by Kiki Leach
Back inside, Alexander threw his arm around Maurice and pat him on the back. "I'm sorry, son."
He nodded. "Me too."
Alexis reached over her husband and tried grabbing onto Maurice's hands. "Mo, I--"
Alexander wrapped his hands around her arms and dragged her up from the chair. "Come on," he said, "let's go."
"But, I just--"
"Come on, let's go -- Gina!" he called out.
She came rushing out from the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Maurice, giving him a hard squeeze. "Sorry they're all nuts," she whispered.
He pat her hand and smiled. "Thanks, Little Bit."
As soon as everyone was gone, he looked down the table at all of the unused food. Time spent with this crew only seemed to get worse, never better. It was it this point that he was ready for a change. And he knew just when and how he would get it.
Part Nine
When he returned to their bedroom, Maurice found Vanessa laying flat on her back on the bed, still in her dress and heels and staring up at the ceiling. She barely flinched when he closed the door, but her eyes followed him across the room.
"Why didn't you tell me about Nik?" she asked.
"Because like I told you down there, it wasn't my place. She asked me to keep quiet and for her sake, I thought it as for the best."
"To keep something like that from me." She sat up and stared at him. "I could've helped her."
"V, she was afraid of how you would feel about it. And frankly, so was I." He loosened the collar of his shirt and dropped down next to her on the bed. "But at the very least, it's out now."
"Yeah, well, when we make things official, you can't keep things like that from me anymore. I don't care who promises you to whatever kind of secrecy, you owe it to me to let me in on it too."
"I promise," he said.
"Good. It's just too bad that I couldn't promise you a night without complete chaos."
"That was Nathan's doing, like most things."
"I shouldn't have let him stay. Just like you shouldn't have even mentioned the dinner to Melanie." She sighed. "God, I just wanted one night. One single night where everybody wasn't being a complete asshole."
"One night was apparently asking too much, V."
"Ya think..." She waited for a beat to pass and took in another breath. "You know I really think we need to make things official between us as soon as possible and just get the hell away from these people, far, far away."
"You wanna shake on that?" He raised his hand to her.
"Where would we go?"
"Who gives a damn as long as it's the hell away from here?" he said. "We can't even get people together to tell them good news about us. If it's not your mother, it's Sheila, or Nathan or even Nik causing a scene. I'm about sick of it all. And I know that you are too." He raised his hand even higher. "Once we get married, we get the hell out of this city and we don't look back, not for any reason."
She thought for a moment. Her lids hovered over her eyes as she focused them across the room. "If we left, it would mean I'd have to give up the magazine."
"You wouldn't have to give anything up," he said. "Except for the unnecessary amount of drama that's been following us since we were kids. All I'm asking for out of this is us, V, for you and me and no more of the bullshit from everybody else that's been plaguing us for years."
"No more drama," she muttered. She took took a few more seconds to think about it, then slid her hand inside of Maurice's. "I don't want to put up with it anymore just like you don't. But I also don't know how the hell to live a life without it."
He released her hand and slid a finger beneath her chin, lifting it. "I can help you with that, V. It's part of what I'm here for."
She held back a giant grin and rolled her bottom lip into her mouth. She sank her teeth into it and leaned her head. "What's the other part all about?"
Maurice slid his fingers down Vanessa's throat and she tilted her head back, moaning with immense pleasure as his full lips caressed her skin. He dropped his other hand between her legs and the moment his fingers hit that perfect spot, she squeezed her pelvis tight and fell back to the bed, throwing her arms over her head. Maurice eagerly hovered over her body and glided his hand beneath her dress. She raised her legs, wrapping them around his waist and just as she was about to pull at his pants, her cell phone began to ring.
"Shit," she mumbled.
Maurice crushed his lips against hers, parting them with his tongue. "Don't," he growled between her lips. She melted into the kiss and as he wrapped a hand around her waist, she slid her hands down his back and rocked her body into him until she felt him come alive against her.
But as her phone continued to vibrate and ding from the multitude of messages being left behind by someone who was clearly desperate to talk to her about something, neither of them could seem to keep up the romantic mood that had set, both for themselves and each other.
The moment Vanessa's lips stopped moving against his, Maurice pulled back and rolled over to the other side of the bed. He looked at her for less than a second before getting up and grabbing her phone from the dresser.
He looked down at the name and frowned. "It's Nik," he said. He walked back over to the bed and handed the phone to her. "You should talk to her."
"I don't exactly know what to say. If I did, I'd have called her first."
"Tell her that you don't judge her for what she did, V. And that no matter what, you'll always be here for her."
"If that's true, then it doesn't exactly get us out of the drama filled life we hope to create for ourselves after the 'I do's'."
"No, it doesn't." He took her hand and placed the phone inside. "But no matter if we stay or go, I'm good as long as I'm with you, V."
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss so deep, she nearly lost her balance. He rested his hands on her sides to keep her steady.
