“Believe it, Alika. And it’s only the beginning. I know I can’t right all the wrongs of your past, but I’m gonna do my damnedest. Disneyland is just one piece of the world that I want to show you. And then look at it like this; there will be plenty of firsts that we’ll share together. Because regardless of how so-called privileged my upbringing was, it wasn’t anywhere near the happy home it could have or should’ve been. So, together we can make our own history and add missing pieces to both our childhoods. How’s that work for you?”
I could only nod my head. Any words that I would’ve attempted to produce in that moment would have brought forth a flurry of emotions, and although they would’ve been happy emotions, I had no desire to shed any tears. Not on this trip. It was too special.
Rush rose from our bed, and then walked to the closet to retrieve twin white terry cloth robes. I watched as he put his on and secured the belt, then motioned for me. “Come here,” he instructed, holding his hand out.
I smiled at him and obliged, and in true Rush form, he held open the second robe for me to slip my arms into. He even tied it in the front once it covered my body.
I followed him to the balcony of our suite where he opened the doors. “What is all that?” I asked in a voice just above a whisper.
My eyes darted at the speed of light, looking from left to right and at everything in between. There were lights everywhere and people—young and old alike, were abounded. I was surprised and eager to see it all up close and personal. I had missed the glory of it all earlier because we had come in through the front of the hotel. Seeing the lobby itself had me gasping like a little kid at its beauty. Then once our luggage had been delivered, we fell into each other’s arms and in each other’s arms was where we had been up until a few minutes earlier.
“That is Downtown Disney,” he responded. “It’s filled with a bunch of stuff like restaurants, a movie theater—a huge movie theater—that’s probably bigger than any we see locally. House of Blues is also down there,” he said, turning back to me. “Pretty much all kinds of stuff at your disposal. Cool part is that everything is open for as long as the park is open, which I believe is eleven o’clock at night.”
My eyes got big as the boulders I used to play with when I was a kid beating boys at marble games. “So, wait…” I started looking toward the digital clock sitting atop the nightstand. “It’s only seven. Does that mean that the park is still open for another four hours?!”
“Yep. Does that mean you want to—”
“Yes! Yes!” I said, turning to him and jumping into his arms, my robe falling open at the same time. “I want to go! Let’s get showered and dressed and I’m so ready!”
TWO
Rush
November 1, 2014
Alika was ecstatic as we walked past several stores, tons of people, and made our way toward the Monorail.
“Oh my God, Rush! Is this some kind of damn train?!”
“Yep,” I responded, as we walked through the guardrails to board.
A part of me was extremely happy that I was able to gift this to her, and another part of me was sad that she had even been deprived of such things as a child. I could relate to her on so many levels when it came to those missing familial links. She grew up with a relative who could no longer take care of her after a while, and I was raised more by Jacob’s mom than my own who had taken off for parts unknown when I was a young boy. Of course my father ended up remarrying. In fact, he married the woman he was having an affair with—Jamie’s mother, and the world drastically changed then. Favoritism was at an all-time high. But at the time, I had a second family, so I wasn’t affected as much. And now, there seemed to be no family at all. Who knows? That might’ve been the way it was always supposed to be. Thank God I’d reached adulthood when things finally dismantled completely because I might’ve been on my own long before now with the shit they’d pulled.
As much as I didn’t want to think about all that had happened, it was a huge part of my life now, and after Alika’s birthday celebration, she would have to decide if she would welcome it as a part of her life as well. I would hate to lose her. She meant the world to me, but I would be less than a man if I didn’t do all that I could to find my daughter, and do everything humanly possible to incorporate her into my life somehow.
“This thing is huge!” Alika said, referring to the Monorail. “It reminds me of something out of the Jetsons!”
And that was the last thing I heard her say before my thoughts drifted.
