Wounded Love (G Street Chronicles Presents From Love to Loathe Series)

by Rayne, Phoenix

  When I got home, the kids were both knocked out. Cinnamon told me she wanted to talk to me down in the basement. We went downstairs, and she laid into me. She paced around the basement screaming and crying at me. She called me self-centered and told me I was acting stupid over some dick. She accused me of being afraid of getting to know my own daughter. She told me I was acting like a visitor in my own house. This went on for about an hour or so. Finally, Chyna came down and told Cinnamon that was enough. I hadn’t said anything; I wanted her to get out everything she had been building up. Cinnamon went storming back upstairs, and I heard the front door slam.

  I started to walk back up the stairs, and Chyna caught me by my arm.

  “Did I fuck everything up for you, back in Seattle that night?” she asked.

  I looked at her straight in her eyes and didn’t say a word. I couldn’t answer her question. If Troy had never seen me, none of this would have ever happened. Jyme and I would have never been apart, and we could have possibly been married by now. We would all be together in the safe house, and we could’ve been living happily ever after. But, I wouldn’t have known that Chyna was still alive, nor would I have met Cinnamon or Michael. There are a lot of pros and cons in this scenario, and I just didn’t feel up to going through the list.

  She let my arm go, and I went back upstairs and got straight into the shower. I cried silently, letting the scalding hot water wash away all of my pain. I shut the water off and was about to step out of the shower when a hand held up my robe. I slid it on and stepped out to see Chyna sitting on the counter. I went to the sink to brush my teeth then picked up my hairbrush. Chyna stopped me.

  “Let me do that.”

  I sat down on the toilet lid, and Chyna brushed out my wet ends.

  “I remember you used to always take a lot of baths and showers. I think you tried to wash all the ugly you had gone through away. I never wanted this life for you, but things got really tight, and we didn’t have a choice anymore.”

  “I know that, Chyna.”

  “Tell me how you met him.”

  “Chyna, I’ve already told you this a dozen times.”

  “I know, but I love it when you tell it.”

  Chyna gave me one long French braid, and then we stayed up for another two hours talking about Jyme. I told her about our first date, kiss, and first time.

  When she finally decided to go to bed, I heard a shifting at the door and Cinnamon was getting up off the floor. She didn’t say a word to either one of us. She just walked down to her room and shut the door. She had been listening to my story-telling hour as well.

  The next morning Chyna made me an omelet. I hadn’t had one since that first morning of work. When I got to the office, Lokey had coffee and a silver tray full of our famous pastries. She had the conference room table dressed up nice with a bucket of ice and several of our bottled drinks and Ethos water. She wore a gray pleated skirt suit with killer heels.

  “Wow, Lokey, you went all out.”

  “Thank You.”

  The front door rang, and Lokey sprinted toward the front. The new air around Lokey was so nice, she loved wearing her own clothes, and she looked damn good in them. D’Artagnan and Dax walked in and settled in their seats. We caught each other up on our choices again and prepped for our final four interviewers.

  Our first interviewer came in, an older man who seemed very into the now. Chance Hurst had salt and pepper hair and was retired from the military; a drill sergeant for fifteen years. I thought he was perfect, but I could tell he made Dax feel uncomfortable.

  The next interviewer was a middle-aged soccer mom. Harriet Franks wore her hair in a tight bun and reminded me of a school marm. She was very neat and sat with perfect posture. I noticed we all started sitting a little straighter during her interview. She answered all of our questions proficiently. But there was just something about her that didn’t sit well with us. When she left, we all just sat there for a couple of minutes in silence.

  “She has three kids and a husband,” Dax told us aloud as he looked over her resume. I just shook my head, and D’Artagnan laughed and said he felt sorry for her husband.

  The next applicant arrived, and he got everyone’s attention at once. This man was at least 6’9”, and he was skinny as a rail. Thurgood Waylon was freakishly tall and extremely illuminating. There was just something about him; he made you want to be in his presence. He gave off such a warm glow, and he wore a genuine smile the whole time during the interview.

