I rolled my eyes. The roughness of his voice alluded to how serious he was in the moment. Still, I didn’t have time to go back and forth with the blame game. We had to get out of that hotel room, or the fire we were trying to make was going to burn us.
I said, “I’m about to go to Yeah! Burger. Want to come?”
He watched me, gave a curious stare. “I need to, but you keep playing with my dick.”
I was acutely aware of the fact Demitri was trying to bait me. The episode with him had left me emotionally frazzled and out of focus. I could barely muster the strength to ignore him.
“Fuck off, Demitri,” I snapped.
He had taken his shirt off. The wall of muscle that was his chest beckoned to me. No tattoos anywhere on his body. Just beautiful chocolate skin. I noticed how his shorts hung low. That Adonis line—or V cut, as some called it—was so defined that I wanted to trace it with my tongue. I got my wits about me and brought my eyes back up to his face. His eyes danced over mine. The depth of them spoke of erotic intentions. My breathing was instantly unsteady.
Demitri chuckled. A slick smile adorned his handsome features. “Fuck me,” he said, almost like a dare.
“Ew. No.”
“Scared?”
“Of what?”
“Of what I’ll do to you if you do.”
His words sent an electric shock right to my pussy. But I wouldn’t let him know that. “Yeah, right. You need to be scared of what Elliot will do to us if you don’t stop.”
“Elliot doesn’t scare me,” he said coolly.
Although he’d said that, I doubted it. Elliot scared every fucking body once they’d come in contact with his wrath.
“Bullshit,” I retorted.
Demitri chuckled again.
There was a strange sensuality to Demitri. One that I couldn’t explain. There was explicit danger in his eyes. He was walking temptation. No man had ever unsettled me the way Demitri did. Not even Elliot. Elliot put me at ease. He was my peace, my protection. I never worried about anything while with him.
Demitri made me want to do bad things. I’d just met the man, and in a matter of days, he’d gotten to me. I saw and felt what Elliot loved about him. While he had made it his business to be an asshole, there was something about the man that drew me to him. Demitri was a disturbing blend of danger and eroticism. He made me want to risk the wrath of the man we both loved in order to experience what would happen if we opened Pandora’s box alone. I saw the good and bad in Demitri. I wanted to tango with the good. Play Russian roulette with the bad.
But I didn’t get to experience that. Neither of us did. Elliot walked into the hotel room a few minutes later. I didn’t know if he could feel the tension or not, but Demitri standing with his shirt off and me standing across from him gave Elliot pause. He looked from me to Demitri, then back to me again.
“I was about to head to Yeah! Burger,” I said. “Demitri said you told him to meet you here.”
Elliot’s expression read he was disinterested in whatever I had said. In a low monotone he said, “I didn’t ask you anything.”
I slipped my hands into the back pockets of the jeans I’d put on. “Was just telling you, just in case.”
“Just in case what?” he asked.
“You were wondering why he was in my hotel room.”
“Think he’d be in here without my knowing?”
I swallowed. He was last night, ran through my mind. I glanced over Elliot’s shoulder. Demitri shook his head once, as if to tell me to change the subject. I took the hint.
“Anyway, have you eaten?” I asked Elliot.
“No,” he said and tossed his keys on the table. “Not hungry.”
“Are you okay? You left abruptly.”
Elliot didn’t answer me. Not right away. He turned around. Moved closer to the only person in the room whom he loved. He wrapped one arm around his waist. Placed a kiss on his lips. Did that like I wasn’t even there. I looked away. Felt as if my insides were inflamed. I ran my tongue over my teeth. Tugged at my braids. Anything to keep from having to see him show someone else affection in my presence. Yeah, he’d done so in the club, but with all that had happened, I hadn’t seen it full on like I was seeing it now.
He asked Demitri how his day went. Their voices were low and intimate. They spoke the way lovers did. After Demitri answered, he asked Elliot the same thing.
