So I grasped her arm and moved in close to her ear. “Let me take you home, baby.”
Her eyes shot up to my face and she frowned. “W-what?”
“Let’s go home. Let me take you home. Okay?”
I could see the tears filling her eyes and my heart fell to my damn feet. I had never, not once in the six or so months we’d been together, seen her shed a tear. She’d once told me she stopped crying when she was a kid. But at that moment, she was on the edge of crying.
“Nolan…my mother is out there.”
I nodded. “I know. Let’s go home, okay? We’ll go home and we can talk about it if you want.”
“We need to mic her again and get her back on the couch,” the producer decided to announce as if, for even a second, I gave a fuck about that show.
“That’s not happening,” I said, wrapping my arm around Bridgette’s waist and leading her out of the room.
“But we were promised a full interview,” she tried.
“And you chose to ambush her with an estranged family member. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sue.”
“Sue for what?!”
I shrugged. “We’ll think of something.”
She said something else, but I ignored it.
A few minutes later, I helped Bridgette into my car, buckled her in, and took her home.
I didn’t cry.
The tears came, but I didn’t let even one fall. I fought them as hard as I could, and I won.
I don’t cry. I never cry.
I feel pain, experience sorrow, my heart aches, but I do not cry.
Not since that day when I was eleven years old, crouched in my grandmother’s closet, praying and crying and begging for a way out. Not since she called me a weak-ass cry-baby. Not one tear had fallen from my eyes. Not. One. Because I wasn’t nobody’s damn cry-baby.
I didn’t cry when Nolan buckled my seatbelt like I was a kid, because my trembling hands wouldn’t let me do it myself. I didn’t cry when he carried me into the house, sat me on our bed, and undressed me. My eyes were dry when he carried me to the shower, sat me on the bench inside of it, and washed me. I might’ve been shaking like a leaf, but I didn’t weep when he begged me to eat and finally just fed me. And now, lying in his arms, I still refused to shed a tear.
But I needed to. I knew I’d feel better if I did. I just…couldn’t. If I did, she’d win. Even in her grave, she’d win.
And I couldn’t let her win.
I couldn’t let myself experience that relief, because if I did, I knew I’d hear her voice in my head.
“You damn cry-baby! I’ma give your ass something to cry about! Ain’t nothing wrong with you!”
I snuggled closer to Nolan, tried to fuse my skin with his. I wished I could crawl inside him, be coated in him, lose myself in him. He was my refuge. He was my safety net, and although I knew he was giving me his all, I still selfishly wished he had more to give, because I was a glutton for him.
“Can’t sleep?” His rich voice vibrated in his chest.
“No. Did I wake you?”
“No. I can’t sleep, either.”
I adjusted my head on his hard chest. “I’m sorry I messed up, running off that set like that. I know that looked bad for the film, your company…”
“Do you really think I care about any of that right now? The only thing I’m concerned about is you, baby.”
“Folks are probably dragging me all over social media right now. Where’s my phone?”
“Turned off and in your purse.”
“I need to see it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I have to at least call Jo,” I tried.
“I already texted her and told her I got you. And I do got you. You know that, right? That I got you no matter what?”
“Yeah…”
“And you know you can tell me anything? Anything, baby, and it won’t change how I feel about you.”
“I know.”
“So…you wanna talk about why what happened, happened?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I saw her walk out there, and I just lost it. I…I never thought I’d see her again. Never wanted to see her again, but there she was. Looking like…shit, she looked like life had wrung her out and thrown her away. And it just felt like a damn conspiracy or something. The devilish look in Loretha’s eyes? I knew she could be messy, but…I wonder how she even got in contact with her?”
“I’ma find out, and when I get through with her ass, she’s gonna be in the unemployment line, just like Mike and Rourke.”
I sat straight up and yelled, “What?! Did you…how?”
“Like I said, people owe me favors, and when I need to cash them in, I cash them in.”
“You got them fired? What if they want revenge or something? Losing a job is a big thing.”
“They won’t mess with us. They know I can do worse, and I will if they push me. Anyway, they got new jobs. I made sure of that.”
“You got that kinda pull? For real?”
“I got those kinda connects. I told you that.”
“Damn…but why get them fired and then hired by someone else?”
“To show them I could, so they’d think twice about fucking with you again. Look, they knew better than that shit they pulled. They knew me well enough to know I wasn’t playing with you. They knew this wasn’t what I had with anyone else. I almost lost you over that shit, so they had to be penalized.”
“Damn, Nole.”
“Like I said before, I ain’t no saint.”
“I know…”
I don’t know what it was about Nolan having power, or me hearing or seeing evidence of that power even if it was just in his tone of voice, but it turned me all the way on and I found myself climbing on top of him in the dark bedroom. I kissed him, rubbed my hands up and down his chest, grabbed a nipple and twisted it, slid my hand between us and grabbed his erection through his underwear, scooted down his body, put him in my mouth, and sucked his dick like it was a lollipop all while he asked over and over again what I was doing and if I was sure I felt like doing it.