  Our last and final applicant was a cocky grad student from Atlanta. Roman Singer was a cute playboy, and he knew it. He licked his pink lips at least a hundred times during the interview. D’Artagnan called him L.L. twice during the interview. Everyone knew L.L. Cool Jay licked his lips a lot, but L.L. had put in his work and that was his trademark, Roman…not so much.

  After L.L.’s interview, Lokey bid us farewell, and she was gone for the rest of the day. I could tell she enjoyed working her half-of-days on Friday. We ordered in for lunch from the gourmet sub shop across the street. We all agreed on Theory, Oliver, and Chance, but the forth was a tossup between Dmitri and Thurgood. We all loved Thurgood, but he stood out too much. One look at him, and you’d never forget him. I was rooting for Dmitri too. We all sat there in silence, pacing and tapping our pens on the table.

  Then, a light bulb went off in my head. “I got it!” I yelled out. Dax and D’Artagnan looked at me as if I had lost my mind, but I knew once they heard my idea they wouldn’t be thinking that. After I filled them in, they absolutely loved it. We ended our very productive workday early. Dax left, and D’Artagnan and I wished him a good weekend. Once again, D’Artagnan and I were left alone in the office and this was not good.

  We both were in need of some adult attention and this was not the place or the time. D’Artagnan was like the big brother I had never had, and he needed to stay that way. I started packing up my things.

  “Dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry. Can I get rain check? I’m taking my daughter and my nephew to a beach in Tybee. Its twenty minutes from Savannah.”

  “You’re going by yourself with a toddler and a baby?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I thought about it, then remembered how Michael is, and got an image. Michael was running around me in circles with a slimy frog and Babe was screaming in my ears tugging at my hair. That image frightened me. I was almost regretting my plans for the weekend.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “D’Artagnan, you were not invited,” I told him with a wide smile.

  “I know; that’s why I just invited myself.”

  I looked over at him and knew I was not going to win this battle. I went to pick up the kids; Cinnamon and Chyna had them both ready with their bags. Michael had every hand-held game system known to mankind and extra batteries. Babe had so many toys and gadgets hanging from car seat. She had plenty of things to keep her busy in her bag as well. The girls said they were going to South Carolina with the guys that delivered the car the other day. There was a crawfish festival they wanted to attend. I gave them a fat stack of bills and an emergency credit card. I told them D’Artagnan was in town and that he would be accompanying me with the kids this weekend in Tybee. They gave me a look of shock which quickly turned into a smile. I could tell Chyna’s smile was a little forced.

  The kids and I pulled up to D’Artagnan’s hotel, and I called his cell to let him know we were downstairs. He came down wearing a plain white tee with a pair of dark denim jeans and brown polo boots. He opened my side door and told me he was driving. I looked at him in confusion and then unbuckled my seatbelt and slid over the seat.

  “I’ve never let a woman drive me anywhere. I am a grown man, and I’m not about to start now.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and then laughed at his sexist comment. “I’m sure your mother drove you somewhere when you were a tot.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out.

&
nbsp; I introduced D’Artagnan to Michael; Michael threw one of his little hands up nonchalantly. He was way too busy to be polite now; he had told me when we pulled up that he was on level eight. When I asked him what he was talking about, he over dramatically shouted that he didn’t have time to educate me on Racer Dome 2000; whatever that means.

  “I will have to introduce you to Babe later; she’s a little too comfortable in her seat right now.”

  D’Artagnan nodded with a smile, and it warmed my heart that he truly wanted to meet her.

  We had made it almost 2 hours down the interstate when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out saw it was Jyme. He had started calling twice a day. He usually only wanted to hear Babe’s gibberish; but a couple of times he asked me how I was, and it caught me off guard. I looked over at D’Artagnan and gestured for him to be quiet. I answered the phone.

