“Ruby—” I called out my wife’s name and looked around the cloudy living room. “Benedict…Yasmine,” I summoned my children as I glanced down the hall leading to the stairwell. My calls went unanswered.
Slowly, I drifted off into a subconscious state. My mouth hung open, and I could feel dribble slide down my chin. I didn’t care. I just wanted to fade away into a deep abyss, far away from my self-imposed loneliness.
I envisioned Ruby’s caramel hued hand reaching out for mine. Her smile was bright as she gestured for me to dance with her for the fifth time. It was our wedding night. She was so happy that all she wanted to do was dance the night away. Like the perfect gentleman, I obliged her as Mariah Carey’s mesmerizing ballad, “We Belong Together,” permeated the room.
I gripped the sofa’s soft cotton pillow close and inhaled Ruby’s intoxicating scent, remembering it just the way it was as I held her close and danced with her at our reception ten years ago. I was her knight, living my next breath to do my queen’s bidding.
I obliged her every request that night, biding my time for the moment I could peel each layer of the elegant gown she wore from her body and plant myself deep within the core of the woman I loved. She was the epiphany of perfection. Ruby, my rib of my rib, made especially for me.
In my halfway state of drunkenness and sleep, my wedding day played in my mind like a flick costarring me and my lovely wife. There was no Misty, not even Benedict and Yasmine. Everything we built over the years started with us. Two lovers bound by our souls and bonded by matrimony. How did this fact get so loose in the translation of our day to day handling of each other?
I tore my eyes open and sat up erect on the sofa. My next move was clear. I stumbled to my feet and around the room looking for my shoes. I wiped spittle from my mouth with the back of my hand, grabbed my keys from the coffee table and went to the side door that lead to the garage. I slid behind the wheel of my Maserati Ghibli SQ4 and fired up my engine. I fumbled around on my dashboard and located the button to open the garage.
My eyes lit up when I noticed a small, dark colored vehicle sitting at the edge of my driveway. I turned my car off, quickly exited and started down the driveway to get a closer look at the car and the driver. Halfway to the parked car, my hot air balloon of hope deflated. I recognized the car and the driver wasn’t Ruby.
Misty unfolded from her car wearing a short black romper jumpsuit and red stiletto heels. The sight of her caused mixed reactions within me. My mind and heart showed my true feelings as my face contorted into a fiery grimace, while my cock twitched in my slacks of its own accord.
Fuck!
I didn’t need her showing up at my house…ever.
“What are you doing, stalking me now? Why are you at my house, Misty? This is so fucking out of line!” I said, slurring a few of my words as I spoke. I jacked up my slacks and tried to stand up straight. The ground looked quite unstable as I shifted positions.
“Ronan, I didn’t come to cause trouble.”
“You’re damn right you didn’t! I’m calling security to let them know of the breech in their system. If anyone can just ride through these security gates, I might as well not be in a gated community,” I said, reaching in my pocket to get my cellphone. Whoever was on the gate tonight was going to get their asses fired for letting Misty get through.
“Hold up Ronan! Regardless of what you think about me, I have more dignity than to break into this community just to come to your house unwanted and unannounced. I was invited to a dinner party by a friend who lives around the corner,” Misty said as her blush red face turned up into a frown.
“Why are you here and not around the corner, then?” I asked, looking around at my lawn and driveway. “I clearly own this property and this is clearly not where you were invited to dinner,” I added.
“I got your address when I worked for you, so I knew you lived in this community too. The only reason I stopped by was to, once again, apologize to you and Ruby. I didn’t mean to make a scene at your office yesterday. I was wrong to address your wife like that.”
“I’m on to your games woman,” I said staggering closer to her. “You showing up here will in no way make things better for me and my wife. You’re full of shit. You always have been,” I said, attempting to grab her arm but I missed her arm and staggered forward.
“Ronan, you’re not a victim in this. But, you are drunk and you need to go and sleep it off. Is Ruby in the house?”
