Overtime

by Eden Rose

  She’s shaking in front of me and then her lip starts to quiver a little. “He’s dead…” Keeley whispers and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  Even though I didn’t need clarification, I ask anyways. Damn right I knew who she was talking about. She’s talking about Jerry. What the hell did that man get himself into now? “Who?” I ask gently.

  “Sir, this is a private matter and I would like to speak to Ms. Johnson. Thank you,” the guy on the other end of the phone informs me.

  He sounds like a pompous asshole to me and I want to punch him out for trying to make me feel like what they are talking about doesn’t affect me. Everything that this woman does, affects me.

  “What happened?” I ask one more time into the phone and I could hear the man shuffling some stuff around.

  While in L.A., I had learned the hard way about what happens when someone rats out the gang. More than likely, they will be murdered in a way that will set an example to others to not rat out their brothers. I’m wondering if something like that had happened to Jerry. He told us exactly what had happened to him and why he did what he did. If he was in as much trouble as he made it seem, then something bad could have happened to him.

  Now, it could affect my woman.

  “Listen, I understand that you have to be secretive and not tell me what happened, but Keeley isn’t talking. Whatever you said has made her so upset that she’s rocking on our bed. What the hell happened?” I’m trying to be as calm as I can, but Keeley is scaring me.

  The voice on the other end of the phone says: “We will be at your house in twenty minutes to discuss what is going on.”

  Before I could confirm or deny that they are welcome, they have hung up the phone. I roll over and cage Keeley against the headboard of the bed and kiss her forehead. “What happened?”

  “I think Jerry’s dead… If Jerry is dead… Holy shit!”

  I don’t like the mother fucker. I hate him. So to me, it doesn’t really matter if he’s dead or alive because that means he can’t hurt Keeley anymore.

  Plus, that means that we don’t have to go through the divorce proceedings or anything.

  Jerry

  I don’t give a fuck if you like me or if you don’t. I am who I am and that’s a great attorney. However, I have pissed off some bad people lately.

  I’ve been out of jail for the past three weeks and I’ve made sure to keep my distance from Keeley. It’s hard considering the fact that we are still married, but I need to make sure that we have space. If I’m with her, I’m bound to say something hateful to her.

  Yesterday, as I was leaving to go to work, my windshield was shot in with AK 47 bullets. Needless to say, my windshield is fucked and I needed to replace it. Plus, the inside of my car needs to be fixed as well.

  They are sending me a message and that message is that I have pissed off the wrong people.

  Look at what they did to Keeley. My wife had nothing to do with them and I was selfish thinking that I could have my cake and eat it too.

  I knew that cheating on Keeley was wrong all of those years ago. And it was wrong to continue doing it as well. The truth is, I can’t even count how many times I had cheated on her and I don’t want to. It will make me seem like a bigger asshole than I already am.

  Having a baby with Ruth was not my finest moment. She approached me as I was leaving the office all of those years ago to inform me that she was pregnant. At that time, I was trying to build my family with Keeley and I didn’t want her to spread that trash. I begged her to get an abortion. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she told Keeley, that I would be fucked.

  Beyond fucked.

  Well, as you can see. She didn’t have an abortion.

  The blackmail started to come last year. It started easy at first but then got dramatically worse as the year went on. I didn’t think that it would have escalated to this point until I found them weaseling my money from me. But not only my money, they are taking money from Olivia as well.

  “What do you have for me?” I ask into my phone as my private investigator calls me. I had asked him to look into these people that are stealing my money and I’m hoping that he can figure it out.

  George grunts out his hello and then replies to my question. “You aren’t going to like it. These people have some deep connections that go past you.”

  The investigator is someone that I have on my payroll to look into some of my shit for me. Needless to say, he had given me the run down on Wyatt before Keeley even had dinner with him. The one thing that took a minute was to access his buried record regarding the gangs.

  “Just tell me. George, they fucking shot my window. I have to get a brand new one. I don’t even want to call the police because then they are going to start investigating what happened.”

  I’m a lawyer, I’m all for the police and everything. What I’m not for is the fact that I will have to explain how I altered a case and could be disbarred for it.

  Not only am I losing my wife to some gang banger, but now I could be losing my career as well? Fuck no. I’m not dealing with that on top of everything else.

  Another sigh and grunt before I hear: “Fuck, Jer, you really know how to pick ‘em. The assholes that have got your balls into a vice, they have some relation to your baby mama. You better watch out.”

  Before I could say anything, he has hung up on me and I’m staring at my phone like a dumb ass.

  Two days later, I am woken up by a crash outside of my bedroom window. Slowly, I roll over and wiggle my hand underneath the mattress to grab my gun that I keep there. Since it’s always loaded, I point it at the window where I heard the noise.

