Know Your Place

by Shelly Ellis

  The first time he’d met her, her toenails had been that same color—that same brassy red.

  “Hey,” she called out to him. “Can’t sleep either?”

  He didn’t answer her but stepped farther into the room instead, and looked around him. Even if Simone hadn’t been in here, he would’ve known this was her room—from the furniture to the knickknacks. He could remember her old apartment down in Eastern Market. It had been decorated in much the same style. He had spent countless hours in that space, in bed with her, telling her stories about his life, his sister, Desirée, and his Grandma Kay. He had told Simone things he hadn’t told anyone else. They’d had an intimacy that he’d thought could only be shared between true lovers, but he knew now it was all a lie.

  Smoke and mirrors, he thought.

  “Look, Ricky,” she began, clearing her throat, “about our . . . umm . . . conversation earlier . . . there’s . . . there’s something that I have to—”

  “Do you know why I came here?” he interrupted as he strolled toward her bed, refusing to be sidetracked from his mission this time.

  She halted midsentence and shook her head. “No. Did you need something?”

  “I mean do you know why I came here to this house tonight?” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Not just to your room?”

  “I thought you came to tell us about Dolla . . . to tell us that he’s looking for my sister.”

  “Yeah, well . . . that was a lie. The real reason why I came here was to kill you.”

  She squinted and coughed out a laugh. “Wh-what?”

  “You heard me! I said I came here to kill you, Simone.”

  At that, her face changed. If the light had been brighter in the room, he was sure he’d have seen her face go ashen.

  “I’ve wanted to kill you for months. That’s how mad I was. I fantasized about that shit. I shot you and stabbed you in my head I don’t know how many times. But no matter what the scenario, I decided that before I did it, I was gonna give you every fuckin’ reason why you deserved to die. You were gonna hear what I had to say.”

  Her eyes shifted to the night table. He imagined she had a pistol inside one of the drawers, likely stashed somewhere between her panties and maternity bras. She was probably gauging if she could reach the gun before he reached for her.

  “But the moment I saw you, I knew I couldn’t do it,” he said, making her eyes snap back to his. “Kill you, I mean. I couldn’t kill a pregnant woman.”

  She dropped her hand to her stomach.

  “I definitely couldn’t kill a woman pregnant with my own damn baby.”

  “So . . . if I wasn’t showing, you’re basically saying I’d be a dead woman right now?” she asked, still cradling her belly protectively.

  He shook his head. “No, because the baby is only one of the reasons why I couldn’t kill you. I realized that too. There’s another.”

  “What’s . . . what’s the other reason?”

  The room fell silent with the exception of her television. He stared down at his hands and gritted his teeth. He had only come to the realization himself not too long ago, but when he had, it’d hit him with a wallop. It made it even harder to say it out loud.

  “I’m . . . I’m still in love with you.”

  She didn’t respond. The TV banter continued to fill the silence.

  “I’m still in love with your lying, shady ass, even though I know you conned me, even though I know it was all bullshit.”

  “It wasn’t bullshit,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes in exasperation. “Simone, don’t get it twisted. I may love you, but the con doesn’t work anymore. Okay?”

  “It isn’t a con! It never was! I loved you too, Ricky,” she said, easing closer to him. “I still do!”

  He opened his eyes and let out a cold chuckle. “You love me so much that you got me put in handcuffs and left my ass in jail?”

  She dropped her gaze and winced. “I wanted to get Skylar out of there. I got desperate and . . . and I turned on you. It was fucked up. I know that! I went to the captain and told him everything you told me, everything I knew. I broke my promise to you, and I felt awful for doing it. But I swear, Ricky, they told me they were only going to raid Dolla’s place!” She reached out and grabbed his arm. “His home in Virginia and his apartment in D.C. . . . that was it! I told them those were the two places where you had seen her for sure. Nowhere else. It wasn’t until that night of the raids that I realized what they were really going to do. The captain lied to me. He stood right in my face and lied to me!”