~*~*~
I sped through the Caldecott and down highway 24 towards my house. I didn’t know what the speed was and I really didn’t give a fuck. I was just in a hurry to get home. I needed time to process, but that wouldn’t happen for a few days because some kind of way I needed to pull it all together so that I could show my woman a good time for her birthday. But damn. I leaned back in my seat, then reached for the radio to lessen the noise inside the vehicle. Normally music worked to calm me, but as I pulled my hand back, I decided that I didn’t need any outside noise today.
“I can’t believe this shit is happening, man!”
I was livid. It was the only damn time I talked out loud to myself. My mind was going a thousand fucking miles an hour. If ever there was a time in my life where I felt fucking gut-punched from every damn angle, now was it! I had just come from visiting Jacob. At a time in my life no one could’ve convinced me that he was anything other than a brother—a brother from another mother. I went all the way to Dublin and stood in line at a fucking jail to get answers that I figured he had. I just never expected the shit that would come out of his mouth! And then to go to my own father’s house and receive instant confirmation!
“Fuck no!” I yelled, my head shaking in disbelief, and my jaw tightening.
This shit can’t be my life. I was seeing black. Not red, but black. I wanted to drop bodies. That’s how mad I was. Fuck Jacob, his ass was the least of my concerns. He was on his way to a long ass sit-down while he waited for a trial date. Good fucking riddance. My focus now was on my father and how to deal with the blow he had dealt me. The only thing that saved him from being knocked on his old ass and dragged across his concrete driveway was DNA. That was it. Nothing more and nothing less. In fact, if I thought about it too long, I might end up forgetting that shit and having a blackout moment, and doubling back. It wouldn’t be like he didn’t deserve it. Keeping my child from me?! Hell fucking no!
All I could see as I thought back was how he had stared at me with a fucking cocky ass smile in his eyes when I told him that I needed to talk to him.
“I’m listening,” he announced.
“Do I have a daughter? And did you pay her mother to keep her and the information from me? I don’t want beating around any bushes or none of that shit. I just want a yes or a—”
“You absolutely do,” he answered without so much as a blinking eye.
When I took steps toward him, I had no idea what I was gonna do to him, but my immediate plan involved knocking the look from his face, and beating him until he was unrecognizable. But just as I was about to react, the front door of my father’s house opened up and my sister emerged.
“Rush!” she excitedly exclaimed, coming toward me with her arms opened. “What are you doing here?” she asked, hugging me.
I was at a loss for words, but thankful that Jamie had interrupted an obvious black out moment. I couldn’t afford that. I decided right then that he had already had enough control over my life and that if there was any truth to me having a daughter, I would put Oscar on it and find out for myself.
Jamie pulled away from our hug and stood near our father. “How’s Alika? Her birthday is tomorrow, right?”
“It is,” I responded, trying to maintain my composure and keep Jamie off my trail. “We’re going to LA.”
“Awesome! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home getting ready?” she asked.
She looked from me to my father, and with a delayed
reaction, she asked: “What did I walk into? Rush…Dad…? Answer me!” she demanded.
I turned to leave to keep my angered state from returning, in triplicate. “I’m gonna get going, sis. I’ll talk to you after we get back from our trip.”
“Oh, your brother was just here to ask about his daughter, Jamie. That was it. He wanted to know about his one-night stand’s baby—”
“Dad!” Jamie yelled out, causing me to turn back toward them. Her interjection was clearly an effort to keep him from completing his sentence. “Don’t!”
“So you knew, Jamie? You knew!”
I knew immediately that it was time for me to leave because I had become enraged and couldn’t differentiate them from man and woman, from father and sister. They were anybody else on the street that had attempted murder on my very being, and I had to go before it turned ugly.
“Daddy!” I heard Jamie yell as I stormed in the direction of my car. “Why did you do that? Rush…!” she cried, in a panicked tone. “Wait a minute! You gotta hear us out. You have to hear us out.”
But I didn’t really give a damn about hearing either of them out. I didn’t owe them that at all. All I needed to do was get as far away from them both before I did things I could never take back. I hopped in my car and sped off as fast as I could. My plans hadn’t changed. I was going to go home to Alika. We were going to bring in her birthday in style, and after the trip concluded, I would sit down with her and let her know what was going on and we would decide as a couple what our next steps would be.
