“Of course, I’ll accept your ring.” I kissed him back as he stood up and leaned in for a tender moment. Breaking the kiss, I said, “Thank you, Mav. You’ve made me happier than you’ll ever know. For years I have dreamt of this moment, and you’ve just made all of those dreams come true. Now, will you go to the security office with me? I don’t have the strength to face James alone.”
“As long as there is breath in my body, you will never have to face him alone again. Lead the way baby.” He took my hand in his and walked me towards my office door.
After talking to security and pressing charges against James, I quickly cleaned off my desk and Maverick and I left my office. The CEO personally stood in on the security meeting and suggested that I take the rest of the night off and the week if I needed it. I would definitely take the time off once I closed the deal I was working on.
Linda was sitting at her desk when I exited my office. “Linda, please forward all calls to your cell for the weekend, and only call me if there is an emergency that you can’t handle. We’ll get back on this proposal first thing Monday.”
“Sure thing. Do you need me to do anything else?”
“No, that will be all.”
“Oh, Gladys… I’m so sorry he got in…” She began to explain how James got into the office, but I cut her off.
“Don’t worry about it, Linda. Have a nice weekend.”
“You too,” she said dropping her head back down into the work in front of her as I walked by. She really had no reason to feel bad, because James was the one who was the asshole. I knew what it felt like to be made to feel like it was somehow your fault that he did the inexplicable, so I turned back around to address her concern.
“Linda, James is the one with the problem, not us. Thank you for being there to call security for me, and thank you for taking care of everything while I am gone.” I touched her hand, and she looked up at me. A moment passed between us, and she smiled at me.
“You’re welcome, Gladys. Have a wonderful weekend.”
With a real man at my side, we walked out of the office, hand in hand.
***
During the week after I had first left James, the kids and I stayed with my mother. That whole week, Mav and I had spoken on the phone every night and had decided to take it slow. That was until he showed up at my job with the promise ring and a U-Haul expecting to move me to Florida.
After the display that he witnessed in my office, he said that he definitely would not spend another day or night without being close to me, so that he could protect me. What he didn’t know was that I had been busy on my own end preparing to be closer to him, too! I had already talked to the CEO of Naytek and negotiated opening a new office in Miami. Once those plans were final, I’d planned to rent an apartment downtown, so that I could be nearer to my true amor. I didn’t want the kids to be too traumatized with me leaving their father and moving in with a new man so fast. So, while I wanted to move in with him more than I wanted my next breath, for the kids’ sake, I decided to continue to take things slow.
Once at mom’s house, I greeted Nazaria and Kelvin in their makeshift play room, which had previously been Mother’s sewing room. She had quickly rearranged the room for them when we moved in, so that they could have a place to play. My babies were playing quietly, and Mother was right by their side, attempting to read a book. I stood in the doorway and watched them play for a few minutes, taking in the essence of three of the most important people in my life. At that moment, I was full of peace, serenity, hope, and encouragement. Finally, they had the harmony they deserved. I had the love that I’d always craved, and with Maverick, I had all the joy my heart could muster.
Sure, my not-so-typical journey to happiness had bumpy roads – lots of them. Yet, each bump was necessary for my ultimate outcome. I wouldn’t be the strong woman that I was without going through all that I had went through with James. Each blow that he had dealt me had taught me something new about myself. I had learned what a resilient person I could be. I had learned that I could go through the very worst storm and come out the other side better than ever.
I had to learn the hard way that the companionship I’d been searching for had come back in a full three sixty – the circle of life. I’d lost Maverick once before, and I didn’t plan to do it again. We are not all lucky enough to be granted second chances, but fate had deemed me worthy enough to get mine. I’d come to the conclusion that beautiful beginnings (like past relationships that we thought had run their course) still hold beauty in the end, if it was in fact ever beautiful at all. Deciding to cherish every moment spent with Maverick, I knew the kids and I were going to have the time of our life that weekend and would continue to do just that, forever.
Chapter 26
Rhonda
The day after my doctor’s appointment, I was itching to tell everyone who would listen the news of my little bundle of joy that was on the way. I’d already called my mother to tell her, along with a host of other family members. I hadn’t gotten around to telling Gladys and the two most important people, Shayla and Titus. Pretty much, I was sick and tired of tiptoeing around Shayla, and I was way past ready to deliver the news to my beloved Titus. I had dialed his cell phone more than a few times in the past few days with no answer. Although I knew that he was dealing with the pressing issues that he had with Big Shirley, all of the violence directed in his direction, and attending to his wife, the information that I had to put in his ear would top it all.
After the fifth unanswered call to his cell in the past hour, I decided to leave a voice message. “Titus, baby, I really need to talk to you. I have some great news for you… for us. Be safe out there, babe, and call me as soon as you can.”
