Andretti’s eyes softened when mine watered, but his stance didn’t change. His body language still said he didn’t give a damn about any explanation I could’ve given him.
I chuckled softly and wiped the tears from the brim of my eyes. I wouldn’t allow him to be another man who made me feel unworthy of being cherished or loved. I couldn’t allow that. Not again.
“Tu en es digne,” I said, referring to the tattoo behind my ear. He asked me about it during the early morning hours we spent together in Chicago, but I didn’t tell him what it meant then because I didn’t want him to know how unworthy men had been able to make me feel before. “It means you are worthy, and I refuse to stand here and let you make me feel like I’m not.”
Grabbing my phone from the top of the bar counter, I pushed past Andretti and casually walked to the bathroom. I was determined to get my face and emotions in check before I went back to the dinner I couldn’t wait to be done with.
“It’s about time you got back. We’ve been waiting forever to order dessert. Was the phone call really that important?”
I was still a tad bit upset about the way Andretti’s rude ass treated me, and Britton’s comment didn’t help the situation at all. My eyes smoldered with intensity as I stared back at him, and at that moment, I was completely over men trying to make me feel like I didn’t deserve to do things that made me happy or wasn't worth being treated like a decent fucking human being period.
Not even bothering to sit down, I grabbed my purse off of the table and blew out a heavy breath.
“I’m so damn sick of you acting like you can’t support or respect what I do! Your nose is so goddamn high in the air that you don’t respect anything that isn’t remotely close to what you do! You don’t even respect me enough to remain fucking faithful! And I’m tired of pretending like we’re still in love with each other when we're not! I’m tired of your ungrateful ass period!”
“Britton," Shaunie, Britton's mother, called his name in a shocked tone. "Is this true? Please tell me you aren’t still messing around with your assistant."
Becoming suddenly speechless, Britton’s eyes widened, and he lightly stroked his throat. If it was one thing he could never do it was lie to his mother.
Shaunie slowly shook her head and sighed.
“I advised you to fire that woman a long time ago, Bryce. Why would you allow her to still work for the company when you knew she could be detrimental to Britton and Nim’s relationship?”
Bryce looked over at Britton, who remained silent while he fixed his stare on him and turned back in Shaunie’s direction.
“Are you kidding me? I couldn’t fire her, Shaunie. I couldn’t risk us catching a lawsuit because your son doesn’t know how to keep his penis in his goddamn pants! Cassandra could sue us for wrongful termination. She knows she’s damn good at her job, and being Britton’s side piece doesn’t have anything to do with her work ethic.”
“Well then, why don’t you simply create a rule that bans employees from having a romantic relationship with each other? That sounds like a fine solution to me. If she doesn’t respect the rule, you could get rid of her.”
Bryce rubbed his forehead and chuckled.
“Oh yeah, because creating a rule like that while I know my son has been sleeping with her is going to go over very well. Be realistic, Shaunie. The girl would take that rule straight to the courthouse. She knows I’d fire her if I found out she and Britton were still messing around after the rule was in place. Do you honestly think she would take Britton cutting her off or the consequences of continuing their forbidden relationship easily?”
Shaunie opened her mouth to answer but closed it when Bryce shot her a look I couldn’t quite read. She stared at me with sympathetic eyes and mouthed, “I’m sorry. I tried,” before she settled into silence.
“Nim, baby…” Britton finally found his voice, but I waved him off and rolled my eyes, completely annoyed that his mother was the one trying to clean up his mess while his father basically condoned it.
“You can save any apologies and excuses, baby.” I chuckled at the word. We wouldn’t be in the situation we were in now if I was truly his baby, and I couldn’t stand for him to be anything close to my baby any longer. “I’ll have all of my things packed tonight, and you can rest assured knowing you and your father no longer have to worry about being sued because I’m done with you. For good.”
Britton tried to stand up from the table but his father pushed him back down by the shoulder.
“Leave it alone for right now, son. You need to give her some space. Give her time to cool off.”
I could tell by Britton’s facial expression he wanted to protest his father’s request, but after a few seconds, his expression softened and turned into one of defeat. He tore his eyes away from me and slouched against the chair.
Bryce rubbed one of his shoulders while Shaunie smiled softly and focused her attention on me.
“It’s always good to see you, Nim. Thank you for coming to dinner with us. I really hope it won’t be the last.”
6
Andretti
Friday…
The hurt in Nim’s eyes wouldn't stop replaying over and over in my mind. It’d been one day since our argument at Longhorn Steakhouse, and I couldn’t get the crushed look on her face out of my head. I could tell everything I’d said to her really hurt her feelings, and I was high-key feeling like shit because of it.
Not to mention that her absence itself drove me crazy and that was a rarity for me. I wasn’t used to missing a woman’s presence the way I missed Nim’s. I honestly wasn’t used to craving a woman’s presence period. Everything I felt for her was foreign to me, and no matter how hard I tried to fight whatever feelings I had for her off, they refused to leave.
“Andretti Jarell, when are you gonna explain to me why you’ve been moping around my kitchen all morning?” Bebe smiled at me softly and leaned in her chair to rub one of my shoulders. “What’s wrong, baby boy?”
