by Shelly Ellis
Leila’s eyes snapped toward Paulette’s. “I’m sorry for being so nosy. You don’t have to answer that. I just—”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve told you everything else, haven’t I? I could see why you’re wondering.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, Tony seems okay with it—shockingly so. He said he accepted Nate as his son no matter what, and it definitely seems like he means it.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘seems’?” Leila asked, narrowing her eyes at her friend. “Are you saying that you don’t believe him?”
Paulette shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t believe him. I think he really is trying to move on with our lives and wants to be a good father to Nate and a good husband to me. We’re happy together. We’re happier than we’ve been for a long while! He even moved out of the guestroom back into our bedroom. He finally got his mom to give back her key to our home and told her no when she tried to move in so she can come and help me out with Nate. ‘If she wants help, she’ll ask for it, Ma,’ he told her.” She chuckled. “I was so shocked, Lee. He hardly ever stands up to his mama! We’re better than we’ve been in almost a year, since we came back from our honeymoon in Cabo, but something . . . something still doesn’t feel . . . I don’t know . . . right, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he won’t talk about what happened! He doesn’t want to talk about the affair, about me keeping my pregnancy a secret the whole time. He won’t let me utter the name Marques.” She sighed. “I guess some women would be happy that he doesn’t want to bring it up, that he wants to forget. But to me, it doesn’t seem . . . healthy.” She turned slightly on the bench to face Leila. “You know I suggested to him that we go to a therapist or a marriage counselor to make sure that we’re really okay since we’ve been through so much. And he told me no! He said we didn’t need it.”
Leila frowned. “You didn’t need it?”
Of all the couples who needed counseling, Paulette and Antonio needed it the most, in Leila’s humble opinion. She didn’t see how they could have a healthy future if they couldn’t unravel everything that had happened in their tangled past.
Paulette shook her head again. “No, he said we were fine and that we should just . . . just move on. He said that he didn’t know what other secrets might come out if we started babbling to a counselor.”
“What other secrets? But you told him everything, right?”
“Yes! I don’t have anything else to hide! He knows just as much as I know! But he still refuses to talk to someone for . . . for whatever reason.”
Leila pursed her lips. “That’s so strange.”
“I know. But I don’t want to push him. I’ve already put him through so much. I told myself that people heal in their own way and in their own time. This is just his way. I guess I should respect that, right?”
“I . . . I guess.”
Just then, little Nate began to stir, whimpering softly underneath his blanket, curling his tiny hands into tight fists.
“Oh, I think we better get moving,” Paulette said, rising to her feet and leaning toward the carriage. “I don’t want him to start up again.”
“All right,” Leila said, pushing herself upright. It was starting to take more and more effort the further along she got in her pregnancy. “Let’s walk another half mile and then call it a day.”
“Don’t overexert yourself, lady,” Paulette said.
Leila waved off her warning. “Pssh, don’t worry about me!” She dropped her hand to her lower back as they stepped back onto the asphalt. “I can waddle with the best of them.”
Paulette broke down into giggles as Leila started to do an exaggerated waddle like one of the ducks in the nearby pond. “Girl, come on!” She swatted Leila’s shoulder, making her laugh too. “You and your crazy self!”
Chapter 7
C. J.
“So,” Terrence said on the phone, “I’m making reservations online, as we speak, for tomorrow seven thirty p.m. My cursor is hovering over the submit button,” he continued, making her laugh as she leaned back in her office chair and gazed at the grounds of Aston Ministries outside her window. “If you think something might come up . . . if you think your car might break down . . . if you think a tornado might hit and you won’t be able to make it to dinner, speak now or forever hold your peace, Miss Aston.”
“I will make it, Mr. Murdoch! I told you we were going to celebrate your recovery and I meant it!”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured, oozing with incredulity. She had canceled on him the last time he had made reservations for their dinner. This was their second try. “Promises, promises. I know you have a busy social calendar these days.”
