by Mercy B
I shut down the house completely, happy that I’d mastered the task after nearly two weeks of failing. If I weren’t locking myself out, then I found myself sounding alarms that I didn’t know existed. But finally, I’d gotten my shit together and was confident that Sosa’s home would be safe as I headed to Saltgrass to have lunch with the woman who’d given birth to me.
For years, I didn’t know how conversations with her would ever be pleasurable before she realized that her attempts where in vain. But for once, I wasn’t concerned with her antics or apologies. I would direct the narrative and head the entire meeting. That in itself gave me peace of mind.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous, and neither was I worried about the outcome. That glimmer of hope had yet to die. I wasn’t going to believe that God had brought Sosa into my life only for him to walk out a few months later and while I was with child. Some shit wasn’t adding up, but it was up to me to resolve the equation. It started today.
The leather seats were cool to the touch, a feature of the enclosure that I adored. It was temperature friendly. During winter months, it would heat, but with the sun blazing, it was cooled. I’d figured that out all on my own, just as I had so many other things since he’d been gone.
For the day, I’d chosen the red Bentley. There were three other vehicles that I could’ve enjoyed the luxury of, but I’d been waiting to ride these wheels since the first time I saw Sosa in the photo from our group message.
As I climbed in, I thought of how clever Sosa truly was. In the nick of time, he had his assets transferred into my name because we weren’t legally bound, and still legally speaking, I couldn’t be touched, at least not yet. They didn’t have anything on me. In fact, they were clueless of our involvement until the day they came to arrest him.
Saltgrass was thirty-eight minutes away from the house, but I was able to shave eight minutes off. I pulled into the parking lot and decided to spritz a bit of my travel-sized Gucci Bamboo on my wrist and neck. The potent marijuana smell that Sosa had left behind would linger on my clothing, and I didn’t want anyone under the impression that a pregnant woman had been blowing dope.
In the past nine days, I’d grown a small gut, but it was my navel that spoke volumes. It protruded like a sore thumb. All else was still in tact, thankfully. I wasn’t anticipating the day that I sprouted like an elephant, especially not without Sosa here to accommodate my needs and remind me of how beautiful I was despite enlarged features.
I walked into Saltgrass and was surprised to see Destiny—the womb donor—seated on the bench near the hostess stand. She raised to her feet upon recognizing me. Her first instinct was to embrace me, but as she extended her arms, I looked at her as if she had two heads. I nearly sprouted wings and flew the fuck out of the building, but I held my place. This wasn’t about my discomfort. It was about Sosa.
“Uh… Please.” I smirked and stepped back a bit. She’d moseyed her way into my personal space.
“My apologies. There is a table waiting for us,” she informed me before turning around to address the waitress. I was fond of her roundness. It was obvious where I got mine from as well.
I didn’t hear what was exchanged between her and the hostess, but I followed their lead to a secluded area where no one else was seated. I was appreciative of the privacy. We’d be needing it. The hostess left us to our lonesomeness, and the awkward silence cranked immediately. We both grabbed our menus to deflect, but the eeriness was threatening to swallow us whole. Figuring I should be the one to spark conversation since I had initiated contact, I swallowed my pride and tried for casual.
“What do you usually eat from here?” I placed my menu on the table, knowing exactly what I’d be having.
“I love the crab cakes.” She put her menu down as well. I figured we were both bluffing and simply needed distractions.
“Really?” My eyes bulged in pleasant surprise. “Me too. I’m having them for my entrée and appetizer.”
“Looks like I’d better get my own appetizer then.” She chuckled.
“Seems that way to me,” I agreed as I watched our waitress sit glasses of water at our table before asking if we wanted anything to drink.
“I’m fine with water,” Destiny replied.
“Me too, but we will both have two crab cakes for an appetizer. A serving for each of us,” I rushed out before she disappeared. The faster she brought them out, the more tolerable I’d be—because I’d been playing nice for the last five minutes, and it was killing me inside.
“Coming right up,” she announced before stepping off.
“I- I, uh, I wanted to thank you for meeting with me. I know it wasn’t the easiest. In fact, I was surprised that you called.”
“As you were to see me at Sosa’s home? Or did you already know he was my man?”
“I had no clue. I had my head so far up everyone around his business that I wasn’t looking into his personal life, especially knowing that I wouldn’t find anything to go on. He’s remained spotless for years. I know because I’d been on his trail for three of them.”
Sighing, I attempted to collect myself. I nearly fell apart at the seams after hearing she’d been trying to take Sosa down for three years. “Has he personally done anything to anyone that is on his case? I mean, does anyone have a reason to be going so hard to capture him?”
“Personally, no. If we only went after the guys who had done something to us personally, then we wouldn’t have any cases. It isn’t that simple. Thinking like that would put the entire police force out of a job.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me. You guys do more damage than good these days.”
“I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’m damn good at my job, and I’m doing the city damn good by catching and locking away the people who are a threat to them.”