I scrubbed my hair with my hand and rubbed the bottom of my chin, trying to figure out how to explain the situation between me and Nim.
“Honestly, Bebe? I don’t really know what’s wrong with me. I met this chick while I was in Chicago and messed around and fell in lust or something. It’s hard to explain.”
“So are you looking for some advice or do you just need to vent?”
The thing I loved and appreciated most about Bebe was that she never hesitated to be there for me. She came into my life when I was five years old and never once tried to force a motherly type situation on me. Over the years, her becoming the mother I never had happened naturally. I may not have called Bebe my mother, but that’s basically what she was. And even though my birth mother wasn’t shit, she still never wanted to step on her toes and make it seem like she was replacing her. Bebe always told me she wanted to be an addition to my life, not a replacement for the birth mother who wasn’t in it. So addressing her as Bebe instead of mom worked comfortably for both of us.
“I think I probably need some advice, and I don’t mean to get too personal but the situation kind of is. It’s intimate if you catch my drift.”
“So, if I catch your drift,” she mimicked and looked at me knowingly. “You had sex with this woman, and now you don’t know what to do with how you feel about it?”
I nodded and rubbed my palms together.
“Yeah. That’s pretty much it. Well, that and the fact that this is a one night stand we’re talking about, and I don’t trust women who partake in that type of behavior.”
Bebe narrowed her eyes at me.
“What do you mean you don’t trust women who partake in that type of behavior? Do you trust yourself?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“The same kind of dumb ass question you just asked me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “How can you sit here and tell me you don’t trust women who have one night stands like you didn’t willingly have one too?”
“But that’s different…”
Bebe waved me off and used the same hand to prop her head up with a fist. She shook her head and stared me directly in the eyes.
“No. It isn’t different, Dretti, because y’all are both looking for the same thing—pleasure. The only difference is the parts being used to get it. That double standard that ‘it’s not the same’ is such bullshit. If a woman wants to get her life for one night with a man she doesn’t know, more power to her. It’s her vagina. She can do with it as she pleases just like you can do what you please with your little parts. That doesn’t make her any less worthy than a woman who would’ve waited a few months before she gave herself to you.”
“Nah. You don’t even know the full story yet, Bebe. This woman was in a relationship when she slept with me. What kind of woman would sleep with another man when she had one at home? That shit has trifling written all over it.”
“OK… so her and this man are broken up now?”
I didn’t know the real answer to that because I hadn’t let Nim explain her situation to me. Thinking back, I wish I would've let her tell me what she wanted to say because a part of me didn’t believe she had a true trifling bone in her body.
“I honestly don’t know the real answer to that question. I assumed she had a man during the time we had sex because of an encounter we recently had. I ran into her while she was out having dinner with some nigga and some other people. Shit looked too much like a family affair.”
“Did she appear happy with this man? Did they look cozy? Or did she look like she was just there?”
Rubbing underneath my chin again, I thought more about the way Nim looked while she sat with that nigga and began to realize she didn’t at all look happy to be having dinner with him.
“I mean… I guess you could say she didn’t look like she was having a good time.”
Bebe laughed at my half-honest answer.
“Mmhm. You know damn well that woman looked like she didn’t want to be there, and now this is all starting to make sense.” She nodded her head up and down. “Sounds like you were this woman’s revenge dick. Believe me, I know about that all too well.”
“Bebe, please don’t tell me no shit like that when it comes to you and my father’s relationship.”
Bebe laughed again and rolled her eyes.
“Boy, shut up. I’d tell you anything I’d feel you could use to grow or as a learning lesson. Understand?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Aight. Give me the real then.”
“All I’m trying to say is, Dretti, a woman who’s been cheated on will cheat back to up the score. She knows her cheating will hurt him more than it hurt her. You see, you men can dish it out, but y’all can’t take it. So once she reached the point where she felt like she was ready to be done with him for good, she made sure to do the one thing she knew would hurt him the most before she left. She gave his goods away. She got her revenge.”
“That’s some real illogical shit, Bebe.”
“Yeah? Well, you do illogical shit when you’ve been hurt. Trust me, and it also sounds to me like you’ve met her.”
“Met who?”
I stared at her intently, confused as fuck.
“The woman who’s going to make you realize the way you feel about a person can outweigh the things they’ve done in their past. As long as they make you feel good and are good to you, the things they’ve done in their past don’t mean a damn thing.” Bebe pushed herself back from the kitchen table and stood up. Staring at me as intently as I'd stared at her, she said, “Don’t make that woman pay for your mother’s mistake, you hear me?”
“Yeah. Aight. Ima get up out of here, Bebe. Be easy.” I stood up as well, not wanting to go down that road with her.
“Andretti Jarell, don’t make me come upside that stubborn ass head of yours. Talking to me like I’m one of your homies is gonna get you slapped. Now get out of my house and go play nice with that woman.”
“You got it, baby.”
“Oh, don’t try to be sweet on me now that you’ve gotten checked.” Bebe laughed and pulled me in for a hug. “And I meant what I said, Dretti. Do not push that woman away.” She squinted her eyes and pointed toward the doorway of the kitchen. “Now get the hell out my house with your rude ass.”
