“Then why are you still mad?”
“Because you fucking lied to me!” Cree yelled as she pointed at Les. “You broke the trust between us. Don’t you know I would have been there? I wouldn’t have cared about some crazy baby mama. But you lied. You took my choice away from me! You lied to me!”
The room became oddly quiet. Les held his head down like a child in trouble. Cree looked at her hands. They were trembling.
“Please. How do I fix this?” Les’s deep voice didn’t seem so masculine anymore. He sounded more like a wounded child.
“You can’t.” Cree walked over to the front door. She opened it and then stood next to it. “You need to go.”
“Cree—”
Cree didn’t respond. She held the door open, but Les stood in the same spot. The Mexican standoff continued for minutes, as neither of them planned on moving. Realizing she wasn’t budging, Les finally gave in. He stopped at the door. Cree didn’t want to look at him. She knew if she looked at him, her resolve might break. Les turned Cree’s head toward his.
“I’m not giving up on us,” he said, his voice trembling. “I’m not.”
Les walked out the door. Cree slammed it behind him. She stood there fuming. Her lower lip began to quiver. Tears began to swell in her eyes. She fell to the floor, crying against the door she had let the man she loved walk out of.
Chapter 18
Days turned into weeks, and then two months passed. I hadn’t heard from Ursula since leaving her home. A glutton for punishment, I watched her Twitter and Instagram for any clues to what she was doing. She posted only about working on the final season of Olympus and shared pictures from the set.
My life was getting back to normal. My days became routine again. I spent my days listening to my coworkers talk about the gossip they’d read about random celebrities and what was going to happen on the reality shows they all watched.
I was working on a friendship with Ciara. She had known something was up when I left town. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I did tell her that I was seeing someone I met at Dragon Con. I assured her it wasn’t Nia or Cree, but I still could tell that she questioned the friendship we had.
Nia and I were both shocked to learn that Cree had been sleeping with Les the whole time. We got text messages telling us to get on Skype two days after I got back from the trip to see Ursula. We both gasped when we saw Cree’s face. She didn’t look like our sister. She was broken. She tried to hold her emotions in, but as soon as she said Les’s name, the tears started to flow down her face. We had never seen her like that. She wasn’t the one who cried. We were. She was usually the one telling us to suck it up. Concerned, Nia and I both decided to take an emergency trip to Chicago that weekend.
It was good to see my friends again. Nia and I did everything we could to take Cree’s mind off the situation she was going through. Nia and I both needed answers about Les, and Nia was able to get those answers easily out of Kirk. He confirmed the whole story. Les was battling with his babies mother over custody. Les had made the mistake of falling for a gold digger and having children with her. When he realized that she was only out for money, he broke the engagement off. Angry, the woman used their children against Les on a regular basis. She really didn’t care about Les. She just didn’t want to see him happy with anyone else. Being a private man, Les didn’t want his personal business splattered all over the tabloids, but Kirk made Nia aware that Les seemed to be so affected by what had happened with Cree that he was looking into legal ways to protect himself and his daughters.
We hesitated about telling Cree what we had learned from Kirk, but we finally gave her the information he had provided. We sat on her bed as she lay under the covers, and told her what Kirk had said. We couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Her eyes were blank, and her face was dull. She took a while to process everything we told her before finally raising her head and looking at us.
“This doesn’t change anything. He still lied, and I can’t forgive that,” she declared.
Nia and I both looked at Cree as she put her head under the covers. We both knew there was no coming back from this. Cree had always said that lying was the one thing she would never tolerate after her last relationship ended so badly due to a lying cheater.
Nia was the only one who seemed to have a positive experience happening from our convention weekend. She was still seeing Kirk, and things looked really good for them. We knew Nia was trying to hide her happiness for the sake of Cree. Finally, at lunch on Sunday, before we headed to the airport, Cree took Nia by the hand and told her that she was ecstatic about the way things were going for her and Kirk, and that she didn’t have to hide her happiness. Cree was right. Seeing my friend happy made me happy, even if my own personal life was in shambles.
My situation didn’t hit me again until I got back home late Sunday night. That was when I realized I was alone again. I didn’t have anyone I could confide in. I had no shoulders to cry on, because I couldn’t tell anyone about the secret rendezvous that I had shared with Ursula. But as the days went by, the fact that I had to deal with everything alone just made me stronger. I realized I didn’t need a shoulder to cry on. I could take care of myself. I knew I would hate it if my friend’s trash-talked Ursula the way we had originally talked about Les. I was glad no one knew about the affair. I didn’t want anyone’s opinions about what I did. I had enough opinions of my own to last a lifetime.
I was snuggled up on my couch, watching Scandal, which was my newest fangirl obsession. I couldn’t help but admire the fact that Olivia Pope made being a side chick seem okay. Even Cree joked from time to time that she easily could have been Olivia Pope with Les.
There was an unexpected knock on my front door. I paused the DVR, refusing to miss a single minute of the show. I opened the door without looking through my peephole. My body froze when I saw Ursula standing there in a pair of jeans and a black sweater.
“Can I come in?”
