by S. Ann Cole
Unblinking, I stared at her for several heartbeats, my pulse firing away, until I caught myself. “Well that was a stupid idea. Someone else beat him to it,” I dismissed in a bored tone, even though on the inside I was screaming: Propose?! Propose?! Holy stinking shit! Trevillo never gave me that tidbit.
Nicole threw her hands up in the air. “Oh my God, you’re such a bitch!”
“Thank you,” I evilly smiled.
“Did you hurt him on purpose?” she demanded, running me over with a cold stare.
Now that was laughable. “If that story you just told me is true, then I think the person who hurt him is you, Nicole.”
I got up and went to fetch a bottled water from the fridge, taking one back for Nicole, too. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation from her as she opened the bottle and downed half the water in one gulp. Contrition colored her cheeks, as if she was now realizing that if Lovello had been feeling any hurt from the break-up — which I highly doubted he was — then it was on her account.
“That night,” she started again. The woman really came to talk. “I didn’t know what was happening. He just popped up at my apartment with a dress, hurrying me into it. He wasn’t even formally dressed, and I knew he should’ve been suited to that occasion. He rushed me to his car and drove like a maniac to the restaurant. It’s when I got there and saw you, and heard everyone at the table talking about the irony of you getting engaged to your ex-boyfriend on the same night Lovello was to propose, that I realized I was being used as a jealousy bullet. But I didn’t care, ‘cause I was thinking to myself that I’d won him back.”
“So you’re telling me that you had those bite marks on your skin and Love didn’t notice them? All this just sounds like a bunch of bullshit, to be honest.”
“No. I always had them covered when I’m around him.” Irritation was evident in her voice. “I just don’t understand why you’re so resistant to the truth. He didn’t cheat on you, Axia. He saw the bite barks, yes, but that’s after you left the restaurant. Trev stormed back into the restaurant after whatever chat he had with you, and just tore off my shawl, checking my shoulders. When he saw them, he got pissed, called Lovello a ‘blockheaded asshole’ and left. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“And Love?”
“He just sat there staring at me for what felt like a lifetime. Like he’d zoned out completely. Then out of the blue, he grabbed me and dragged me out of the restaurant. I thought he was mad at me and was going to curse at me for what I did. But instead, he shoved me into his car, drove me home and fucked the daylights outta me. He was so aggressive with me, I couldn’t even … God.”
A wave of nausea washed over me at the thought of Lovello having sex with Nicole. I’d had a preview with their tongue-tying in the restaurant. But actually having sex?
Stomach churning, I shot up and bolted to the bathroom as my lunch made its way up my throat. Over and over, I heaved my tripes out into the toilet, then dropped my head on the seat, feeling like I’d just been flogged. I felt debilitated, lethargic, with a sudden desire to sleep into tomorrow. But, alas, Nicole was here, so I flushed the toilet and freshened up.
“Are you okay?” Nicole asked in a genuinely concerned voice when I emerged from the bathroom.
“Yeah,” I croaked, dropping my half-alive body down in the chair. “You were saying?”
Nicole made a curious narrowing of her eyes, but asked nothing more of my well-being and continued in the same vein. “What I’m saying is, I think you need to save Ty — um, Lovello. I know earlier I said that I broke up with him, but I don’t think we were even together to begin with. I rarely see him, he sleeps around, and I’m always the one to initiate sex with him.” Another wave of nausea. “I came home one day to find him jackhammering that popstar Netta Williams or whatever her name is on the kitchen counter. He didn’t even care that I walked in on them, which pissed off that pop chick and she —”
“Hold up. Home? So you moved in with him?”
“Yes. Well … kind of.”
“Wow. You must’ve had a field day burning my stuff,” I mumbled, more to myself than to her as I gobbled down some water in the hope of easing my queasy stomach. Although I’d packed all of Lovello’s things and sent them to him, he’d never sent back even an underwear of mine. Now I’m thinking that it’s probably because this conniving bitch burned them. Hell, he might have helped her.
