by B. M. Hardin
Drake still wouldn’t let me go home.
I tried to stay gone most of the day.
Looking for wedding things for the big celebration that I wasn’t even sure that I still wanted to have.
But Drake still seemed to be looking forward to it, so for now it was still a go.
Daddy had mentioned that he and Drake had officially cut all ties from the drug business but Drake was still doing everything the same way as he normally did them.
He went to work every morning like everything was normal.
I guess since he did own his own business, I figured that maybe he would keep it and just make sure that everything was legit.
Though according to Daddy he didn’t really need to.
To be honest, I might enjoy him letting it all go and being around me all the time.
That way I could watch him.
“Moe did you hear me? Do you know what red blouse I’m talking about?”
“I remember, but I don’t have it with me. Why?”
“Because I wanted to borrow it. Kane mentioned what you had been wearing the very first time that he saw you. At least I think he said the first time. Maybe it was one of the first times. I don’t know. But from the description, it sounded a lot like that blouse. I wanted to wear it for him.”
She was as stupid as she looked and sounded.
No matter what she did, or what she wore, she wasn’t me.
I just wanted to knock some sense into her or shake the hell and the stupidity out of her.
This sister of mine needed more than just those pills; she needed therapy and church.
About a gallon of holy water and a little bit of anointing oil wouldn’t hurt either because she was losing it!
“If you are going to date Kane, against my recommendation, please don’t mention anything about him to me. Thank you.”
Lee Lee rolled her eyes.
“Really?”
“Yes really. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to listen to you talk about him either. I don’t want you to date him but if you must, that’s one thing that you won’t be discussing with this sister. Go talk about him with one of the others,” I said in disgust.
Legacy smacked her lips and grabbed her purse.
“Fine.”
And with that she walked out of the house.
Daddy entered the living room shortly after.
“Couldn’t you tell Kane to leave Lee Lee alone or something? He’s only doing it because of me. Because he can’t have me. But he will listen to you won’t he?”
Daddy snickered.
“He’s a grown man Moe. And Legacy is a grown woman.”
“But he will listen to you. He works for you.”
“Not anymore remember. Besides, I’d rather stay out of that.”
“But you didn’t stay out of it when it involved me and my baby.”
“That was different. Different problem. Different circumstances. And I thought we agreed to move forward.”
I would never forget what he’d done to me but he was right.
There was no point in talking about it every day.
“I bought you something,” Daddy said reaching me a pregnancy test.
“Be sure to take it before you see Drake later.”
“Why?”
“It was just a suggestion Moe,” and as I placed the test inside of my purse, Daddy headed out the door.
I reached for my phone to call Drake but just as the phone started to ring in my ear, his phone started to ring on the table.
He forgot his phone?
Since when?
I hung up mine and grabbed his immediately.
I easily guessed his passcode and I headed to his call log.
Previously since he was dealing drugs, I could assume that that’s why his phone was always ringing.
But it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.
I checked his messages first.
None were really there other than the ones that I’d sent him so I checked his call log.
As I scrolled, I saw my name and number of course, but I also saw a whole bunch of numbers that weren’t saved.
Daddy’s number was in there a few times and even Kane’s from a little while ago.
But then I saw another number that I recognized.
Lee Lee’s.
In the past two weeks or so she’d called him three times; including the day before.
On one of the days they’d talked for roughly thirty-minutes.
He’d never mentioned to me, not even once that they were communicating.
What did they have to talk about?
And why hadn't he mentioned it to me?
I doubted that it was about Kane because as far as she knew Kane and Drake hated each other because of me so I couldn’t help but wonder what the conversations were all about.
I didn’t have time to try to figure it out.
I was just going to head down to his office and ask him myself.
And I was going right now!
As I pulled up, immediately I spotted her car and I caught the back of her going through the front door.
Lee Lee was at Drake’s job?
For what?
She’d just left from being around me and she damn sure hadn't mentioned that she was on her way to see my husband.
I got a bad feeling inside, as I headed in right behind her.
Drake’s receptionist said something but I ignored her and headed to his office.
I turned the knob and walked in just as Lee Lee took a seat.
Drake looked at me.
I shook his phone in my hand.
“You left your phone.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I noticed that Lee Lee has called you a few times. But I find it funny that you never mentioned it. Why?”
“There’s nothing to mention Moet,” Lee Lee started to say but I put my hand up to stop her.
“I was talking to my husband, thank you. And let me be the judge of what he should and shouldn’t mention to me. We both know that you don’t mind my left overs,” I said with an attitude.