I laughed and walked my rude ass out of the kitchen and the house like she asked me to.
Bebe was not a woman to be played with.
“I agree with, Bebe. That’s a trill ass woman,” Keyon said after I ran down the situation that happened with Nim at Longhorn Steakhouse, and I also told him about my conversation with Bebe. “And she’s right. It ain’t Nim’s fault your mama was a no good ho. That shit sounds fucked up, but it is what it is. I’m just calling a spade a spade.”
I didn’t have a right to be mad at Keyon about what he said because the shit was true. My mother abandoned me right after she gave birth to me. She dropped me off on my father’s doorstep months after the two of them had a one-night stand together and never came back or called to check on me.
“You can’t blame your mother’s fucked up ways on every other woman who’s down for sleeping with a nigga on the first night. That shit ain’t fair, and you know it.”
“Aight, Key. You’re all settled down now and think you know some shit.” I laughed. “Let’s go over the track list for Exon’s party one more time. I’m ready to be done with everything that has to do with him.”
Keyon and I had spent the last two hours in the office space we rented off of 24th and Lake Street. Exon’s release party was this weekend, and we hadn’t finalized the track list yet. I still didn’t understand how or why this fool was just now having a release party because he’d been out of prison for the past three or four months. It was my best guess that his ass must’ve had to get his money up, though. Broke ass nigga.
“I’m settled down and happy, nigga. Don’t forget that part,” Keyon responded with a chuckle. “Nah, but on the real, Dretti, it’s time to grow up. We can’t walk around expecting women to be perfect knowing damn well we ain’t never been that.”
Damn. He sounded exactly like Nim’s beautiful ass. She’d said something similar to me when she cussed me out at the restaurant.
“If I had held Tori’s past against her, I would’ve missed out on a good woman. I knew when I met her that she’d probably done some things in her past she wasn’t proud of because I know I damn sure have. So off the rip, it was fuck her past. The only thing that mattered to me was what we had going on at the moment and the fact that ain’t no other woman ever made me feel the way she does. You gotta be honest with yourself, Dretti. Stop playing around. Do you honestly think another woman is gon’ come around and make you feel sprung after one night again?”
I smirked because he was really calling me out on my shit. Trying to teach me things like I wasn’t the oldest by a few months. And truthfully, I was proud of Keyon. He’d come a long way from the ho he used to be.
“Who says I’m sprung, Key? You’re reaching hard right now.”
Keyon waved off my lies and slouched against his office chair.
“Cut the bullshit, nigga. Your ass came in here grinning like it was muthafuckin’ Christmas in May when you got back from Chicago. It’s OK to admit she pussy whipped you, brah. I ain’t gon’ tell yo’ secret.”
“Shut your ass up, Key. I’m about to be out if you don’t get to business.”
“Now you want me to shut my ass up because I’m telling the truth.” He chuckled. “All you gotta do is call baby up, tell her you’re sorry, and that you want her, so I can have my mans back. I don’t wanna see yo’ ass roaming around here looking like a sad puppy no more!”
“Fuck you, Key!” I chuckled too. “I’m out ‘cause clearly your ass wants to finish up this track list by yourself.”
“Stop tryna run from the truth, Dretti. I’m real life tired of seeing that sad ass look on your face. Call ma up and take her to Chipotle or something. You know no woman on this earth is gon’ tur
n down free tacos. I bet you’ll have her in yo’ bed ass naked by midnight too, no cap.”
I waved Keyon’s stupid ass off, stood up, and slapped hands with him.
“I’m out, foo’.”
Keyon pulled me into a brotherly hug and stared at me with a serious look on his face when he pulled away.
“I’m for real, though, Dretti. Feelings like that don’t come around too often, my nigga. Make it right.”
7
Nim
“Fuck him, Nim!” Bria yelled and clapped her hands together loudly. We were once again sitting on her couch and sipping wine while we discussed our love lives. “Fuck both of those niggas, actually. If Andretti doesn’t like strong-minded women who do what they want with their bodies and don’t give a damn who has what to say about it, oh well! Sounds to me like he’s a man who can’t handle a real woman because real women don’t let men tell them how they should live their lives. Real women don’t let men’s insecurities dictate the kind of woman they should be.
If he can’t understand you were just living in the moment and doing what you felt was right at the time, that’s his problem. Not yours. And as far as Britton goes, girl, good damn riddance! It was beyond time for you to leave his cheating ass alone. Has he tried to contact you again since last night?”
It’d only been a day since the fiascos with Andretti and Britton, and only one of the situations bothered me. As much as I knew, Andretti only acted stupidly because he was blindsided by seeing me out with another man after I’d told him I was single. It didn’t take away the hurt he’d made me feel because of his harsh words, though. He tried to play me off as if I was some random fuck he felt no attachment to, and even though that’s exactly what I should’ve been, deep down I knew that wasn’t true. I could feel it in the way he held me like I was his all that night and by the things he’d said to me during and after we had sex.
The One He Craves Page 6