Live & Learn ~ A Miss Independent Novel

by Kiki Leach

  “But it wouldn’t be with the entire group this time,” he said. “We could sneak out of the city Fourth of July weekend, just the two of us. And that house is right at the edge of the beach.” He bent his face down and pressed his lips against her throat. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you wet.” He maneuvered his hand between her thighs, pinching the inside of one.

  She immediately clamped them together and turned her face toward his, furrowing her brows. “Mo,” she hummed softly against him.

  “Shh.” He smiled wide as he eyed the gratification spreading across her face while edging his hand closer and closer to her sweetest spot. She wanted him to touch her so badly but at the same time, knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle the feeling it gave her. “I’m just giving you a preview of what to expect when we get back home.”

  “If you don’t remove your hand from between my thighs, Maurice Livingston, I’m going to tell that driver to take us back home so that you can show me now.”

  “That wouldn’t be such a bad idea.” He extended his tongue against her throat and moved his hand up higher.

  “It wouldn’t if my mother were not Alexis Brown.” She slid her hand between her own legs and pushed his away.

  He smirked and reached for her fingers, kissing the back of each one. “How do you think she’s going to feel seeing us standing there together holding hands like this?”

  She glided her index across his lips and leaned in. “She’ll probably jump for joy before berating me for not making this official sooner.”

  “I can’t blame her for that.” They both grinned. “How do you think Gina’s going to feel?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “I haven’t spoken to her since she came to my office yesterday. I also haven’t seen or heard anything much in the media about that little piss-ant she was supposedly dating, so hopefully, they were able to end things on a much quieter note than Nathan and I did.”

  He looked down at their hands and became concerned. “When you look back on what happened then, do you regret how it all came out?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How everything was found out through Page Six. Do you wish it could’ve happened differently or not come out at all?”

  “Sometimes, I guess, but it doesn’t matter now to be honest. Like I told Gina, what’s done is done and we can’t change it.”

  “But you would if you could?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe, but… At the end of the day, he left me for Sheila and with or without the information getting out there, it wasn’t going to change the outcome of the situation. That being said, I still wish they would get the hell out of New York and take their tired asses back to California in all of their blatant desolation, but what can we do? I can’t make them leave no more than I can change the past that got us to where we are today. And even though it took me a little bit longer to get here than it probably should have, I’m happy that I finally did. And that is something I would never change.” She bent forward to kiss him.

  “We’re here,” the driver said. As he stopped in front of Alexis’ townhouse, Vanessa wiped the lipstick from Maurice’s mouth and straightened his shirt and collar.

  He slicked back his hair and she fluffed hers and pulled down her dress. He rested his hand on the door handle and turned to look her in the eyes. “It’s now or never,” he said.

  “I prefer never, but let’s just get this over with before she sends a PI after me.”

  Maurice jumped out and held his hand out for Vanessa. They paid the driver and sent him on his way, then gradually walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell. He dropped his fingers down her arm and held her hand tight. She looked up at him and smiled. It was the first time she felt completely secure in bringing someone home to her parent’s. Not because of who he was or because they already knew him, and therefore it wouldn’t be strange or different. But because she was almost certain that after this time, she would never have to go through something like this with someone else ever again. That feeling made her glow like a million watt bulb from the inside out and Maurice saw it. Only, he wasn’t sure if it was because of what he had done in the cab, or because of what he had planned to do with her when they finally got back home.

  When the door finally creaked back, Alexis stood glowering at them from the other side. “You’re late,” she said. She stared at Maurice first and then turned to her daughter. “I see that you’ve brought your backup plan instead of this ‘Mr. Wonderful’ you were so eager for me to meet.”

  Maurice arched a confident brow and tugged at his shirt as he straightened himself. He beamed while looking at Vanessa, who kept her eyes on her mother.

  “Maurice is who I wanted you to meet, Alexis. He’s my date tonight.”

  “I already know him – Where is the man that you originally planned to bring?”

  She tossed her hand out and waved it in front of her. “He’s it!”

  It was starting to sink in for Alexis, but not as quickly as Vanessa would have liked. “I’m sorry?”

  “Maurice is who I had planned to bring from the beginning, Mother. I was screwing with you at the office today in throwing you off because I wanted you to be genuinely surprised when you saw him, and us. So, surprise! Maurice and I are dating now, for real. Now, do you mind if we come in or were you planning on having a midnight picnic on the porch?” She moved passed her mother, who stood frozen, stunned at what she had just learned. Maurice smiled at her before following Vanessa inside the house and to the living room.

  Alexis turned back to watch them as they entered hand in hand and greeted Alexander, who was placing an assortment of drinks around a small table. To say that she was thrilled with her daughter’s decision in finally choosing to settle down, or something like it, with a man as good looking and smart as Maurice, not to mention someone who loved and respected her more than his own life, would have been the understatement of the century.

