YaYa’s eyes met his, shocked by his kind words. The man kept his eyes focused on the road and for the first time she took him in. He was clad in tailored Ferragamo. His skin was dark as the finest chocolate. He was handsome and the five o’clock shadow he rocked was lined perfectly. His facial expression was stern, serious, and unrevealing. YaYa immediately noticed the qualities of a made man. The expensive watch he wore rested on a tattoo-covered wrist. He was so dark that his ink barely showed. His jawline was strong, his posture confident, the look in his eyes determined. He was a boss and at that moment YaYa was so grateful to fate for sending him to her, even if it was only to act as her getaway driver.
“I don’t have anywhere to go. I can’t go home right now. I don’t have any money on me, but I do have money. If you could let me borrow a few hundred dollars so that I can get a room, I swear to God I’ll pay you back for the inconvenience.”
The man chuckled slightly and gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry about it, ma, I don’t need no paybacks. I think I can manage,” he said in amusement.
Suddenly curious about who he was and why he was being so generous, YaYa asked, “Who are you? Most people would expect something in return.”
“My name’s Ethic and I’m certainly not most people. Now dry your pretty eyes, ma, I’ll take you somewhere where you can clear your head and rest up.”
Chapter 5
The black trails that ran down her cheek revealed her misery and YaYa shook her head in disgrace as she ran hot water over the hotel’s towel. She wiped away her makeup knowing that if she didn’t it would only run with her tears. She was an emotional wreck.
Knock. Knock.
She turned and opened the bathroom door. “I brought you some food and a change of clothes, you look like you’re about a size eight,” Ethic said.
She gave him a half-hearted smile and replied, “You’re incredibly nice, thank you so much for”—she paused for a beat—“sticking around.”
“It’s nothing, really. I’m glad I could help. If my daughter was in your shoes, I’d want someone to do the same,” he said politely. “I paid for two nights and my card is on file so you can order food and whatever else you need. That should give you enough time to clear your head before going home. I’m sorry this day didn’t go like you would have wanted it to. You would have made a beautiful bride, ma.”
The gentle way in which he spoke to YaYa melted her, bringing tears to her eyes. She was holed up, hiding out of embarrassment from her fiancé. The last thing she wanted to do was be alone.
“Ethic?” she called after him just as he reached the door to the suite.
“Can you stay?” she asked. “I mean . . .” She cleared her throat. “I could really use the company right now.”
Ethic checked his watch and YaYa could sense that she was holding him up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t even know me. You don’t have time for this type of crazy. Please go. I’m fine.”
He paused as he stared at her sympathetically. YaYa shook her head and led him toward the door. “I’m okay, I promise,” she assured. “You’ve done more than enough. As long as you don’t mind me ordering a bottle of the best champagne to celebrate my non-union,” she shot sarcastically, giving him her best smile. Although she was trying her hardest to convince Ethic, he wasn’t buying her act.
“I know this doesn’t mean much coming from a stranger, but the nigga who left you like this on your wedding day isn’t a very smart man,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her cheek before making his exit.
“What the fuck was that?” Indie yelled as he forced Parker into his hotel suite. “I haven’t seen you in eight years, P, and you march your pretty ass in on my wedding day and blow up the joint?” He was furious and confused as he pinched the bridge of his nose while bowing his disgraced head.
“You still think I’m pretty, huh?” Parker said with a slight smile.
“Don’t start that shit with me, Parker. This isn’t a game. Do you know what you just did?” he asked. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of cognac.
“I do know, Indie. I stopped the love of my life from marrying someone else. You don’t belong with her, Indie. You’re mine and you’ve always been mine,” she said. “We have a child.”
“What?” Indie shot in confusion.
A knock at the door interrupted the conversation as Elaine peeked her head inside. She held baby Skylar in her arms.
“Great,” Parker said as threw up her arms, exasperated. Elaine had never been her biggest fan.
“I’m sorry to interrupt . . .”
“Sure you are,” Parker mumbled under her breath. Elaine cut her eyes at Parker giving her a cold stare before turning to Indie. “You need to go find YaYa, son,” she said. “I can handle this situation. Go find her now.”
“Indie, I came to speak with you not your mother,” Parker insisted.
Indecision danced through him. He didn’t know what to do. His past and his future were playing tug of war with his heart. How could he not want to hear Parker out? He had loved her for such a long time. If she indeed had given birth to his child she deserved his full attention as she explained herself. On the other hand, YaYa was his present and his future wrapped into one. Now he was being forced to choose between them. “I have to go. I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere,” Indie said sternly. He turned to Chase who had entered the room. “See to it that she doesn’t.”
He nodded as Indie rushed to find his bride.
“Chase, would you take the baby downstairs and get her some food? She has to be starving by now,” Elaine said. “All of that reception food shouldn’t go to waste. Fix her a plate and if there are any guests still here, tell them they are welcome to eat before going home.”
He hesitated as he looked at Parker.
“I’ve got this,” Elaine guaranteed.
Chase took Sky from the room and once the two women were alone she turned to Parker.
