that sometimes she ain’t got the sense God gave a toenail.”

  David laughed under his hand.

  “I won’t ask for a hug,” Layla said to Aliyah.

  Aliyah sat down on a chair. “Good, because pigs will be flying before you get one.”

  Vanessa came back into the room with the plates. “We’re not gonna have that talking back, Liyah. You’re not disrespecting any grown up while you’re in my house.”

  In response, Aliyah smacked her lips. “I don’t care.”

  “Excuse me?” Vanessa stood in front of the chair. “Did you say something?”

  “No, she didn’t say something.” Layla moved in front of her mother. “At least she better not have said something.”

  Aliyah wiggled her neck. “And what are you gonna do if I did?”

  “Liyah.” Shanti stood beside Aliyah’s chair. “Stop acting like a fool. Everything isn’t about you.”

  “I haven’t done shit but mind my business.”

  Layla quickly leaned over her. “Watch your mouth.”

  “Keep cursing, Liyah,” Warren said. “Do it one more time, and we’ll be planning a funeral before we leave here.”

  Aliyah mumbled.

  Layla leaned over Aliyah further. “Look at me.”

  Aliyah turned her head to the side. Shanti shook her head and took a piece of cake from Warren.

  “I said look at me, little girl.”

  Layla turned Aliyah’s face toward her and she snatched her face away. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “I’m talking to you!” She jumped out of the chair. “Just because everyone else bows down to you, doesn’t mean I’m going to! You’re pathetic, and that’s all you’ll ever be. You’ve spent more of your life in institutions than with us. And now we’re supposed to celebrate that shit?”

  Warren cut another piece of cake. “I know she didn’t curse again.”

  “She did.” David licked frosting off his fork.

  “I’m sorry if I’m cursing, Papa Warren. But I can’t do this.” Aliyah stood in the middle of the room. “I can’t pretend like everything is okay, when it’s not.”

  “And what’s not okay?” Layla asked.

  “You’re not okay, and you never will be. Believing anything else is foolishness. You go to the institution every time I turn around and then we throw you a party. For what?” She held her arms out to the side. “Nothing ever changes or—if it does—not for long.”

  “You hate me. I get that.” Layla approached her. “But I can’t take back whatever I did to you.”

  “It’s not what you did.” Aliyah’s voice shook. “It’s what you didn’t do. You were never there for me when I needed your ass. And I’m supposed to sit here and eat cake and dance like I’m happy?” She looked around. “It’s nothing but fake. I wish you’d just stay gone.”

  She stomped out of the room. Layla started after her, but Shanti stopped her. “I’ll go, Momma.” She ran down the hall and followed Aliyah out of the front door. “Aliyah…”

  “How can you do it?” Aliyah took her phone out and sat on the porch. “How can you sit through all that fakeness when you know it means shit?”

  “I don’t know that, and you don’t either.”

  “Bullshit, Shanti.” Aliyah scrolled through her phone. “We know damn well she’s gonna have another breakdown.”

  “How can you be so selfish? You’ve never cared about what she’s been through.”

  “She could’ve tried.” Aliyah huffed and puffed. “She could’ve tried much harder than she did.”

  “She did try. What did you expect her to do? You think she wants to be schizophrenic?”

  Aliyah smacked her lips in response.

  “If you could just step outside of your world for one minute and see what she goes through, maybe you’d understand,” Shanti told Aliyah. “You have no right to judge her. She’s mentally ill. She’ll never be perfect, Liyah. You gotta accept that.”

  “I’ve accepted it my whole damn life. I never asked for a crazy ass momma.” She burst into tears. “I never asked for any of this shit.”

  “And she never asked for it either. You can’t keep walking around with all this hate and contempt.”

  She sniffled. “I can’t just pretend everything is fine. How many times have we done that for things to go back to how they were?”

  “This is who she is, Aliyah.” Shanti shrugged. “There’s no cure for schizophrenia. You hating her won’t change that.”

  “I wanna be alone.” She wiped tears with the back of her hand.

  “You already think you’re alone.” Shanti sat beside her. “That’s the problem.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “What do I do, Val?” Layla cried over the kitchen sink. “I don’t how to make it right.”

  “It’ll be okay.” Valerie rubbed her back. “She’s just a teenager, and it’s hard at her age to deal with what she’s feeling. Maybe she should get some counseling.”

  “Right. Like she’d go.” Layla swiped her nose with a paper towel. “I can’t go back and change things. What if that’s the only way to fix it?”

  “You’ve got to do the best you can from here on out.” Valerie took the paper towel and dabbed Layla’s cheeks. “You are a wonderful person and a great mother. I’m sure some people with your condition can’t even function. I bet they don’t even have their kids. Those girls have been blessed.” Valerie got another paper towel and handed it to Layla. “They were raised in a wonderful home in a nice neighborhood. They have two parents with great careers. They never wanted for anything. Aliyah’s looking for perfection, and she’s too young to realize there’s no such thing as perfect.” She took one of the plastic cups off the counter filled it with punch from the punch bowl. “I’m proof that there’s no perfection in this world, Lay. If so, I’d have five kids by now.” Valerie sipped punch. “I wouldn’t have to play God to have a baby.”