I pressed END on my cell phone, plopped down onto my bed, and rubbed my stomach. There is really a growing baby inside of me, I thought, smiling at the reality of carrying Titus’ child. My smile only faded when I thought about my best friend. I thought of all of the memories that we shared, all of the times that we had went shopping together, worn each other’s clothes, popped popcorn at three in the morning, or fixed each other’s hair for a date. All of those precious memories flashed through my mind as I contemplated sending Shayla a text message to let her know that I was pregnant with her husband’s baby. Even with all of the happiness I was feeling, along with the blessing growing inside of me that I wanted to share with the world, I didn’t have the courage to dial her number to deliver the words that would devastate her life as she knew it woman to woman. But as my hand traveled over the contours of my stomach, I came to the realization that I had a bigger priority than Shayla to worry about now. I had to think of the baby. I had to send her the text and let her know, so that Titus and I could effectively start our life together. Of course I would have rather have told T before Shayla, but if he was out of contact, I couldn’t wait forever. The sooner the better, as they say.
“Oh, well, here goes nothing,” I whispered into the quietness of my bedroom. I pulled out my Blackberry and composed the message that I knew would impact my friend’s life in a massively negative way. I felt a feeling that I hadn’t felt during all of the nights of hot passion and morning quickies I’d had with her husband – guilt.
Dear Shayla,
I want you to believe me when I say that I truly hate to inform you of something of this magnitude in a text message, but I really don’t think I can talk to you about this right now. Titus and I are in love; we really are. I want you to know that I still love you like a sister, BUT I love Titus (and always will) in a way that I have never loved another person. I hope it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that he and I are having a baby together. I just found out that I was pregnant, and he is definitely the father. I hope that in some way we can find a way to reconcile our friendship, so that you can be in the baby’s life as a Godmother. We always said that when we each had children that we would be each other’s children’s Godmother. I don’t want the fact that this is Titus’ child to chang
e that. I do regret that things turned out the way that they did, but as you once said, we can’t help who we love. Titus and I will be together in the end. I know that for sure. I wish you all the best. Always, Rhonda.
P.S. Call me when you are ready to talk about this.
I pressed SEND on my phone without a moment’s hesitation, and the message went off into text messaging oblivion, soon to arrive on my ex-best friend’s cell phone exposing all of my dirty little secrets. I was comforted by the thought of the wholesome honesty and purity that would grow from this one action. No more lies. No more games. No more frontin’. Everything was on the line for all involved to take note, deal with it, and hopefully move on peacefully. I exhaled a sigh of relief as the message uploaded and cleared my cell phone’s screen. At that moment, my complete hand was exposed, but I was keeping it real with my sister. Wasn’t I?
Suddenly, I sat up on the edge of the bed and felt like I was getting a little lightheaded. The air seemed to be filling my lungs too slowly to provide oxygen to my brain as fast as I needed it. I felt my heart pounding like a bass drum in my chest. My eyes grew wide as I looked over at the Blackberry in a panic anticipating her response. She didn’t send me one.
There was no turning back now. The message had been sent and delivered. No matter how I tried to console myself with good feelings and beliefs, I knew that I had unequivocally let my friend down. Some old woman once told me that the truth would set me free, but at that very moment I begged to differ. I felt like a bird locked in a cage singing the chain gang blues, wishing, and hoping to one day be free of the sins I’d accumulated over the years. All of those nights I had laid in the dark with her man, enjoying the fruits of her labor, and not caring the least bit how my actions would affect her. I hadn’t even thought about all of the years that she had looked out for me when my own mother had tossed me aside.
With that thought, a feeling of utter shame came over me. My gaze fell to the floor, and I could feel my shoulders hunching up and down. I didn’t realize I was crying until uncontrollable tears soaked my shirt. Was I really crying about indulging in an affair that I craved so badly? Was Titus’ baby growing in my stomach a reason for sorrow? Was the message I’d just sent to my friend truly in the best interest of everyone involved? I thought sending her the message would make me feel better, but if that was true, why did I feel like I’d just been hit by a transfer truck?
Chapter 27
Titus
Lee County don’t be trippin’ once you hit the county! It was one month after I had gotten locked down in that hell hole of a jail cell, and I had gone through a hell of a lot of money on my books, with red tape, pre-trials, court hearings, and lawyer fees. Even though I had set myself up where my hands were practically clean of any actual murders or any proven drug deals, the DA was trying to stick every crime in the city from the last five years in my file. The cops, lawyers, and judges that I thought for sure I had in my pocket were all talking that same shit about their hands being tied. What had I paid them all of these years for? I made a memo to fire all of their fake people-in-high-places asses, like yesterday.
My lawyer that I’d been down with since day one, Klint Kasashki, eventually had to call in a slick cat attorney from Chicago to figure out the loopholes in my case. I realized that it wasn’t until the shit really hit the fuckin’ fan that you found out who you really had on your team, after all. It was only then that I finally was able to get out on a one-million-dollar bond. A million dollars! That bond put a serious dent in my cash flow that already seemed to be dwindling away due to some numbers from the streets that just were not adding up right since I’d been gone. Nevertheless, I was fresh out of the county and ready to get back to business.