“You clean up well,” Elaine said with tight lips as she took the young woman in. She had always been a beautiful girl. Her ebony skin was smooth like silk and held not one mark or scar. Her hair was big as her natural curls framed her lovely face. Her eyes were a shade of brown so light that they seemed mystical, as if she had the power to read straight through bullshit. She huffed as she stared Elaine down with a bent brow of disdain. The Chanel bag she carried to accessorize her Yves Saint Laurent pencil skirt and high-crop sweater was statement enough. Parker had arrived and she wasn’t leaving anytime soon; at least not until she had gotten what she had come back for.
“Same old Elaine,” Parker scoffed as she crossed her arms.
“What are you doing here?” Elaine spewed nastily through clenched teeth. “I paid you good money to stay away from my son.”
“Yeah, well twenty thousand dollars wasn’t enough to keep me away when my child started asking me why all of the other boys on his basketball team have dads but he doesn’t,” Parker shot back while fighting back emotion. She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “Your money won’t get rid of me this time. I was young and easily manipulated back then. I’m a grown woman now and my son deserves to know his father. You and I both know that if I had stayed in New York, he would be married to me. We were supposed to be a family and I realize that now. So no matter what you say or do, I’m not leaving town until I explain myself to him and once he hears the entire story, the true story, we both know that he’ll come running back to me . . . where he belongs.”
Parker stormed past Elaine bumping her shoulder on the way out and leaving Elaine speechless. Elaine was so shaken that she had to reach out to hold the chair in front of her to steady herself. Her hand covered her mouth as she slowly lowered herself to a seated position. Before today she hadn’t thought about Parker in quite some time. In fact, ever since Indie had brought YaYa to her house, she had not given Parker a second thought, but now it seemed that her house of lies was about to come crashing to the ground. As she sc
rolled through her memory she reevaluated the decisions that she had made eight years ago. She knew that nothing could stay hidden forever and the truth was about to come to light. Elaine only hoped that Indie would understand, but as she thought back on the things she had done she already knew that her son would never forgive her. Her sins were just too great.
Chapter 6
Parker and Indie’s past
“This is some bullshit,” Parker mumbled as she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her down coat. The holes that were in the pockets did little to provide warmth, but it was better than letting the freezing elements bite at her delicate hands. New York’s winters were brutal and Parker was at its mercy as she made her way to her evening job. The book bag she wore on her back slowed her down as she made her way through the slush and dirty snow. The eleven blocks from her Queens apartment to the dingy hotel where she worked nights felt like a marathon on nights like this. It seemed as though she would never arrive. She made it a minute before her shift began and she clocked in right before the clock struck 12:01 a.m.
“Cutting it kind of close there, girl,” Big Jim, the manager, said as he sat eyeing her with a scowl of irritation. She was usually half an hour early, which allowed Big Jim to leave ahead of schedule and spin the block, trolling for his evening blowjob before he made his way home to his naïve wife.
“I’m right on time,” she replied in a sing-song voice as she maneuvered around the forty-something overweight white man. Her boss was a real ass, but he was the only person who had given her a real job. She had been working for him ever since her freshman year way before she was even legal to work. He had paid her under the table. $200 per week. It wasn’t much but to Parker it was everything. It kept clothes on her back and food in her stomach during hard times. She lived in a household with three sisters, all older, and a mother who had bore them so young that she seemed like a fourth sibling. In her home everybody fended for self. Each one of her sisters had learned that their well-being was their own responsibility. As Parker watched her mother rotate men in and out of her bedroom just to make ends meet, Parker knew that it wasn’t an option for her. So instead of tricking with the older dudes on her block, or manipulating men for money like her sisters, she got a gig. From midnight to 6:00 a.m. she worked six nights a week, only to get dressed in one of the vacant hotel rooms and report to school by 7:45 sharp. She spent more time at the sleazy hotel than she did in her own house. Yes, it was low paying, and yes, she was tired all the time, but it was an honest job and she didn’t have to lie on her back or beg a nigga to throw her cash when she needed something. That alone made the job worth it.
“What happened to eleven-thirty, toots?” Big Jim fussed.
“You don’t pay me to get here at eleven-thirty. You pay me to be here at midnight. I’m here. Good night, Big Jim,” she said. Big Jim mumbled his complaints as he walked out of the door, leaving Parker to man the hotel alone.
She pulled out her schoolbooks and opened them up as she began to do her homework. It wasn’t long before the words turned into a blur before her and she fell asleep right at the front desk.
“Yo, shorty,” she heard as a knock on the desk caused her to pop up in surprise. Her eyes shot to the clock and then at the face of the group of people in front of her. “You sleeping on the job and shit,” the guy said as he stood with his arm draped around a pretty girl in a short skirt and stiletto heels. “You got a little slob on your cheek, shorty.”