“And you assume Sosa is one of those people?” I asked with a chuckle. She had to be kidding me. The man minded his own business, smoked his weed, slurped good pussy, and slung hood wood. What the hell was so harmful about that?
“Oh, honey, he’s the worst kind.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” I shook my head, not believing the accusations.
“You’re in love with him and don’t have a clue who that man really is. He’s probably not the man that you sleep with in bed each night. He’s a ruthless drug lord who will put down anything and anyone who threatens his money or his position.”
“Then why are you all still alive if he’s that damn big of a wolf?”
“Are we here to talk about Mr. Law, or are we here to patch some things up? I’d really like this dinner to be more pleasurable. Besides, I hear about him enough at work.”
“Actually, we are here to talk about Sosa. That’s why I invited you to dinner.”
Our crab cakes arrived, but we both let the waitress know that we’d order our entrée after we’d eaten them. Once the waitress walked away, my mother’s gaze returned to me as she stared on in disbelief. After all of these years, I was appalled to know that she thought I’d called for anything else. There hadn’t been a time that I could remember where I wanted to spark up a relationship or become the best damn mother and daughter duo to walk the streets of Dallas.
No. I wanted my man home, and I was willing to do almost anything to get him here. It was simple as that. If that meant soliciting my womb donor, then so be it. She had to have known that or felt it at least.
“Can you at least pretend as if this isn’t what this is all about?” She sank her fork into her cake.
“Actually, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I did, then this meeting would go a lot different. Like me preferring a boxing ring instead of crab cakes to pound your fucking face in without feeling an ounce of remorse because it is what you deserve. With the anger that I have pent up inside of me, it is best if we keep this real. I’m here because I want my child to have both parents… unlike me.”
“Gauge, I can’t apologize enough f
or the—” She reached across the table and laid her hand on mine. I quickly removed it from under hers and placed it in my lap. She didn’t deserve to touch me.
“You’re right. You can’t apologize for what you’ve done. All that is left for you to do is make up for the years.”
“How? You haven’t given me anything to go on.”
“I have. The reason for this dinner is enough to give you a clue.”
“I don’t understand.” She dropped her fork.
“I need you to leave Sosa alone, okay?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” She was adamant, shaking her head.
I wasn’t expecting her to decline, so I continued. “If you care anything about building a relationship with me and a second chance at getting it right with your grandchild, then I think you should reconsider.”
“I want both, but not at the cost of my job.”
“I need his evidence and case dissolved.”
“Gauge!” she gritted out, her skin reddening all over. She was appalled, and I was desperate.
“Can you help me?”
“I won’t do no such thing. I’ve worked my ass off for this case, and I won’t let it get snatched from under me because you fell in love and got yourself pregnant by that monster. I will take my chances.” She was furious, sliding from her booth and grabbing her small shoulder bag.
Still in my seat, I remained calm as I watched her toss a fifty-dollar bill on the table before storming off.
“You’ll be glad that I warned you. One day, you’ll see him for who he really is.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mumbled, sliding her crab cakes onto my plate. Just because she’d walked out on me didn’t mean I wasn’t going to stay and enjoy the food. And that was exactly what I did—on her dollar.
When I made it home, I was stuffed to capacity. A hot shower and some poetry on replay was all I needed to send me to sleep. Though I hadn’t gotten what I expected from Destiny, I was still hopeful about the situation. She was desperate for any type of relationship with me after burning her bridges at birth. Even in my selfishness, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want her to be in my child’s life.
She’d fucked up with me, but it didn’t mean that she’d do the same with my baby. I hated her for what she’d done, and that was something that I had to live with. On the flip side, I didn’t want my child to harbor the same hatred for the woman who made us both possible.
My pregnancy had me seeing things in a different light. I refused to be anything more than whole when my unborn entered this world, so I knew I had some soul searching to do and some shit to figure out. It would all come around full circle, but I had to be reminded that I only had a few months to make it happen.
As I lay in my bed, waiting for sleep to overcome me, I wondered what Sosa was doing and if he’d managed to keep me off of his mind, as I’d been failing miserably at keeping him from mine. Our thing was so damn complicated, and I wished the universe would quit trying to pull us apart while it was ahead. I would stop at nothing to secure our union.
Sosa, even in his fucked-up mentality, was the amount of crazy I needed in my mundane world. He brought spice but wasn’t equipped with much of anything nice besides his stroke game. It was the reason I was knocked up to begin with. I’d never had dick that good, and I doubted that I’d stumble across it again. Not with deep pockets and an ill attitude. Those happened to be only a few of the reasons I wanted my lawless lover back in my world. It was where he belonged.
Chapter 3
When the morning sun began to cause discomfort as it sat idly on my skin, aggravation was the first to bud its ugly head. Unknowingly, I’d been waiting for him to reappear in my dreams for the last week. I’d gone to bed earlier and tried sleeping later. However, nothing seemed to get those visuals of him to revisit me.
“Shit,” I fussed, grabbing my phone and noting the time. “I’m going to be late.”