“Your stuff?” she asked, bewildered. “There was nothing for you there. The penthouse was so cold that I —”
“The penthouse? That’s where you moved into?”
“Yes. His home,” she said, frowning at me as if I were daft. “Does he have another?”
A shrug jerked my shoulders. If she didn’t know that the penthouse wasn’t his home, then I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she’d moved into his debauchery den. She was the one up for chatting and spilling all kinds of details. Not me. I was just the listener.
“Anyway, he’s not over you, Axia. And I think you should at least try to get back with him. As indifferent as you’re being right now, I know you loved him. And you don’t get over someone you love in five weeks.”
I raised an ‘oh really’ brow at her, but she ignored me with a roll of her eyes. “Likewise, Lovello tries to play it off by sleeping around and overworking at his company. He prays longer than usual and he listens to that Chris Brown song all.the.god.damn.time.”
I couldn’t help laughing at her frustration. “What song?”
“That song called…” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, then snapped her finger, “ah, yes, All Back. Jesus, I can’t take it anymore. But I also love him too much to watch him be as messed up as he is right now. So if you’re wondering why I decided to come clean, it’s because I want you to know that I never won. You did. You’re his cure. He’s in love with you, Axia. And there’s nothing I can do to make him love me instead of you. So … that’s what I came here to tell you. I thought you should know … Know the truth.”
“That was such a sweet little tale. How nice of you to bring me a midday treat,” I said, each word dripping sarcasm. “There will be no ‘getting back together’ with Love and me. Shit happens, and we’re done. I’m over —”
The toilet?
I didn’t get to finish that sentence because I was hurling over the toilet in a nanosecond, throwing up nothing but the water I just drank and thin air. Something must’ve been wrong with that food Trevillo brought me. Maybe it’s the shrimp? I curled into a ball at the foot of the toilet, wrapping my arms around my stomach, and forgetting completely about Nicole until I heard her knock at the door. Too weak to even open my eyes, I didn’t so much as flinch.
“Um, Axia? You’re obviously ill, so I’m just gonna go and come back some other —”
“Go, yes. But don’t come back,” I barely managed through my dry throat.
I heard her sigh, then said, “I’ll let your assistant know you’re ill so she can get you some pills or something. I really do hope you get better soon.”
There was sincerity in her voice that I didn’t want to accept. As her footsteps clattered away, I clutched my stomach and gave in to inertia.
The last thing I remember thinking before I fell asleep was that I couldn’t wait to feel better so I could look up that song Lovello had been listening to.
XXVIII
“I like this one, hermana,” Romaine grinned and nodded. “It may not be the three-storeys you’re hell-bent on getting but, damn, it’s astronomical. This pointless, massive wall right here,” he walked over to an awkward never-ending wall on the far end of the space, “would be perfect for a climbing wall. And I don’t remember you having one of those back in San Fran.”
Trust Romaine to see profit in something that would’ve otherwise been deemed purposeless by me.
I nodded in confirmation. The building was huge, the best we’ve seen thus far. For weeks I’d been trying to find the perfect building in L.A. to open a second branch of PSFC, but f
ailed to find a three-storey like the one back home. This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it was only two storeys, but it was inarguably a lot more expansive than my other building. “I dunno, Romaine. I think it’s —”
“No more ‘thinking’. This is it. You’ve been so indecisive of late, I swear it’s annoying,” he snapped at me. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I’d like my focused and astute sister back, please. Muchas gracias.”
The realtor grinned at my brother’s words, clearly ecstatic that a sale was about to be made.
Trevillo had flown out to Jamaica this morning, therefore I no longer had him to help me with this decision on a new building. Such had led me to drag along my overwhelming brother today. Shopping with him was a headache. Every building we viewed he verbally decorated it, telling me what could go where, and which room could be used for what. He’d hardly allowed the realtor to do his job. But I’m pretty sure the realtor was taking lessons.
