by Shelly Ellis
Melissa stared down at Lucas’s hand. For a few seconds, Derrick wondered if she was going to refuse to shake it, if maybe she was going to turn on her heel, grab her jacket, and head straight back out the door. But, to his relief, she finally shook it and nodded.
“Good meeting you too,” she said. “Thanks for having us over.”
The rest of the dinner was awkward, but drama-free. Lucas asked Melissa a few questions and she gave short, stilted replies. The dog continued to bay and bark, filling the living room with a strange soundtrack whenever they stopped talking. By the time the dessert had arrived—a caramel apple tart recipe that Lucas had found online—Derrick was relieved the meal was almost over.
He looked up from his dessert plate when Mr. Theo began to snort and hum, to flick his nose with his forefinger. He noticed that everyone else at the table was staring at Mr. Theo too.
“Dad, please stop doing that,” Melissa whispered.
“Doin’ what?” her father asked as he continued to hum and snort.
“That! It’s hard to eat while you’re doing it.”
Lucas chuckled. “I tell him all the time to just get a tissue,” he said before dropping his fork to his empty plate and sipping from his wineglass. “One time he did it in a restaurant. A woman leaned over and asked him if he was in distress and needed his inhaler.”
Melissa laughed. It was her first genuine laugh all night. “He did it at my high school graduation too. The valedictorian was giving her speech, and even onstage I could hear my dad snorting like some hog in a barnyard. I was so embarrassed.”
“I can’t help it if I have allergies!” Mr. Theo lamented. “It’s how I clean out my nose!”
Melissa and Lucas laughed even harder and Mr. Theo rose from the table and rolled his eyes.
“Hee-hee-hee. Y’all laugh it up, making fun of a poor ol’ man,” he said, pretending to be annoyed by their chiding, but Derrick could tell the older man was holding back a grin. He bet Mr. Theo was relieved to see Melissa and his boyfriend finally connecting over something. Theo began to walk around the table, gathering dessert plates and silverware. “I better start on the dishes.” He glanced at Derrick. “Can you help me clear the table? Get the wineglasses for me?”
“I’m still working on mine,” Lucas said, holding his white wine aloft.
“Me too,” Melissa said, reaching for the bottle and pouring herself another glass.
“All right, you slow down with that wine,” Derrick joked as he rose from his chair. “I don’t want to have to carry you into the elevator and down the hall when we get back home.”
“Oh, you’re gonna carry me, huh?” She sipped from her glass. “If that’s the case, I’m having another one after this!”
Lucas burst into laughter as Derrick followed Mr. Theo from the formal dining room through a door that led to the adjacent galley kitchen. He held his and Mr. Theo’s wineglasses in his hands. The door swung closed behind them and he noticed all the general disorder: pots stained with sauces and grease that were stacked next to the sink, potato peels and leftover grated cheese strewn on the butcher block, and trays covered in aluminum foil littering the counter.
He gazed helplessly around them. “Where should I . . . uh . . . set these?” he asked, holding up the glasses.
“You can put them over there,” Mr. Theo said, inclining his head to the one empty spot on the counter, near the toaster.
Derrick did as he asked before turning around to head back into the dining room. “I’ll grab some more dishes and bring them back—”
Mr. Theo held up his hand. “Nu-uh,” he said, shaking his head, dropping his voice to a whisper, “don’t go out there yet. Give em a couple minutes to themselves. I wanna see how they do out there without us.”
Derrick smiled and nodded. “I got you.” He then walked back toward Mr. Theo. “Well, is there anything I can do? Anything you want me to wash or help with?”
Mr. Theo shook his head. “Nope. Just stay in here and keep me company while they talk and I clean up.” He then turned on the faucet and dropped a plug into the sink. He grabbed a bottle of liquid soap. “So how you doin’, Dee?” he asked a couple of minutes later. “How are things really going at the Institute? I know there’s always something.”
Derrick was half tempted to tell his old mentor the truth, to tell him about Cole and the drugs and the money, about his worries that he had lost control of the Institute entirely. But instead he shrugged. “You know how it is. Same ol’ same ol’. The boys are a handful. The staff is good, but hanging on to good people with how little we can pay them is always a challenge.”
“So you managed to hang on to that one instructor I met a couple of months ago? The pretty one with the curly hair?” Mr. Theo asked as he lowered the pans into the soapy water, glancing over his shoulder at him.
Mr. Theo was trying to sound casual but his question had a double meaning, a layer as thick as lead underneath the surface. Derrick could easily detect it.
Mr. Theo was asking about his relationship with Morgan. Theo had met her once when he had stumbled onto her and Derrick having dinner together, one of the many nights that Melissa had thought Derrick was working late or out with friends. Derrick had sworn to Mr. Theo that nothing was going on between him and Morgan, no matter how compromising it may have looked. And there hadn’t been anything romantic going on between them—at the time. But Mr. Theo hadn’t believed him. It seemed that back then Mr. Theo had understood their “situation” better than Derrick had understood it himself.
“Yeah, Morgan is still working there,” Derrick said.
“And you took care of the . . . the issue between you two?”
“There was no issue to take care of,” he lied.
