by B. M. Hardin
“There isn’t.”
I could tell that he was still trying to figure out how serious I was.
“And I think we both need to get over everything that has happened.”
“Hmmm,” Kane said.
Maybe I could get something out of him without all of the extra.
“Do you think whoever put the bomb in Daddy’s car was related to Drake’s death?”
“I don’t know. You can never be sure. Hell, I thought your Daddy killed Drake. But my thoughts have been wrong lately. Just like initially I thought Drake had killed Naomi.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m smart enough to know that it was something extra that had happened in that hospital room. For one second I didn’t believe that she had died giving birth.”
“But women do die giving birth.”
“I know that. But I knew that she hadn't. I just had a feeling that it was foul play. Drake was there and I guess I just thought that he had done something to her for all of the issues with me and you. It was farfetched, but I thought that he had done something. I never thought for one second that it was your father.”
He stopped talking for only a second.
“So maybe my speculations were wrong. Maybe your father didn’t kill Drake. Could they be connected, yes. I would think so. Why? I wouldn’t know.”
I had to act as though I didn’t know anything about what Daddy had mentioned with Jinx’s brother and the whole money situation.
Kane really didn’t appear to know anything.
But I was hoping that he could find out.
Seeing my brother burning alive and Daddy’s reaction once it all set in, was all I needed to make up in my mind that I had to do something.
The way that he laid on Rum’s casket and screamed that he was sorry and said that it was supposed to be him, I knew that Daddy was telling the truth about everything that he’d said to me and I needed Kane’s help to try to make sure that Daddy wasn’t next.
Maybe he could relay a message that it was all Drake and say that Daddy had nothing to do with it.
It was a lie, but hell Drake was already dead.
The doctors said that they didn’t know when Daddy would die, just that it was terminal, but he could at least die peacefully.
How they’d found out about what Daddy and Drake had done was none of my concern.
It was what it was.
I just needed something to be done.
“Well Kane, what do you say?”
“I say you’re full of shit. You’re up to something.”
“No I’m not. It’s just,”
My emotional ass started to cry.
And I do mean actually tears.
Being pregnant and dealing with death left and right kept me crying but actually it was perfect timing, because I didn’t know what I was going to say and the tears seemed to move Kane.
He stood up and came around to hold me.
“Everything will be okay. How about we go out to lunch? I’ll eat what Lee Lee brought for me later. Let’s go eat,” Kane tugged at my hand until I stood up.
I pulled myself together before walking out of his office.
Showtime.
Kane opened the door for me to get into his car and as we pulled out of the car lot, I spotted Lee Lee sitting in the distance.
She pulled off when she saw me.
She was going to be the only thing in the way.
I had to figure out a way to get her to back off.
She wasn’t going to have a choice.
Operation: Become Kane’s main chick was in full effect.
And no side chicks were allowed this time around.
She could have him back once our Daddy was in the clear.
******************************
CHAPTER FIVE
“What are you up to Moet?” Daddy questioned.
“Huh?”
“Huh my ass. Why the sudden interest in Kane? You know your sister has been having a fit about you seeing him. But I have a feeling that it’s something behind it. I told her that you had to have a reason because last I checked, you hated him. So what is it?”
I really didn’t care what Lee Lee was feeling.
She had no right to try to date him after whatever we’d had in the first place.
“It’s nothing Daddy.”
With that, I left him and Krissie at the house as I headed out to meet Drake.
Of course I didn’t want him to come to the house to get me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t already know where it was.
Lunch had gone fine the other day, but he asked if he could still take me to dinner.
Of course I said yes.
I planned to share with him what Daddy told me, but put it all on Drake.
I was then going to ask him to tell what I’d told him to Jinx’s brother.
I drove to the restaurant and instead of going in, Kane was standing at the door waiting for me.
I hadn't looked at him with anything other than eyes of hatred for a very long time, but for some reason I couldn’t help but notice how good he looked.
He’d always had just the right amount of sex appeal and I had to remind myself that this was business so to speak; not pleasure.
This was about saving Daddy.
“Don’t you look pretty,” Kane said.
He grabbed my hand and led me inside.
The folks seemed to be a little extra attentive to him.
“You must come here often,” I said as I was taking a seat.
“I own this too.”
“What?”
“What can I say except that I like to invest my money. You can’t have all of your eggs in one basket.”
“Well, being that you are the head of Daddy’s operation now, you won’t need to invest. I’m sure that you’ll be making more money on top of the money that you already have.”
“About that. I let it go.”
“What?”
“The operation is no more. When I said that I was making my runs, I was making my rounds to let the folks know who usually get our product from us that I was shutting it down. I’d set them up to start getting what they need from a few different connections. Mostly from Jinx’s brother and his workers.”