  She lifted her eyes up and exhaled, relieved that the evening wouldn’t turn out as so many had before when Vanessa chose to bring someone home for them to meet, with them leaving early following a fight that stared with Alexis’ immediate disapproval of the man in question. “Thank you God,” she said to herself. “I won’t have to smack her silly for this one.” After shutting the door behind her, she rushed to the living room and sped to Vanessa’s side, just as she was picking olives from a tiny silver bowl at the center of the table and stuffing them into her mouth like pieces of candy. “Those are for the drinks.”

  Vanessa quickly chewed them. “Sorry.” She covered her mouth as it was full of pimentos. Once she swallowed, she ran her tongue across her teeth and felt an immediate need for dental floss.

  “It’s alright, we have more in the kitchen. Which is where I need to speak with you in private.” Alexis glanced over at Maurice as he cracked open a beer and mingled with Alexander near their bookcase.

  “What for?” Vanessa continued picking at the snacks, turning her nose up at the little offerings she assumed the birthday girl had chosen herself. “I couldn’t have done much of anything to warrant a private conversation with you already. We just got here! And where the hell is Gina? This dinner is for her and she’s not even here for it.”

  “She’s upstairs getting ready, trying on a new outfit or something. Come with me, now.” She snatched her daughter by the hand and dragged her around the corner and into the kitchen.

  As they collided through the door, Vanessa yanked her arm back and fixed her dress as it flew up behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

  Though she was now certain of the truth, she wanted to hear it straight from Vanessa’s lips. “Are you and Maurice sincerely together?” she asked. “Or was this something that you cooked up to keep me from learning the truth about who you were truly seeing? Is it Nathan?”

  “No!” She grimaced. “Hell no. He’s still promising to marry Sheila and as I see it, they can live miserably ever after and will. No
thank you to that. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking for so long as it was, but I never wanna go back to it. Maurice and I are the real deal.”

  “My God has finally answered this prayer! Hallelujah and thank ya, Jesus – Now when did it happen? What exactly did he tell you? How did you react?”

  Vanessa chuckled. “You sound like you’re sixteen, not someone who has two adult children.”

  “Speaking of childish women,” she began, “have you spoken with Nicole about the two of you yet? She’s going to have to find another place to live at some point if this manages to move any further.”

  “It will. But I haven’t spoken to Nikki in a few days about anything, really. She’s been... busy.”

  “With who? And what? Is it William?”

  “We’re not going there again.”

  “If I find out that that girl has been with him--”

  “What girl?” Gina asked as she bounced into the kitchen. Both women immediately stopped talking, which made her even more curious. She looked to Vanessa and narrowed her eyes. “Did you tell her about me coming to your office the other day?”

  “No.”

  “You came up there to see her?” asked Alexis, who became alarmed. “What about?”

  She bugged her eyes and rolled them to the side. “Then you weren’t talking about me?”

  “It was about Nikki,” Vanessa told her, “and not something that you need to be worried about. No need in taking away from your day. You did enough of that just by taking forever to get downstairs.” She looked her up and down. “And is that one of my old outfits from high school?”

  She spun around once and dipped back while flaring the pleated skirt and pulling at the bright pink tank top. “I found it in another one of the other boxes in the basement marked ‘V’s Stuff’.”

  “Then by all means--”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “On me. Six years ago.”

  “I think I like it on me better right now.” She threw her hands down on the counter and lifted to her toes. “What are we having for dinner?”

  “You wanted something tropical, so we we’re having it catered.” Alexis looked down at her watch. “And he’s late.”

  “Alexander isn’t cooking?”

  “I eat my dad’s cooking every night, V. I wanted something different for once and thought that this would be the only time I would ever get it. Guess that’s out.”

  “Gina,” Alexis started, “go on and ask your father to call the caterer and see where he is. We don’t have time to wait all night and if he doesn’t show up anytime soon, then you’ll have no choice but to eat his cooking.”

  She recoiled like a snail back inside the shell and backed out of the room.

  “Was I that much of a pain back then?” asked Vanessa.

  “You say that as if times have changed much in the last six or seven years, Miss Thing,” Alexis replied. Vanessa genuinely laughed. It was the first time she had no urge to snap back at her mother. Alexis wagged her finger and leaned back on her heels. “There is such an undeniable radiance about you now, girl. I haven’t seen it in years, but I see it tonight and it’s shining so bright throughout this house. When did you finally decide to say yes to Maurice?”

  “Just recently.” She cleared her throat and swallowed hard. “In fact, it was after leaving Adrian’s apartment that I decided I no longer wanted to remain stagnant with Mo.”

  All hope suddenly felt lost for her the moment she said those words. “Oh my God, girl!”

  “But like I told you this afternoon, we’re trying to keep things quiet for now.”

  “Vanessa, if the press wants information on who you are dating, they will get it in the same way they always have: via long lens cameras and an anonymous source. But my concern is more that you went to see Adrian. Because what in God’s name would possesses you to do such a thing? And when and where did you manage to find the time?”

  “I went last night after work.”

  She shook her head at the perceived foolishness of it all. “Sometimes I just don’t know what in the hell to do with your behind when you act so damn simple!”

