by C. L. Donley
Soon he wasn’t going in to work at all, leaving the States by 3 am and simply completing his work day in the air. By the time he landed, he would be there to escort Mya from practice back to his apartment, which was within walking distance. True to his word, when the season started up in earnest he never missed a performance.
A year after their wedding had united them, Amara and Grayson met them in Holland for a long overdue weekend hangout full of sightseeing.
The last time they’d seen each other was November the year before when Mya made her debut as the white swan in Swan Lake. It had been quite the game changer for Mya who’d been used to achieving in obscurity. This time, she’d made too much history as an African American ballet dancer for the world at large not to take notice. Add to the mix a high profile white billionaire boyfriend, and a billionaire’s wife for a best friend, and it was pretty much inevitable. It was a bittersweet moment for the girls because while Mya was being celebrated Kim was back home alone, fresh off the news that she’d lost the baby she’d conceived with Bel.
Luckily for Mya, there wasn’t a shred of her personality that desired fame, so the frenzy had stayed pretty well under control without her at the center fanning the flames. And after she’d declined one too many fancy invitations, she was sort of on the media’s shit list. Not that she cared.
They’d met Grayson and Amara at their hotel suite, Rosetta in tow, and Sam now quite a chubby and formidable challenge, 18 months and toddling around the non-baby proof penthouse suite, attempting communication.
For Amara, the visit was partly for work since she was doing a profile on both of them separately for MeTV. Amara’s setup was getting sleeker and her instincts sharper, and everyone sensed that soon she would outgrow the MeTV fishbowl. Part of her fought the growth, felt it a betrayal to Bel to do so, but after the fallout with Kim and Bel, relations had gotten a bit, well, strained.
Dale himself hadn’t been in touch. Ever since they found out that Kim was pregnant, Dale had been reticent to reach out to Bel. He didn’t want whatever feelings about Kim becoming a permanent part of Bel’s life to cause a problem. Dale suspected that Bel knew him well enough to put it together. Bel had always kept Dale at arm’s length to an extent, and Dale also suspected that moments like these were the reason why.
“How’s Bel holding up?” Dale inquired after him to Amara.
“Not so good,” Amara scrunched up her face, “you haven’t heard from him?”
“No,” Dale replied, his answer conspicuously clipped.
Dale felt a bit shameful. So shameful in fact, that when they all found out Kim had miscarried, Dale felt too guilty to pick up the phone even then. Grayson and Bel considered themselves good friends, but calling Grayson just wasn’t something that Bel did and vice versa. Dale had been the bridge between them, and he’d neglected his role.
“Yeah, he’s being a bit of a dark horse right now,” Amara said, “I only brought it up to him once, and all he said was, ‘dodged a bullet.’ And Kim is just… I don’t know. I think she’s bluffing. I think they’re both bluffing. I think she really got to him.”
Grayson and Dale were conspicuously tight-lipped.
“So well trained,” Mya marveled.
Grayson laughed as he and Dale looked at each other.
Amara watched Dale and Mya curled up on the couch together.
“Babe, let’s move to Holland,” Amara said.
“No,” Grayson simply refused her.
Amara threw a pretend fit.
“Look how happy they are!”
“They’re happy because they live in Holland and we don’t,” answered Grayson. Mya and Dale laughed.
“It’s not fair,” Amara glared, “all those times I had to hang out with friggin pasty face Avery, while you and Dale friggin yukked it up at the Super Bowl or whatever the hell. Freezin’ my damn titties off, talkin’ about wreaths and shit.” Mya was dying laughing.
“Racist!” Dale exclaimed, wide-eyed and grinning.
“And now that I single-handedly introduced happiness to Dale’s life you see how he thanks me? He moves thirteen hours away.”
“It’s Mya’s fault for getting a job here,” Dale replied. Mya gave him a look before defending herself.
“Literally, we see each other the same amount as we used to,” Mya said.
“Single-handedly is kind of a stretch, Amy,” Grayson insisted, trying to hog credit for the pair.
“That’s my point. We’re supposed to be seeing each other more.”
“The ballet season’s almost over for her. We’ll meet you wherever you want.” Dale appeased her.
“Come meet us on location,” Mya said.
“Oh, I was gonna show up whether you invited me or not,” Amara muttered.
Mya’s burgeoning fame had gained her some attention in the entertainment industry, and she began getting offers to appear in music videos, to choreograph, even do movie roles. She’d never even dreamed of choreography, but when she got the offer to work on a video in New York for female rap sensation Lizben, she couldn’t pass it up. It was certainly a viable career option after ballet. She’d planned to stay with the company at least another year and promised herself after that she would take a break. He didn’t want to put pressure on her, but she knew Dale was itching to start a family.
“When is the damn wedding? That’s what I want to know,” Amara blurted out.
Mya looked up at Dale from his lap and gave him a shy look, which he returned.
Amara let out a long, shrill shriek into her sofa pillow as they gazed at each other, deep in non-verbal conversation. Amara had been trying to put them on the spot, but obviously it was something they’d discussed.
“That’s it, I’m gonna cry,” Amara announced.