I didn’t answer, because I knew I should’ve been working through my feelings regarding seeing my mother again and dissecting my reaction to being in her presence which made the years of therapy I underwent look like I sat in Dr. Crawford’s office hula-hooping. I should’ve been crying, even screaming, to purge myself of the hurt and pain that’d been dredged up from her first little surprise phone call. Hell, I needed to apologize to Karen, have tea with Jo, fall on my knees and pray. Something. But instead, I sank down on his shaft, grinding against his pelvis, letting him fill me to a point that it was actually uncomfortable, but I needed to feel it. I needed to feel the pleasure and pain and that out-of-control overwhelmingly intense feeling that accompanied a good orgasm. I needed to experience him clutching my ass or my hips to control my ride. I needed the warmth of his breath against my skin, the abrasiveness of his teeth grazing my nipples, the smoothness of his tongue in my mouth, and the mingling of our sweat as the minutes rolled into each other.
And I felt all of that.
And it was divine.
26
I groaned when the ringing of my cell phone woke me up, then remembered Nolan turning it off and banning me from using it. So I figured it was his and not mine.
“Baby, your phone,” I muttered, reaching over to touch him and feeling nothing but soft sheets. Popping an eye open, I confirmed that his side of the bed was empty, and a turn of my head showed me my first thought was correct. It was my phone. I guessed I was off phone restriction now.
It’d stopped ringing when I picked it up, rubbed my eyes, and checked the screen. Nolan. He’d already left? I checked the time—9:00 AM. Damn, I’d slept late, exhausted from that Lord of the Rings Trilogy sex he put on me. Tapping on his name, I activated the speakerphone and rested my head on the pillow.
He answered my call with, “Did I wake you?”
“Yeah, but I nee
ded to get up anyway. Why didn’t you wake me up before you left?”
“I woke up late myself, and since you were laying there naked, I knew waking you up was a bad idea.”
“Why you say that?”
“You know why. Shit, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the office and I got a lot of stuff to do. Gotta meeting with Ev. Got lawyers to talk to about this script I wanna option. If I’d woken you up? None of that would get done and I need to do this stuff so I can buy you some more of them eggs and crystals.”
“I can buy my own.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, you act like I’m irresistible or something.”
“Shit, you are.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Yeah, but it ain’t a problem I’m tryna solve. Hey, I made some coffee and there’s a surprise coming in about an hour, so get up. I’ll see you this evening. Love you.”
Before I could ask about the surprise, he hung up.
I’d just managed to shower and throw on a romper when the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of five Russian women who were there to give me a full-on spa treatment right there at the house. I couldn’t help but wonder if Nolan had screwed any of them but knew that he knew better. One thing about Nolan, he wasn’t messy. As many times as we’d been out together and as long as I’d been living with him, I’d never been approached by any of his exes, if you could call them that. But for all I knew, they lived at The Gallery.
Anyway, I can’t lie and say I wasn’t excited about my spa day, and when I read the card one of the women presented to me, my heart swelled in my chest.
Relax and enjoy being spoiled. You deserve it more than I deserve you. I love you, and when you’re ready to talk, I’m here.
Nolan
*****
“Damn, this tea is good. The spa Russians made it?”
Taking my cup from Jo, I nodded. “Yep.”
“I’ma have to put a bug in Everett’s ear about this. Look at you! Your skin is glowing; your nails are painted all cute. What color is that?”
“Mint.”
“I love it! Hell, I need to be spoiled, too.”
“Bitch, that man bought you a whole entire jet, you live in a palace, and you have a cook, a maid, and two damn nannies!”
“Correction, one is just a backup nanny.”
“Uh-huh. You get driven around by bodyguards, you own at least ten pairs of Loubs, your push present was a damn Bentley. Your ass needs to shut up.”
“I still want a home spa day, though,” she mumbled.
“Then tell South and watch him have a fully-staffed spa built onto your house with his supercalifragilisticexpiali-extra ass.”
“You ain’t lying.”
“Got that man super sprung.”
“Look who’s talking!”
We both laughed.
“So, you know I came to check on you. I saw what happened on the Loretha Halter Show…” Jo began.
“And you see that I’m fine. I’m good.”
“You sure? I know how you feel about—”
“I’m good, Jo. I am. It was just a shock, you know? But I’m back to normal now.”
“Okay, so did you talk to Nolan?”
I frowned. “About what?”
“About why you reacted to seeing your mom like you did?”
I leaned back on the sofa, cradling my mug in my hands. “I told him I had a fucked-up childhood awhile back. Shared some of what I went through.”
“But not all of it?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“He doesn’t need to know all that. It’s not important.”
“He loves you, it is important, and he should know.”
“I meant to ask you, when did Nat start calling South ‘Daddy?’”
“You’re shutting down on me like you usually do, huh?”
I just looked at her with raised eyebrows. She knew the drill. If I didn’t want to talk about something, no one could make me. Not even her.
Through a sigh, she said, “Everett always refers to himself as ‘Daddy’ when he’s talking to Lena, so Nat just started calling him that. I didn’t correct her, because hell, he is her daddy in all the ways that count.”