  “Hold on a sec let me put the phone beside her.”

  “Cricket, wait.”

  “What?”

  “My birthday is next week, and I would really like to see my baby.”

  “Jyme, right now is not a good time.”

  “Cricket, I swear I won’t hurt you like that again. I just get sick to my stomach every time I think about it. I don’t know why I listened to you, we were both hurting and you were trying to help fix it. You were desperate for my attention and I ended up hurting you in the process. I never wanted any of that to happen. And I said some really ugly things to you that I didn’t mean…”

  “I can’t do this with you right now.”

  “Don’t keep me away, Cricket; you and the Baby are all that I have. Can we still have what we tried to start before? Or have I completely fucked that up?”

  I hung up the phone and looked out the window. I felt a couple of tears fall down, and D’Artagnan slid his free hand over on top of mine. I turned my hand up squeezing his, but I never turned to meet his eyes.

  I nodded off to sleep and dreamed of the safe house. Babe was walking now; well…running was more like it. I chased her down the beach, and once I caught her, I scooped her up. When she was in my arms safe and sound, he wrapped his arms around us. She had both hands filled with chunks of our hair. One of her little hands was fisted with mine and the other was in her father’s. He whispered in my ear, “I love our little family.”

  I interrupted that perfect dream by jolting awake. Babe was crying. She needed to be changed and fed.

  “Can you pull over at the next rest stop?” I said sleepily to a smiling D’Artagnan.

  I reached my hand back to her, and she grabbed it, trying to suck on my fingers. I wouldn’t let her, and she got frustrated. Chyna wouldn’t let her suck on a pacifier; she had read somewhere that they mess up children’s teeth. We ended up stopping at McDonalds and getting something to eat. Babe calmed down once I picked her up. I introduced her to D’Artagnan, and she smiled at him. Once he saw her smile, he was hooked just like everybody else. D’Artagnan took Michael to the bathroom and ordered us some food. I changed Babe and freshened up her clothes, and we went to meet up with the boys. D’Artagnan looked pissed as hell when I got back to them. I looked over at Michael, and he was staring out toward the kid’s zone.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him while I disinfected a high chair for Babe and placed her in it.

  “Oh, nothing much; I was just sitting her listening to Michael say that when he gets older, he’s going to beat up Babe’s daddy because he beat up his Aunt Cricket in the shower, and she couldn’t get out of bed for a week.”

  I looked over at Michael, and he hung his head down. I whispered in Michael’s ear. “If you eat all of your food, you can go play with the other kids.”

  “You mad at me?” he asked me.

  I shook my head, “No, sweetie. But you shouldn’t tell anybody else that story because that’s not what really happened.”

  He nodded and started eating his fries. I gave Babe a bottle and avoided eye contact with D’Artagnan.

  Once Michael was done eating his food, I let him go and play like I had promised. D’Artagnan hadn’t even touched his food yet. Babe had finished her bottle, and I placed her across my shoulder to burp her. I decided to finally make eye contact with D’Artagnan, and he was looking at me and shaking his head.

  “I know I’m not from the streets, nor do I have a hood or a set that I’m from. But damn it, Cricket, I would never lay a hand on you. And what kind of a potential man would I be if I didn’t defend your honor?”

  He was a little too loud, and a couple of people from the nearby tables looked over at us. I gave those wondering eyes warm smiles and leaned over the table, getting closer to him.

  “This isn’t a pissing contest, D’Artagnan; and he didn’t put his hands on me. Jyme has never ever hit me.”

  “Well, what the hell happened then?”

  “It’s really none of your fuckin’ business.”

  “Well, when a four year old confides in me that he wants to beat someone up for hurting his Aunt in the shower, I can only imagine what the fuck really happened.”

  “Whatever happens between Jyme and me is our business. Now, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I will be forever in your debt, but you’re going too far with this “Captain Save-a-Ho” crusade of yours.”