“Social calendar? It’s not like I’m going to cotillions and tea parties! I’m going to boring meet-and-greets and sitting in the background while Dad makes speeches.”
“Still . . . doesn’t leave us with much time to do anything together. I feel like a housewife sitting alone at home, staring out the window waiting for hubby to come home from the office.”
C. J. reached for a ballpoint pen sitting on her desk and tapped it restlessly against a notepad. “Well, maybe you could find something to do that could occupy your time while I’m down here . . . something to keep you busy.”
“What? You mean like a hobby? You want me to take up stamp collecting?”
“No! Maybe you could get . . . I don’t know . . . a job, maybe,” she ventured, making him fall silent on the other end of the line.
She knew this was a touchy subject with Terrence. For the past few years, he had been happy to live the life of a wandering playboy, waking up at noon, coming home at dawn, and living the fast life in between while paying his bills solely with the proceeds from the trust fund his father had set up for him. But he was nearing thirty. Shouldn’t he have a bit more ambition, a better sense of direction? His brother Evan was the CEO of a major corporation, for Chrissake! Meanwhile, Terrence spent his days going to the gym, watching TV, playing video games, and lying around in bed with her.
C. J. loved him and wouldn’t change him for the world, but is this what their future would be like if they stayed together, if, hopefully, they got married one day? Would it be her going to a newsroom to pull ten- to twelve-hour days as a reporter only to return home to find him sitting on the couch watching marathon rounds of ESPN? Sure, he still would make ten times more money sitting around on his butt all day than she would from hustling at her newspaper, but it was the principle of the thing.
“I don’t need a job,” he said tightly.
“I know you don’t, honey,” she replied, softening her voice, hoping to placate him. “It’s just—”
“I had a job six years ago, where I would walk around New York all day to show up at casting calls only to get rejected by stuck-up designers who didn’t like my shoulders or my skin tone or the bridge of my nose or some random shit! And when I did get a job, I’d sit around bored for hours in makeup chairs and through fittings. I’ve done that shit, C. J. I don’t wanna do it again!”
“Terry, sweetheart, I’m not saying that you have to. There are other places you can work, like . . . uh . . . uh . . .”
“What? An office? Starbucks? There are people who dream of quitting those jobs! Why the hell would I purposely seek out a nine-to-five to make myself miserable?”
“But you said you have plenty of time on your hands and you need something to keep you busy, right? Maybe Evan could hook you up with something at the company, something that wouldn’t bore you.”
The phone line went silent again, and she started to shift anxiously in her chair. She was pissing him off. She could tell.
“Okay,” she said, setting down her pen, “never mind. Forget I even mentioned it. I was just—”
“What the hell is this?” her brother shouted as he threw open her office door, making her jump in her chair and almost drop her cell phone.
C. J. spun away from the window and the tranquil views of water fountains an
d lush gardens to find Victor’s scowling face drawing closer and closer as he strode toward her desk. She watched as he tossed a folded broadsheet in front of her, slapping it on her desktop, sending her pen holder and stapler crashing to the floor.
“Why the hell would you say this shit to the newspaper?” Victor yelled, glaring at her, his face ablaze with fury.
“C. J., what’s wrong? Who the fuck is yelling at you like that?” Terrence asked angrily on the other end of the line.
“N-no one. I mean . . . I’ll call you back,” she stuttered before hanging up, cutting Terrence off mid-protest.
She set her phone down on her desk and stared up at her brother. “Keep your voice down. The door is still—”
“What was this shit that you pulled in the interview with the Winston-Salem Journal?” he shouted, ignoring her words of warning. He jabbed his finger down at the newspaper in front of her. “If I had known you were gonna say this shit, I never would have sent the reporter to talk to you!”
She shook her head in bafflement. “I . . . I have no idea what you’re talking about, Victor. I didn’t do or say anything wrong. I stayed on message!”