  “How’s that going anyway?” Layla poured herself some punch into a cup. “David still doesn’t wanna do the Gamete Transfer thing?”

  “He keeps saying we won’t be able to afford it, and the insurance won’t cover it.”

  “You say that like you don’t believe him.”

  Valerie sipped. “Honestly, I don’t think David wants to have another child. He has his son, so maybe for him that’s enough.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Layla shook her punch around in her cup. “He loves you more than anything.”

  “All I know is that every time I bring the procedure up again, he gets so mad we end up arguing.” She licked punch from her lips. “Then again, when are we not arguing these days? We argue about every damn thing including…” She looked toward the kitchen door.

  Layla urged her to go on. “What?”

  “Your little sister,” Val spat with her nose turned up.

  Layla sighed. “She’s our sister.”

  “I doubt she�
��s my sister. Hell, I think she’s adopted.”

  “You are something else.” Layla laughed. “We were right there when Momma had her. She started having her in the car, remember? By the time Daddy got us to the hospital, she was out.”

  “That’s a sign of how she was gonna be.” Valerie waved her finger. “She couldn’t wait to get into the world to spread her evilness.”

  “Evilness?” Layla shook her head as she sipped punch.

  “Yep, couldn’t even be patient enough to come out on time. All that hollering Momma was doing. She said it felt like Corrine was ripping her to shreds.” Valerie motioned her cup to Layla. “‘Cause she was the devil’s child.”

  “You need to quit.” Layla chuckled. “I had two babies. Believe me they all feel like they’re ripping you to shreds.”

  “Corrine is the spawn of Satan or some shit. I should’ve grabbed Momma and pushed her back inside.” Valerie guffawed.

  “You crazy!” Layla almost spit out punch. “How long is this thing between you and Corrine gonna go on? You say Aliyah needs counseling, but she’s not the only one.”

  Valerie raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  “I think you need to talk to someone.”

  Valerie set her cup on the counter. “No, I need you to talk to Patrick.”

  “Talk to Patrick? Have you lost your mind?”

  “I need you to do me a favor.” Valerie tucked her arm in Layla’s. “Please, please, go to Patrick, and ask him to talk David into trying the procedure. I know if Patrick tells him to, he’ll at least consider it.”

  “Val, I can’t…”

  “Please.” Valerie tugged on her arm. “It might be my last shot. We’ve tried everything else. I gotta get David to turn around.”

  “Do you hear yourself?” Layla pried Valerie’s arm from hers. “You want to manipulate your husband.”

  “I want a baby, damn it.” She put her hand to her mouth. “I want a baby, Layla.”

  “I know.” She hugged her. “I know you do.”

  “It’s not fair.” Valerie cried into Layla’s chest. “There are women who can have baby after baby, and they don’t even want them.”

  “Yeah. Cross’ momma didn’t want him.”

  “I’ll never understand that. I’d give anything to have a child. You know it’s all I ever wanted.”

  “You can’t do it like this, Val.” Layla pressed her hands on Valerie’s cheeks. “You can’t let this change the person you are. You talk about Corrine manipulating people, but then don’t you go down the same road.”

  “I just want Patrick to talk to him.” She wiped tears with her hand. “David will listen to him.”

  “You need to talk to him.”

  “What if he says ‘no’ again?”

  “What about adoption?”

  “I want my own baby.” Valerie leaned against the counter. “I want a baby that looks like me and sounds like me. I deserve that.”

  “There are a lot of kids that need parents.”

  “I know,” Valerie whispered. “Maybe I’ll consider it when I’ve run out of other options, but I can’t give up now. If David can’t understand that, then maybe I need to move on and find a man that’ll support me in this.”

  “Are you saying you’d walk away from your marriage if David doesn’t agree to the procedure?”

  “I love David to death, but I won’t let him get in my way of having a baby.” Valerie’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I want what you and Momma experienced. I’ll do anything to get that.”

  Luckily, Val soon left the kitchen because Corrine entered a few seconds later.

  “Val was in here, wasn’t she?” She turned up her nose. “I smell that nasty perfume.”

  Layla set her cup on the counter. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do with you two. Why two intelligent women can’t sit down and talk things out, I’ll never understand.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her.” Corrine stretched. “I need a drink.”

  Layla filled a cup with punch and passed it to her.

  “I mean a real drink.” Corrine glanced into the cup. “Wanna get outta here?”

  “You know I can’t drink on my medication.”

  “Come on.” Corrine sipped punch and licked her lips. “One time won’t hurt.”

  “I don’t care for drinking, and you know why.” Layla sat at the table. “It reminds me of the mess we went through growing up with Daddy. If I never saw alcohol again, it would be too soon.”

  Corrine sat beside her. “Let’s get back to what we were talking about in the car.”