Romaine was keen and agile when it came to making business decisions. There was no tarrying with him, and he saw potential in everything. He excelled at time-management, and he didn’t do too well at brooking people with vacillating, indecisive minds. It was one reason our father liked having him close by. Right now, I knew that if I didn’t get a grip on my indecisiveness, he’d ditch me on this viewing.
Turning to the realtor, I nodded. “I guess this is it.”
The realtor, a short stump of a man with receding hairline, tapped his fingers on his file jacket and grinned wider. “Well then, let’s get to the paperwork.”
A few hours later, Romaine and I stopped at a deli restaurant to grab pastrami sandwiches before heading home. Lynn, my father’s former housemaid, met us there. I say ‘former’ because Romaine had taken her from her housekeeping duties and was now proclaiming her as his ‘girlfriend’. He’d moved her into his home and had her enrolled in culinary school.
Her aspirations, he’d told me, were to become a professional chef and to have her own restaurant one day. With compressed lips, I’d just listened, wondering how well this ‘girlfriend’ suit he was trying on would fit, and for how long. My brother simply did not know what the words ‘settle down’ or ‘commitment’ meant. I’m pretty sure he suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder when it came to relationships.
Lynn was looking primped and pampered, though, as opposed to when I’d last seen her in her maid outfit. Her hair was a flurry of thick, bouncing blonde curls, and her oval-shaped face was covered in far too much make-up for my liking. She was a transformed beauty, nonetheless. And was overly sweet to me, despite how bitchy I’d been — and still was, a little — with her.
The line at the delicatessen was fairly long, and I at once felt seasick, even though I was on dry land. The people, the noise, the mixed smells of various meats? I wasn’t sure which made me ill, I just knew that I needed to have a seat before I collapsed.
“Hermano,” I said, tugging Romaine’s arm. “I don’t feel so well. Will you place my order for me? You know my usual, number nineteen. Swiss cheese, Russian-style on rye bread, skip the coleslaw … I’ll be sitting in the corner over there.”
Romaine nodded, frowning at me as he wrapped his arm around Lynn’s shoulders. Anyone who knew me knew that illness visiting my body was rare — if ever. Not even the common cold dared to pick a fight with my immune system. But of late, I’d been feeling as if the world was closing in on me. I dumped the thought that I might possibly be sinking into depression.
There was such a major difference between this break-up and the one I’d had with Zane. With Zane’s break-up, I became stronger and more focused. With Lovello’s break-up, I grew more and more enervated each day. This whole ordeal had thoroughly subverted me. Sometimes I wondered how I would’ve made it through without Trevillo, because my best friend wasn’t available when I’d needed her the most. Lovello had revengefully made sure of that.
Seated for a mere five minutes, I felt hot and frustrated as if I’d been waiting for five hours. Romaine and Lynn were still far back in the line. The vibration of my cellphone in my pocket had me jumping. It was a text from Trevillo, asking me if I was doing alright. I couldn’t be bothered to text back because my head had begun pounding brutally hard, as if a reconstruction was taking place in there. Leaning my head to one side of the glass window of the booth, I closed my eyes and tried willing the pain away.
It took the intrusion of Romaine’s voice into my dark mind for me to realize I’d fallen asleep in a public place. He seemed to have been asking the unconscious me a question, but I’d only managed to catch the tail-end of it as I drifted back into consciousness. “What?” I asked, a bit hazy and fuddled.
“I was wondering why you didn’t tell me you guys broke up — wait, were you s-sleeping?” Romaine incredulously asked.
Ignoring his latter question, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Who broke up?”
“That hotshot billionaire you were dating,” he replied, taking the vacant seat across from me and dragging Lynn down onto his lap.
“You’re late,” I yawned out. “That’s been like five weeks ago, dude.”
Romaine tucked a lock of blonde curl behind Lynn’s ear, biting her neck teasingly which had her giggling like an adolescent. Ugh.
“Must’ve been bad then, huh?” he said, turning his attention back to me. “The way he stormed out of here just now, you’d think hell was on his heels.”
