Reserve My Curves 3

by BM Hardin

  Silas and I had been getting along just fine.

  Everything was good.

  “Let’s make a baby,” Silas said.

  I smiled at him.

  I never imagined being with someone like him.

  Whether I was referring to the good side of him or the bad side.

  His good side was so damn good. Everything about him was perfect. Everything about him was what I needed and what I wanted in a man, in a husband, and in a father for my kids.

  He was damn near perfect.

  But on the flip side, the bad side, he was scary.

  All of his power, the connections, the cover-ups, and Carmen were enough to make me want to run towards the nearest exit.

  But for some reason I stayed.

  For some reason I hadn’t let go.

  It had been long enough since the abortion and I figured that it was okay to start trying to put a bun in this oven again.

  I might as well.

  Making love to him under the stars, made me appreciate his love even more for some reason or another.

  I just felt special.

  I felt wanted.

  I felt needed.

  And to be honest, I felt complete.

  I needed him just as much as he obviously needed me.

  The cool air harassed my nipples as I rode Silas like the stallion that he was.

  I closed my eyes and focused on enjoying the moment.

  I could feel Silas’s body stiffen beneath me, so I started to thrust my hips a tad bit harder so that I could finish with him.

  After another minute or so, we released in unison and I smiled just before opening my eyes.

  But…

  “Ahh!” I screamed.

  Carmen was standing there, only a few feet away from us.

  “Eww,” Carmen frowned.

  What the hell was she doing in our backyard?

  And she’d watched us have sex?

  How sick!

  “Silas, get off of your ass, and meet me out front. I need to talk to you. Envy, your tits are starting to sag. You should do something about that. Let me know if you need a doctor to help you out with a little lift,” Carmen said and disappeared around the house.

  I hate her!

  I hated her so much that I wanted to cry.

  Extremely bothered, I rolled off of Silas and he scurried to get dressed.

  Why was she even here?

  Again!

  I’d told Silas to tell her not to come back to our house but obviously he hadn’t relayed the message.

  But I was about to.

  I sat for just a few minutes to calm myself down and then I headed in the back door.

  By the time I checked on Horizon, and made it to the living room to head for the front yard, the door opened and Silas came in.

  I could tell that he was frustrated.

  “What?” I questioned him.

  Silas looked at me.

  “Nothing.”

  I looked at him.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. What’s going on and why did she come here?” I asked him, suddenly uninterested in hearing the bull crap, but felt the need to ask him anyway.

  “I asked her to come by. She was supposed to come by earlier but never showed so I thought that she wasn’t coming. I know you don’t like her coming here, but here is the safest place for us to meet. I’m sure that she’s still being watched, or at least her place probably is and we had a few loose ends to tie up. A few people to get paid. But it’s all good now. It’s all done,” Silas said, lying the disk and folder that he was holding on the coffee table.

  “That bitch better not come back to this house again. Or she can stay, and I’ll go,” I said behind Silas as he picked the things back up and headed to the bedroom.

  ***

  “Envy, I thought that I could do it but I can’t,” my sister Josephine said.

  I already knew what she was referring to.

  Grant.

  He couldn’t do anything for himself, and Josephine was now pretty much a single mother and doing everything on her own, including taking care of him.

  I told her to hire some help for both the kids and with Grant, but she hadn’t listened.

  “Well, what are you going to do? The doctors said that he will never get better so are you going to stick by him like you said that you would? Or stick him in some kind of facility?”

  I waited for Josephine to respond.

  “No silly, I’m going to kill him,” she said.

  What?

  Maybe I hadn’t heard her right.

  “Kill him?”

  “Yes. I could never live with myself if I placed him in some kind of facility. You never know what those folks would do to him. They would never take care of him the way that I have. My only option is to kill him. I’m sure that he would rather be dead anyway.”

  Wait a minute…huh?

  What the hell was Josephine talking about?

  How could she even think something like that?

  Shaking my head, I focused back on my conversation with Josephine.

  “Don’t kill him. I’ll find somewhere to put him that’s nice and Silas and I will pay for it,” I said.

  “Did you forget that we are rich too? I don’t need your money or your help Envy. I already told you what I was going to do,” Josephine said and changed the subject.

  If Silas ever found out that she’d told me about this beforehand, he would surely kill me for not saying anything.

  I knew that I was going to have to tell him.

  We talked for a few minutes more and I called Silas right after.

  “Hey, where are you?” I asked him.

  Silas had been on the go lately.

  I figured that he probably was still meeting up with Carmen but since she couldn’t come to the house, he was probably sneaking off to meet her somewhere.

  Then again, he said that everything had been handled, so maybe he was doing other things.

  I personally needed to find me a few things to do.

  Since I no longer “worked” at the hotel, I was home all the time.

  I had nothing to do all day besides tend to Horizon and soon she would be starting school.