  “Cricket, I’ve never called you that.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying.”

  “Nor have I ever thought about you like that.”

  His face was torn, and I felt terrible for what I had said to him. He reached over and pulled my hand into his.

  “Cricket, I love you, and I would do anything for you.”

  “We are not having this conversation right now, D’Artagnan.”

  “Well, all I have to say is…I was there for you when he wasn’t.”

  I knew he was referring to the time Jyme and I had broken up. That was during the time I had found out about Jyme’s secret life and all his extracurricular activities. D’Artagnan was there for me, and I would never forget that. He was my shoulder and rock during that hard time. I’m not sure if I would have made it without him.

  “Cricket, you need to be with someone who understands the sacrifices you make and appreciates you for being the strong woman that you are.”

  “Thank you and I appreciate it.”

  We smiled at each other through the rest of our meal.

  “I really need to go watch Michael; I can’t really see him from here.”

  He nodded. I got up from the table and picked up Babe and her diaper bag.

  I sat on one of the bleachers watching Michael like a hawk. I needed a distraction, and he was it right now. About ten minutes later, D’Artagnan came and sat right beside me. We sat there for at least three minutes without saying a word. We watched Michael playing with the other kids in the play center.

  “I’m sorry, Cricket. It’s just…well, I don’t like the guy to begin with and now this.”

  “He’s Babe’s father, D’Artagnan.”

  “And you love him unconditionally; but does he feel the same about you?” he whispered.

  I sat there, and a couple of tears fell from my watery eyes. Ever since I’d had Babe, I could cry at the drop of a hat and I hated that about me.

  “Cricket, does he love you the same?”

  I knew the true answer to that question, and I knew I couldn’t say the words. We let Michael play for another twenty minutes and loaded back up in the truck and continued to Tybee. It was getting dark now, and the kids were asleep.

  “He didn’t rape me,” I whispered softly. “We had to work out some of our issues and it turned for the worst. But I swear to you, rape was not involved. I could have stopped him, but I needed him to do that to me. I didn’t think his actions afterwards would have turned out the way they did, but they did. I can’t take it back now, but if I could go back, I would have never suggested it. Things just didn’t work out as I planned them. I did a lot of things that hurt him. And I felt at the time that we could work
through them. But that wasn’t the case; not at all. He told me he didn’t look at me the same and that he never would. During our working things out session, I bled a lot and I was sore, that’s all. I could have told him to stop before things got too bad, but I needed him. I needed him to do that to me. He has made it crystal clear that he doesn’t want me. All he’s concerned about is Babe; and he and I both know I can’t raise her. I wouldn’t be a good mother to her. I don’t know how to be a mother to her. He grew up in a steady home environment, and he’s a great father to her. I will eventually cave and give her to him. But I just want to spend a little more time with her while I can.”

  I reached back into Babe’s car seat and brushed her hair out of her little face. We sat in silence for a while, and then D’Artagnan finally spoke.

  “Cricket, I know you had a rough upbringing, but I’ve seen you with her and you’re great. It doesn’t matter what you know or don’t know. You learn as you go and just try not to lose it before you finish.”

  I turned around to make sure Michael was still sleeping.

  “D’Artagnan, I’m an almost reformed prostitute, and I live with a reformed prostitute and a crack addict. That is no environment for her, but that’s all I have for her right now.”

  “Cricket, you’re one of the most considerate, passionate, and loving people I know. You’re going to be a great mother to Babe.”

  I said nothing in return to him.

  We pulled up at the beach house an hour later. The kids were still asleep, so we carried them both upstairs into the house. We woke Michael so he could use the bathroom, and I changed Babe and dressed her in her pajamas. I put her in the toddler bed and pulled the safety rails up. I went back downstairs to find D’Artagnan stretched out on the couch. I went to the end of the couch and pulled both of his legs over onto my lap. We laid there in silence, both of us exhausted from the trip.