  “Betrayal hurts, don’t it?” he muttered, making her purse her lips and let go of his arm. “Well, anyway . . . when I called him on it, he blew me off. He said you weren’t innocent. As far as he was concerned, you knew who you were working for, so you were just as guilty as Dolla. That’s why I called you that night. I wanted to warn you so that maybe you could get out of there before they came in, but it was too late. I knew it probably wouldn’t make a difference, but I had to try! I had to try to get you out of there.”

  Ricky frowned.

  At least that part was true. She had called him that chaotic night and had warned him about the raid at Club Majesty mere minutes before it all had happened, before the cops burst through the doors. She also had told him to sneak out the back if he could. But how could he know for sure that she hadn’t known his club and restaurant would be targets from the very beginning, from the moment she walked into the strip club? How could he know she wasn’t lying to him yet again?

  “My superiors found out that I’d called you,” she continued, oblivious to his doubts about her. “They tore me a new one because they said my call could’ve jeopardized the raids. They suspended me. They told me they would handle the investigation from that point on without my involvement, but by then I figured out what they really wanted to do. They weren’t just going to focus on Dolla. For some reason, they were going after you too, to flip you or prosecute you . . . I wasn’t sure. I tried to get a message to you while you were in jail, to let you know what was happening and I . . . I failed. It got back to the captain that I was meddling with the investigation again.” She loudly exhaled. “They gave me two options too, Ricky. Either I could get with the program—or I’d have to leave the department. So I . . . I stepped down. I resigned. By then, I was definitely sure I was pregnant, so . . . it felt like the right time to do it anyway.”

  He stared at her. Her story was so convincing, but again . . . Simone had always been adept at telling a good story. He could feel his hard resolve faltering though. She was chipping away at it, unmasking a layer of sympathy and compassion hidden underneath.

  “But I’ve been out of jail for almost four months now. You had to know that, Simone. If you weren’t with the Metro Police anymore, then why the hell haven’t I heard from you?”

  She gnawed her lower lip, suddenly looking sheepish. “You have. I’ve called. Quite a few times, actually. I didn’t know if the cops were listening in though, so I never said anything. You’d always cuss me out.”

  Ricky narrowed his eyes. “Wait . . . that was you? You were the person who kept calling and hanging up?”

  She nodded guiltily. “I knew if they found out I was calling you, they’d say I was still tampering with the investigation. I wasn’t an officer anymore; just a regular citizen. I could get arrested too. After a while, I realized how stupid I was being—again. Mom and Skylar convinced me that it was too risky to keep doing it, so I finally gave it up. I stopped.”

  The calls had abruptly stopped about two weeks ago.

  “I don’t get it. If you weren’t going to talk to me . . . if you weren’t going to tell me what was going on or where you were, then why the fuck did you keep calling?”

  She shook her head. “It’s for a dumb reason. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you. You’d say it was another con.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” he grumbled. “Just tell
me the damn truth!”

  . . . for once, he wanted to add, but didn’t.

  She sighed and shifted on the bed again, reclining against pillows that were stacked against the headboard. “I called because I wanted to hear your voice. I missed you, Ricky, as cheesy as that sounds.” She continued to rub her belly like it was a magic lamp and she was trying to make a genie sprout out of it. “Walking around with a physical reminder of you didn’t exactly make you easy to forget. I wondered what was happening to you, if you could ever forgive me for what I did. I thought a lot about you and calling you was . . . well, it was my sad way of reaching out.”

  She was right. It did sound like a con—a sappy one at that. But that didn’t mean he was immune to it.

  She’s been crying over you for four goddamn months, Skylar had yelled at him.

  Ricky could feel another hard layer of his resolve shedding away.

  “Look, I know you hate me,” Simone continued. “And you have every right to. Frankly, I hate myself too. I messed up your life, and that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to save my sister, Ricky. That’s it! I didn’t want to destroy you. I wasn’t out to get you. I hope . . . I hope you can believe that, finally.”

