by B. M. Hardin
Maybe it was something else.
I wasn’t sure.
But I was sure that my days of being his side chick were about to come to an end.
With side chick thoughts still on my mind, I started to think about my sister Lee Lee.
I thought about the past.
She had been sleeping with the Pastor of the church we’d grown up in for years.
She was two years older than me, and she’d started sleeping with him when she was only eighteen years old.
And I haven’t respected him since.
I remembered one time, since Lee Lee and I shared a room, he’d come knocking on the bedroom window.
Lee Lee had said that he’d kissed his wife in front of her, and that she didn’t play that, so she had been ignoring him.
I thought that she’d lost her damn mind, but surely enough, there he was, begging her to come out and talk to him.
Mama and Daddy would have killed him if they’d known, but Lee Lee found the whole thing exciting.
No, she didn’t love him or anything like that.
To her, it was just fun.
Until she’d seen his picture and his wife’s on the news with a headline that stated that she’d killed him and another woman after she’d walked in on them having sex in their house and in their bed.
I wasn’t sure if Lee Lee was relieved that it hadn’t been her, or if she had been offended that the pastor had actually been dealing with someone else too.
But either way, I vowed that that would never be me.
I’d told myself that I would never be somebody’s mistress, side booty, other woman or whatever, but that was exactly what I’d become.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts and since Drake was already home with his wife, I knew that it could only be one person.
Kane.
Kane and I were still communicating, a lot and had even exchanged numbers, but I still felt that there could be nothing too serious between us.
Any kind of relationship, other than a friendship, would be breaking all of the rules.
But we were very friendly and our chatting had somehow gone from just talking to touching here and there.
The sexual chemistry was definitely in the air whenever we shared the same space and there was even a little something else there, but I tried to ignore it.
I had to ignore it.
He was so sweet and genuine and it was refreshing whenever I was in his presence.
He was the complete opposite of Drake, but I liked it.
I never thought that I would, but I guess this may have been the case with what Drake had felt with his wife.
I guess opposites somehow do attract.
But no matter what, I didn’t exactly trust him.
Despite what he’d said about his brother, for all he knew, I really had killed him.
He could be out for some kind of payback or have something up his sleeve, so I was always watching.
I could be wrong, but better safe than sorry.
I’d decided not to accept the job at his family’s restaurant.
That was just doing way too much.
But Kane knew someone, that knew someone else and he’d gotten me a payroll position at one of the food supplier companies that serviced him.
My first day was Monday, and I was a nervous wreck.
I hadn’t told Dray about the job yet, and I was sure that he was going to have plenty to say and even question as to how I’d gotten the job, considering my background and all, but that was none of his business.
Financial independence was the first step to being free; and I had Kane to thank for that.
I’d briefly spoken to Kane one day when I’d gone down to check the mail and told him about Mama.
The words that he’d said to me were so soothing and comforting and if I wasn’t careful, soon, his age to me, would be nothing but a number.
And my past fake relationship with his dead brother would somehow magically erase from my memory.
He just had that effect on me.
“I just came up to see how you were doing. I was headed here earlier, but you had company walking through the door just as I was headed down the hall,” Kane said.
“Oh, that was…”
“None of business. Don’t worry about it. I just came by to check on you, considering, well you know. But you look much better,” he said, and turned to leave.
“Do you want to come in and talk or something for a little while?”
Why in the hell did I just say that?
What was I thinking?
Oh well, there was no taking it back now.
“No, that’s okay.”
His answer caught me by surprise.
I was expecting him to jump at the opportunity.
We always chatted in the halls or common area, but we’d never been inside each other’s places.
I mean, as much as we flirted, I guess I just thought that…
Well, I guess it really didn’t matter what I’d thought.
“Besides, your guest is back,” Kane said and nodded his head.
What?
Who?
Drake?
What the hell was he doing back?
He was supposed to be at home with his wife, yet he was standing there in gym shorts and a t-shirt, looking like he was ready to snap Kane’s neck.
And mine too.
Kane headed down the hall, unbothered, and Drake approached me in silence.
I moved aside for him to come in and I waited for him to say something.
“Who was that Moe?”
I was surprised that he didn’t recognize him.
Even I knew that I knew his face when I’d first seen him.
Then again, I was around Mario’s family back then, while I was playing my part, so maybe Drake didn’t know who he was.
“Nobody.”
“He sure as hell didn’t look like nobody! I’ll beat the hell out of you Moet. Don’t play with me.”
What?
“You don’t own me Dray. So I can be you side bitch…but you can’t be my side nigga?”