Spine suddenly stiff, I sat erect in my seat. “He was here? In here?”
Romaine gave me a quizzical stare. No doubt surprised by my behavior. “Yeah. How else would I know you guys broke up? It was either that, or he’s cheating on you. And I’m much pleased to know it’s the former.”
“He was here with … someone?” My voice was just audible.
Romaine nodded. “A petite little thing. He came in, saw me and Lynn, and casually hailed us. Noticing the girl with him, I became confused, of course. So my eyes automatically shifted in your direction. He followed suit and saw you. Hermana, the guy stood frozen, staring at you for so long, you’d think he was turning into a pillar of salt or something.” He laughed out. “Then in a snap, he just turned and shot through the door faster than a lightning’s wink, leaving his date behind. I think she’s wandering around here somewhere like a lost puppy looking for him.” Romaine swept his eyes about the restaurant in search of the girl.
“There she is,” Lynn piped in, pointing outside the glass window.
Turning my head, I looked out of the window and saw a petite, bobbed-hair brunette, dressed in a short, denim skirt and a white cami tank. She was wandering up and down the sidewalk across the street, looking from here to there with a puzzled expression.
God, it was both repulsive and saddening at the manner in which the guy treated women.
Romaine and Lynn found it hilarious and were laughing their faces off at the poor girl, but I couldn’t see the hilarity in it. Nicole sure wasn’t lying when she said Lovello was spreading himself thin with women. Did I escape what would’ve been a terrible relationship with an even more devastatingly cyclonic break-up if prolonged? Or was Lovello’s callous and insensitive behavior his method of dealing with our split?
“Blacksille, right?” a waitress asked Romaine, dragging me from my reveries.
Romaine confirmed and the waitress handed us our sandwiches to go.
We stood up to leave, but Romaine noticed I was swaying before I even felt it and caught me in his arms. “Hermana, you okay?” he asked, slightly panicked.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled and stepped out of his arms, trying to steady myself. But I couldn’t achieve such on my own, because my head began spinning and my limbs felt numb.
“Maybe we should just stay and eat. You might feel better on a full stomach,” Lynn suggested.
“No,” I objected, wanting nothing more than to be out of that place with all the chattering, moving people and meaty odors. “Just take me home. I just need sleep.”<
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Lynn stole my handbag and sandwich from my hands, but I didn’t have the strength to protest. I laid my head on Romaine’s broad shoulder as he wrapped his arm around me and led me out of the delicatessen.
As we made our way down the curb to Romaine’s Range Rover, I became aware of a low rumbling behind us. Vehicles tended to speed along this street, so the low rumbling of what sounded like a sports car made me lift my head and glance over my shoulder.
An all too familiar sports car, Zenvo ST1 to be exact, was creeping behind us. But as soon as the driver noticed that I was looking, the sports car sped off down the street.
Was he watching me? Why?
Romaine noticed me staring after the sports car that was tearing up the street like nobody’s business. Bringing his palm to my temple, he pushed my head down back on his shoulder and kissed the top. “Was that him?”
“Hmm hmm” was my only reply.
Romaine sighed. “Mi hermana, I don’t know what went down with you two, but it’s as clear and bright as the morning sunlight that that man is in love with you.”
A warm hand brushed across my forehead, and then there were footsteps marching off on marble tiles, accompanied by intermittent words of assurance. The voice I recognized as my father’s. Flapping my eyes into sight, I noted that I was sprawled on the cozy daybed in my father’s living room. Seemed I’d been too tired to make it upstairs when Romaine brought me home.
Twisting and stretching my cramped limbs, I looked out of the floor-to-ceiling glass on the right at the setting sun. The cirrus clouds were a kaleidoscope of colors, an effect of the descending sun. The calming feeling of waking up in the Blacksilles’ residence wasn’t one I’d ever tire of.
I got up and plodded to the kitchen where the distant mumbling of my father’s voice traveled from. He seemed to be on his phone. An angry growl sounded from my stomach as I did. Need for food was the cause of its rage.