“No, she’s not here. I don’t have her anymore, thanks to everything you told her about us. Because of my affair with you, my marriage is over. My children are gone…everybody is gone because of a few rolls in the sack with you! Are you happy to know that they are gone? Why don’t you just get out of here?” I asked attempting to collect myself.
I growled loud with indignation. The effects of six glasses filled to the brim with high-powered imported rum was evident in my every move. I performed like a bumbling idiot as I tried to force Misty to leave my property.
“Go home, Misty. I’m about to go and find my wife and bring her back to me. Having you here is not going to help me with that,” I added as I turned around and made my way back to my car.
“I can’t let you do drive, Ronan. You are too intoxicated to get in that car and leave. I promise you that I will call the police and have your keys taken away before I let you get inside that car and drive off,” Misty said, after bolting in front of me and blocking my driver’s door.
“What do you care? I’m not your husband. There is only one Mrs. Michaels and it’s not you, you never will be—”
Those were my last words before a thunderclap sounded off in my ear. The sting of Misty’s hand coming down hard against my cheek caused me to lunge at her. I gripped her hand that had rattled my face and turned her around hard with her facing the door of my car. I was raging mad.
“Mis-ty!” I yelled as a threat for her hitting me.
“Ronan, you have no right to talk to me like that. All I ever did was love you,” she said. Her ass jiggled against my body as she tried to get out of my grip.
“I never asked you to love me,” I said, and the fragrant conditioner in her hair impaled my senses. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time to leave, so I can go find Ruby.”
“As much as I hate you right now, I can’t let you leave. I won’t move my car from behind yours and if you attempt to leave I’m going to get my phone to call the police to report you as a drunk driver.”
“If you were so worried about me and my wellbeing, you wouldn’t have opened your big mouth to my wife yesterday. I planned to tell her all that she needed to know about our affair on my own time.” I leaned against Misty’s ear. “Are you sure you came over here unannounced to apologize?”
“Yes, Ronan, that was the only reason I came by. I—”
“Well, fucking apologize then!” I said as I gripped her wrists into my hand.
“Ronan, stop it! You’re hurting me,” she said, putting up a meager struggle.
Both of her wrists remained in my grip. I wanted her to hear me loud and clear. “I’m not going to stop until you do. I’m also not going to give you what you really came over here for,” I said and let one of her wrists go to pull her bottom close to my rising cock, while holding her other wrist in the tightest grip. She winced from the pain that I was inflicting on her.
"Let me go Ronan," Misty said, finally crying out in pain.
"I won't let you go, until you promise to leave here and never bother me again."
"You're drunk Ronan. What kind of person would I be to let you get behind the wheel of your car and kill yourself? Or worse yet, some other poor soul will end up losing their life because of you driving drunk," she said as she whimpered.
"Shut the hell up! You have no idea how drunk I am," my words slurred together.
I jerked her arm and stumbled. I tried to right myself but fell onto the hard concrete. Misty went down with me. I landed on my back with her splayed on top of
me. Somehow my hand landed on her romper clad ass. My arousal was at full peak when Misty pulled back and our eyes met with smoldering heat.
How I went from hating her one minute to wanting to fuck the hell out of her the next, I would never fully understand myself. Misty's lips glistened and begged to be kissed as her lips poised over my own.
"Damn it to hell! I hate you," I growled out as I pushed her off me.
Her soft, pliable ass cheek could be seen hanging out of her short romper. I suddenly realized she had on no panties beneath her clothes. "Mmmm, Ronan, please don't hate me," she pleaded.
I forced my tongue back into my mouth. I desired to assuage my raging anger but not with Misty. I rolled over and stumbled to my feet. I pulled Misty up and pushed her against my car. "Don’t come here again. Don’t come anywhere near me or my family again!" I yelled, suspended in grief as I stood body to body with her. We were so close that I could feel the heat coming off her skin. “It’s over, and I mean it,” I told her in a way that brooked no argument.