No sooner than the last word rolled off of my lips, Drake had me by my neck up against the wall.
“Can’t be and won’t be. You belong to me, you understand me?”
Drake was choking me and I felt as though I was about to tap out, so I started to tap on his arm.
He eased up.
“I came all the way back over here to stay with you tonight because you asked me to and to show you that I was here for you and to let you know that I’m for real. But I wish I would. But I’ll be wrong if I smacked the shit out of you right? Whatever Moe, I’m going back home to my wife,” Drake growled and slammed the door behind him.
Once I caught my breath, all I could do was cry.
He’d actually come back to stay with me.
I couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t help but wonder what lie he’d told her to leave and I wondered why he’d never done it before if it had been that easy to be able to stay out all night.
Maybe he was serious.
I called his phone a few times but he didn’t answer.
I texted him and even cried on his voicemail but that didn’t work either.
He never answered.
Frustrated I grabbed my keys.
I guess I was going to ride by his house or just ride around to cry and feel sorry for myself, but before I could head out the door, my phone started to ring.
I hurried to pick it up from the table, thinking that it was Drake but it wasn’t.
It was Kane.
I sat down and looked at it.
I needed to go and try to get Dray to forgive me.
Kane was the reason that he was mad at me in the first place.
The phone stopped ringing and then it immediately started ringing again.
For some reason, my attitude changed and instead of trying to worry about Drake, maybe I should be more focused wit
h worrying about me.
Before thinking it all the way through, I answered it.
“Are you busy?” Kane said.
I sat down my keys and my purse and made myself comfortable on the couch.
“Nope.”
~***~
I found it funny that now my sister Lee Lee was calling me like crazy, when she’d said that no one would give her my number to tell me that Mama had passed away.
But I didn’t answer her calls.
I didn’t have anything to say.
I’d been out now for about three years, and none of them had tried to see about me or even cared enough about me to call and check on me or even come to my graduation.
I was sure that Mama had told them and if they really wanted my number they could have gotten it.
They could have found a way to see about their sister.
But they hadn’t and I was done begging anybody for their love.
And that included Dray.
Maybe it was just better off that way.
I placed my phone on silent and headed into the building.
I hadn’t worked in years and I was as nervous as a stripper on a pole, in a crowded club, for the very first time.
I’d met my boss, once, and even though I was sad about Mama and grieving, for the most part, I thought that I’d made a pretty good impression.
She’d said that the job was mine, strictly because Kane had referred me and if he said that I was good to go, then that was all that she needed to know.
She talked so highly of him and of how good of a guy he was to work with.
Did she have a thing for him?
She couldn’t hide it even if she tried.
The lust that she had for him was all in her eyes when she talked about him.
But I could definitely understand where she was coming from.
Kane was a little on the young side, but I had to give it to him; Kane was fine as hell, from head to toe, top to bottom.
And he was always exquisitely dressed, which made him look even better.
I could only imagine what he looked like naked.
She’d better be careful though, if they hadn’t had relations already.
His young ass might put something on her that she might not be able to handle.
And from the looks of it, I needed to be taking my own damn advice.
The night before, Kane had knocked on the door and asked me to come with him to the roof top of the building.
I questioned him at first but I followed him anyway.
There, a helicopter was waiting.
I looked at him funny but he smiled.
“The owner is a friend and I wanted to do something nice for you; something to ease your mind. Hell, I just wanted to take a ride and I wanted you to take it with me. Come on.”
He grabbed my hand and a minute or two later, off we went.
I’d always been afraid of heights so I held his hand tightly.
After the initial feeling of discomfort and fright, looking down at the buildings and water against the evening sky, made me feel more relaxed than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
I felt so free.
Kane was laying it on thick.
We’d here recently been talking on the phone for hours at a time, daily, and I was starting to feel something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel, especially from him.
I was starting to feel comfortable
I was starting to feel wanted.
Kane smiled at me and started to share a few words of inspiration with me.
He talked loudly, considering that it was noisy, but I’d heard every word that he said.
He’d reminded me that the sky was he limit and that the biggest, brightest star was within my reach.
All I had to do was dream.
All I had to do was believe.
He told me that my past didn’t define me and that it was up to me to change the present and rewrite my future.
I could tell that he was starting to care about me and I’ll be damn if I wasn’t starting to care about him too.
No one had ever made me feel the way that he did.
And I do mean no one.
Not even Drake.
Not even the old Drake.
We flew around for a while longer and in a way I was sad when it all came to an end.
Being around Kane and in his presence made me want to be more.
It made me want to be better.
And from where I was standing, he was starting to look better and better to me every single day.