  Surprisingly, the past two days have been quiet. I have seen Keeley in the office gathering her things along with Olivia. I knew it would be only a matter of time before they both left me to do their own thing. I didn’t think it would have been so soon, but it happened.

  There had not been one incident regarding these assholes that shot up my window. Since I had never met the men that blackmailed me, I wouldn’t even know how to pick them up in a line up. What do they even look like? I have no idea.

  At the window, there’s a splatter and then the cracking sound of glass being shattered. “What the fuck?” I demand and point my gun at the window.

  “If you know what is good for you, you will put down that gun right now.”

  The male voice is filled with bravado and is stern enough to make me follow the directions. Once it’s on the ground I throw my hands up in the air and wait for the next set of direction.

  “Good!” The voice says and then I hear my front door being splintered open.

  “What the hell are you guys doing in here?” I demand and look from the left to the right of my house. They are coming into my bedroom but it’s still too dark for me to see them. I don’t see any sign from either of them that I know them.

  There’s two men in my bedroom and it’s got me freaking the fuck out. Due to the fact that I’m a criminal defense attorney, there’s no telling the amount of people that I have pissed off. Not only that, but after Keeley was attacked, I would hate to piss someone off again where they retaliate against her.

  “Jas, get him and place him in that chair,” the man says to my right. He’s the one that managed to get through my bullet proof glass window.

  Some safety feature.

  “No!” I yell and begin kicking my feet out to get them away from me. When that doesn’t work, I try to grab the gun again. As soon as my hand is on the barrel of the gun, I feel something hot pierce my body. I look down and see red spilling out of my arm. “What the fuck?” I demand.

  I don’t deal with blood. I hated looking at the crime scene photos and that is what the prosecutors loved about trying my clients. They could show all of these graphic photos and then they got to see me cringe.

  My vision gets blurry and I look over to the left of me. The man that was trying to get me off of my bed is standing next to me with his
gun aimed. “You will follow these directions or I’m going to kill you.”

  For some reason, call it a hunch, but I knew they were going to kill me anyways.

  “Well, you know what they say,” the man said behind me. “It doesn’t matter that you are gonna die. It matters how you are about to die.”

  Keeley

  “We found Jerry dead in your old house. He had been dead for about two days. Do you know of anyone that would want to hurt him?” The female detective asks me over the rim of the coffee cup that I gave her.

  I’m exhausted from the medicine that I have been taking and also the constant sex that Wyatt and I have been having. I’ve been getting little to no sleep. The sex part is amazing, but I’m going to need to get some sleep soon.

  “Um,” I start to say and then look over at Wyatt. He’s got his arm around me and is offering me the support that I need in order to get through this. “He’s a lawyer who had pissed people off. There’s no telling who he could have made angry.” I’m trying to sound as if I’m helping but I don’t think I am. I don’t want them here because this changes everything and I’m not ready for it to change at all.

  “Let’s not lie to ourselves here,” the officer says. He’s a younger man that doesn’t show the age that most cops show. I can tell that he’s new to the field. He’s not as tainted as most of them are. “He was a lawyer who was being blackmailed.”

  My head jerks up in what I hope is surprise. The truth is, I am surprised that they knew this. I’m not surprised from the news myself. “What are you talking about?” I try to sound as if I’m not sure about the blackmail.

  But as mentioned before, I suck at lying.

  Wyatt is rubbing my back with his hand and when he reaches the top of my spine, he lightly squeezes. I have no idea if he even realizes that he’s doing it, but I’m not going to stop him.

  “Baby, you can tell them.”

  “All right. Officers, it’s no secret that Jerry was screwing around on me. It’s also no secret that he is the reason why I was shot. He pissed off some people and then that’s all I knew. I don’t know who it was that shot me and I couldn’t pick them out in a line up.”

  The officers are writing notes down and I look at the top of their heads. “See, the thing is. We did find them. There was an abundance of DNA left on the scene along with evidence to support that the Richards Family had something to do with it.”

  The Richards Family is an influential family out of Detroit that has deep ties with the police and the underworld. I wouldn’t put it past them to catch wind of what Jerry was doing so they could catch a payday.

  “Did you arrest them?” I asked and by the scared look on their faces, I knew the answer. “You did, didn’t you?”

  “We did. I can’t tell you more than that. However, there is a chance that these are low level guys that were set up. We will know more and let you know. If there is anything you think of, please call us as soon as possible.”

  Keeley

  In the months that passed after Jerry’s funeral, I have come to grieve the relationship that we had. While I was married to the man, I felt conflicting feelings as to what I’m supposed to be doing now. Do I mourn for him?

  Do I mourn for what we could have been?

  Do I mourn for the fact that he was a liar and a cheater? I don’t know what to do with myself.