A car light flashed and pulled up into the driveway, barely squeezing past Misty’s car that was parked at the edge of the way. I jerked my attention to the arriving vehicle as fast as I could in my drunken state. Misty pushed me away from her and fixed her romper that had wrinkled in our tussle. I tried to hide my shame from the occupants of the vehicle.
"I'm sorry for coming here. I know this looks bad,” she said softly. “I’m sorry…”
I paid Misty no mind. My heart stopped in my chest and it was hard for my lungs to fill with air for my next breath, when Ruby and my kids stared back at me through the car windows. If hell would have opened wide enough to enveloped me beneath my feet right then, I would have deserved every moment of burning in hell. Looking into my family eyes at that very moment was hell.
“Ruby!” I yelled out and righted my shirt that was all twisted up.
Ruby put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway with urgency. She sideswiped the side of Misty’s car in her rush.
“Stop! Please baby, I called out. But to no avail. I took off in a drunken sprint, but tripped over my own feet. By the time I made it down to the bottom of our long driveway, I saw nothing but the taillights of Ruby’s car. My future, my past and my present, deserted me in my walk of shame to the street. I bent at the waist in the middle of the street and cursed the moment I ever met Misty.
I fell against the sidewalk, eyes glued to the direction Ruby had driven, while waddling in the destruction I brought about. Misty Crewe was long forgotten, until she cranked her car and eased out of my driveway. I couldn’t bear to look her way. My head stayed buried between my knees as gut-wrenching somberness poured from my wrenched soul.
Chapter 11
Ruby
I had Serenity’s gracious invite to stay at her home until I settled things with Ronan and I was prepared to take her up on her offer. But a tiny voice deep within kept nagging at me, pleading even, for me to not let Misty win. I had decided to give Ronan another chance and her showing up at his office shook the foundation we had pledged to rebuild.
Did I really expect Ronan to lay out every salacious detail of their affair? No. But I hadn’t expected Misty to prance in there throwing those details in my face either. I had been prepared to do whatever it took to recapture the old Ruby and Ronan before she came in talking shit. Still, I refused to just offer my husband up on a platter to another woman. We had too many years invested in our family for me to do that, and too many real things that we had shared. Not to mention, there were a billion other reasons why no woman would be able to knock me, the queen of his life, off my throne that easily. Money wasn’t the reason I married him, but I had no intention to walk away broken and broke.
“What the hell,” I said as I gathered my children into my car and thanked Shauntay for being such a wonderful friend. I had decided not to roll over on our love that easily.
“Any time you need me Ruby, I am right here. I love you,” Shauntay said touching her heart.
“Thanks, Shauntay. That means so much to me, sis,” I said, blowing her a kiss. Yazzy and Benedict waved goodbye as I pulled out of her driveway.
I headed south on the highway towards home. Home. A smile crept upon my face as I thought of tucking my children into their bed and laying down beside my husband. For the first time in weeks, I would sleep with Ronan in our own bed. My heart warmed up to the thought during the drive.
When I pulled onto our street and noticed an unfamiliar car at the edge of our driveway, that warmth slowly turned into a bone-chilling freeze. “Who could this be at nine o’clock at night?” I whispered beneath my breath, as I squeezed past the car and drove up into the driveway.
I gasped at the sight in front of me. My gasp caused Yasmine’s head to spring up from the video game she had been playing on the ride over.
“What is it, Mama?” she asked as her eyes followed mine and traveled to her father and Misty standing next to his car. They were extremely close and their bewildered looks told the story of what I’d intruded on, without me having to witness the actual encounter.
Ronan saw me and immediately came stumbling towards the car, calling my name. “Ru-beeah. Way-ait, don’t lea-eave me,” he said sounding like a slurred, broken record.
“Oh, no! Don’t worry about it, Ronan. You’re good,” I said out of the window before I put the car in reverse and pulled back onto the grass and out of Ronan’s driveway.
