Nedra gasped. “Oh my god! Is she in prison? Are you only able to make conjugal visits? This is just like that show Love After Lock-Up!”
“Hell no, she’s not in prison!” That needed to be corrected immediately. I looked at my brother. “I met her when I came up for All-Star weekend last year.”
Hawk and Nedra exchanged a glance so heated that a few beads of sweat popped up on my head. I had no idea what that was about but suddenly felt like telling them to get a room.
“Uh…”
Hawk waved a hand. “Say no more.”
Nedra leaned over him. “We,” she said, tilting her head toward my baby brother, “met during All-Star Weekend this year. Trust me, we get it.”
All-Star weekend wasn’t even six months ago. Brows raised, I glanced down at her belly then over at my brother, a slick grin coming to my face.
“When you know, you know, right?”
Hawk kissed Nedra’s temple and rubbed her belly once more. “Right.”
Returning to my meal, I relaxed in my seat. “So, you understand.”
“Oh, I definitely understand that you could meet a woman and want to marry her immediately. Shit, I’d have married this one here that same night if she would have let me, and I’m determined to make her a Hawkins before she has my baby. What I don’t understand is this secrecy. How can you claim to love someone but you keep them hidden? And don’t even try to deny it; I know you, Jer. What you felt when you met her might not have been love but there ain’t no way in hell that you’d stay married to someone for almost two damn years if you didn’t love them. That’s not how we operate, bruh. Pops ain’t raise us to treat women like that. Not The One, anyway. You know how I am about my privacy but two days after I met Nedra, I was introducing her to Mama and them.”
My baby brother wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“Jer, is this about Yvette’s old ass?”
“Ooh, who is Yvette?”
“She’s—”
I interrupted Hawk as he started to answer his girlfriend’s question. “Damn, Hawk. Can I tell my own story? Shit.”
Fanning a hand out in front of him as if he were offering me the stage, he sat back and took a massive bite of his chicken. I pushed my empty plate toward the center of the table and folded my arms in its abandoned place.
“Yvette is my ex and the answer is both yes and no to whether this is about her. She was a little older than me—”
“Ain’t shit little about fifteen years, my nigga.”
“Fifteen years?! That’s illegal!”
I huffed out a harsh chuckle at Boobie’s interruption and Nedra’s impassioned response.
“I was twenty-nine when I met her. There was nothing illegal about it.”
She sucked her teeth and her right hand started twitching. Hawk noticed it, too, grabbing it and placing a kiss to her palm.
“Calm down, Misty Knight. Let him finish the story.”
She rolled her eyes, but a smile formed at the corner of her mouth.
“Anyway, we dated for a while—well, I thought we were dating. We took trips together. I introduced her to the family.” A particular memory caused me to chuckle. “Sabrina Hawkins couldn’t stand her.”
Hawk laughed loudly. “That’s putting it mildly. Ma hated Yvette with a passion. She used to call her a two-dollar hooker!”
Nedra and Boobie joined in on the laughter. “Dang, Mrs. Sabrina seems so nice.”
“She is, mostly.” I caught my breath and continued on with my woeful tale. “Because I am who I am, Mama’s objection only made me want Yvette more, and after what seemed like a reasonable amount of time—and under the guise of love—I proposed.”
“Aww.”
I shook my head. “That was the biggest mistake I could have made. Yvette looked startled, confused, even, like the idea of marriage had never even crossed her mind when she thought of me. That hurt, at first, but then I understood why. She told me that I was ruining a good thing, that what we had was only sex and nothing more and that even if it became more, it could never evolve to marriage because she was already married and would never leave her husband.”
“Oh, fuck.” Nedra’s mouth hung open.
“Yep.”
“So, then what’d you do?”
“I did the only thing I could do. I tucked tail and ran. Hawk had conveniently acquired a couple of properties down in Cabo and before he put a property manager on them, I volunteered for the job. I’ve been down there ever since. So, yeah, it’s about Yvette in that she hadn’t been honest with me from the jump and broke my heart, but actually, this is about me and my inability to leave the past in the past. Tonya isn’t Yvette. As a matter of fact, she’d told me more about herself within the first two hours of meeting her than Yvette had divulged in the three years we were…doing whatever the fuck we were doing since it obviously wasn’t dating.”
“How long ago was this?”
“The breakup?”
Nedra nodded.
“Uh…almost four years ago.”
Her head cocked to the side. “And you say it’s been a year and a half since you met and married your wife?”
This time, I nodded.
“Oh. Okay.” She didn’t say another word, just stabbed another chicken breast from the dish in the front of her and plopped it on her plate. Her silence said volumes, though.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking it pretty loudly, though. It’s all over your face. Just spit it out.”
She glanced at my brother who nodded once.
“Fine. I’m just trying to figure out why you even married this woman if all you were going to do is dog her out like she’s the one who laughed in your face when you asked her to marry you.”
“I never said Yvette laughed in my face.”
“It was implied.”
“I didn’t imply th—”
“Oh, I see. You’re going to ignore the question by focusing on a technicality.” Waving a piece of chicken sticking to the end of her fork at me, she bucked her eyes at my brother. “He thinks he’s smart or something.” She popped the chicken in her mouth and groaned. “I know I made this, but this shit is so fucking good.”