She watched as he snatched up the copy of the newspaper and zeroed in on one of the news stories below the fold. “When asked about the controversy surrounding the paternity of former Aston Ministries employee Rochelle Martin’s baby and whether Rev. Pete Aston is the father, Courtney Aston said she did not ‘feel comfortable speaking on the issue,’” Victor read aloud. “ ‘The baby is supposed to be born any day now, Courtney Aston said. I guess the truth will come out then.’”
He then tossed the newspaper back on her desk.
“Okay?” C. J. raised her hands and her eyebrows. “What was wrong with that?”
“What was wrong with that? What was wrong with that?” he shouted. “You were a reporter, right? You wrote for a living! You understand how words and sentences work, correct?”
C. J.’s lips tightened at her brother’s sarcasm. “Yes, Victor, I understand how they work. But I didn’t know what else to say! I didn’t say the baby was Dad’s! I just said—”
“I read what you said and that’s not the fucking answer you give when someone asks you if our father knocked up his twenty-year-old assistant, you . . . you dumb bitch!” he sputtered, looking like his head was about to explode. “You tell them that it’s a lie . . . that it has to be a lie because the Honorable Reverend Pete Aston would never do such a thing! You swear to it! You—”
“Victor,” a calm voice interjected from the doorway.
They looked in that direction only to find Shaun standing there, leaning inside her office, and fixing them both with a worried gaze.
“Victor,” he continued, “I get that you’re upset. But is all this yelling really necessary?”
“Yes, it’s fucking necessary to get through her thick head! She could’ve—”
“She made an innocent mistake,” Shaun said, surprising her by coming to her defense. “That’s all it was. Cut her a break.”
She watched as her brother ground his teeth so hard she thought sparks might shoot out of his mouth. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths through his flared nostrils. Miraculously, when he opened his eyes again seconds later, he didn’t look quite as furious or terrifying.
“The next time,” he began in a harsh whisper, returning his glower to C. J. and pointing a finger at her, “a reporter asks you a question and you aren’t sure the best way to answer it, you tell them, ‘No comment.’ Understood?”
She nodded. “Understood.”
Victor abruptly turned on his heel to leave her office, and Shaun stepped aside to let him pass. Her brother stalked back down the hall, likely to his own office, where he would unleash his unspent fury on poor Brian, his lover and assistant.
As soon as he left, C. J. slowly exhaled and gave a pained smile at Shaun. “Thank you. Thank you so much for doing that.”
He shook his head. “No problem.”
“It was brave of you. Whenever Victor gets like that, most people want to run for cover.”
“Well,” he said with a shrug, “you forget . . . I’ve known your family for quite a while, C. J. I don’t find them as intimidating as everyone else.”
She laughed halfheartedly as he took a few more steps into her office.
“You seem to be intimidated by me, though,” he said. “I see you in the hallway and you walk the other direction. Ever since we had that lunch together, I’ve gotten the distinct feeling that you’re avoiding me.”
She lowered her eyes and cleared her throat loudly. In all honesty, she had been avoiding him. Ever since he had confessed that he still had feelings for her, she didn’t know how to behave around him. It left her confused because she thought he had moved on, that he was in a serious relationship now. C. J. had even made inquiries to the church’s biggest gossip to confirm that information.
“Oh, honey,” Sister MacIntosh had told her in the church lobby while patting her hand, “Pastor Clancy and that girl, Monica, done broke up more than a month ago! You didn’t know?”
C. J. had shaken her head, making Sister MacIntosh’s eyes widen eagerly when she realized this was a chance to do her favorite pastime: share more gossip.
“Well,” she had said in a breathy whisper, leaning toward C. J.’s ear, “I heard she was ready to get married but he wasn’t ready, on account of . . . well, you know . . . how bad it went between him and you. You know . . . with you leaving him standing at the altar like some poor fool! That girl done gave him an ultimatum and he told her no. He couldn’t do it! Broke her heart, chile! I heard she even left North Carolina and moved on up to Chicago to live with her sister.”
