“Why didn’t they just call me? Brick added me to the list of contacts when he introduced me to the staff.”
There was a long pause on the line before Olivia finally answered.
“I see. Well, when you go to pick him up, I’m sure you will handle it as you see fit.”
Olivia ended the call. There was no doubt in her mind why the staff at the private school chose to ignore who Lakyta was. She felt the sting of guilt when she acknowledged she had for a very long time, acted the same way.
**
“May I help you?” asked the middle-aged woman behind the front desk.
“I’m here to pick up McCormac.”
“I didn’t call you.”
“No, you didn’t, even though his father added me to the list of contacts,” Lakyta pointed out.
“Yes, but we only call family first.”
Lakyta glanced past the woman to find the other women in the office looking on. They did nothing to hide their dislike for her.
“Well, I’ll be Brick’s wife very soon, so that will make me family.”
“Maybe,” the woman sneered.
Lakyta opened her mouth, but clamped it shut at the sight of McCormac.
“Are you alright?”
She placed her hand upon his forehead to see if it was hot.
He placed his hand in hers. “Can we go home, Ma?”
She hid her shock at his choice of name for her.
“Yeah,” she smiled and began to walk out the office.
“It’s a shame they have that boy going around calling the maid his mother,” tsk’d the woman.
McCormac squeezed Lakyta’s hand to tell her not to say anything. For his sake, she opened the glass door to leave.
He paused, turned around and spoke, “Fuck you and all you bitches,” he shouted.
Stunned, she pushed him into the hallway.
“You have to stop that,” she stated in the most motherly voice that she could muster.
“Well, that’s what they are!”
“I know, but you’re too young to say it.” She tilted her head. “You really aren’t sick.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Nah,” he sighed, getting in the car. “I don’t want to go to this school anymore,” he mumbled.
“Because of me,” she sighed.
“No, they were mean to me way before you came,” he admitted.
Lakyta turned in her seat to face him. “Okay, I’m listening,” she said, tossing the keys on the dashboard.
He looked like an English little boy in his uniform which was tan shorts, a white short sleeved shirt, with a light blue vest. His tennis shoes swung back and forth while he worked up the courage to speak.
“A few people know my mother. They know that she sold me for money, an—”
“She sold you?” she repeated, doubtfully.
“Yeah, she didn’t want me, so she sold me to my dad for a lot of money,” he cried.
Now she understood.
“So that’s why you asked me about mean people and bullies,” she finished for him.
“I tried to do what you said, but it’s really hard…you know,” he sniffled as a tear ran down his cheek.
Lakyta hung her head while she thought of what to say. She wanted to say something moving and profound, or soothing, but she was coming up short.
“It does hurt, McCormac. You want to know what the bad thing about it is? That we can’t do anything about it. Those women in that office know who I am. They know that I’m not a maid, but they don’t care. They like being bit…um, nasty. I could be the nicest person in the world, and they would still treat me like crap.”
“Then, what do we do?” he begged to know, turning to face her at last.
“We do nothing. If we did, we would always be in trouble. We would only be hurting ourselves worrying about what they did. So, we just move out of their way, and move on,” she shrugged.
She didn’t want him to make the same dumb mistakes she had.
“Does that mean I don’t have to go to school?” he questioned, winking his one eye at her.
She chuckled at his antics. He was way too young for that shit.
“It means that I’ll talk to your father about moving you to a different school. Deal?”
He eyed her outstretched hands. This is the way they always agreed on things from which video games to play, to what movie to watch, to what time he headed off to take his bath. Since Lakyta came, his dad did more things with him. He was allowed him to help with the cooking, too. In his eyes, she was the coolest girl he knew.
“I can’t make the deal with you,” he replied, crossing his arms.
“Why?”
“Because I want to add something.”
Lakyta rolled her eyes. “What else do you want?” she sighed, dropping her hand into her lap.
He pushed his hair out of his eyes. Even down to his haircut, he was a mini Brick.
“I get to call you, Ma and you get to call me Rivean,” he demanded.
“Done,” she shouted, giving his hand a hard shake.
She was so tired at that point, she was willing to agree to anything within reason.
**
From the secret message in her eyes, Brick could only imagine what she had to say to him when he walked into the kitchen that night. Whatever it was, he knew it was something serious. His mind raced over the last few days to see if he should have anything to worry about, and after realizing that there wasn’t anything, he found himself relaxing enough to engage with her and McCormac. He came up behind her, and placed a light kiss on her neck. He kept out of the way while she and her son went about finishing up cooking, which had become their special time together.
Like clockwork, the little boy jumped off his stool to get his seat in time for the next installment of the 4:30 cartoon he never missed. She glanced over at him to ensure he was engrossed in his show before she spoke.