I turned away. Responded to a text from Summer. She wanted to know if I would be available to go for drinks later. I texted her back. Told her I didn’t think so. I glanced out the window. Heard Elliot ask Demitri if he was going to Yeah! Burger with me. Demitri said he was just as Elliot walked up behind me. I felt him there but refused to turn around. He eased up close to me. Wrapped his arms around me from behind, then kissed my neck. He always kissed my neck to show possession. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t bother me, that his touch didn’t warm the coolness that had settled in my gut.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lips directly on my ear. “About earlier. I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“Who was on the phone?” I asked.
“Nobody,” he lied.
I’d heard him call Nicole by name.
“Who’s Nicole?”
I felt his body tense up, but he answered, “Nobody.”
“What did ‘nobody’ do to make you so angry?”
“I don’t care to talk about it,” was his answer.
He wrapped his arms around me tighter. Shit felt good. No matter if he had gone to Demitri first. He turned me around. With both hands on my waist, he dipped his head to kiss me. Same as he had kissed Demitri. Short, but passionate and full of affection.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you some food.”
He grabbed his keys. I glanced at Demitri. His posture was stiff. Gaze cold. Minutes before, we’d been about to help each other reach the top levels of heaven. Just that quickly, as soon as Elliot stepped back into the hotel room, I was public enemy number one again. I gave him a strained grin. One that read, “Feelings mutual, motherfucker.”
Elliot
We ate at Yeah! Burger. There was tension between Demi and Mona, but not as much as there had been before. They sat next to one another at a table on the open patio of the eatery. I had no idea what they had talked about in the time I was away, but the fact that Demi stuck his hand in Mona’s plate to share her fries and she didn’t object had me curious.
I didn’t want to ruin the mood, so I joined in on the conversation. Talked about my work and how the kids were on their way to the next level in the state math tournaments I’d entered some of them in. The rain was coming down hard, so we settled in for a while. There was no use in trying to tackle the traffic when the rain was beating down on us in waves.
My mind had been on the phone call with Nicole. I thought back to the day I found out Nicole had lied about having an abortion. It was a year later. A year after I’d broken her father’s jaw and shattered his left eye socket. A year after he had to have reconstructive dental surgery because I’d knocked several teeth out of his mouth.
I needed to get that shit off my chest. I couldn’t keep holding it in. Mona had been around for a long time. I was sure I knew things about her that no one else did. Things that she kept hidden away. However, I knew them. That was why I opened up to her while we ate. Demitri already knew the story. What he didn’t know was that Nicole had been reaching out to my parents. She would let them see my son, but she wasn’t too sure if she wanted me to see him yet.
Even though, initially, she hadn’t spoken to me directly, that had opened the channels of communication between her and me. That had been going on for months. I told Mona about Nicole. Told her how we’d met and then how we’d ended.
“Thought you said you didn’t do the down-low shit,” she said.
The disgust in her voice was evident. She didn’t care for brothers on the down low. Felt as if there was no excuse for any man to hide his sexuality. She gave no leeway on that.
> “I don’t,” I said. “Not anymore. I did then, though.”
Mona frowned and blinked rapidly as she sipped her drink. She scratched her forehead, then ran a hand through her braids. She glanced at Demitri and shook her head.
“That ain’t a good feeling. To do that to a woman? That shit isn’t kosher,” she said, then turned to me.
“I never said it was. Not something I’m proud of,” I said.
“But you’re in a relationship with the man who helped you to do it. Kind of like a slap in the face to her. She had to walk around and see that,” Mona retorted.
There was way more to that story. Many more reasons why my being with Demi might have rubbed Nicole the wrong way. Reasons that Mona might not ever get to know. Her leg started to shake under the table. I knew old demons had started to chase her. Before she could take a trip down memory lane, I finished telling her the whole story. I told her about what I did to Nicole’s father. About Nicole being pregnant and then lying about having an abortion.
“So you have a child, a son?” she asked.
I couldn’t read the look on her face. Her skin blanched a bit, and her gaze was unfocused. She bit down on her bottom lip while shaking her head. Something akin to hurt and disbelief on her face.