When she pulled back, she was out of breath, but couldn't help smiling so hard that it made her face hurt. Maurice smiled just as hard and wide swiped his thumb back and forth across her chin.
"I'm good with that too."
After she took the phone in the other room, Maurice sat back down on the bed and rested his elbow on his knee. He ran his hand over his hair, then dropped it back down to his face and covered his mouth.
No more drama is what he finally wanted.
No more drama is less than he knew he would continue to get.
Part Ten
After having gotten no word from Sheila despite his multitude of phone calls, Nathan returned to his room at The Palace, only to find her there waiting for him on his bed with a glass of cognac in her hands.
She looked up at him while rubbing the glass back and forth between her palms, warming the liquid. "Hi," she said.
He closed the door and removed his coat, throwing it on a chair in the corner. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"The maid was coming through and I told her we were still engaged and that I lost my key. I also slipped a hundred dollar bill inside her apron."
Nathan sat down beside her on the bed and took the glass from her hands. He drank back the rest of the cognac for himself and placed the glass on the floor.
"Why the hell did you run out of the dinner, Sheila?" he asked, staring at her. "Vanessa sort of flipped when she realized you went missing."
"She was probably more glad than anything to see that some of what was causing that riot had quietly ducked out. Once Melanie started going in on Nikki and the word 'abortion' was being tossed around, I felt it was safe to finally get out of there without much noise. And apparently it worked."
"Why did you come here?"
Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. "I didn't want to be alone and I had nowhere else to go. I thought about going to see Adrian, but I'm not even sure he would've bothered to open the door for me. He didn't even call to wish me a Merry Christmas, no text, nothing. Everything between us seemed to just stop co
mpletely. It feels so abrubt, where before I thought we were just in limbo, like I told you that night. And now I... think we might actually be done."
Nathan waited a moment, then bent down and picked up the glass from the floor. He went over to his small fridge in the corner and pulled out two small bottles of vodka, pouring one into Sheila's glass, while grabbing another glass for himself.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
He handed her the glass and smiled. "Cheers to you not spending Christmas alone," he said. "I know that it's not ideal and that you hadn't planned to spend it with me anymore, but--"
"Thank you." She took the glass from him and rested it on the edge of her knee. "I know you hadn't planned to spend tonight with me either."
"Actually, I did," he told her. She looked up at him with wide eyes. "I went to the dinner tonight because I knew you'd be there, Sheila."
"Really?"
"Yeah." He sat down beside her again and brushed her hair back from her face. "I miss you, and us."
"What about whatever you've got going on with Melanie?"
"There's nothing going on there," he said. "She sort of cracked up after seeing Oscar and Nikki up on the screen like that, and I've been sort of a listening ear to her. Not much else."
"Is that why you helped her get invited to V's tonight?"
"Yeah. She didn't want to be alone either and I knew that being around more people would probably make her feel better."
She laughed. "Good intentions for once, but you had too many of the wrong people involved."
"Yeah." He grinned and drank back his vodka.
"So where do we go from here tonight?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Any place you want."
They looked into each other's eyes and smiled.
Part Eleven
Once she finally made it back home, Melanie threw her coat on a chair near the door and flicked on the lights. She had tried calling Nathan along the way, still insisting to talk to him about something she felt was highly important, but it seemed he had been too preoccupied with getting to Sheila to even bother with her.
She dumped her purse on the table and headed for the kitchen. And as she opened the fridge, she heard a sharp creaking noise coming from another part of the house. She froze where she stood and gulped.
"Hello?" she called out. The noise immediately stopped, but Melanie didn't feel anymore safe that it had. In fact, not hearing a thing made her even more afraid. "Hello?" she called out again. She dropped her hand from the arm of the fridge and stepped back. Cursing herself that she had left her purse in another room, she reached for the nearest object that she could find, a metal mallet, and held it straight out. "HELLO?" she yelled out again.
When she stepped out from the kitchen and into her living room, a dark shadow in the shape of an adut man darted out in front of her. In a panic, she screamed and swung her arm out, whacking him in the back and over the head, beating him down until it fell to the ground. Once he stopped moving, she reached for the lightswitch to get a look at his face and jumped back in realizing that the person actually appeared to be somewhat familiar to her.
"What?" She bent down further to get a good look at his face and covered her hand over her mouth the instant she realized who he was. "Oh my God. Terrence Brown?"
He whimpered while attempting to reach for his head; she grabbed her landline to dial 911.
After agreeing not to press charges against him for essentially breaking and entering (at least for the time being), she waited around in the lobby of a nearby hospital until receiving word that he was stitched up, and went down to see him in his room.
"Knock, knock," she said upon entering. Terrence lowered the ice pack from his head and groaned the minute he caught a glimpse of her face. "How are you doing?"
"I was pummeled in the head with a mallet. I'm fan fuckin' tastic, lady."
"You're lucky that I didn't have a knife or a gun and after the night I've had, you should be thanking me for only beating you in the head with a metal object." She tightened the strap of her purse on her arm and wrapped her coat around herself. "What were you doing inside of my house?"