  He sucked his teeth. “Even if it’s not what you meant to do, that’s exactly what you fuckin’ did. You knew what would happen if you turned on me, and you did it anyway. But in the end, you made out good, right? You didn’t lose a damn thing in any of this.”

  “Yes, I did!”

  “You lost your job! So what? You can get another one. Am I supposed to give a shit about—”

  “I didn’t just lose my job! Come on! You really think I care about that? I lost you!” She gestured to him. “I lost you! I threw away what we had—and I . . . and I regret it every single damn day.”

  He fell silent again.

  “But I have to remind myself that as much as I screwed up, despite all the mistakes I’ve made . . . at least something good came out of all of this. It’s the only thing that keeps the self-loathing from taking over.” She gestured to her stomach again. “I don’t regret this. I don’t regret our son, even if he’s something else I hadn’t expected.”

  “Our son?” he repeated with raised brows.

  She nodded. “It’s a boy.”

  A boy, Ricky thought, letting the realization settle in.

  So they were going to have a son. He was finally going to have the little boy that his Grandma Kay had mused about when he was a boy himself. One day, you’re gonna have a little one to pass on our name to, Ricky. Make him proud to carry that name, she’d said.

  Simone shifted again, twisting slightly on the bed beside him. “Sorry. I want to keep talking, but . . . I’m gonna have to pause for a bit.”

  Ricky watched her slowly climb off the bed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, general pregnancy stuff,” she said, placing her hand on the small of her back. “I’m about to start the third trimester and its starting to feel a . . . uh . . . little uncomfortable. He’s measuring big and he’s heavy as hell.”

  Ricky smirked. “Any son of mine should be.”

  “Yeah, well, the pressure on my spine and hips ain’t fun; lower back pain is a bitch.”

  She then began to pace in front of Ricky, kneading her lower back. He squinted at her.

  “What the hell are you doin’?”

  “Working out the pain. Sometimes walking around and stretching helps.”

  She then started to do a little wiggle, and Ricky laughed despite himself.

  “Don’t laugh! This really hurts!” she lamented, giggling and wincing at the same time. She began to knead her side as she shimmied, rocking her hips from side to side.

  “Hold still,” Ricky ordered.

  “Huh?” she asked distractedly, still hopping and rocking.

  “I said stop wiggling around like some crazy woman and just hold still!”

  She stopped her pacing and dropped her hands to her sides. She then watched in surprise as he reached out and began to firmly rub the spot on her lower back that she had been rubbing seconds earlier.

  “That feel better?” he asked.

  “A . . . a little,” she whispered.

  “Turn around,” Ricky ordered, and she did so. Without thinking, he raised the hem of her tank dress, revealing her cotton briefs and the bottom of her breasts.

  She blinked and gaped.

  Nothin’ I haven’t seen before, sweetheart, he mused as he ran his hand over the soft, warm skin and began to knead her hips.

  She moaned softly. “That feels better.”

  After a while, his eyes drifted to her stomach. He stopped massaging her hips and placed a hand on her belly.

  “The doctor said it’s too early to feel any kicks on the outside,” she whispered, “but he’s moving around in there. Trust me.”

  Ricky wondered if he would ever get to feel his son shifting beneath his palm—a jut or a ripple. Would he know what he was feeling? He bet the sensation would be both weird and wondrous at the same time.

  “Hey, lil’ man,” he said to her stomach. “It’s your daddy.”

  At that moment, he could have sworn he felt a shift beneath his palm, a slight wave. Or maybe it was his imagination.

  “I hope the massage helped,” he said.

  “It did. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He gave her stomach a light pat.

  “I should keep you around,” she joked softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  He looked up at her and their eyes met. His easy smile disappeared.