  And I couldn’t believe it.

  My baby was growing up on me.

  So, soon, she would be gone all day and I really would be bored out of my mind.

  I really needed to find some friends.

  I’d asked Silas about the wives of all of the friends that he’d introduced me to, but he’d had to tell me the truth.

  He’d paid all of them to pretend to be his friends.

  They all were either connections, or in his circle for whatever reason, but he’d paid them to show up and pretend whenever the occasion caused for it.

  The audacity!

  The stupid things that people do when they had money.

  I’d actually laughed aloud when he told me because it was just so stupid.

  He’d gone through all of that and for what?

  To impress me?

  Hell, I didn’t have friends either so I wouldn’t have had anything to say about his lack thereof.

  So basically, Grant was his only real friend.

  But, I was worried about me at the moment and this sista’ needed friends and I needed to find a hobby.

  “I’m on my way home. What’s up?”

  “Oh nothing, I’ll just talk to you when you get here,” I said to him and once we hung up, I decided to go outside for some fresh air.

  The Fall wasn’t too far away and with that being my favorite time of the year; I couldn’t wait for the leaves to paint the streets with orange and brown leaves and for the Fall weather to remind me that the holidays were on their way again.

  I looked around the neighborhood at the other house and tried to guess the life that they had behind closed doors.

  I wondered if they were happy or if they had just as much crazy drama in their lives as I did.

  Hap
piness seemed to be one of the most expensive things in the world these days, and I hated the moments that I’d always taken for granted.

  I remembered a time in my early teenage years.

  Before I’d even started dating Keymar.

  I remembered being so full of ideas, and I had so many goals and dreams.

  There were so many things that I was going to do.

  I had my life all figured out. I had a plan. But nothing that I’d planned had come true.

  I hadn’t accomplished one single goal.

  But all of that was about to change.

  My husband had more than enough money, and so did I, somewhere, so it was time to make some of my dreams a reality.

  It was time to make my dreams come true.

  Silas pulled up and I greeted him with a smile.

  I approached him and without hesitating, I told him of Josephine’s issues with Grant and suggested that he do something about it.

  I didn’t tell him that Josephine wanted to kill him, but I did express that I thought that she might be overwhelmed.

  Silas understood and come the next day, the situation was handled.

  Josephine called cursing and fussing stating that Silas and Grant’s parents had come to take Grant away and that Silas even came with papers for her to sign for a legal divorce.

  She said that he told her to move on with her life, and that she didn’t have to worry about Grant anymore.

  She’d said that he suggested that she never try to see him or contact his parents again.

  To me that was a little harsh being that there were kids involved, but hell anything was better than her trying to kill him.

  She said Silas made sure that she had access to all of Grant’s money, since he wouldn’t need it anyway, and then she said he invited her and the kids over to our house for Sunday dinner.

  I listened to Josephine as she became emotional, but I knew that she was going to be okay.

  The way that I saw it was that she’d tried and was willing to make the best of her marriage, but it just hadn’t been in the plan.

  So now she was free.

  She was free to live and get back some of the time that she’d lost due to marrying so young and becoming a mother.

  I actually offered her to go into business with me as soon as I figured out what it was that I wanted to do or open.

  I definitely had a feeling that everything was finally going to be okay.

  But knowing my life…I was wrong.

  ***

  I woke up with a tray of food on Silas’s side of the bed.

  He’d said that he had gone to the grocery store and to run a few errands and that I should be dressed by the time that he got back so that we could go to an early movie and then do a little shopping.

  Horizon was going to kindergarten, so we had to get a few things.

  She was getting so big and it wouldn’t be long before she was a teenager and then heading off to college.

  The adoption was official and her last name had been changed to match mine and Silas’s.

  We seemed like one big happy family.

  I just hoped that we could actually get to that place.

  Things were good but there were always concerns.

  I wondered if relocating, out of state would make things better, but no matter how far we ran, our problems would find us.

  Hell, we moved an hour away from the city and people were still finding out where we lived and popping up unannounced.

  I ate the breakfast that Silas had prepared for me and then I headed to shower.

  I hadn’t really dressed up and a while, so I felt like looking expensive.

  I dressed in a red romper with gold Gucci flats, just because I wasn’t in the mood for heels. All gold accessories, a gold flower in my hair and even my make-up consisted of golds and a popping red lipstick.

  I headed to the living room to sit for a while and to wait around for them to arrive.

  I tried watching TV but that didn’t work. I tried playing a game on my phone, but that didn’t work either.

  So, I figured maybe I would go outside and catch a breeze.

  I’ve always loved the outdoors.

  And with all of the trees and the ceiling fans on the front porch, it was never too bad relaxing outside, no matter what the temperature was for the day.

  Flipping on the porch ceiling fans, I opened the front door and I was shocked to find Sonni standing there.