I sideswiped Misty’s car in my rush to get away. Hitting her car was the least of my worries as I left a place that once meant the world to me. Nothing about the house in front of me meant home…never again would I call that place home. No, this was Ronan’s driveway, his house and his bitch. I would no longer claim stake in 2908 Beeline Drive, or any of its contents. I wanted no part of it. However, I did want to get out of the car and punch, kick and scream out my anger. If the kids were not with me, that was what I would have done.
I didn’t want my children to witness anymore madness than they already had. They deserved more. I sure as hell did too. I loved them too much to do any other thing but to take them away from this madness.
Thankfully, Yasmine had been head first in her video game when we pulled up. She didn’t see Ronan leaning into his whore. Benny was in the backseat unsnapping his seatbelt so he missed the scene as well. However, they both got an eyeful of their father and leaning against the car so close to Misty that they could have melded into one. Ronan didn’t even have the decency to close the garage door to shield his affair from our neighbors or passersby. His carelessness caused pure rage to flow through my blood, and then tears came again. I was sick and tired of feeling hurt.
“Why are we leaving from home? I thought we were going to see Dad tonight,” Benedict asked with so much confusion in his voice.
“Tonight is not good for daddy,” I said, using everything in me to keep it together for my children, but they could hear the sadness in my voice.
“You said we would get to sleep in our own bed tonight,” Benedict pouted.
The thumping beat inside of my brain would not let up for one second, as Benedict began to whine about missing his father. I turned my focus to the road in front of me, so I could drive away before answering Benedict.
“Why are you crying, Mama?” Yasmine asked, causing Benedict to stop whining and look over the seat at me.
“I’m sorry for fussing, Mama. Please don’t cry,” Benedict said.
“It’s not your fault son. I’ll be okay, Yasmine,” I said, including both in my answer.
“Who is that lady in our garage?” Yasmine asked, as I headed north in the direction from whence we came.
“Yeah, who is she? Is she why we can’t go home?” Benedict asked with sadness entering his tone.
“No, that was one of your daddy’s friends, Yasmine. And she’s not the reason we can’t go home, Benny. You will get to go back soon. I just didn’t know your dad was having a meeting with his friend tonight,” I said,
taking a quick swipe at the tear that had fallen from my eye.
“That didn’t look like no meeting to me, Mama,” Yasmine said as she raised one eyebrow and peered at me like I was the one who was out of touch with reality. She was calling bullshit, and I knew she was.
“Looks aren’t always as they seem. I want you to remember that honey,” I said.
“But you didn’t even go up there and ask them if their meeting was over. It looked like it was over since they were standing by the car,” Benedict said. “I want to go home,” he started his whine up again and it intensified to an all-out cry.
“I’m okay if we don’t ever go back there again, Mama,” Yasmine said. She turned away from me and looked aimlessly out of the passenger window. Her solemn expression just before she looked away broke my heart even more than it already was.
Once again, it seemed that I was the one ripping our children away from their beloved home and telling them we couldn’t return.
Beloved home. Two words I would never use for that stack of bricks I just left, ever again. The blatant disrespect Ronan had shown by bringing his mistress to the house we once shared crawled all over me like fire ants. I itched to do damage, and I planned to. I had to hold it together for a little while longer. At least until I took the kids back to Shauntay. I guessed I would be taking Serenity up on her offer, after all.
“Okay guys, here’s the plan,” I said as I pulled back onto the highway that would take us back to Mark and Shauntay’s home. “You’re going to spend a few nights with Shauntay and I’m going to go back home and talk to daddy. We have something very important to talk about. Okay?” I said, telling a half truth.
“Okay,” my children said in unison, surprisingly not putting up a fight.
I was sure they had questions about what they saw, or didn’t see. Quite frankly, I wasn’t prepared to answer them.
Yasmine and Benedict stared out the window, watching the cars go by and taking in the city as we returned to Mark and Shauntay’s house. I wondered what was on their young, innocent minds as I drove away from the only place they knew as home.
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