Mr. Theo grabbed a scouring pad near the faucet and began to scrub one of the pans in swift strokes, flexing his wiry arm as he did it. “Don’t insult my intelligence, son. I was there. I saw how you two were looking at one another, how you acted. I’m old but I’m not blind.” He stopped scrubbing and turned to face Derrick. “Is it over? You aren’t seeing her behind my baby’s back, are you?”
Derrick’s jaw tightened. He crossed his arms over his chest. It was a defensive posture he took unwittingly, but he couldn’t help himself. He had ended things with Morgan. He had told her point blank that he had made a mistake and Melissa was the woman he really wanted to be with. He didn’t deserve to be questioned by Mr. Theo yet again.
“Yes,” he answered succinctly, “it’s over.”
Mr. Theo nodded, then returned to scrubbing his pan. “And I’m guessin’ my daughter never found out about it then?”
“No, she didn’t. But it was never anything for Melissa to worry about anyway. I wasn’t gonna—”
“What should I not worry about?” Melissa called out from behind him.
At the sound of her voice, Derrick startled. He whipped around to find his fiancée standing in a kitchen doorway, staring up at him expectantly.
“Huh?” he uttered, now panicked.
Just how much had she heard?
“I said, what should I not be worried about?” she repeated, stepping farther into the kitchen. “I came in here because Lucas and I are finished with our wine.” She held out two glasses and looked between Derrick and her father. “And I heard you guys talking. Sorry! Guess I just . . . barged into your conversation.”
“No! No, you didn’t barge in. We weren’t talking about anything important, baby,” Derrick said, forcing a smile and walking toward her. “Just set those on the counter. Your dad said he doesn’t want any help for now.”
“Oh! Oh, well . . . okay.” She did as Derrick ordered, setting the wineglasses next to the two that were already on the laminate countertop. She then looked at her father and Derrick again, squinting. “Are you sure you guys weren’t talking about anything important? Anything I should know about?”
Derrick hesitated again. He opened his mouth to answer but her father blurted out, “Can’t me and Dee
make plans for your birthday without you spoiling it?”
“My birthday? So that’s what you’re doing? Making plans for my birthday? Well, why didn’t you just say that, Dee?” she joked, slapping his arm playfully.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if we did,” her father said.
She laughed. “Okay. I wasn’t trying to spoil it. Plan away! Don’t let me interrupt y’all.” She began to back toward the kitchen door.
“No, umm . . . we were done,” Derrick said, glancing anxiously at her father. “I was just about to head back out anyway.” He then wrapped an arm around her waist and walked with her back into the dining room, giving one last glance over his shoulder at Mr. Theo before he did, hoping that the older man would continue to keep his secret.
* * *
“So were you and Dad really talking about my birthday?” Melissa asked an hour later. “Be honest!”
They had just left Mr. Theo and Lucas’s house and were driving back to their place. Melissa had settled into the seat beside him. Her eyes had taken on that glassy look they sometimes did when she was mildly drunk.
“What do you mean, baby?” He turned onto a side street, pausing at the intersection for a pedestrian who strolled through the crosswalk.
“I mean you guys weren’t really talking about planning my birthday, Dee. I could tell!”
Yeah, she’s drunk, he thought. Her voice was slightly slurred. He should’ve told her to slow down tonight; she shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine.
“You always get frowny lines right here,” she continued, tapping in between her brows with her index finger, “when you lie. You did back in the kitchen. So spit it out!” She beckoned with her hand. “What were you guys really talking about?”
He loudly swallowed, wondering why she was bringing this up now. He’d thought they’d dropped the issue after they walked out of the kitchen and went back into the dining room to share more funny stories with Lucas. She had laughed and talked, even bothered her father for seconds of dessert. He’d thought she’d pushed that whole episode in the kitchen to the back of her mind.
“Come on, Dee. It can’t be that bad, can it?” She raised her brows. “What? Did Dad tell you that he and Lucas are getting married or somethin’?”
“No!” Derrick adamantly shook his head. “No, nothing like that, bae.”
“So what is it? It wasn’t about my birthday. So it had to be about something else.”
“It was nothing,” he said as he drove, wishing she would drop the subject. “It was nothing, Lissa. Really.”
She fell silent and eyed him from the passenger seat. The drone of the satellite radio filled the silence.
“It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t something you did, was it?” she asked softly. He could hear the uncertainty in her voice, like she didn’t want to know the answer even if he gave it to her.
He choked out a nervous laugh and shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “Why the hell do you think I did anything?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled before turning to stare out the window.
“You just had too much to drink at dinner, baby.” He reached down and absently rubbed her knee. “It’s making you paranoid.”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “Or it could be guilt.”
Guilt?
His pulse quickened. She thought he was guilty? So then she must already know about his affair with Morgan. Was this whole conversation just an elaborate setup to trick him into finally confessing the truth?
“What . . . what do you think I should feel guilty about?” he asked, feeling his throat go dry, feeling his palms dampen on the leather steering wheel.
“Not you, honey. I mean me! I feel guilty, and I’m projecting it onto you and it’s . . . it’s not fair.”