“Yes, I have a son,” I said.
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I wasn’t apologizing for having a son. I apologized for keeping that from her. Apologized for lying by omission.
“How did you find out she lied?” Mona asked.
I ate some of my truffle fries. All three of us jumped when a rumble of thunder clapped and was followed by a violent flash of lightning in the sky. I’d never forget the day I saw Nicole walking out of Dallas BBQ on 42nd Street. I hadn’t seen her in over a year. Couldn’t contact her, or I’d risk going to prison for a very long time. That restraining order was ironclad. It solidified the fact that Nicole and I were done. Over. I’d done that. I’d fucked us up.
I said, “I saw her walking out of a restaurant on the arm of a light-skinned nigga who looked like he had stepped out of the Harlem Renaissance era. Wavy hair. Three-piece suit and shiny shoes. Homie looked like he was about to go scat at the Cotton Club or something. I stared at her for a long time. Couldn’t believe how beautiful she still was. She had on a red skirt that flared out around her round hips. The black blouse she had on had a plunging neckline that put her breasts on display. Tall pumps adorned her feet. Her long braids were gone. She wore her real hair. It was pressed and bone straight. It curtained her beautiful dark face like black silk. Her eyes were alive, and she was smiling. She was happy. She had moved on . . . without me. I noticed the rock on her finger, and my heart cracked into a thousand shards of glass.”
Mona had a serious look in her eyes when she asked, “She had the baby with her?”
I shook my head. “Not right then, no.”
“So what happened?”
“I wanted to call her name. Wanted to reach out to her. But couldn’t risk it. I watched her a few more minutes. Was prepared to turn and walk away, until a little boy ran up to her. He couldn’t have been much older than a year and some change. He had a head full of curly hair. I frowned, tilted my head to get a better look as I moved closer.”
As I replayed the story for Mona, it was as if I was right back there on that day and at that time. I remembered the traffic moved at a steady pace. People milled around me. Spanish music mixed with hip-hop could be heard as cars went up and down 42nd.
“Life seemed to pass me by as I kept my eyes on the little boy. My heart rate accelerated. Mouth was dry. From where I was standing, I could tell the child had brown, almond-shaped eyes. My eyes. He had my mouth. My ears. The little boy was a replica of me down to the way he blinked rapidly while trying to understand what was being said to him. I didn’t think before I reacted. Didn’t remember that fucking restraining order. Didn’t care about nothing in the moment.”
Demi scratched the back of his neck. Sat back, as if listening to me talk about Nicole made him uncomfortable.
But I kept talking. “I called her name. Called her, like, three or four times back-to-back before she heard me. Her smile faded as soon as she saw me. She cradled the little boy to her chest. The unmitigated look of terror on her face told me all I needed to know to put two and two together. The man she was with stared me down. Pushed his woman behind him to shield her from my madness. I ignored the nigga. I kept my eyes on the little boy. My heart told me he was mine.”
“Why was she afraid of you?” Mona asked.
“Because of what I’d done to her father,” I answered.
Demitri said, “Because he wouldn’t leave her alone after everything was said and done.”
I ignored him and how he saw things. “I asked her if the little boy was my son. Kept asking her. She’d lied to me. She’d told me she had an abortion all because she was angry and wanted to hurt me. I was angry. Needed to know why she would do that to me. So her new husband stepped in to defend her. I guess he thought I was going to hurt her. And he knew who I was. I could tell by the cold look in his eyes. Nicole had told him about me. That was obvious. All she had to do was say yes or no to tell me if the boy was mine.”
“Did she?”
I looked at Mona and shook my head. “Kept shielding him, like she thought I was the devil or some shit. Her husband kept coming for me. I asked him to leave me alone. But he was in protection mode. He had to show his woman he could keep her from any kind of hurt, harm, and/or danger. Clark Kent got more brazen. Stepped to me like he was ready for a battle, like he had an S on his chest. I tried to get around him to talk to Nicole again. He threw a punch that sent spit flying from my mouth. That was his mistake.”