I hadn’t realized how much I missed her sultry voice. I opened the door, allowing her to walk into my house. Ursula walked all the way into my living room. She glanced around my apartment before focusing back on me.
“So I was leaving New York when I realized I had a layover here in Memphis. Somehow I ended up missing that flight.”
“You missed your second flight? How?”
I was standing against my kitchen bar. I couldn’t walk into the living room. I couldn’t be that close to her.
“Okay, so I purposely missed it.” Ursula smiled. “I figured I’d take the chance and come to see you.”
I felt my heart skip a beat.
“You could have called.”
“That did occur to me, but I didn’t think you would answer my call.” She sat on the edge of my couch. “And besides, I wanted to see you.”
I couldn’t believe she had just taken it upon herself to show up at my house. I knew the old me would have thought it was a romantic gesture, but the new, stronger me saw it as her acting so arrogant that she didn’t think that I would have company.
“Ursula.”
“I miss you, Temple.” She stared at me with her big brown eyes. “I miss you a lot.”
I felt the wrecking ball trying to break down the wall I had built around my heart. “Ursula—”
“I know that you probably find that hard to believe, but I do. I miss you. I miss what we had.”
“What we had?” I walked closer to the living room. “Ursula, you said yourself we didn’t have anything. It was just two adults having fun.”
“Well, I miss that fun,” Ursula whined, like a teenager trying to get her way. “You can’t seriously say you don’t miss it too.”
She was right. I missed everything about it. I missed the way she felt against my skin and the way she tasted. I missed my hands getting tangled in her hair and the way she bit her lip when she was ready for me to taste her. But more than anything, I missed lying in her arms. I missed the late-night laughing and the early mornin
g fucking. I missed her.
“I miss a lot of things, Ursula. But what I don’t miss is feeling like I’m just a piece of meat.”
“You weren’t—”
“Ursula, I had some amazing times with you, and I wasn’t even able to share them with the two people who could have helped me get you out of my system. I don’t want to be the dirty little secret that you take out of the closet when it suits you. I’m worth more than that.”
“So you really wish to say I treated you like a dirty little secret?” Ursula snapped. I could hear the change in Ursula’s voice. She was getting angry. She stood back up. “I invited you into my home and gave you complete access to it. I tried to get you to stay, but you chose to leave. I never made any promises to you that I didn’t keep.”
The words hit me like a ton of bricks.
Ursula went on. “You want to know why I invited you to my room to begin with? Temple, I invited you because I thought I saw something genuine in you. I knew you were a fan, but there was something more there. I didn’t think you would be a person who only saw me as the Amazon queen or a fucking Greek goddess. I wasn’t going to have you sign that bloody agreement. That was my management who made me do it, because they didn’t know if you were legit or just a fan trying to get a picture to sell to a tabloid. I knew you wouldn’t, but I have a brand to protect. I made the mistake of thinking that you saw past that.”
In that moment I realized just how wrong I had been. Ursula hadn’t led me on or filled my head with thoughts of a relationship. I had allowed myself to turn nothing into something. I wanted to kick myself for being so foolish. She had been right all along. What should have been just fun had turned into more for me, but that was because it was more to begin with.
“Ursula, I have admired you my whole life, and being with you was just more than I could handle. I let my love and admiration for you cloud my mind. But understand that wasn’t the reason I caught feelings. I caught feelings because I couldn’t believe that someone as amazing as you actually wanted to be with me.”
Ursula said nothing. We didn’t take our eyes off each other as we stood there in silence. We didn’t know what to say to each other. The truth was out there, but neither of us knew what to do with it.
Ursula finally broke the silence. “Temple, I like you. I want to still see you. But I can’t and never will be able to do more than what we were. Can we just live our lives and go back to having fun with each other when the time permits?”
I wanted to say yes. A large piece of me wanted to take her right there in my small living room, on my old couch, which probably cost less than a single pillow in her villa. I wanted to just feel her one more time. But I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t be one more time. I would allow it to keep happening simply because I loved knowing that I had someone as amazing as Ursula.
“See, the thing is, now that I’ve experienced something so amazing, I don’t want to go back to less than I truly want and deserve. I can’t be your weekend lover. I want more out of a relationship, even if that means not being with you.”
Ursula let out a sigh. “Impossible woman, you are.”
Ursula walked over to me and reached out her hands. She hugged me. I put my arms around her, hugging her tightly.
“If you ever need anything, you have my number. Keep in touch, kid.” Ursula winked at me.
I walked her to my front door. She planted a sweet peck on my lips before walking out my door. I watched as she got in the back of the town car. A piece of me couldn’t believe I had let her go. But the majority of me knew it was the right thing to do.
I knew it would be the last time we shared an intimate space. I knew I’d let her go for real this time. All I had now was my memories, my signed mementos, and a dress that I couldn’t wait to cosplay in.
Chapter 19
Saturday, August 31, 2013 . . .