My first doctor’s appointment was in an hour, and the drive was approximately twenty-five minutes. If I wanted to be punctual, I needed to be out of the house within thirty minutes, and I wasn’t so sure that I could do it.
“Just get up.” Coaching and encouraging myself, I ignored the harmful rays from the sun that were eating holes into my face and forced myself from bed. My cell vibrated in my hand as I hurried to relieve my bladder and began tackling my hygiene.
“Yes, Sauni?” I knew exactly who’d decided to call me. She’d be accompanying me to the appointment and refused to let me oversleep or miss it altogether.
“It’s your dad, baby,” my father’s voice crooned. Whenever he called, or I had the chance to see his handsome face, it was equivalent to a thousand hugs at once.
“Dad.” I smiled. “Hold on.”
I squatted on the toilet and muted my phone so that my father wouldn’t hear the commotion in the bowl. After I’d emptied myself, I unmuted the phone and placed it on speaker so that I could wipe my ass.
“I’m back.”
“I was just calling to check in on my two favorite people.”
The day he’d picked me up from the precinct, I broke down in the car and admitted that I had gotten pregnant. I was ashamed and felt as if I’d shaded him by not pushing a meet up between him and Sosa. Now that Sosa had abandoned us both, I was afraid that they’d never meet, and that tore me up inside.
My father had raised his daughter, and it wasn’t fair to force him to help me raise a child that he hadn’t created. Yet he was adamant about being the father that my little one needed. For that, I was grateful.
“We’re managing. Our appointment is in an hour, which means I must cut my shower time in half and find something presentable to wear in record time.”
“Well, I won’t hold you up. Let me know how everything goes, and bring me some pictures back!”
“I will. Talk to you later.”
We ended the call on the same note. As I lifted from the toilet, my cell vibrated again. Sighing, I connected the call and waited for Sauni’s voice. “Morning, sunshine. I’ll be leaving the house in thirty minutes. Is there anything I should be getting? I have a feeling you’re going to need a pick me up.”
“I nearly overslept. Well, I slept longer than I anticipated.”
“It’s okay. As long as you’re up and at ‘em now. I’ll stop and get you some orange juice and a muffin. How does that sound?”
“Like heaven.”
“Good. I have the address locked into my GPS, and the digital camera is charged all the way up.”
“Sauni, a digital camera?”
“Yes. Let me run this show. You said I could scrapbook, and that is what I plan to do.”
“You’re obsessive.” I didn’t know a woman who loved children more than Sauni. Hadn’t she been so afraid of getting knocked up with twins again, then I was certain she’d been on baby number three by now.
“Whatever. I’ll see you in a bit.”
She was heaven sent. I often wondered what I’d done to deserve such a genuine friend. Sauni was so beautiful, inside and out. I could guarantee that her soul glistened and shimmered from the inside.
Finally, through the morning rush of calls, I was able to prepare the shower for my addressing. I adjusted the temperature with the gauges that were on the side of the wall and began my wait. There would be a small indication that beeped to let you know when your water met the standards you’d set.
As I stood facing the clear glass, the sound of my phone vibrating stirred me from my thoughts about nothing. Twirling on my toes, I hurried to answer. Sauni was known for doubling back. I connected the call and began chastising her for having the memory of a toddler.
“Sauni, what did you forget to say?”
Silence.
“Sauni?” I chuckled.
Silence.
I pulled the phone from my ear to see if I’d answered, and I had. But I also came to the realization that it wasn’t Sauni on my other end. The caller was unknown. There wasn�
�t a single digit displayed on the screen.
Beeeeeeeep. Beeeeeep.
“Shit!”
The shower scared the living shit out of me, causing me to fumble and nearly fall. My heart raced in my chest as my palms began to perspire, but I never lost the grip that I had on the phone as I pushed it back up to my ear.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Helllllloooo!”
Silence. They had no intentions of speaking, and I had no intentions of holding the phone. There was a full day ahead of me, and holding on to a call any longer than I needed to would delay me, so I ended it.
“Asshole,” I called them out on their shit before I pressed the red button to disconnect.
I’d slept in the nude, so there was no need to get undressed. The shower felt delectable as I stepped inside and allowed the steamy water to cascade down my body. Each time I felt my mind slipping to forbidden territory, I reminded myself that I only had a few minutes to spare, which prompted me to end the entire ordeal before I became too comfortable under the influence of delicate beads of water and my thoughts.
Thankfully, I made it to the office with five minutes to spare. Sauni was already inside with my muffin and orange juice. As the friend she was, she’d checked me in and began filling out my paperwork. There wasn’t much that she had left blank. We practically knew everything about one another, or at least the obvious questions that were being asked on the spreadsheet.
“Thanks.” I took my seat beside her and reached for the clipboard. Sauni smoothly snatched it away and pointed toward the muffin and orange juice on the small table beside me.
“Go ahead and eat your breakfast. I’ve got this. I know you must be starving.”
“You know me so well.” I chuckled, grabbing the muffin.
After I’d demolished the blueberry goodness, I reached for my orange juice the moment I heard my name being called. “How long have you been here? That was quick.”