The girl and the group of people behind him laughed at her expense. This wasn’t unusual. They were the beautiful people. They were the hustlers and the fly girls of the block with their designer clothes and flashy cars. She wouldn’t doubt that they bled gold if someone told her so. She saw how they blew through money like it was nothing and while her sisters desperately chased after those types of dudes, she avoided them like the plague. Parker knew that there was a cost to pay to be on the arms of a hustler. She saw it day in and day out in her neighborhood. A nigga could take the prettiest girl on the block and make her a hood star overnight, only to toss her to the side when he was done and move on to the next. Parker had told herself that it would never happen to her, which was easier said than done because niggas wasn’t checking for her like that. She wasn’t a hot commodity yet. Her style wasn’t in. Her clothes weren’t marked with multiple labels nor her face drew on like a clown and she definitely refused to burn her fingers every day trying to straighten the messy curls of her hair. The most that she wore was a coat of lip gloss and a few swipes of mascara, the rest of that shit was for the birds. She wasn’t fishing and she wasn’t using herself as bait so she was often overlooked despite the fact that she was nothing but purely beautiful.
“You’re a funny guy,” she replied. “You want a room or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, give me two rooms, sleeping beauty,” the guy cracked. He was full of jokes and the girls who were hanging off of his every word found him most amusing.
“Leave the girl alone, Bay,” one of the other guys said as he ended his call on his cell phone. He stepped to the front desk and pulled out a large knot of cash. “How much we owe you?”
“Two hundred dollars,” she said. He slid the money across the counter and noticed the books she was reading.
“You’re in college or something?” he asked.
“High school,” she said.
He looked at the clock and frowned. “It’s two in the morning, ma. What’s a high school student doing working this late?
“I don’t have the luxury to sleep. It’s school and work, work and school. If I don’t work I don’t eat today, if I don’t finish school I don’t eat tomorrow. So I do both to make sure I don’t ever starve,” she replied.
The guy smiled. “I never heard a chick talk like that, shorty. You got something going on up here,” he said as he pointed to his own temple. “That’s real dope.”
“Yo, what the fuck, bro? Get the keys and let’s go. You and shorty blowing my vibe,” Bay said as he now had his arms draped around not only his girl, but the other one as well.
Parker handed him the room keys. “You’re all set,” she said.
“Thanks, shorty,” he replied. He pointed to the books as he backpedaled away from the desk. “Get back to it.” He gave her a wink and she smiled a rare smile as she watched him walk down the hall. She looked at the copy of his license that she had made and read his name: “Indie Perkins.”
The memory of Parker’s first encounter with Indie caused her lips to turn up in a faint smile. She remembered it like it was yesterday. The baggy clothes, the cocky attitude he possessed . . . She had thought he was a typical d-boy but he had quickly shown her otherwise. She walked into the ballroom where Indie’s wedding had taken place. It was beautiful and as she looked around tears accumulated in her eyes. He had spared no expense. Every single decoration was arranged perfectly, down to the Swarovski crystals that hung from the ceilings, making it feel as if the room sparkled. A piece of her felt guilty that she had interrupted such a lavish ceremony, but the part of her that thought of Indie every single day had pushed her to go and get her man. Not a day had gone by since Elaine had chased her out of town, that she didn’t miss Indie. He consumed her thoughts and when she closed her eyes it was him who met her in her dreams. She had tried the dating thing and had even gotten a few marriage proposals, but whenever things got too serious with anyone, Parker cut it short. The heart wants what the heart wants and hers had always wanted Indie Perkins. She hated the fact that he had obviously moved on, but she had faith that the love that they shared was not one-sided. She knew what Indie felt for her. It had been so strong back in the day that she was confident that once the shock of her reemergence wore off, he would realize that those same feelings were still inside of him. For Parker the love had never gone dormant, it was very much alive and when she saw him standing at the top of the aisle with another woman, she knew . . . she knew that she wasn’t leaving New York without him.
Parker ma
de her way to the front of the ballroom but was shocked to find Indie sitting with his head bowed in the front row.
“I’m probably the last person you want to see,” she said. She noticed the cell phone that he gripped tightly in his hands. “She isn’t taking your call?” She was sympathetic to Indie’s plight. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but she couldn’t let him go through with the wedding, not before giving her a chance to explain. If he wanted to marry someone else after she spoke with him then fine, but today . . . today no nuptials were going down. She didn’t mean to be a bitch, but she only got one shot at life and she desperately wanted a love like Indie in hers.
Indie looked at her in frustration and then confusion. “I waited for you for four years, Parker. I put my shit on hold for you, froze off my heart but you never came back. You didn’t call, write, text, none of that and on the day that I’m supposed to marry my girl you show up . . .”
“I saw the announcement in the paper and it broke my heart,” she admitted. “I don’t want you to make a vow to God to love anyone other than me. We were supposed to be forever,” she said.
“Yeah, until you blew town,” he shot back as he shook his head from side to side. “Now it’s too late. I’m with somebody.”
“I didn’t just blow town, Indie. Your mother paid me to leave because I was pregnant. We have a son. He’s seven,” Parker revealed.
She had envisioned this moment for years. She had wondered how Indie would react, if he would be angry . . . but in all the ways that she had imagined this going down she never expected to see utter devastation on his face. Her nerves danced frantically as she fiddled with her fingers anxiously.
“Indie, say something,” she whispered.
“Where is he? This kid that you claim belongs to me?” he asked.
Love & War Page 5