“I picked him up this morning because he pretended to be sick. Did you know he’s been getting bullied at school by the kids because they knew about his mother?”
She could tell by the look on Brick’s face that he had no clue. She went on to tell what McCormac had told her in the car. Then she told him about cursing out the staff, and the reason why, just in case he received a phone call later.
“He did the right thing,” he hissed as he stole a quick glance at his son. “They are a bunch of cock suckers. I’m stopping payment of the second semester check that was mailed out and they can forget about all the annual funds they get from me, my ma, and the corporation sponsorship. I’m moving him to another school,” he thundered in a low voice.
“Well, I told him that he can stay home tomorrow. He and I will have a fun day,” she suggested.
He tilted his head and smiled. He closed the gap between them by sliding his leg forward with the rest of his body following in a slick move. His arms snaked around her waist. He opened his mouth to speak only for her to cut him off.
“Nope,” she said sternly. She was still annoyed with him.
She turned her head, dismissing him. “Rivean, on the next break you need to wash up,” she called out to the little boy, only to let out a painful groan from Brick’s hands biting into her flesh.
“Why did you call him that?”
“Because he told me to,” she cried.
Brick stumbled back as if he had been punched in the gut. “Really, he actually told you to call him by his first name?”
“Yeah,” she nodded her head. “He told me on the first day we met that when we were friends, he would tell me his name,” she explained with a shrug.
Brick continued to looked flabbergasted at her as she washed her hands in the sink. He knew it was much deeper than that for McCormac to have requested for her to call him by a name that no one, anywhere hadn’t used in over two years. His son hadn’t given his hand to her in friendship. He had given her his heart. His thoughts were confirmed over dinner when McCormac referred
to her as Ma which sent Brick into a coughing fit.
Swiftly, he got to his feet and left the table. Things were serious before when it was just his heart involved, but now McCormac had been entered into the mix.
**
The next morning, Brick was surprised that Pike was calling him. The both of them shared a strange connection and the thousands of miles between them couldn’t change that fact.
“Are you calling to tell me that I’m an uncle?”
“Not officially, but you know we’re straight shooters, it’s only a matter of time,” mumbled Pike.
“Okay, since you called, you tell me yours…then it’s my turn,” suggested Brick, with a sigh.
He listened attentively to the plight that his brother was facing with Cashmere. He gave his brother sound advice of what to do. He encouraged him to not give up because it was obvious that Cashmere was in love with him, and now that he knew her secret, he could create a plan to overcome her fears.
“Okay, Brick…your turn, bro.”
Brick then went into his slip of what he was facing on his end. He finished with the event at the school, the revelation concerning McCormac, and everything else that happened at the house last night.
“I just don’t know what to do to get her over her damn fears of letting down her guard.”
“Have you told her that you loved her? Have you really sat her down and told her why you fell so hard and fast for her?”
“Well, I—”
“Cut the bullshit,” snapped Pike. “You can’t play that hand this time, with you hinting off shit because you’re scared to say it. You talk about her having to get over her issues while you have your own sack of shit you keep holding on to. You’ve seen she isn’t like what’s her face, so stop cradling your sack, man. Let them hang and get the shit done,” commanded Pike.
Brick smiled. “That was really hard, but it was needed, I guess,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry. I’m just a raw ball of nerves.”
“Let me guess, those flanges are still kickin’ up dust?”
“Aye, they smashed up Angus’ car the other night,” replied Pike.
By the time he hung up with his brother, Brick was ready to put the period on the thing. He strolled out of his office, informed his assistant that he was leaving for the day, even though it was just 10am, and headed for home. Lakyta was still in her funk, but he was confident that he would come up with something on the way home to get her to listen.
**
Brick decided to lean more to the dramatic side to get her attention. He knew she had said that she was taking McCormac out around noon, so he knew his time was limited. To make sure that his entrance made an impact, he didn’t walk into the house until he had worked up a sweat by doing a few sit-ups in the hot sun. He knew he looked horrible when he walked into the room she and his son were sitting in watching TV.
“Brick,” she said, startled.
He made a big show of rubbing his head. “I think I may have eaten something bad,” he winked.
She rolled her eyes as she sat back in her chair. If he could make his jokes, then he wasn’t that bad off.
“I’ll just go lie down,” he mumbled. He saw his mistake, but it was too late. He lingered for a while before he left. He was still sitting on the side of the bed, thinking, when McCormac came in the room to check up on him.
“Where’s Lakyta?”
“She’s watching TV,” answered McCormac. “You ain’t sick,” he laughed.
“I know that. I just said that to get her attention,” explained Brick.
“Oh, then you aren’t doing it right. You have to moan. You have to really look hurt. You don’t look like you’re hurting, Da.”