“How was dinner with the royals?”
“Bitchin’,” Dale replied.
The Dutch royal family had hosted them for dinner and even came to see Mya perform, though it was debated among the company how much Mya was responsible for that.
Mya indeed was a small fry in Holland compared to the states, and her high profile romance— while good for the theater— had drawn criticism that the theater had shown undue favoritism in offering her a substantial role so soon after joining the company. Whatevs. Mya learned from her wise old teacher never to begrudge how a role came her way.
“Tell them about your dad, I can’t stand the wait anymore,” Mya said.
“Oh,” Dale remembered. “Are you ready to have your mind blown?”
Dale had the bright idea to bring his father to watch Mya perform and then introduce them afterward.
He hadn’t known his father to be racist in the least, except for the fact that he seemed uneasy around the topic of interracial relationships. It was odd, out of step with what they knew about their father, so it stood out to them over the years.
His sister Caroline had moved out when he was 7, and she was 17, under foggy circumstances. When he became a teenager, Caroline revealed her impetus to move out stemmed from their dad’s tirade about her then-boyfriend, who was black. Dale thought it probably had more to do with the fact that her then-boyfriend was 11 years her senior, but by the time he’d received that little tidbit, the suspicion was already full grown.
The closer it got to the day, the more nervous Dale was that something bad would happen. He had this horrid dread that he would have to punch his own dad in the face. But instead the unthinkable occurred.
“First of all, my dad is in love with Mya.”
Mya laughed with a sleeve-covered hand to her mouth.
“Like it was really… were you not uncomfortable?”
Mya shook her head.
“Well, I was uncomfortable. I was like, ‘dad what the hell.’”
“Was it like looking in a mirror?” Grayson grinned.
“Then out of nowhere… my fucking Dad… who’s seen every John Wayne movie that exists… turns to Mya— not me, because I’m literally not there anymore— h
e goes ‘you know, before I met Dale’s mother I had a girlfriend…you remind me so much of her…” Mya was already cracking up again.
“Are you about to tell me that your dad had a black girlfriend?” Grayson asked.
“Is that where you went with that? Because I was not there yet. I’m thinking ‘oh she was a dancer too, maybe they had a similar personality. Because there’s no fuckin’ way, that Gregory Abernathy, had a black girlfriend…” Amara’s jaw had dropped, and she was patiently waiting for the confirmation.
“He’s like, ‘she had a beautiful face like yours… a mite darker than you’ he says…”
“Get the fuck outta here,” Grayson replied.
Amara’s arms went up in celebration like she’d just scored a field goal.
“Mya’s just like nodding her head, and she looks over at me…” Dale recalled.
“Dale was… paler than usual,” Mya said. Amara guffawed.
“So all this time your dad was being a hypocrite?” Grayson said, trying to reconcile it.
“Well, there’s more. Because then he says, ‘your mother didn’t like me to mention her.’”
“Ahhh, the plot thickens…”
“He didn’t say any more than that and, I’ll probably not get more,” Dale said.
“So you think your mom was jealous??”
“No. Well…maybe. I think, knowing my mom, she probably said some underhanded shit about it once, and knowing my dad, that one time was enough to completely shut down all entry points to that conversation for the extent of the marriage.”
“Holy shit.”
“Your mom was racist?” Amara exclaimed, surprised.
“Well, there’s no real way to tell, but she is from Georgia and her dad’s name was Oral, so. You be the judge.”
“What year are we talkin’?” Grayson asked.
“1970.”
“Bullshit.”
“She was a fuckin’ hippie, dude.”
“I don’t, fuckin’ believe you.”
“We’re talking Haight Ashbury, ‘free love’ shit, bro.”
Amara and Mya laughed as the two men continued to argue Gregory Abernathy’s 19-year-old proclivities.
Just as Amara was reveling in her dreams of her and Mya’s friendship coming true, Rosetta interrupted them with a phone call.
“Sorry to interrupt Mrs. Davis, but it’s ringing off the hook. I thought it might be important.”
Only one person called back to back like that, and that was Kim.
As Amara took the phone into the bedroom, Mya watched from her place on the couch.
The two men looked at each other. No one had a good feeling as they sat in the living room.
“What do you think that’s about?” Dale directed at Mya.
“Hard to tell. Usually the more dramatically she’s trying to get in touch with you the more ridiculous and unimportant it is.”
Suddenly the bedroom door flew open.
“Mya,” Amara said quietly.
Mya was up in a flash, the ominous waves continuing to wash over the room.
Grayson scooped a squirming Sam into his arms. They waited.
“You think it has something to do with Bel?” Dale said.
“I’m almost certain.”
Finally, the door opened.
“We have to go home. To Nashville.”
The two men locked eyes with their significant others.
“We?”
“As in Mya and I. Kim, she… didn’t lose the baby. Kim had the baby.”
“Fuck…” Dale exclaimed.
“And now the baby’s in the ICU.”
Grayson and Dale went cold.
“What happened?”
“Some freak accident at her daycare.”
“Bel’s gonna lose his shit,” Dale predicted.
“This is completely insane,” Grayson said.