So Shaun had turned down the chance to marry a woman that was right for him only to continue to pine after C. J., whom he had no chance in hell of ever marrying. It made C. J. feel horrible. It made her feel guilty that she couldn’t return his feelings.
She had wanted to tell Terrence about her guilt and ask him how she should approach Shaun, but she had been hesitant to do it. Terrence still acted odd whenever she mentioned Shaun, even though she had told him repeatedly she felt nothing for her ex. She had no idea what he might say if she told him about Shaun’s admitted feelings for her.
“I just . . . I just don’t know how to respond to what you told me that day, Shaun,” she now confessed to him.
“You don’t have to respond!” He leaned down and picked up her stapler and pen holder from the floor, placing both back on her desk. “You told the truth and I told the truth. We put everything on the table. It’s as simple as that.”
“But I . . . I don’t—”
He held up his hand. “I’m not asking for you to declare your love to me. I just told you how I felt. I still think about you. I still care about you and . . . and I’ll always have your back, even when it means taking sides against Victor.”
She sighed. This man was too sweet, too good. He was practically a saint. She wondered why he hadn’t been canonized yet.
“That’s it!” she said with a grin, slapping a hand on her desk. “I’m going to find a nice Christian girl who’s perfect for you. She will make you the happiest man ever, Shaun! I’ll make it my mission to seek her out.”
He nodded and gave her a forlorn smile, not looking remotely like he believed her, and he walked out of her office.
Chapter 8
Terrence
“Terry, you got this, man,” his trainer, Raheem, said while peering down at him from behind the workout bench, his face cloaked by a nest of dreadlocks that looked like tangled vines from this angle. “One more. One more! You can do it.”
Terrence closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, tightened his hold around the steel bar, and pushed upward, lifting the three-hundred-ten-pound bench press bar. His arms shook as he did it. He reminded himself to breathe, to not dare hold his breath or he might pass out.
“You’re doin’ it, man!” Raheem exclaimed. “You’re
doin’ it!”
Terrence held the weight for a few seconds longer before lowering the bar and shifting it back. The weight landed with a loud clang, and Terrence breathed in and out, almost gasping. He opened his eyes, slowly sat up from the weight bench, and wiped at his sweaty brow with the back of his trembling hand. He reached down for his water bottle and squeezed a stream into his mouth. When he looked up, Raheem was grinning ear-to-ear.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about, nigga!” Raheem slapped him on the back. “You couldn’t even do that before the accident! You kickin’ ass and takin’ names!”
Terrence slowly nodded then smiled, too exhausted to join Raheem in his elation.
The truth was that getting his body back to the state it was now had been hard fought and hard won. He could remember the days when doing three reps of a three-hundred-pound bench press had been routine, when he could do an eight-minute-per-mile run for five miles on the treadmill and barely break a sweat. He would hang around with the other guys in the gym, comparing workout routines and talking shit, but he couldn’t do that anymore.
“All right,” Raheem said. “Good work! I’mma see your ass Saturday, right?”
Terrence nodded again and shakily rose to his feet. “Saturday,” he repeated breathlessly before they bumped fists and Raheem slapped his back again.
Terrence slowly made his way out of the weight room and across the gym toward the locker room to seek the hot embrace of the sauna and then take a long, hot shower. As he entered the locker room and neared his locker, he set his water bottle down on one of the wooden benches and yanked his sweat-soaked T-shirt over his head. He raised his water bottle to his lips and squirted another stream into his mouth, letting some of the water dribble down his goateed chin, throat, and chest—too exhausted to care about the mess he was making.
“Good Lord!” someone shouted, making Terrence lower the water bottle from his mouth. “Do that again!”
He turned to find a short, dark-skinned man in a tank top and gym shorts staring at him in awe.