Cameras flashed as Nia, Cree, and I stood in an iconic pose from the Olympus television show, along with thirty-seven other people dressed in cosplay from the show. We were the largest group of cosplayers for the show, and we had gathered together to show our support for the show’s final season and for the final Olympus panel of Dragon Con. This year Nia, Cree, and I were surrounded by people dressed as every Greek god and goddess from the show. Some were even dressed as mortal characters from the series.
After the picture taking, we all laughed and talked about our costumes and how we had made them. Cree and Nia met people whom they had never seen before but whom they had cursed out many times for winning eBay auctions that they had bid on. Everyone looked amazing, but I had a secret weapon that made heads turn. I had the dress.
Other women dressed as goddesses were completely in awe of my dress. I told everyone that I had won it in an auction. The only people who knew where it came from were Nia and Cree. The moment they laid eyes on the dress, they knew something was up. I couldn’t lie to my friends. I told them that Ursula had sent it to me as a gift. I knew they wanted more answers. After all, why would a person send such an expensive gown to someone for no reason at all? I simply said that she had promised to send it to me at dinner and she had actually come through for me.
The doors to the ballroom opened, and people started filing in, trying to nab the best seats possible. The Olympus cosplay group was able to secure the third and fourth rows for us. We sat as a unit to show our support and love for the show.
I knew she would be there. It had been announced months earlier that the majority of the cast would actually be attending this Dragon Con. It was a big deal to get so many of the stars at anything besides San Diego Comic-Con, which was the only convention that was known for always having A-list celebrities.
Cree grabbed my hand. I knew she had to be just as nervous as I was, or even more so. Les had tried to talk to her for months after the breakup. He had sent her flowers and presents of all kinds. He had called constantly, leaving message after message. She had wanted to respond, but she hadn’t been ready. I knew that there was more to it than just being upset that he had lied. One day Cree had finally told me the truth.
“I don’t think I could ever truly trust him, even if this hadn’t happened,” she’d told me about a month after the split. “He’s the most beautiful man I have ever seen, and I would always wonder if I am the only one. I’m not a strong enough woman to be with him. I know I’m not.”
It was a hard reality to face, but I knew exactly what she meant. We were fangirls, a rare breed of true fans who were devoted to the actors and the work they created. But the truth was, for every fangirl, there were thirty groupies and gold diggers at every turn. People mostly didn’t understand us, or they automatically put us in the groupie category. But we never needed or cared to sleep with the objects of our fandom. We just wanted to support them, let them know that their work meant a lot to us.
Even after the whole situation with Ursula, I was still the fan I was before. I still admired her and the work that she brought to life. She was still the Amazon queen who had helped to shape me when I was a young person, and I would always love her as a person for that.
The moderator walked out onstage, causing the room to go crazy. One by one he called the actors to the stage, starting with the supporting cast. Cree, Nia, and I sat in anticipation when he got to the last three names.
“Introducing the god of war. Give it up for Aries, Kirk Mission!”
We nudged Nia as Kirk ran out onstage, holding a sword in his hand. The crowd went wild, and Nia face turned red from blushing.
“And he’s the one and only Zeus. Give it up, Dragon Con, for Les Moore!”
I jumped as Cree’s fingers dug into my skin. Les didn’t make the grand entrance that Kirk had made. He bowed his head to the crowd before sitting down. He looked up as he sat down. His eyes went directly to Cree, and his face dropped. Cree’s nails dug into my skin again, until I finally had to hit her to make her stop. They made eye contact before he pulled his gaze from her and focused it on the moderator.
>
“And we know her as Hera, but some of you know her as the mighty Amazon goddess. Give it up for the flawless Ursula Moore.”
My heart was racing as Ursula walked out onstage. Her hair was no longer black. She had lightened it to brown with some blond highlights. She stood in one spot as the room gave her a standing ovation.
Once everyone calmed down, the moderator addressed the actors.
“Well, we are so honored to have you all here at Dragon Con. I know that Mason, Kirk, Les, and Ursula were able to experience our little freak show last year. We are surprised you came back.”
The crowd and the panel laughed.
Mason leaned into his microphone. “What do you mean? I love Dragon Con. These are my people!”
The actress who played Aphrodite chimed in. “He’s right. He’s the biggest nerd on the planet. He has more video games than my son.”
“That is true. Where is the gaming room this year?” Mason looked around the room as various guys stood up and yelled out the location of the gaming room.
“Well, Kirk, I heard you had a very good Dragon Con last year.” The obviously gay moderator smiled. Kirk’s dimples appeared as he began to blush. Les hit Kirk on his arm.
“That is true. I actually met the love of my life here last year,” Kirk revealed.
The whole room began to swoon. Nia lowered her body down in her chair.
“Really? Yes, we heard you fell for one of us,” the moderator joked. “Where is she?”
Les nodded his head. He began to scan the audience.
“Well, I tried to convince her to come backstage, but she refused. She’s actually out there in cosplay with you guys.” Kirk stood up and scanned the room until his eyes reached us. He smiled and pointed at Nia. “There’s my little goddess.”
The rest of the cosplay group was shocked when Nia finally stood up. The whole group cheered as people patted her on her back. She made a facial gesture at Kirk that indicated that she was going to kill him for outing her in front of everyone.
Les Tales Page 12