“Sid’s okay with this?”
“He doesn’t know. He might never know, because his little visits are few and far between now. Not that I’m complaining.”
My phone buzzed, and I didn’t realize I was grinning while reading Nolan’s on my way home text until Jo said, “Damn, a text got you cheesing like that? Must be Lord of the Rings Trilogy.”
“Who?”
“Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Nolan?”
“Oh, as of today, I’m calling him War and Peace.”
“Damn, that book is over a thousand pages long!”
“Exactly.”
“You are so damn crazy!” Jo said, doubling over laughing.
“I know.”
After I texted Nolan back, can’t wait, I looked up to see Jo staring at her own phone.
“What’s got your attention like that? You on IG looking at one of those ratchet-ass gender reveal videos? Those things are getting waaay out of hand, if you ask me,” I quipped.
Instead of answering me, she tapped the screen of her phone and held it up for me to see. It was a video of my mother wearing heavy eyeliner and smudged orange lipstick, that curly wig she wore on the Loretha Halter Show askew on her head, teeth scattered, skin ashen.
Her speech was slurred as she virtually screamed her words. “Yeah, I’m Bridgette Turner’s mama. I ain’t name her that, but that’s what she calling herself now. Y’all think she special ‘cause she in a movie? Well, I know the truth about her. She ain’t nothing but a broke-down ho’, and if y’all wanna hear what I got to say about my so-called daughter, who won’t even answer my phone calls and was too damn busy to come to her grandmother’s funeral, and ran off the stage of that damn talk show when she saw me, hit up my Cash App. I’m on there as $LetLet. Twenty dollars’ll get you the scoop. Loretha Halter ain’t tryna pay me, so y’all can get it this way.”
The video was posted by Tea Steepers, of course, with the caption: Up and coming actress Bridgette Turner’s mom is spilling the tea on her daughter if the price is right and we are here for it!
I’d seen the clips from after I left the show and saw that my mother had left shortly thereafter, without really sharing anything about me. So I guess I thought I was home free. Now, this.
I sighed and tried not to think about all the hard work I’d put into building my career going down the drain because my mother needed some crack and was willing to ruin my life to get it, handed Jo her phone, and said, “Um, I’m gonna call you later. I know you need to get back home to the girls, and I need to get ready for Nolan. He’s on his way home.”
“Bridge—”
I stood from the sofa. “Let me walk you out.”
Jo sighed. “Okay.”
I made it home with flowers and Korean takeout in hand, ready to sit down over dinner and let Bridgette talk my ear off if she needed to. And I knew she needed to but didn’t want to. She’d avoided it with sex last night, and I knew she’d probably try that again since my weak ass couldn’t resist her, because Jo had told me how she was, how she specialized in avoiding the heavy shit. How she could clam up and shut down and wouldn’t unlock herself until she was ready. I already knew all of this but had called Jo on my way to work for some advice, because I knew how destructive holding shit in could be. That was Neil’s issue. We all knew he and Emery broke up some years back, but he wouldn’t share why, and it was obvious that the why was eating him up, making him self-destruct. It was hard enough to cope with seeing my twin brother fall apart. I wasn’t going to be able to handle watching Bridgette slip away from me. I couldn’t lose her to this stuff, so we were going to talk. She was going to talk to me. No sexual distractions.
But then I walked into the kitchen to find her holding two glasses o
f wine, wearing a damn bra and some panties made out of nothing but silver chains, her nipples peeking at me. Chains. Chains, got-dammit!
And well, shit, I couldn’t exactly have a coherent conversation with her with my dick as hard as a damn fireplace poker, could I?
*****
You can do this. You can resist her even if you go in that room and she’s naked with her ass in the air. So what if your dick gets hard? You don’t have to have sex with her.
Yeah, right.
I sighed as I carried the mugs of coffee into the bedroom, damn near dropped them when Bridgette’s naked sexy ass yelled, “Damn, baby!”
“What?” I asked, trying to figure out what she was staring at. Couldn’t be my dick because it stayed hard and she had to be used to that by now.
“Do you have any idea how fine you are standing there in nothing but those boxers?! Shit! Look at that six pack! Come over here and rub that body on me, Zaddy!”
“Uh, I got coffee.”
“And I got some hot chocolate for you.” She dug in the bedside table drawer and pulled out a can of Reddi Wip. “With whipped cream.” I watched as she opened her legs and covered my favorite place with the whipped cream. “You thirsty?”
When did she take that out of the refrigerator?
My hands shook, and I was about to start spilling coffee everywhere. I swallowed hard, and said, “We need to talk.”
“No, you need to come talk to this pussy.”
“N-no, we need to talk about your mother and your feelings about that video. I know you saw—”
“Already handled. I contacted Loretha Halter’s producers, got my mother’s information, and set up a meeting at the studio office, if that’s okay with you. And I want you to be there.”
“Y-you’re gonna talk to your mother? Really? I just wanted you to talk through your feelings. I didn’t expect this, but…I’m proud of you, baby. And yeah, I’ll be there with you.”
Let Me Show You (McClain Brothers Book 3) Page 15