Just the man that I wanted to talk about.
“I’m done too. To be honest, in that business it’s hard to find loyal people who you can truly work with and make money with without having to worry about watching your back all the time. I don’t have time for that. Your father is out. Drake is gone. Whether we all got along or not, we were one hell of a team. It was just time that I got out of it too. There’s too much shit going on as it is.”
Kane walked away too?
I wasn’t expecting that.
I couldn’t wait to hear what Daddy thought about it.
“Will you keep close contact with Jinx’s brother still?”
“No. There’s no need too. I’m even getting my son from Jinx’s parents and moving him here to live with my mother and his baby brother. I’m just planning to move on with my life.”
No!
I needed him to talk to him for me about Daddy.
“So, this is one of my six investments. But let’s order, shall we?”
I was starving so I didn’t put up an argument.
I felt nervous.
I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or not.
Maybe this was a stupid idea.
Maybe I should have just left it all alone.
But who wouldn’t try to save one of their parents if they thought that maybe they could?
Despite what Daddy had done to me.
Our family had been through enough already and I just didn’t think I could take much else.
So maybe all of this was really about me and not so much about Daddy at all.
“Taste this.”
Interrupting my thoughts, Kane spread butter on one of the rolls that was now on the table.
>
I opened my mouth.
“Isn’t that the best damn piece of bread you’ve ever had in your life?”
I nodded.
It really was good.
He reached me the rest of it.
“My sister’s personal recipe.”
“Oh, but this isn’t connected to you family’s restaurant right?”
“No.”
The baby started to move around.
I touched my stomach.
“Do you know what the sex is yet?”
“No. With everything going on I haven’t been back to the doctor.”
“Can I touch it?”
I shrugged.
Kane touched my stomach and the baby moved again.
He smiled.
Damn it!
That smile of his almost made me moist.
Kane was still fine as hell.
With those glasses of disgust off of my eyes, I definitely remembered why I’d gotten involved with him in the first place.
“I guess it likes me,” he said and moved his hand.
“Or maybe it was trying to kick your ass for always giving it’s mama a hard time.
Kane chuckled.
“It’s only because I care.”
“Why? Why do you care?”
“I always have.”
“Well, you had a funny way of showing it.”
“Or did you just have a funny way of seeing it?”
We both got quiet.
I had no idea what to talk about so I hoped that he had something more to say.
We ordered our food and then sat there for a while.
Silently.
“Moet? So why are you really here with me right now?”
“After all of the chasing you have done, I’m surprised that it even matters.”
“I’m just curious.”
“Do you want the truth?”
Kane sat back in his chair.
“I didn’t want whatever was happening with you and Legacy to bother me. But it did. I wasn’t jealous but I just felt that you should have been off limits because she is my sister,” I lied.
It didn’t bother me.
I mean, not really.
“You were jealous Moet.”
“I wasn’t jealous. I guess seeing you guys becoming acquainted just rubbed me the wrong way.”
“And so you felt that the only way to make sure that she and I didn’t go any further than friends, because that’s all that we are, you wanted to try to get in where you fit in?”
“Maybe. I just started to think about how we were and the conversations that we’d had before everything went wrong and all of your lies as well as mine blew up in our faces.”
“Well, we’re here now.”
“That we are.”
“And now you want me because Drake is dead? If he was still alive you wouldn’t want shit to do with me.”
“I could say the same about you and Naomi.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“If you aren’t dating my sister, then why aren’t you dating anyone Kane?”
“Like you just said, I lost Naomi not long before you lost Drake. But if you want me, I’m yours,” he said with a chuckle, but I got the feeling that he meant it.
He and Lee Lee deserved each other.
They were both equally crazy.
It was as though he read my mind.
“Don’t worry about her. She understands. We had a long talk today.”
“And?”
“And I told her the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
He looked at me.
“It’s no secret that I’ve always had a thing for you. Whether I was married, with a mistress, or whether I was giving you a hard time. It was always just something about you. I could never put my finger on it. Had you and Drake not had history, I would have had you.”
“And none of that would have mattered because at the end of the day I would have still been your side chick, times two, since you were dealing with Naomi, Jinx and me at the same time.”
“Yeah, but neither of them were you.”
I started to think to myself if there could be something more between us, outside of what I wanted him to do for me.
I just couldn’t forget all of the things that he’d done and all of the mess that he’d caused.
But thinking about it at that moment, I wondered if any of it even mattered.
Out of all the people and lovers that were involved now there was just the two of us.
Well, except for Lee Lee.