Hawk had a stupid, lovestruck look on his face as he glanced at me. “My goddess can throw down in the kitchen.”
I frowned, still thinking about what Nedra had said. There was no argument from me that I’d treated Tonya wrong but I didn’t think it was as bad as Nedra said. I wouldn’t have done any of this to Yvette. I didn’t. She knew everything about me, had sat down to dinner with my family, and taken vacations with me and even advised me at auctions for Hawkins Realty. It wasn’t the same at all.
The realization hit me like a semi-truck doing sixty, right into my sternum.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Mmhm.” Nedra’s responding hum was quick. She didn’t even glance my way, but she must have heard something in my tone.
The temptation to ask Boobie to punch me in the face was strong. I’d unknowingly had shit so backwards. Instead of treating the woman who’d actually agreed to marry me the same way that I’d treated a woman who didn’t deserve it, I’d handled Tonya as if she would reveal a secret husband to me at any minute. I was a piece of shit husband, and Tonya deserved that divorce that I’d denied her. She wasn’t getting it, though. Yeah, I was a piece of shit, but I was also selfish as hell and a determined motherfucker when I wanted to be.
Natasha had told me to come correct when I returned for her sister. The fact that the youngest—and most intuitive—of the Black sisters hadn’t told me to fuck off let me know that I still had a chance, and I had every intention of winning this next chance.
Third time’s a charm.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When It's Not Over Until It's Over
It might have been a while, but I handled heartbreak really well. So well that people wouldn’t even know that I was dyin
g inside as I handed them their dark roast coffees and freshly baked pastries. Not even my family could say that my misery had me off my game. My sisters knew what had happened with Jereth and though they might have been concerned, not once could they say “You’re letting it consume you”. No, I had too much going on to allow something like that to happen.
Besides, what good would it do? Failure was a normal part of life. I was old enough to understand that. I’d given something new a shot and, after putting my all into it, it hadn’t worked. Such is life, which continued to go on. Black Coffee still needed to be run, and Wisdom still had all of his extracurricular activities and—now that basketball season had ended—baseball. It would do me no good to mourn a man that I’d had for less time than I’d had Wisdom’s father. Those thoughts kept me afloat for the two days after I’d officially ended things with Jereth.
On the third day, my shell cracked.
I turned toward the register after filling a customer’s double insulated cup with a medium roast, house blend coffee, leaving the requested two inches of room for cream and almost spilling the scalding liquid on myself when a mahogany-skinned asshole stood in the customer’s spot. Instantly flustered, I searched for the customer and found him standing down on the other side of the beverage station at the hand-off counter. As much as I wanted to drag my feet, several people stood behind Jereth and I couldn’t make them wait just because I didn’t want to come face-to-face with my soon-to-be second ex-husband.
Gripping the sides of the register’s screen, I took a deep breath, trying to inhale some strength into my lungs.
“What would you like to drink this morning?”
“Good morning, beautiful.”
The rumble of his voice did funny things to my belly. It wasn’t so long ago that I’d felt that rumble as it was muffled by my nether lips as he whispered filthy things to me while he feasted on my soaked flesh.
“Jereth, your drink?” My plea was strained. I couldn’t keep up appearances if he was going to be here. His very presence was like a slap in the face, a constant reminder that—once again—I wasn’t good enough to keep a husband.
“What do you recommend?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know you well enough to make a suggestion.”
Regret flashed in his eyes and shot through my chest. I wasn’t trying to be slick at the mouth, I’d only meant that I didn’t know his preferred flavor profiles but ironically, the unintended barb was double-edged, cutting me on the way out.
“I’ll have a triple shot, café Vienne with extra whipped cream.”
My fingers flew across the screen of the register as I typed in his order, grateful for something else to focus on.
“Oh, hell no!” I heard Toy before I saw her and realized she must have returned from the back where she was grabbing another bag of whole coffee beans. She slammed the bag on the counter next to the brewers and stepped up beside me to stand in front of the second register.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Surprisingly, Jereth smiled at my brash sister. “Good morning, Latoya. I’m here to get a cup of coffee and let your sister know that I’m not giving up on us yet.”
Toya looked like she wanted to climb across the counter and claw Jereth’s eyes out. “Let me tell you something you big, bald bastard; I’ve been taking lessons with Black Girl, Magic Bullet, and I will most definitely put a couple of rounds in your ass if you don’t stop harassing my sister!”
“Oh my god! Libby, take the register!”
Frustrated, I called for the young college-aged girl who was working the pastry case the command to transition to the front so that I could drag my sister into the back without even a second glance at Jereth. Shoving her into the office, I slammed the door behind me.
“Have you lost your gotdamn mind?”
Still keyed up, Toy’s chest rose rapidly as she huffed. “Have you? That motherfucker waltzes in here, and you’re taking his fucking drink order?! Am I in the twilight zone?”
“Why are you so damn dramatic? This is a coffee shop, Toy. Our job is to take drink orders, and I can’t stop that just because someone I don’t want to see is the one ordering the coffee.”