  An old feeling erupted, one he’d thought was not only dormant but had outright died long ago. But here it was again, making his heart beat faster and twisting his stomach into knots. It made his fingertips tingle and his dick harden. He longed to shift his hands from Simone’s belly to her hips and her breasts. His gaze drifted to her lips and he was overwhelmed with the desire to kiss her, long and hard. And God help him, he swore he saw desire in her big dark eyes too—an unmasked need that made him want her even more.

  But these feelings had betrayed him in the past. They had led him down the path that he now found himself on.

  Ricky dropped his hands from her stomach. He lowered his eyes and lowered her dress back into place.

  “Well, now that you feel better, I’ll let you get some sleep,” he muttered, slowly rising from the mattress. “I should get some sleep too. Got a long drive back to D.C. in the morning.”

  He then eased around her and walked toward her open bedroom door.

  “Ricky?” she called to him.

  He heard something in her voice that made him stop short. He turned back around to face her. When he did, she leapt at him. Her mouth collided with his before he realized what was happening.

  He knew he should pull away from her, and wrench her arms from around him. She’d lied to him, betrayed him, and broken his heart. She was high if she thought he’d ever forgive her, let alone trust her again. But he couldn’t deny the longing he felt for Simone, or the desire. Ricky would never believe in her the way he had before that night when the cops stormed into his strip club, but that didn’t mean he’d ever stop loving or wanting her.

  So instead of pulling away, he drew her closer. Instead of wrenching her arms from around him, he reached behind him and shoved closed her bedroom door. He eased her back onto the bed, never taking his mouth from hers.

  In the old days, sex with Simone had been passionate and unhindered, almost rough. He could remember slamming her against a wall quite a few times, or bending her over a chair or table before yanking down her panties. Simone hadn’t seemed to mind his roughness though; she’d actually liked it. And she’d been just as rough with him when the mood overtook her.

  But he couldn’t be rough now. There was no shoving around a five-months-pregnant woman. He didn’t want to hurt her or their son. And feeling that hard, round belly press against his abdomen as he kissed her was a big reminder of just how delicate she
was, which made him question whether it was safe to have sex with her at all.

  Ricky pulled his mouth away and rolled onto his side on the bed, making her stare at him quizzically.

  “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Look, umm . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know how to work with . . . with all of this,” he said, gesturing to her stomach.

  She squinted. “All of what?”

  “I mean . . . are you allowed to . . . you know . . . this far along? I can’t hurt him, can I?”

  Simone’s confused expression was quickly replaced with an amused one. “Yes, I’m allowed to have sex this far along, Ricky. Some women still have sex up to their due date. You can’t hurt the baby. Your dick isn’t going to be anywhere near him. Don’t worry!”

  He grimaced. “But there aren’t like . . . I don’t know . . . rules on what you can do?”

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t be on my back,” she said, easing onto her side and pushing herself up on one elbow. “It cuts off circulation because the baby can sit on a major artery. And”—she slowly straddled him—“I should probably be on top.”

  “That’s better for the baby too?”

  “No,” she said in a sultry whisper, shaking her head. “I just like to be on top.”

  She then lowered her mouth to his and within minutes, Ricky was having too much of a good time to remember to be careful of the baby. Simone made sure of that.

  Chapter 22

  Jamal

  “Uh, can I get you anything else, sir?” the barista called out to Jamal.

  Jamal shook his head as he took another sip from his ceramic coffee mug. He waved his hand. “No, I’m good. Thank you.”

  “Are you sure?” the barista asked, running his hand over his gelled hair. “You don’t want a refill or a scone or . . . something?”

  Jamal nodded, and the young man shrugged as he adjusted his apron. “Okay. Just . . . let me know if you do.”

  Jamal could understand why the barista had asked if he wanted anything. He had been hanging out in the coffee shop for the past two hours, and in that time, he had only had two cups of coffee and had stared out the window at the people who walked by, at the cars that drove along the roadway.