"I thought I was coming to see my daughter," he said. "I guess I got the numbers on your front door mixed up in my head. Didn't realize I was in the wrong place until I saw the pictures of your kids all over the walls. My mistake."
"Why the hell did you decide to stick around when you realized you were in the wrong place?"
"I didn't decide to stick around anywhere. I heard you coming in the front door and panicked."
"Join the club. If you were looking for Vanessa, she lives on the Upper West Side, not the East. And our numbers are smiliar, but not exactly the same." He lifted the pack back up to his face and sat back."
He looked her up and down and nodded. "You know V?"
"A little too well," she said. "I was there tonight at her house before I came back home. How the hell did you even manage to get inside?"
"Your back window was cracked open. Guess you forgot to lock it."
"I'll make a note of that."
When someone else knocked on the door, she moved off to the side. Her mouth fell open when she saw Adrian enter.
"This is what you've been doing the last few days when I couldn't get in contact with you?" he said, making his way to the side of Terrence's bed. "Getting beat over the head with mallets inside people's houses?"
"Upper West Side," replied Terrence. "Not the East. Guess I was sent on a wild goose chase."
Adrian looked over at Melanie and gestured out toward the hallway. "I'll be back," he told Terrence.
Once they were alone, he pulled her off to the side. "Sorry about all of this," he told her.
"It's fine. Are you his caretaker or something?"
"No. He's my roommate. It's a long story and I'd rather not get into it right this second, but..." He narrowed his eyes. "Do you know who he is?"
"I think every side of Manhattan knows Terrence Brown."
"Yeah, well, they don't need to know that he's back in the city. Not yet, and I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself."
"Including the part about him breaking into my home?"
"Especially that part."
She folded her arms. "Is Vanessa just as in the dark about him being back as everyone else?"
Adrian nodded. "And after what happened with you tonight, he's not in any shape to see her. So please, just--"
"I won't say anything."
"Thank you," he replied.
"But you have to do something for me, and it involves Sheila."
He opened his ears and prepared to listen, though he wasn't all that eager in hearing exactly what it was that she had to say.
Part Twelve
An hour later, Melanie found herself just outside of Nathan's room at The Palace and banged on his door. It didn't take him long to answer, and when he pulled back, she was surprised, yet somewhat intrigued, to see him standing there in nothing but a towel.
"Hi," she said.
"Hey," he replied, stunned.
"Did you ever find Sheila?"
"Yeah, I found her. What the hell are you doing here, Melanie?"
"I need to talk to you--"
"You've been saying that a lot lately--"
"Yes, and that's because I do. I was at the hospital tonight--"
"Are you okay?" he asked her.
"I'm fine, but... someone broke into my house and it has me a little shaken up. It also got me to thinking about what I really need to say to you and something that I really think you need to know. Do you mind if I come in?"
She tried moving past him, but he held out his hand to keep her back.
"Yeah, I do -- Look... Do you need somebody to stay with you tonight?"
"No. I... I actually know the person who broke in and he's not a threat to me or anything, it's just..." Melanie peeked around the door and saw a woman's bra on the bed, as well as a pair of black stilettos in the corner. "Oh." Th
e truth hit her like a ton of bricks. "She's here with you, isn't she?"
"Look, Melanie, I--"
"No. I should probably just get this out now while I still have the nerve and before you try and kick me out."
"What is it?" Nathan was becoming irritated, which is something Melanie could feel not only as he spoke but in the harsh way he seemed to be staring at her. He wanted nothing more than for her to speak her peace and get the hell out, which seemed to trigger an even deeper emotion within her that she hadn't been prepared to feel. "What?" he asked again.
"I'm three weeks late."
"Three weeks late for what?"
"My period," she snapped. "I thought it was a fluke but, I took a test this morning before you called and when I was at the hospital, I had a doctor confirm it for me. I'm pregnant, and it's yours."
He dropped back inside the room as an audible gasp expelled from his lungs. "Shit."
"Babe?"
A nervous and shaky Nathan turned back to the voice coming up from behind him, then refocused on Melanie. His throat suddenly went dry, his eyes widened in complete fear.
"Melanie?" Sheila stepped around the door and tilted her head. "What's going on?"
"Uh..." she stammered. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay after leaving V's. You just sort of disappeared."
"How did you know I'd be here?"
"I didn't, but um... I knew that Nathan had gone looking for you. I just wanted to make sure in person that everything was okay."
"It's great." Sheila wrapped her hands around Nathan and kissed the back of his shoulder.
Melanie felt herself becoming a little sick at the sight of them together but plastered on a smile in the hopes of holding back the building vomit. "Great. Listen, I'm glad you're safe and sound, but I should probably get back home. I hear it's supposed to snow again tonight, so... Merry Christmas." She turned quick and raced down the hall as fast as she could.
Nathan flashed Sheila a faint and nervous smile. "I should probably make sure she gets down there okay."
"In your towel?"
Nathan headed back inside to grab his robe. "I'll be right back," he said.