He frowned as he pulled to a stop at a light. He turned slightly in the driver’s seat and saw that she was blinking back tears. “Why do you feel guilty? What happened?”
She slowly shook her head and sniffed.
“Talk to me, baby!”
“I should . . . I should have told you months ago,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I should have told you that night. I didn’t want to keep it from you, but I felt so stupid. I was so embarrassed, Dee. I read the whole situation wrong!”
“What situation?”
“After . . . after you and Jay had your big fight, he and I ran into each other again. I didn’t tell you but . . . but we kinda started . . . well, we started hanging out.”
A horn blared behind them, startling them. Derrick realized the light had changed so he pressed down the accelerator and drove through the intersection. He glanced at Melissa as he drove.
“What do you mean, you started hanging out?”
“I mean we met up a few times. We had lunch. We had coffee together. We talked. We texted.”
Derrick’s frown deepened. “Wait . . . you were texting and meeting up with him? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was mad at you, Dee! We’d been fighting and you were fighting with Jay too. I had someone to bitch to about you, someone who knew you almost as well as I did. He and I . . . well, we bonded.”
Derrick narrowed his eyes, feeling his first spark of anger. “So you bonded over talking shit about me behind my back? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Come on, baby! I feel like shit enough as it is! It wasn’t like we were plotting your murder. I was just complaining about how you were taking Dad’s side, how we couldn’t really talk to each other without arguing anymore. And even though he was your friend, I always felt like he was kinda my friend too! What Jay and I were doing was perfectly innocent—at . . . at first.” She looked away from him again to stare out the window. “And then one night . . . one night Jay and I hung out. It was the night that Ricky got arrested.”
It was also the night that Derrick had told Morgan that he was finally going to break up with Melissa, he silently noted. He had made plans to tell her it was over between them. Little did he know, his fiancée was out that night with Jamal—a dude he used to call his homie, someone he had once considered damn near a brother.
Joke’s on you, huh, Dee? Serves you right, a voice in his head mocked.
“He’d just broken up with his girlfriend, Bridget, and I wanted to cheer him up by doing something fun. We went bowling at Lucky Strike. We grabbed dinner at Gallery Place. We went back to his place after, to just . . . just hang out. Or at least, I . . . I thought that’s what we went back to his place to do,” she whispered.
As she continued to tell her story, Derrick could feel the muscles in his stomach clench. The car compartment suddenly felt a lot hotter. He knew what she was about to say would turn his anger from a spark to full-on flames, but he wanted to hear it. He had to hear it. He braced himself for what she would say next.
“I don’t know how it happened but . . . but he kissed me, Dee.” She closed her eyes. Tears spilled onto her cheeks as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “He kissed me and he told me that he . . . he loved me—that he’d always loved me, but he could never say it because you were his boy. He told me that you weren’t right for me. That we weren’t right for each other. He always knew it.”
Derrick blinked, at a loss for words.
“B-b-but it stopped there. It was just one kiss! I pushed him away. I-I swear,” she stuttered. “I told him that he was wrong, that it was messed up. I left his apartment and I haven’t spoken to him since. But I wanted to tell you. I’ve felt so guilty about keeping this secret from you! But I thought about it the next day and I figured Jay maybe had one beer too many that night. Maybe . . . maybe he didn’t even realize what he’d said, what he’d done. But either way, it didn’t feel right hanging out with him anymore. If he really felt that way about me, I didn’t want him to get . . . well . . . confused.”
Derrick’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, imagining that it was Jamal’s neck. “He wasn’t confused,” he said.
“What, baby?”
“Dee, calm down. I already yelled at him . . . cursed him out. It happened months ago! Look, it was a mistake. I didn’t want to make the rift between you guys even worse over something that didn’t really mean anything. Nothing was gonna—”
“It did mean somethin’, Lissa! He and I were friends for almost twenty years and he betrayed me! I’m not gonna sweep that shit under the rug. And why the hell were you even seeing him on the side like that? You don’t expect for a dude to read something into it? To think that you down for whatever, too?”
Her brows knitted together as she pointed at her chest. “Are you really trying to blame me for this? Are you saying I led him on?”
“I’m not saying you led him on, baby, but . . . but—”
“But what, Dee?”
He told himself to count to ten, to take a deep breath and get his rage under control. He had cheated; Melissa had not. She had confessed about a drunken kiss with Jamal, and he was still keeping his affair with Morgan a secret. He was in no position to make accusations, to point the finger of blame, but that didn’t soothe the sting of betrayal. Jamal had betrayed him, after all their years of friendship, after everything Derrick had done for him.
She closed her eyes and turned to face her window. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
He breathed in and out, over and over again, while staring at the roadway. “No . . . no, you should’ve told me,” he began calmly, relaxing his grip on the wheel. “I’m . . . I’m sorry for shouting at you. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was blaming you. That wasn’t what I wanted to do. Because you weren’t to blame.”
She slowly opened her eyes and turned to face him again.
“You’re not in touch with him anymore. Neither am I. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s . . . it’s nothing we have to worry about. We’ll put it in the past. I’ll let it go.”
“Really, Dee?”
He nodded. “Really.”