“The hell you can’t!”
“Ugh!” Groaning, I pressed my hazelnut-scented thumbs into the corners of my eyes, wishing I could click my heels three times and disappear à la Dorothy in Oz. My sister’s venom for the man I was trying to get over was stressing me out.
“Toy, please just chill the fuck out. This shit is hard enough as it is without your added attitude. You can’t stand Jereth. I got it. You’ve made that very clear. Crystal, even. You’re unhappy with the way things ended between us. You weren’t happy with them happening in the beginning. Actually, you’ve been unhappy about the entirety of mine and Jereth’s relationship. I get it. I swear I do. And I appreciate your rage on my behalf, but you forgot one key element in this whole ordeal: this shit ain’t about Latoya and how she feels.”
She gawked at me, shock and anger contorting her face almost comically. “Wow, bitch. That’s how you’re gonna do your rider?”
“We not ridin’ out right now, Toy!”
“And why the fuck not?”
“Because I still fucking love him!” I screamed, tired of going back and forth with her, tired of having to explain why it wasn’t so easy to flush somebody out of my veins like a transfusion. “I still love him, and I need time to get over this shit without you being in the damn way, clouding my head with the fumes from your stankin’ ass attitude! I. Need. Time! Our shit was fast, but despite what you think, it was real and I can’t be done with him just ‘cause you say so!”
She stared at me, the anger in her eyes hot enough to set me on fire if I held a piece of kindling. “So, you just gone let him make a fool of you? Again.”
I frowned. “How is he making of fool of me?” This time, at least?
“He got you out there, serving his ass like you’re his maid or something.”
She was dead serious, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “Or, I was taking his order like I work in the service industry. The food-service industry.”
“You know what? Forget I said anything.” Rolling her eyes, she moved to open the door, completely ignoring that I was leaned against it.
“I don’t know why you’re so mad, in the first place. You’re the one who introduced me to him; if anything, all of this is your fault.”
“Oh, okay. Fuck you.”
She yanked at the door and stormed into the stock room, hitting my ankle in the process. Not that she seemed to care. The double doors were flapping back and forth from her quick exit and if I squinted, I might have seen a trail of smoke in her wake.
Pulling the office door closed behind me, I removed my apron and hung it on the hooks mounted along the wall to the left of the doors that led to the heart of Black Coffee. The interaction with Toy wasn’t just frustrating, it was draining. I had no idea what was going on with my sister for her to act a fool over something like this. It didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t even held a grudge this intense over Evan, and he had divorced me while I was pregnant with her nephew.
Reentering the back of the bar area, I noted that Toya had found her way to a register and was assisting customers before I skirted the counter to enter the lobby. The moment I stepped foot on the waxed, hardwood floor, Jereth’s presence accosted me. He sat at the table nearest the door to the back room, one ringed-adorned hand cradling a tiny, ceramic espresso cup stamped with the store’s logo as he sipped from it, the other hand resting on his left knee. His left ankle was perched on his right knee, showing off a pair of colorful socks that I would never have guessed were hiding under his well-worn, black jeans. The most jarring feature of all was his eyes, which were pinned on me. I had a feeling he’d been sitting this way since the moment I’d gone to the back with Toya.
Placing the cup on the round, wooden table, Jereth licked the little bit of whipped cream from his top lip an
d stood expectantly. As I moved in his direction, the hair on my arms raised as if he were a ball of static waiting to shock me. I passed him up without saying a word and exited the store through the side door that led to a wide patio in the back of the building that didn’t usually see any customers until the afternoon. With the sun beating down my back, I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at Jereth, waiting.
“I’ve decided that I’m not going to let you keep pushing me away.”
My face scrunched as my neck snapped back in disbelief and I dropped my hands to my hips. “Excuse me?!”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you but my hearing must be on the fritz because I know I ain’t hear what I think I just heard.”
He took one step toward me. “You love me and want to be with me, and although I love you want to be with you, I wasn’t doing a good job of making you see that. My brother’s girlfriend helped me to see that most of my relationship with you—the shitty parts—were a reaction of a past relationship that didn’t end the way I expected it to. I was unconsciously trying to protect myself from what an old girlfriend did to me by keeping you in a box. It was self-preservation and unintended on my end, but regardless, it was fucked up and you didn’t deserve that. Your self-preservation was to cut me off at the knees as soon as you realized that my behavior wasn’t changing fast enough for you—”
“Uh, your behavior wasn’t changing at all!”
“It was, but it was happening slowly. I hadn’t realized what my problem was yet but I didn’t get a chance to because…well, you know.”
I re-crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling a little raw. “Well, I’m not going to apologize for trying to protect myself. I learned early on that if I wait on a man to take care of me then I’ll be left out in the cold.”
He took another step. “See! That right there. You were acting based on past experiences. We both were. I can admit that while I was immediately enamored by you and knew you would be mine, part of why I proposed so quickly was because I once proposed to woman I loved after years of building a relationship only to be told that what we had was only a frivolous experience for her when her husband was away on business. I hadn’t known she was married.”
To Break a Vow Page 22