  “Baby,” Wyatt whispers to me.

  I’m seated on the porch with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and I’m watching the snow turn the brown grass to white. “Yeah?” I ask him.

  He walks over to me and drops to his knees in front of me. If I’m feeling bad, I could imagine how he feels. He probably feels responsible for his death even though he had nothing to do with it. I know that he feels guilty because I’m feeling guilty.

  “Did I give up on him?” I ask him.

  The gray eyes that I have come to love and worship pierce into mine. “No. He gave up on you a long time ago.”

  I shake my head and look over towards the woods behind his house. Or should I say, our house.

  After Ruth and Luke left, we kept his pirate ship playground in case Wyatt could talk me into having kids. But that’s a story for a different day.

  “Get up. We are going out.”

  I shake my head petulantly. There is no way that I’m going anywhere feeling like this. I feel useless and dirty. “No.”

  Before I could protest, Wyatt has me picked up and thrown over his shoulder. I relax my body against his hard shoulder and drop my arms down his back. Just like a sack of potatoes.

  I can hear the water running in the shower and before I can object, he’s got me naked and thrust into the shower. His body covers mine so the water doesn’t directly hit me. It’s an act of a lover protecting his lover. I don’t deserve the kindness of this act.

  I don’t even speak. My eyes begin to fill with tears and they fall down my face. I don’t deserve anything nice and it’s tearing me up. Not only is it tearing me up, but it’s tearing Wyatt up even more.

  I cry harder because I’m hurting Wyatt.

  He places his hands on my cheeks and begins to use his thumbs to sweep away the tears. “Cupcake, you are okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Again, I shake my head frantically and he kisses my cheeks. “But I did. I could have stopped them.”

  “No. Stop. You couldn’t have stopped them because they would have killed you. I’m not going to allow you to do this to yourself. That’s it. You are going to take a shower and then you are going to get dressed. After you’re dressed, we’re going out.”

  I feel the impact of the spray from the shower on my skin and I look through the curtain as Wyatt towels himself off.

  Quickly, I shower and shave everything. It has been a while since I have done this. Once I’m shaved, I feel like a person again. A real living person.

  Once I’m finished with everything, I look in the mirror. It’s a little foggy from the steam of the shower but I can still see my reflection. I don’t like the person that I see.

  I see a broken and scared woman and I hate it.

  Knowing what I need to do, I dress myself up and do my hair. I notice that I have a few grays sprinkled in my hair and I hate it.

  Jesus. I have let myself go.

  Quickly, I brush my hair out and then roughly blow dry it. Once it’s done, I put on some makeup and I can’t help but look at my profile in the mirror. I don’t look that bad.

  My cheekbones are higher than normal and my face is paler than before. However, I do look pretty good.

  When I walk out into the bedroom, I see Wyatt sitting on the couch wearing a pair of dress slacks.

  Wyatt

  “Almost ready?” I ask her and wrap my long arms around her waist. Since she has been staying with me the past couple of months, I’m happy to say that she has gained a little of the weight back that she had lost before we reconnected. I like her all tasty.

  She murmurs in the back of her throat as she swipes the mascara over her eyelashes. Quickly, Keeley caps the tube and then throws her arms around my neck to give me a kiss. “I love you,” she whimpers against my lips.

  I feel a strange sensation this time when she told me she loved me. I can’t explain it, but it’s weird. I want to say that I was panicked but yet excited. However, those are two conflicting moods that have nothing to do with each other.

  Now that I have told her everything, I feel as if we can get past this and be together.

  Since everything has been so crazy, with her getting shot, moving in with me (unofficially) and my confession about my previous life, I felt the urge to do something special for her. Luckily, I have a friend who owes me a favor and I’m cashing in on it.

  Deciding to dress up a little, I went to the barber shop and got my hair tidied up and my chops looking nice. I’m also wearing the cologne that she finds sexy. My dress slacks are fitted in the right places and are showing off my half-mast cock right now. And I’m looking pretty
fresh in my purple button down shirt.

  I know I look good.

  Keeley’s hair is loosely curled and she’s got some sexy red lipstick on that makes her look like a goddess. I have no idea how she can look more beautiful every time I see her. It’s ridiculous.

  “All right, get out of the room,” she says with a wave of her hand in the air.

  My mouth drops as I look at her like she’s crazy. “Leave? What the hell are you talking about?” I ask her and put my hands on my waist.

  She giggles and then looks at me with innocent eyes that make me want to give her the moon. “I just want to surprise you. That’s all.”

  Deciding to leave her to whatever she’s doing, I walk down the hall to the room that I have turned into my den. It has all of my basketball shit in it along with all of my personal information. This room is a secret and I don’t like it when people go through it because there is no telling what they may find.