“But I am…in here,” admitted Brick, touching his heart.
A toothy grin spread across his son’s face. “You in love with her. Alright, in that case, I’ll help you. You just do what I say, okay?”
They both spoke, and argued in hushed, giddy voices as they formulated a plan before his son ran out the room. Brick jumped up, ripped off his clothes, and ran into the bathroom to wait for the signal. A few minutes later, he heard the two of them coming in the room.
“I’m scared, Ma. He was in the bathroom throwing up, and he has a fever, too” cried McCormac.
Brick shook his fist in the air in frustration. The boy was laying it on too thick. He quickly flushed the toilet, and hobbled out of the bathroom with his hand on his stomach to keep her from coming in the bathroom to check on him. He saw an expression of petty on her face. It was working. That is until McCormac messed it up.
“I’m so sorry. Here, come lay down, baby,” she said as she pulled back the covers for him to get into the bed.
He swatted her hand away when she tried to touch his forehead to check his temp.
“I’ll stay with you to make sure you’re alright,” she spoke, softly.
“That’s a good idea, Ma. I think he has the same thing I had yesterday,” stated McCormac.
Brick hid his gaze behind his lids, but not before he saw Lakyta narrow her eyes and turned to glare at McCormac. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of them.
“I want to make sure you don’t have a fever. I’ll be right back.”
He remained still until she had left the room. When she did, Brick sat up in the bed.
“Are here to help or to mess me up?” he hissed in a hush toned.
“I’m helping you, silly.”
“Oh, then how am I gonna fake a fever?”
McCormac glanced at the lamp on the nightstand.
“That’s easy. Just come up with a way to get her out of the room for a sec,” he ordered. He ran to the lamp, turned it on, and ran back to the spot he had been in when she left.
She strolled back into the room to find them just as she had left them. Brick in bed as if he was dying, with Rivean trying to comfort him.
“Open your mouth,” she demanded, dryly before she put the thermometer into his mouth.
“My throat is really dry…water, please,” he mumbled.
She snatched the cup out of his hand that he kept on the table next to the bed and marched into the bathroom.
McCormac sprang into action. He snatched the thermometer out of his mouth, ran to the lamp, and placed it on the hot bulb.
“Watch the master,” stated McCormac, proudly.
Brick waved his hand to tell him to hurry before he opened his mouth for him to slip it back in. He slumped back into position just in time as she walked back into the room. Brick practically screamed when it touched his tongue. The damn thing was boiling hot.
“Here,” she ordered as she took the thermometer from his mouth while shoving cup into his hand.
“Wow,” she said. “McCormac, go get ready to leave.”
She held the thermometer in front of his face for him to read the numbers that said he should be dead. Tossing it on the table, she began to turn away.
“So, you’re just going to leave me for dead?” he teased, taking hold of her wrist.
“I don’t know why you’re playing these games.”
He sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled her into his open leg, and rested his head on her stomach.
“Well, at least I was able to spend the last days with the woman I’ve been in love with since high school. I can hear the butterflies in your stomach.”
He wasn’t lying; they were fluttering their wings overtime. Her heart was racing. The voice in her mind was screaming, He loves me! He loves me! He LOOOVVVVEEEESSS me!!!!
He glanced up into her face. “Let me help you. This is the time that you tell me that you love me. Or do I have to wait until tonight to hear you whisper it to me in the darkness?” he added in a whisper. He watched her close her eyes.
“Even if you try, I’ll still be here, Lakyta. That’s what a person does that’s in love. I’m never going to leave you.”
He pulled her down onto her knees to cup her face in his hot hands.
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“Open your eyes.”
He waited until she found the courage to obey.
“I know you can see it. I know you’ve been able to see it for a while now.”
The force of his eyes was like a tractor beam making it impossible to glance away.
“I’m so happy that I never had the guts to get with you in high school, cuz I know I would have fucked it up. I wasn’t ready, but now…I’m ready to make love to you, to love you, to give you my everything, so that I can grow old with you. Do you understand?” he asked, shaking her.
Although he asked the question, he knew that she understood. Her mask of indifference had cracked and fallen the second she bore into his eyes. Not being able to look away, this time she did peer deeply into the depths of his eyes, to see his heart that she knew would be there.
He shook his head. “You aren’t getting off that easy,” he groaned, touching his forehead to hers.
“I don’t know what you—”
“Please, Lakyta,” he pleaded painfully, as he began to drop light kisses on her trembling lips.
“I love you.”
If a roach would have farted, he would have missed it, she had said it so low.
She took a ragged breath. “I love you,” she repeated, in a normal, stronger voice.
Sweet Obsessions: His Beauty, Her Beast Page 11