Okay.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
But it wasn’t like it wasn’t true.
Lee Lee stood back up.
“I will talk to you later,” she said to Drake as though she couldn’t have cared any less about my attitude or the comment that I’d made.
“Later sis,” she said behind her as she headed out the door.
I wanted to run behind her and punch her in the back of the head, but somebody must have been praying for her, because my feet wouldn’t cooperate with my thoughts.
Drake sat down and I folded my arms across my chest.
“Are you creeping around with my sister?”
“What? Moet don’t be stupid. No, I’m not.”
“Then what is it?”
“I asked her to do something for me.”
“Like what?”
“All you need to know is that we aren’t fooling around Moe. I need her help with something.”
“With what?”
“It was a business visit, just know that. And so were the calls.”
“What kind of business?”
He had better not meant any kind of drug business though he was supposed to had let all of that go.
“Don’t worry about it okay. Thank you for my phone,” Dray said, standing back up and walking over to kiss me but I moved my face away.
I stared at him and he allowed me to look into his eyes.
Of course he wasn’t screwing Lee Lee…right?
No.
I shouldn’t even question that.
But what’s with all of the secrecy?
He had already hidden enough from me and little did he know he didn’t have any more room for another secret on his list of hidden truths.
Or he really was going to have to face the music.
And by music, I meant my fists.
This co
nversation wasn’t over I thought to myself as I turned away from him.
“I love you baby,” Drake hollered after me but I stuck up my middle finger high over my head, before slamming his office door behind me.
As soon as I was outside I called Lee Lee a few times but she must have known what I wanted because she didn’t answer.
Bitch.
For now I was going to let it go.
At least let Drake think that I had.
But my eyes were definitely on him and they were surely on Lee Lee.
I would hate to have to go back to prison but if she so much as even thought about trying something with Drake, she was as good as dead and she didn’t even know it yet.
Drake was mine.
And I would do anything to make sure that he remained that way too.
I’d worked too damn hard to get him and I refused to break my neck to try to keep him.
I would get rid of her first.
“I still think you and Krissie should have stayed at your parent’s house a little while longer,” Drake said later on that night as I laid Krissie in her bedroom.
I gave him a deadly look.
“Damn who pissed in your cornflakes?”
“Your mama.”
I looked at him out of the side of my eye because that comment was definitely inappropriate since his mother was dead.
But he didn’t seem bothered by it.
“You’re hard headed as hell you know that right?”
Drake was following me down the hall, slapping my booty all the way to our bedroom.
“We’re not going to have this conversation again. It’s been weeks. We should be fine. I want to be at home. We have a newer, better alarm. You have your gun. You changed the locks again. Nothing has happened since the last time so I think we are good.”
Drake didn’t seem convinced.
Hell knowing the possibly truth behind the break-ins, neither was I.
But it had been weeks since anything else had happened and on top of that I was tired of tip-toeing around Daddy and avoiding him every chance that I could.
I just wanted to be back in my own space and in our own bed.
Hell, they’d already run us from our perfect house to taking over this one that used to be Naomi’s, and they weren’t going to run us away from this one too.
“And I still won’t stay here alone for a while. When you leave for work, we will leave too,” I assured Drake.
I looked at Drake as he undressed.
We hadn't been intimate in a little while, but that was neither here nor there.
He’d tried but I was always so bothered at Daddy’s and now that we were home, he still wasn’t getting the goods.
Not until he told me what him and Lee Lee were up to.
“I have to tell you something.”
My heart started racing.
Was this about why he’d been talking to Lee Lee without telling me?
Or maybe he was about to open up to me about all of his other secrets and drug related stuff.
“I sold my company today.”
Oh.
That’s it?
I mean I was surprised that he was letting the business go all together.
I guess I assumed that he would want something to do since he wasn’t making moves for Daddy anymore, but this was fine too.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to talk me out of it. And I wanted it to be a surprise. I want to be here with you and Krissie a little more. We’ve spent enough time apart. Maybe you should hold off on the whole starting a business idea for just a little while too. Let’s just live a little.”
Drake sounded like Daddy so I could only assume that they’d had this conversation too.
“We can still do our big wedding celebration like we wanted to do and just enjoy being happy. We have a few years before we have to think about school, so let’s have a little fun, travel, go on a few vacations and make a ton of memories. And don’t worry; we have enough money to last us for a good while.”
Oh I bet we do.