“Good morning Moet,” she smiled.
She was absolutely gorgeous, and somewhat intimidating to be around, but my black was beautiful and I was definitely confident and comfortable in my own skin.
But she was undeniably a sight to see.
“You ready?”
“Ready.”
This was it.
This was the beginning of better things to come, and I couldn’t do a thing but smile.
Finally my life was going in the right direction, and I would do anything I had to do to stay on the right path.
The day was long and hectic, but I was okay with that.
I was just happy to have a job, though I’d forgotten how exhausting it could be.
I walked out of the building smiling, but…
Drake was standing right by the door as if he was waiting on me.
How did he even know where I was?
“What are you doing here?”
No what are you doing here, I wanted to ask him.
I hadn’t seen him since that day that he’d choked me and left.
I’d called a few times only after that night, but he hadn’t taken any of my calls.
I’d even sat outside his house for a few hours one night, just watching, waiting to see something, but I didn’t.
I stalked him all the time, but that time had been different. That time it was as though I was hoping to see something that would push my heart over the edge and free me from the misery of loving him. But I didn’t see anything.
But nevertheless, I was unsure of what might happen between us.
And for the first time, I didn’t really care.
I’d been talking to Kane so much that I was barely finding time to miss Drake, but I didn’t want him to know that so I tried to hug him, but he moved out of the way.
“What are you doing here Moet?”
“I work here. You would have known that I’d gotten a job had you taken my calls,” I said.
“Vicki gave you a job?”
Vicki.
How did he know that my boss’s name was Vicki?
“You know her?”
“Of course I know her. She’s my wife’s sister.”
What?
********************************
Chapter SEVEN
Drake had dropped a bomb on me the other day.
First of all, I didn’t even know that his wife wasn’t all black.
I’d just thought that she was light-skinned.
Drake informed me that his wife’s mother was white and that Vicki was her oldest sister.
She was the daughter that their mother had by her first husband, a white guy.
Drake’s wife, Naomi’s dad, was her second husband and he was black.
Well, I’ll be damned!
It was definitely one hell of a small world.
I knew that if and when Drake’s wife ever decided to come to visit her sister at work, she would see me and definitely give her sister, my boss Vicki, the scoop on what had transpired between us and fill her in on what was going on with me and her husband.
I was sure that Vicki would probably fire me.
But you know what, I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
I wasn’t quitting my job.
It was my first step towards independence and I wasn’t letting it go, not just yet.
“Quit,” Drake had ordered me.
“No.”
> “Why?”
“Because.”
“What did I just say?”
“You’re not my daddy Drake. In case you have forgotten, my Daddy no longer loves me. I can do what I want. Just like you do what you want…and who you want too.”
“So you are screwing ole’ buddy from the other night huh?”
I’d answered him with an attitude.
“What? No? But what if I was? Would you even care?”
Drake jumped in my direction as though he was about to jump on me, in public, in broad daylight, but he decided against him.
It wasn’t like he would all out beat on me or anything; he wasn’t a woman beater. But he has been known to jack me up, slap me, choke me and maybe even shake the crap out of me, you know things like that, if for some reason we got into it about whatever the reason was.
Saying it now, it was a little too physical for my liking but I always managed to be the one to throw the first punch but considering that this was over another man, he might throw a few punches himself this time around.
But he calmed himself down.
“You can keep your little job. But whatever little relationship, friendship or whatever it is that you and him have going on, you better cancel it. Now! Or I will. Now give me a damn kiss,” Drake had demanded.
And ever since that day, Drake had been all over me like white on rice.
He was still going home a night, sometimes, but when he was away from me, he texted and called constantly and if I didn’t answer, fast enough, he would pop up.
Men, I tell you.
They hated the thought of another man taking their spot; yet it was like pulling teeth just to get them to do right.
But, I was enjoying the extra attention, although I was still talking to and seeing Kane occasionally too.
I just couldn’t help it and besides, Drake didn’t own me.
And it was all innocent, most of the time anyway.
“Thank you for what you did for me,” I said to Kane.
“And thank you for what you did for me too.”
Once he’d said it, he bit his bottom lip as though it was a mistake.
What the hell did I do for him?
Not really wanting to press the issue, I changed the subject instead.
“Well, I think I will head back up and relax since I’m off early. I’d finished up payroll a lot faster than usual and she told me to go ahead and go home,” I said and turned to leave his condo.
I’d just gotten in from work a few hours early and once I’d changed clothes, and knowing that Kane didn’t work on Tuesdays, I headed back down to see if he was home to express my gratitude face to face, since I hadn’t been able to because Drake was always around.