When I was escorted up to the front to check out, I noticed my cousin, Jay, standing at the release counter to pick me up. I asked him, “What’s up, my nig? Yo, where is Lil’ Red?” Ever since the fiasco had taken place with Street and Big Shirley, I had sent word from lockup that my next-in-command, Lil’ Red, was supposed to be watching over my business. Now that the money had been funny, my change was strange, and that nigga hadn’t even shown up to scoop me from jail, I knew there was some serious business to take care of on the home front. It was back to the grind, showin’ niggas that a nigga like T wasn’t to be fucked with. These punks was always looking for any opportunity to mess with your paper and your power, and as Street had demonstrated, it didn’t take much to get them to betray you.
“He had some urgent business to take care of, so he sent me,” Jay said, looking as if he had something real serious on his mind. He avoided eye contact and tapped his cigarette box onto his hand. Taking out a cigarette, he lit it and took a long drag. As I looked at him suspiciously, he asked the woman behind the counter, “Is he good to go?” I was getting all kinds of bad vibes from my couzan, because he normally didn’t act funny like that. He knew I would be wanting some answers, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
She ignored him and continued to punch the keys on her keyboard. Once she said, “You’re free to go, Mr. Wilson,” I immediately asked Jay, “What kind of business could Lil’ Red have had to take care of that he couldn’t come and pick me up?”
Jay simply shrugged as we walked out of the building to the car. This shit was smellin’ real foul. Somebody was going to come up with some answers in this piece. I hopped in the driver’s side of my SC10 and peeled out of the courthouse parking lot with a gang of unanswered questions dangling in the air. I had so much business on my mind that I didn’t know which direction to go in first.
I guessed that the first thing I needed to do was find Lil’ Red and find out what was good with the business, like my paper, and then collect all the loose money that was floating around with my generals. It wasn’t going over my head that Jay sat there on the passenger seat, quietly looking out of the window puffing on that cigarette like it was the last one ever made. He was a ticking time bomb, but what the fuck was on his mind?
I looked over at him for a good minute once we hit the stop light, and I knew that he was feeling uncomfortable. Wasn’t no way that he didn’t feel my eyes boring into his skull. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light turn green. The car behind me blared their horn, then skidded out from behind my car and shot past us on the left. I sat right where I was, with my foot pressing hard on the brake, looking dead at Jay. He looked up at the light, then quickly looked at me with questions behind his eyes. I returned his look with one of my own. We wasn’t going nowhere fast until I got some goddamn answers. As far as I was concerned, we could sit there all motha fuckin’ day. My cuz knew that I wasn’t up for no funny business type shit. He’d better start talking fast.
Finally, he took a deep breath. One last drag off of his cigarette, and Jay let go of what had been bothering him. “Shayla is gone, man.”
He had been watching my house for me while I was in jail, as he had been instructed to do. I didn’t know if someone from the families of the men who had gotten shot during the Big Shirley incident would take it upon themselves to retaliate against my family while I was locked up, so I couldn’t be too careful. In the process of watching my place, he had noticed that Shayla had moved her things out of our home and wasn’t at my niece, Tanya’s, house either. Come to find out, he had just gotten word the day before, through a good source, that she had an apartment in Columbus and some Spanish mother fucker had helped her move.
I paused, taking in the silence for a minute. Jay looked back out of his window.
“Yeah, right, my nigga! That’s not a good attempt at telling a joke.” I cracked a little giggle, just to make him feel good for trying to amuse me. I started the car rolling forward again, turning my head forward towards the road. I kept waiting for him to get to the punch line, or at least tell me that if she had moved, she was smoking crack, as well. I knew good and well that my wife had to be on something serious if she thought that the news of her letting some random dude pack her up and move her to another ci
ty was going to go over without repercussions. That’s when I remembered that she’d only been to the jailhouse to see me twice the whole time I was in county. I didn’t find it too strange at the time, because I had told her not to worry about coming to visit me and to hold herself together until I got out. I assured her that everything would be all right and told her to keep living her life. Little did I know that living her life apparently meant living it – without me.
On the other hand, once Rhonda had found out where I was, she was up there every chance she got for visitation. One of my boys had hipped her to what had happened once I had thought about it enough to tell them to inform her. I knew that she would have been worried about a nigga, and I was right. She told me that she had been trying to call and text me for weeks to tell me the big news.
That was one thing about Rhonda. I knew that she cared, and she always kept it 100. When I thought about it, we’d been fuckin’ around for years, and she’d never been with another nigga, as far as I’d known. No matter what bullshit I had thrown at her, she had been there for a nigga – even though I was married and always kept Shayla at the forefront of all of my thoughts. I had to give her credit for that. I never had to second-guess where Ronnie’s loyalty lied. In fact, I probably would have been more surprised if Jay had been telling me that she was seeing someone else while I was in lockdown. Wasn’t that some shit?
I realized that I was so caught up in the drama about me and Rhonda’s baby that I hadn’t even thought about what Shayla was up to. I was just happy that Shayla wasn’t aware of that shit. I don’t know what I would have done if my wife had found out that we were expecting a child while I was away in jail, not able to comfort her and let her know that I was…
Shit! What if Rhonda told her about the baby? I slammed my fist into the steering wheel, causing Jay to jump in his seat.
Secrets of a Kept Woman (Volume 1) Page 20