“Hell if you wanted to, we can pack a bag, or not, and hope on a plan tomorrow and go somewhere. Anywhere in the world. Just s. You. Me. And Krissie.”
“Okay,” I said nonchalantly.
Drake looked at me as though he was surprised by my reaction.
He could tell that I was thinking.
I tried to smile to show some kind of enthusiasm, but he wasn’t buying it.
He could tell that something just wasn’t right.
But really all I cared about was that he wasn’t involved with drugs anymore and the conversations with my sister.
Anything else, I was slowly but surely getting over it.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Yep.”
“So you’re up for everything that I just said?”
“Yes Dray.”
Drake stood for a second longer and then finally he headed into the bathroom to shower.
I knew that the conversation wasn’t over, but I would have my rehearsed responses ready for him when he returned.
Glancing at my phone, I could see that Kane was calling me over and over again.
He was acting just like he was before the car accident; if not worse.
Why couldn’t he have lost his memory for real?
Or just went ahead and died or something?
He was definitely up to no good with Lee Lee and though I wondered what his motives were, hell I’d rather her talk to Kane than to be sneaking around and talking to my husband.
I didn’t like that shit.
I didn’t like it at all.
I trusted Drake.
But I damn sure couldn’t trust her.
The proof of that was calling my phone.
“Something ain’t right,” Drake said after he’d showered and came back into the room to find me in the same spot.
I looked at him.
“I know you. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes there is. Is it about seeing the calls between Lee Lee and I? I told you it was nothing.”
“Okay.”
“So you’re not mad about that?”
“No.”
“Stop short answering me then.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t make me slap you.”
“I wish you would.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“Go ahead then if you bad.”
Drake cracked a smile.
“For real though. Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me Moe,” Drake warned.
“Says the biggest liar of all time,” I said softly.
Drake looked at me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean Moe?”
I exhaled and stood up to take off my shirt.
“Nothing.”
He stared at me.
I found it hard not to check him out a little.
He watched me undress down to my panties and then finally it was as though something clicked in his head.
“Oh hell.”
“What?”
He looked at me for a little bit longer.
“You know don’t you? Yeah, that explains all of the little slick comments lately.”
I forgot how well he knew me.
But I was still going to play dumb.
“Know what?”
“The truth.”
“What truth?”
“About me. About everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said to him suddenly remembering Daddy’s warning.
But thinking about it, I guess now it really didn’t matter if I told Drake that I knew.
He just couldn’t tell Daddy.
“How did you find out? Who told you? Did Kane tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Don’t play stu
pid. That’s why you had started acting funny about being down there with your father. You know about him too don’t you?”
Damn he was good.
Drake sat beside me, naked, as I took a seat back on the bed.
“Your father can never know that you know okay?”
I could hear the sincerity in his voice. I could see the worry in his eyes.
I didn’t remember things being so intense when he was doing it all those years ago.
I knew about it then with no problem, but maybe things had changed.
I took a deep breath.
My mouth opened, but I closed it in a hurry.
But my silence didn’t last long.
“He’s the one that told me,” I said.
I didn’t have to give him any specifics I just felt the need to ease his mind.
“Your father told you about me? Us? Drugs?”
I nodded.
Drake looked at me in disbelief, so I nodded again.
“Oh. Look, I know I owe you some explanations, but,”
“No, just let it go okay. We don’t need to discuss it. You’re out of the game now. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And for good?”
“Yes. But let me just say this, about the baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want it to happen but we were caught up in some things and some big things were about to happen and he wanted everyone to be focused, especially me. I never agreed to it. But I should have tried to stop it. We could have found another way.”
You could have tried to warn me like Kane tried to, I thought, but I didn’t say my thoughts aloud.
“And I’m sorry that I lied to you. With so many enemies in these streets, you can’t trust anyone. And I couldn’t risk you knowing anything that might put you in potential danger. Your father felt the same way. That’s why he’s always lied to all of you.”
I took a deep breath and simply nodded again.
“I have done some things that I’m not proud of. More than you know about. If I could change a few things, I would. I’ve been having nightmares. About the baby. About everything. About the way we’ve handled some of the business and things possibly backfiring. I was just so tired Moe. I’ve been tired of the game for a long time but I got out and I’m never going back. Never.”
Even though Daddy told me not to say anything, I wanted to mention something to Drake.
“Did you know that Daddy killed Naomi?”
Drake looked at me.
“He told you that?”
“Yes. He said he had the nurse put something in her IV.”