  “It wasn’t simple. I went there to get him to back off! Sheila is the one who originally contacted him--”

  “That means Miss Big Mouth Nosetta is aware of him as well. Perhaps I should release Harold from the magazine and allow the story to be publicly printed. That girl will run and tell everyone she possibly can at the most inopportune time because that is how she has always been.”

  “I know that,” Vanessa replied. “But I kind of bit her head off about it and I think unlike Nathan, she really will back off.”

  “Why in the world was she contacting him to begin with? Is every man in your life an aphrodisiac or the equivalent of catnip to this woman? You better watch her like a hawk when she comes around Maurice. You know that I have never liked her.”

  “I know it but I’m not worried about them, trust me. She’s still too obsessed with Nathan, which is why she called Adrian, to use him as some kind of distraction to keep me away from ‘her man’. So because of that, he in turn contacted me as he had planned to go along with it. The only positive I can say in seeing him again is that I got a lot of things out that needed to be said to his face years ago.”

  “Well I’m that glad you got whatever it was out of your system, but this better not come back to bite you on that behind of yours again--”

  “It won’t--”

  “And it BETTER not have been anything more than what you are telling me.”

  “Mother, it wasn’t, alright? I just told him off and then I went home to Mo.”

  She turned a little and rested against the counter. “Are you with him now because of Adrian?”

  “No,” she quickly answered. “I am certain about that. Maurice makes me happy in a way that I haven’t felt in years, if ever. He makes me feel beautiful and sexy and smart and sophisticated and to be honest, he always has. But I didn’t want to accept his feelings for me or mine for him because I was just so blinded by Nathan. When Alexander came to see me while you were out of town, he said that there was a first love and a true love, which is the one that’s supposed to be lasting. He said that kind of love was meant to be from the beginning, even if it didn’t start there. And that you come back to it because it’s authentic.” A smile emerged on her lips. “For so long, I didn’t know where to put Nathan on that scale. I was trying so hard from the very beginning to force him into a true love category and it turned out that he was never meant to be that for me. Maybe that’s who he is for Sheila, maybe not, I don’t know or care.”

  “Is Maurice that man for you?” she asked.

  Vanessa slowly moved her head up and down. “Yeah. He is. I was so scared to allow myself to become vulnerable with another man again – even him – but I’d take being scared all over again if it got me right back to this point. So trust me when I say that I realized after coming from Adrian’s that everything I feel for Maurice has always been there. It was just buried underneath a whole lot of other shit that I had to pound through in order to understand and accept it.”

  “That’s very profound, Vanessa, truly. I don’t think I have ever heard you say anything like that before.”

  She laughed quietly. “What’s funny is that Adrian was supposed to be the intellect who made me think about things like this. But I didn’t get any of it then, not like I do now. And I think it was because he was just the wrong person.” She went over to the fridge and searched for something to drink.

  “I should say so… Have you told Maurice about this man?”

  “No. And I don’t ever plan on it.”

  “Vanessa. You can’t go into this relationship already keeping secrets!”

  “It’s not a secret. It’s just not something I ever plan on talking about with anyone after tonight. That includes you. There are only a select few that know about this, some by choice, some not and I’d like it to remain that
way. Maurice doesn’t need to know about anything that went on with Adrian back then. I am trying like hell to forget it myself.” She took a sip of water and headed out of the kitchen.

  “He is going to have to learn the truth at some point!” Alexis hollered.

  Maurice looked over at them as they reentered the living room. “He, who?” he asked.

  “Now is a better time than any.”

  Vanessa spun around, infuriated. “Mother!”

  “What is she talking about, V?” he questioned again.

  “Nothing.” She pushed her hair back and kept her focus on Alexis. “Except for the fact that Harold from the NYDN has managed to land a consulting job at the magazine. Which means, he works directly with me now.”

  Alexander eyed Alexis, who guiltily lowered her eyes.

  Maurice twisted his face in confusion. “How in the hell did Harold from the NYDN manage to land a job at the magazine?”

  “That’s something that you’ll have to ask Alexis about,” she said. “I’m not really sure on the details.” She went back over to the table with the bottles of liquor and traded in her water for a clean shot of whiskey.

  Alexander walked over to his wife and nodded toward the foyer. She reluctantly followed.

  “Now is truly not the time,” she began.

  “Were you ever planning on telling me about this?” he asked her.

  “I had hoped to take care of it on my own.”

  “Why are you allowing that man to work for you after the hell he put our daughter through, from the time she was sixteen years old?”

  Alexis breathed out and pressed her hands together. “He knows things about her that if I allow him to work for me, he will not release them to the press.”

  “Things like what? We’ve handled everything they have managed to throw at us. Vanessa’s endured more from them than people twice her age.”

  “You have to trust me on this, Alexander, alright?” She pat his chest. “Just trust me.”

  “I’m not sure if I can.”

  For the first time in their ten year marriage, she felt distant from her husband. He drank some of his beer and moved past her.