In the meantime, I was done with both my father and my half sister. There was no turning back, only going forward, and I was perfectly fine with that. And if either of them knew how I was feeling and my current thought process, they would try to stay as far away from me as they could.
When I pulled up at home, I drove through the gates slowly. I was still trying to wind down before I saw Alika. Once I was at the top of the driveway, I cut the engine and sat there for a few minutes. I reached for the radio, but then once again, quickly decided against that. I wanted to do serious harm to a few motherfuckers starting with my father. All my life I’d dealt with that man’s bullshit. It was why growing up, I spent so much time at Jacob’s family’s house. Even with as small as their home was, and as cramped as the space was, I felt more love there than Lance Michael Cambridge could ever produce. He’s a ruthless son of a bitch. One who should thank his lucky stars because to say that I wanted to beat the white off his ass, would be the understatement of the year.
I took a few deep breaths and tried to channel my energy to a calmer place so that Alika wouldn’t suspect anything once I walked inside. Before I got out of the car, I accessed my Yahoo email account from my phone and shot off an email to Oscar.
Hey O,
I think last I talked to you, you said you had a big project coming up. If you need to refer me out, I’m okay with that, but I need to find someone, and it’s pretty urgent. I have minimal information that I can provide to get things going. But please let me know as soon as you can. I’ll be out of town this weekend, but I’ll be back Monday morning. Here’s what I know: Janae Lawson. Born in either 1983 or 1984. Mother’s name is Glenda. She has a brother named Jacob Lawson. She has two other siblings too, who are younger, Jabri and Justice. Hope to hear back from you soon.
Rush
I pressed the send button and allowed my head to fall back against the headrest. I was mentally and physically exhausted. But at least my anger had finally begun to subside, and that was what I was hoping would happen. My breathing began to steady, and I could feel myself return to normal. No matter how temporary it was, I welcomed it. I inhaled and then released a few deep breaths, and was preparing my exit when I heard a light rapture on the passenger window. I turned toward the passenger side window and there stood Alika looking as beautiful as she always did. There was worry and many, many questions that greeted me inside her brown, sparkling eyes. She pointed toward the lever, basically instructing me to unlock the door and allow her inside, which I did.
But instead of getting in on the passenger side, I watched as she walked around the front of the vehicle and opened my door placing herself across my lap, and snaking her arms around my shoulders. “Hey you,” she spoke softly, burying her face into the side of my neck. “Why are you still out here? We have to get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” I asked, rubbing my palm across her upper thigh. “Because if you don’t remove this pretty ass package from my lap, we may miss a flight or three.”
“Promises, promises,” she chuckled, pulling back to look me in the eyes.
I reached around her to remove the key from the ignition. “I don’t break promises, so let’s see how much giggling you do when I get you inside,” I said, softly ushering her from my lap so we could escape the confines of the car. But she wouldn’t budge. “What? You scared now?” I teased.
“Never scared, sir.” She laid my head back into the headrest, and delivered a lingering kiss to my lips. “Talk to me. You didn’t think that it was lost on me that something is wrong with you, did you? All this trying to seduce me and all that just to keep the focus from the larger issue ain’t gonna work.”
I fell into silence for a few paused seconds, debating whether or not to unload the details. But the more I felt her warmth against me, the more I decided against it. We were hours away from heading to Oakland and I wanted to grab a drink at the Jet Blue bar before we took flight.
“Rush,” she started. “Does it have anything to do with Jamie calling and begging me to have you call her? Did you guys get into it? I don’t wanna get in between you and your sister, but she did sound concerned. Does it have—”
I leaned in to kiss her in an effort to silence her inquires. “It’s nothing, babe. She knows I went to see Jacob, so she’s just curious about that,” I lied.
“Jacob?! In jail? What the hell were you doing going to see him?”