  “Oh no, don’t start that.” Layla rubbed her forehead. “I told you Patrick and I are over.”

  “But he wants you back, and I don’t think he’ll give up.”

  “He has to give up.” Layla laid her hand on the table. “I don’t love him anymore.”

  Corrine crossed her legs. “I’m supposed to believe you have no feelings for that man after twenty years?”

  “Not feelings a wife would have for her husband, no… Are the girls still on the porch?”

  “Last time I walked through they were. Aliyah stays on that phone like her momma.” Corrine giggled.

  “I don’t stay on the phone.”

  “Layla, you checked your phone a hundred times before we got here. You think I didn’t notice? You were seeing if Cross called you, weren’t you?”

  She tingled. “Maybe I was.” She moved her finger along the edge of the table. “We’ve been talking every day. When I was in Wellington, I enjoyed being with him. Now I can’t wait to hear his voice over the phone. I get goose bumps when I think of his name. I feel like a teenager again.”

  “My God.” Corrine propped her arm on the table. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you? Is that why you don’t want Patrick back?”

  “I don’t want Patrick back because the feelings are long gone. Guess what?” She touched Corrine’s hand. “I’m going back to work.”

  “What?”

  “Yep.” Layla laid her hand on her cheek. “I’m going back to Royal Delights, and this time I’m never leaving. Working will be good for me.”

  Corrine snickered. “I’ve never known someone who dodges a question like you, Lay.”

  “What?” She stood and pulled down her blouse. “I’m not dodging you.” Then she got her cup off the counter.

  “Then answer the question.” Corrine put her cup to her mouth. “Are you in love with Cross?”

  Layla finished her punch and tossed the cup in the trash. “What if I am?” Then she abruptly left the kitchen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bright lights caught the corner of Shanti’s eyes from down the street. A long, gold-brown Cadillac crept toward Vanessa and Warren’s house and stopped in front of the girls.

  “What the hell?” Shanti frowned. “That piece of crap.”

  “Shut up, girl.” Aliyah smiled and patted her hair. “That’s my man’s car.”

  “Your man?”

  “Yeah, it’s A.C.,” she said as she put her phone up.

  With a black-and-mild cigar hanging out of his mouth, A.C. let the tinted windows down and scooted to the passenger’s seat. Rap played low on the radio. “What’s up, baby?”

  “Hey.” Aliyah stepped off the porch and twisted to the car.

  A somewhat cute, light-skinned dude with a black baseball cap stuck his head out of the backseat window.

  “What’s up, mommy?” he asked Shanti.

  “What?” She closed her legs tighter, even though she wore jeans.

  He stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “I said, ‘What’s up?’” He tilted his head and stared as if he tried to see through her clothes.

  “When I asked you to come by, I didn’t know you were bringing him.” Aliyah gestured to the light-skinned guy. “I thought we were gonna spend some time alone.”

  “It’s cool, baby.” A.C. took her hand. “Me and Khalil were gonna chill out at my place a little bit. Momma’s
working a late shift.”

  Khalil blew a puff of smoke in Shanti’s direction.

  “How about you come with us?” A.C. rubbed Aliyah’s hand. “Just for a few minutes?”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced toward the house. “I don’t wanna hear my momma’s mouth.”

  “She’s at her party, right?” A.C. asked. “She won’t even know you’re gone. I’ll bring you back in twenty minutes.”

  Shanti clenched up as Aliyah opened the passenger door and said, “All right.”

  “Liyah.” Shanti ran down the steps. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to hang with my man.”

  “That’s right.” A.C. scooted back into the driver’s seat.

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” Aliyah said.

  “Wait.” Shanti put her hand on the car door. “I can’t let you go off with these guys.”

  “What?” A.C. grimaced. “What you trying to say? This is my girl. I’m not gonna do nothing to her.”

  Shanti glared at him. “How do I know that?”

  “Come with us then,” Aliyah said.

  Shanti turned from Khalil’s intense stare. “No…I—”

  “Then I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  “Wait.” Shanti sighed. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Hey, I like that.” Khalil opened the backdoor and scooted over.

  Shanti said yet another silent prayer and got in.

  ****

  Aliyah and Shanti followed the guys inside A.C.’s place.

  “I can’t believe you called Momma,” Aliyah whispered to Shanti. “Damn, somebody needs to teach you how to have fun.”

  “I didn’t want her to be worried.” Shanti glanced down the hall as they walked to the living room. “And I wanted her to know where the bodies would be.”

  “Funny.” Aliyah smirked as she stuck gum in her mouth.

  “She said we better be outta here in twenty minutes, or she’s coming to get us.”

  Aliyah hit her arm. “Thanks, snitch.”

  Shanti rubbed the spot. “Ouch.”

  A.C. lived in a cozy, redbrick two-story that appeared so clean that you could probably eat off the floors. Shanti figured his mother was the cause of that because, judging by the trash that had been in A.C.’s car, he had never picked up a thing in his life.