  She was holding a decorated box.

  So she was the one who had left the box full of pictures on Valentine’s Day?

  Why?

  It must have something to do with this whole blackmailing Silas thing.

  I could tell that she didn’t expect me to catch her but I was glad that I did.

  She owed me a few explanations.

  “Sonni,” I said and at the sound of her name, she dropped the box and turned around and started to run.

  And you know what, I started running after her.

  Well, it was kind of like a fast walk, but whatever you wanted to call it.

  “Sonni wait,” I called behind her but she just kept running.

  By the time she neared the end of the driveway, I paused and figured that I would never be able to catch her.

  “Sonni, I know that you are blackmailing Silas. I just want to know why. Why!” I screamed behind her.

  At the sound of that, Sonni looked back at me but…

  She didn’t stop running.

  A car came out of nowhere and before I could open my mouth to warn her, the red car slammed right into her and I watched her body fly towards the windshield, roll down the hood and then hit the ground.

  Did that just happen?

  And why couldn’t I move?

  Why were my feet frozen in place?

  I watched the car back away, and drive away as though they hadn’t done anything at all.

  My mouth opened but still I didn’t run to her aid.

  And I wasn’t going to.

  Before, I couldn’t understand how Carmen had done nothing to help her sister and her niece the day of their deaths but at that moment, it seemed like the best thing for me to do.

  For me, and my husband.

  She hated me, unintentionally, and because of how she was and her selfishness, I wasn’t far from hating her.

  I didn’t want to feel that way, but I did.

  And she was trying to ruin my husband’s life.

  But we were just getting in a good place and I didn’t want things to change.

  Maybe this was for the best.

  Maybe it was time to choose me.

  Mind made up, as neighbors came out to help Sonni, I turned my back to her and went back into the house.

  After all, she was supposed to be dead a long time ago anyway.

  *******************

  Chapter SIX

  I stared at Carmen and Detective Wiley.

  I was confused by what I was seeing.

  They were smiling, laughing and holding hands.

  Huh?

  Last I checked, he hated Carmen and he wanted nothing more in the whole world than to see her rot in prison for what she’d done to his best friend, because she was the cause of his suicide.

  But there they were, right in front of me, laughing, smiling at each other, about to pay for their food.

  I’d decided to come to the mall, and I’d spotted them in the food court before I’d even had a chance to get started with some shopping.

  At first I was going to keep walking, but something strange was definitely going on around here, and I wasn’t faking the funk for anyone, anymore.

  They paid for their food and turned around to see me standing there.

  Both of them looked as though they were constipated and they didn’t even try to hide their discomfort.

  “What an unpleasant surprise,” I said.

  Both of them just stared at me.

  But that didn’t stop me from talking.

&
nbsp; “Detective Wiley, I thought you hated her?” I questioned him.

  Carmen looked at him.

  “I did, but,” he started to say.

  “But what?” I cut him off.

  “None of your damn business,” Carmen said.

  “You’re right. It isn’t. You guys can die together for all I care. And I can enjoy the rest of my life with my husband. Boy, wait until I tell him this,” I said with a smile.

  But the look on Carmen’s face had gone from defensive to terrified, in only a matter of seconds.

  Hmm…

  “No, you can’t tell Silas,” Carmen said.

  What?

  What was she talking about?

  Why couldn’t I tell Silas?

  What did he have to do with what was going on with her and the detective?

  “And why the hell not?” I asked her.

  She and Detective Wiley looked at each other.

  “Look. You just can’t. If you don’t tell him, you will never have to worry about me again. I swear to you that I will never come around or bother you and your family again. I won’t call or talk to Silas, at all. You have my word.”

  What?

  For Carmen to make such a huge deal, or promise, it must be serious.

  Whatever the reason behind it all had to be damn serious for her to agree to never speak to Silas again.

  And you know what, more than I wanted to know what the reason was...I wanted her out of our lives even more.

  I wanted a fair chance at happiness with Silas, and a life without Carmen would definitely guarantee that.

  “Deal. But if you ever call him, come by my house, or if he so much as mention that he spoke to you, I’m telling,” I said and once she nodded, I walked away.

  Wow.

  Now that was weird.

  To see the two of them, together, just didn’t make sense.

  I mean, the whole hotel bust and putting me through hell to bring her down, was all for nothing basically.

  I just didn’t understand it.

  And furthermore, if they were an item…eww!

  Carmen was sick, physically, so did that mean that he was sick too?

  I was so confused, but at this point, it didn’t even matter.

  Carmen was out of our lives for good.

  Silas and I might have a chance at this thing after all. Carmen was gone.

  Sonni was gone.

  Sonni died, for real this time, that day in the street.

  A few others had seen the hit and run as well, and someone had told the police that I was outside during that accident.