“I just needed to look his ass in the face and see what he had to say for himself.”
“Aww, baby. I get it. He is somebody you grew up with. But he’s foul. He doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air you breathe, so I hope that was the last visit,” she said, rising from my lap and reaching out her hand to me.
“It was the last one, babe. I got my answers.”
Answers. Yeah, right. I hated giving Alika half truths, but when I got ready to tell her full details, we would need peace and quiet and plenty of time. So for now, it would have to wait.
A snapping finger in front of my face was what snatched me from the flashback that was aggressively invading thoughts. “Ruuush! Are you ignoring me?!”
I looked over at Alika, and was instantly greeted with a deadly look of agitation. “No, babe. Of course not! I’m just all discombobulated, is all. You sexed me so good, you have my mind shutting down!” I kidded, trying to distract her.
“Mmm hmm, okay. You better not be thinking about another woman. I know that. I called your name three times and wasn’t nobody home. Just be glad that I’m too excited to dig into those thoughts!” she said, leaning over to peck me on the cheek.
“I’m sorry, babe. It won’t happen again,” I promised, pulling her close to me just as we pulled up at Frontierland to off board.
“I swear this place is everything I always dreamed it would be, Rush. I can’t get over the fact that I’m even here. I’m a grown ass woman excited about a place that probably only excites kids up until the age of twelve!” she laughed. “But hell, I don’t care. I’m gonna own that. I’m mesmerized.”
“Don’t let that type of bullshit factor into how you feel about all of this. Take it all in, baby. You have every right to your feelings. Shit, there’s a kid in all of us. Fuck what anybody thinks about it.”
“Exactly, baby. Fuck what anybody thinks,” she said, smiling. “I’m about to fan out over Mickey, Minnie, Tinkerbelle, Goofy, and all of the rest of ‘em!”
THREE
Lafayette, CA<
br />
Residence of Lance Cambridge
“Daddy, can I speak to you for a few minutes in private?”
“Oh boy,” Lance sighed. “What’s going on?”
“I just need to talk to you,” Jamie answered.
Lance looked at the distraught look on his daughter’s face. He put a gentle hand across her shoulders. “Yeah, of course sweetheart, let’s go into my bar room so I can pour me some Cognac.”
When they were behind the closed door of her father’s bar room, he poured himself a double shot. They took seats next to each other. Jamie burst into tears almost immediately.
“Daddy! How can you be so nonchalant about all of this? Like, really. Rush has already shut me out. He hasn’t answered a single one of my calls since he left here yesterday. I don’t know what to do!”
“You do nothing, Jamie. Reacting to this bullshit is for nothing. Who gains? Nobody.”
“Daddy, come on. How can you say that? We kept an entire child from him! An entire part of him that he knew nothing about. A daughter! How are you this calm, dad?”
“I’m calm because I don’t lend energy to people when they’re being ungrateful. When Rush calms down, he’ll realize that every action taken during that time was for him. Look at how far his career got. I mean, he could’ve gone even further, but that’s another story. Look at his successes. Do you think any of that would’ve come to pass if he had a leech tugging at his pant leg during that time?”
Jamie’s head was spinning. She was hurting and dying a slow death on the inside. She couldn’t believe that she had been a part of such a large secret from the person she was closest to in the world. At the time their father had convinced her that it was the best thing, and in her naïve state, she had gone along with it. And it wasn’t hard for her to do. She wanted the best for her brother. Rush was only twenty-three years old and at the height of his career! Back when Janae tracked Jamie down and asked her to get in touch with Rush because she was set to deliver his child, the only thing Jamie could think to do was alert their father. Rush was on the road, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to disrupt any of what he had going on to drop a bomb on him that significant. Who waits until they’re about to pop to tell a man they’re having their child anyway? Not to mention that if said person didn’t have a way to get in touch with Rush, then their little fling must not have meant that much to him!
Rapture 2: a BWWM, Alpha Male Romance Page 2