“I agree. Get Bryan to find us the quickest flight? Please?”
“Nonsense, we’re all going.”
“You can’t tell Bel,” Amara warned them.
“No, this has gone far enough. He’s going to be pissed at all of us as it is,” Dale protested.
“At least wait until we get there?”
“Fine. I’m not all that jazzed about making this phone call anyway.”
“Never been to Nashville,” Grayson said.
“You’d like it. It’s um…I don’t know. There,” Mya remarked.
“We can stop in Memphis and get barbecue.”
“Omigod, Memphis barbecue is like, really a thing to other people,” Amara marveled.
“We can meet the parents, huh babe?”
Mya inwardly cringed thinking about Dale’s charm arsenal.
Amara sighed. “This is all my fault.”
“Hardly,” answered Grayson.
“Those are two grown-ass people, Amara,” Mya assured her.
Everyone’s attempts to alleviate her guilt only made the tears fall.
Now her strained relationship with her boss whom she dearly loved and respected would likely never be right.
He and Kim would be tied together for life now… and not the way she’d potentially envisioned. Kim had indeed landed herself in the wrong fairy tale.
What the hell happened between those two? Amara was about to find out the hard way.
III
Kim's Courage: A Billionaire's Club Novel
Book 3 of Three
by
C. L. Donley
Thirty Six
"2008"
“Dude, I had another one of those weird ass dreams last night,” Dale began.
It was 2 am on a Friday night. Bel had been determined to go out, but here they were four hours later, still smoking and talking about why things were the way they were.
“Zombie Grayson?” said Bel.
Dale took a hit. “He was hovering over my bed like…”
“Was he trying to fuck you again, bro?”
“Dude… I don’t even know why I told you that shit.”
Bel was snickering uncontrollably under the influence of his powerful homegrown crop. It’d been almost a year since Grayson had tried to commit suicide in their old apartment, but Dale was still blazing every day like a high school dropout. It was now getting a bit dangerous, as Webster was becoming a household name with virtually no advertising. But Dale was strong. He trusted his friend would get it under control when he was ready.
“It’s your fault. It was that synthetic shit you gave me, you fuckin’ towel head bastard.”
Bel still hadn’t recovered and desperately needed to take a breath. If Dale insulted him one more time, he was probably going to pass out. Thankfully Dale took another hit of the bong while Bel took in a heaving, much-needed gust of air. Kanye’s 808’s and Heartbreak played in the background while they were quiet.
“Bro, my sister wants to set you up with someone,” Dale suddenly remembered.
“You know your sister’s hot for me, right?”
“Dude, do not, fuck my sister. Please.”
Bel had no intentions of disrespecting his friend like that, but they both knew that if he put his mind to it, he could make Dale an uncle.
“She’s begging for it, bro.”
“Please!” Dale shouted in his faux spastic way.
Bel cracked up again.
When they met three years ago, Bel hit it off with Dale right away. He reminded him of his best friend from military school, Qamar, who recently died in combat.
Dale was a little more outgoing than Bel. Both had the same sense of humor; both got laid as a means of escape. When Dale added Grayson to the mix, it was like Bel had suddenly become part of the cast of a very funny, obscure sitcom. As his two friends began to replenish their savings, pay back all their investors and then some, Bel was still plugging away at Magellan, but not for long. As a project manager, he’d been working on a platform he’d come up with for users to share and upload avi. files as a potential social competitor to Webst
er. Grayson and Dale hadn’t minded, they welcomed the competition. Bel thought Webster was a good idea, but he couldn’t be part of the project, his heart wasn’t in it. Bel was convinced the future was audio/visual. When Magellan closed the project, convinced there was no future in it if it couldn’t be monetized, Bel took to working on it by himself.
“I think I’m gonna renew my Visa,” Bel suddenly said.
There was no doubt in his mind that he would, he just hadn’t said it out loud. His father, the king, would probably never speak to him again. Becoming the heir apparent after the death of his older brother, then abdicating the throne to the country of Ghassan five years ago, meant the last thing he wanted to tell the king was that he had no plans of ever returning.
His time in America was only supposed to last no more than a few years, and in that time he’d become a successful project manager, making six figures and being effectively pickled in American juices. He certainly couldn’t leave now.
“Doesn’t that take like, months?”
“Not for me.”
“So is this like, some Coming to America shit, bro?” Dale asked as he suppressed a cough.
“Some what?”
“Coming to America. Shit.”
“What’s that.”
“It’s a movie. Eddie Murphy. Arsenio Hall. What were you doing in the 80’s?”
“Not watching American movies.”
“Well, the main guy is like an African prince, and he comes to America to find a wife, but he goes to ‘Queens’ New York, ‘cuz he thinks he can find queens there.”
“Does it look like I’m here to get a wife, bro?”
“It looks like you’re doing a shitty job of it if you are.”
When it came to women, the three of them each had their styles for ending an affair. Grayson was ruthless, which could sometimes be mistaken for kindness and respect, but had really been the neurotic need for closure. Dale was a serial monogamist and always rode the train until the wheels completely fell off for one of them or the other.