Mona leaned forward, her nails tapping on the table. “What did you do, Elliot?”
“I broke his fucking arm,” I said coolly.
“That was after you broke his nose and tried to shatter his knee,” Demi added.
Mona frowned, horror etched across her features. “Oh, my God, Elliot.”
“Never mind the fact that he’s a cop and Nicole’s three brothers are cops,” Demi said. “We ended up in the middle of the street, fighting the boys in blue.”
“You were there? Nicole’s brothers were there?” Mona asked Demi.
“Yeah. Her brothers were inside the restaurant. After Elliot assaulted Nicole’s fiancé, she ran, screaming bloody fucking murder, back inside. I was there. Elliot and I had been hanging out, shopping. On a date, so to speak. But he saw Nicole, and I became background noise. Everybody becomes background noise when Nicole is around.” Demi said that like he was warning Mona. “I watched from a distance at first, but when I saw they were about to jump him, I stepped in. Assaulting three members of the biggest gang in New York had dire consequences,” he told Mona, then turned his attention to me. “So that’s why when Mona told me that you flew to New York to see her, shit was baffling.” His eyes were set on me. The visible anger in them was not lost on me.
“Wait. What does that have to do with anything?” Mona wanted to know.
I said, “If it wasn’t for my sister’s husband, we’d be in prison right now. He’s a defense attorney and he knows people in high places. Lucky for us, someone was there with a camera. Nicole’s brothers calling us faggots so many times helped us beat the case. But her brothers are still cops. So was her fiancé. We had to get out of New York.”
Mona looked genuinely confused when she asked, “But why? You guys beat the case, right?”
“I’d beat her father down, then attacked her fiancé, and then got into a violent altercation with her brothers, Mona. They were never going to leave us alone,” I explained. “We were getting stopped and pulled over for stupid shit. I lost my job. Got fired. Same for Demi. My attorney told me it was best to get out of New York. Quite frankly, they were going to kill us.”
“What?” Mona gasped.
&
nbsp; “Death threats. The whole nine yards,” Demi said.
“After they cornered me and Demi coming out of my house one day, I knew it was time to take my attorney’s advice and leave. We left everything and moved to Atlanta. My sister’s husband has family here. They helped me to get a job,” I said.
By the time I was done talking, the rain had let up, but the storm behind Mona’s eyes was still raging. She didn’t know me as well as she thought she did, and that bothered her. The same way it bothered Demi that I’d risked going back to New York to see Mona. I had two lovers, both of them angry with me.
We left Yeah! Burger. Headed around the corner to Paolo’s Gelato Italiano, an authentic Italian gelato shop. Mona wanted some cannoli. Demi and I waited in the truck.
The hostility wafting from him was palpable. I was used to it whenever the subject of Nicole came up.
“She called me today,” I told him.
He was sitting in the backseat, behind me. I looked at him through the rearview mirror.
“I know. Mona told me she heard you call her name while on the phone. What did she want?”
“My parents called earlier. Told me she asked for my number. She called. Was going to let me talk to Jacques, but—”
“Let me guess. She didn’t,” he said sarcastically
“He knows who I am. He asked to talk to me. I heard him.”
“And she still wouldn’t let you talk to him, Elliot. You let her snatch everything away from you in New York, and now she’s going to dangle your son in front of you—”
“Not now, Demi. Not now.”
“Then when? You never want to talk about the fact that—”
“He’s my son. I want . . . I need to see my son. At least talk to him. If I do everything she wants the way she wants it, I’ll get to see my son.”
“No the fuck you won’t, Elliot,” he snapped. “Nicole’s a coldhearted, bitter bitch who will use your son as a pawn to make you grovel at her feet.”
My brows furrowed. The intense heat in my eyes matched the burning annoyance in his eyes.
“Why do you still hate her so much, Demi? What did she do to you? We are the ones who hurt her. I am the one who brought this shit on myself. And you won. You got me,” I said through clenched teeth, hitting the steering wheel.
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