And I was sure that I was going to be the one to have to deal with all of the extra that was going to come from whatever they discussed.
“So can we skip all of this and just get straight to desert?” Kane winked and made a silly face.
And though I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help it and I gave him what he wanted.
A smile.
Here goes nothing…
~***~
“Chardonnay have you spoken to Lee Lee?”
My sisters Chardonnay and Velvet had joined me for lunch.
We all hadn't been together since our brother’s funeral, but we were still missing one.
“Yeah. She’s on her way.”
“Really? I’d called to invite her but she hadn't answered the phone.”
“You already know why Moe.”
“Oh and you know why too?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. What did I miss?” Velvet asked.
She couldn’t keep her hands off of my stomach.
She and her new husband wanted a baby so badly.
But her time was going to come.
“Kane. Do you remember is who Moe cheated on Drake with? Who also used to date Drake’s first wife? And somehow he and Lee Lee hooked up but he doesn’t want her. He still wants Moe. I think I covered it all. Right Moet?” Chardonnay snickered and I paid attention to how old she seemed to look these days.
I guess working yourself to death was more than just a saying.
“Eww. Why would she want someone that you had sex with?”
“My point exactly.”
“Does she seem a little weird to both of you too?”
They both nodded as Lee Lee walked up.
“Hey,” she said somewhat chipper.
She ordered something to drink.
“Hey Lee Lee, I miss you,” I said to her.
She didn’t say anything.
“Lee Lee?”
Surprisingly she smiled and threw up her hand.
“I’m getting married!”
We all looked at each other.
“Uh hello, did y’all hear what I said? I said that I’m getting married!”
We all chimed congratulations.
“To who?”
“Don’t worry it isn’t to Kane. He told me that he loved you by the way. Anyway, it’s to someone I met online. He’s really nice and he’s from here in town but he’s in the Army and they are about to ship him overseas, and he asked me to come with him. But as his wife.”
“What? How long have you known him?”
“Not long obviously. But we have a real connection.”
Hadn't she just said that about Kane?
The old Lee Lee was back…she was just the clean version.
“Well, don’t you think that we should meet him?”
“We’re getting married today, at three, and then we’re leaving out tonight to go to Kuwait.”
“So when were you going to tell us? Where is the wedding? At the court house? We want to be there. Lee Lee, don’t you think you are moving too fast? Is this about Kane?”
“No. This is about me. Besides, he had sex with you anyway. That’s kind of nasty.”
Uh duh!
I’d been telling her that the whole time but she hadn't wanted to listen to me.
“Well, at least tell us his name.”
“His name is Aaron. It was love at first sight. We’ve been chatting back an
d forth and he asked me to meet him. I fell in love as soon as I saw him. And he’d felt the same way. He asked me was I afraid to take a chance with him and when I’d said no, he said let’s get married. Life is too short. So he took me to the jewelry store and told me to pick out the ring of my dreams.”
I looked at the rock on her finger again.
It was huge and it was shining and sparkling in the sunlight.
“Well when can we meet him?” Chardonnay asked.
“That’s the problem. You can’t. I told him that my whole family was dead.”
“What? Why would you tell him something like that?”
“I just did. He thinks that I’m all alone and when I told him what had happened to me with Vicki, well I told him what I wanted him to know, he said that I would never have to worry about being hurt again. He said that he would love me the way that I always wanted to be loved. What he’s promising me is forever and I can’t tell him that I lied about my family being alive. I don’t want to change his thoughts of me or look like a liar. And I definitely don’t want him to change his mind.”
Lee Lee was just so stupid lately, I swear!
And I could tell that she was on her pills by the way that she was acting.
She was suffering from more than just anxiety. I was sure of it.
She was just trying to find anybody to be with her, and she didn’t care how nasty it was or how desperate she looked, she was determined to find her version of true love no matter what she had to do or say to have it.
“So what about us?” Velvet said with an attitude.
“I’ll call when he’s working. And I’ll come back here from time to time. I’ll have to figure it all out. I did tell him that I had a few good friends. So, until we’re married for a while, with kids or something, you guys will just have to be referred to as friends until then.”
“This is just stupid Lee Lee. You can’t be serious right?”
“I’m just trying to have a good life. A better life.”
“You can have that here. With us. Don’t just write us out of your life Legacy. This is about Kane. I know it is.”
“No Moet. It isn’t about Kane. This is about me. I want someone to love me the way that Drake loved you. Hell I guess I could say the way that Kane loves you too. I just want what everyone else has. For the longest I thought that I didn’t need it but I do. I really do. And now that I have a chance to have it, I’m taking this chance,” she said and stood up.