The Lies: The Lies We Tell About Love, Life, and Everything in Between

by Christina C Jones

  I smirked. Following our little encounter after that night at the bar, Brandi and I had… gotten better acquainted. Numbers exchanged for easier access, work and kid-duty schedules discussed to coordinate. In a little more than three weeks, we’d happened into a casual arrangement that fit both of our needs, and unlike most times I ended up in such a situation with a woman, Brandi really wasn’t checking for me beyond the bedroom.

  And maybe as a friend.

  Maybe.

  It was perfection.

  “Dinner with the fam. What are you doing?” I shot back, then stuck a forkful of sweet potatoes in my mouth. A moment later, my phone buzzed again, and I had to take a big gulp of my drink at her response.

  “Myself. My mother got Zion from school because I had a late appointment, and he’s staying over there for the night. I’m bored, and horny out of my mind. – B.”

  “I’m with lil’ man tonight… but maybe we can arrange something for tomorrow morning, if you need it like that…”

  “I do. Bad. – B.”

  I grinned. “How bad?”

  “Bad enough that I’m thinking about rescheduling an appointment so I can get it as soon as we get these kids off to school in the morning. – B”

  “Show me.”

  I shook my head at myself as I looked up to grab another forkful of food, knowing Brandi was gonna curse me out for that last message. It would be a playful cursing though, something I’d come to enjoy about her, a lot. The girl had a mouth on her, and it kept me on my toes.

  Feeling eyes on me, I looked up to find Audrey staring, eyes narrowed in my direction as Matt and Fran, and occasionally my father, talked on and on. I raised an eyebrow at her, then looked down as my phone buzzed again, letting me know Brandi had responded to my message. I tapped to get into it, then sucked in a breath.

  She’d sent a picture.

  A picture that had my dick hard at the dinner table, of two of her fingers spreading her lips apart to give me a perfect view of the glory between her thighs.

  There was only one word attached to the picture.

  “See? – B.”

  Goddamn.

  She was glistening, and it made my mouth water, so I told her so in my text response. This damn girl was trying to have me out of my mind.

  “Kyle, do you know how rude it is for you to be on your phone at the table, ignoring your family at dinner?” Audrey snapped, and the whole room went quiet.

  I looked at her, and frowned. “It can’t possibly be more rude than you interrupting Fran just now, while she was trying to make an effort to get to know more about Matt’s love for violin music. Or were you so focused on me you didn’t realize people were talking?”

  “I hope whoever you’re grinning at on the phone is important enough for this little disruption you’re causing,” she accused.

  I frowned deeper, then looked around the table to make sure I wasn’t alone in wondering how the hell she was putting this on me. Even Matt looked confused.

  To Audrey’s credit, she had a point about me being on the phone at the table – I’d give her that. But… nobody was talking to me. KJ was oblivious to a problem, too busy humming and dancing as he stuffed his face with food. Fran and my father were talking to Matt – a conversation that I could hear, but was only barely paying attention to. The only person who cared that I’d looked at my phone for what had taken maybe two or three minutes… was Audrey.

  “You know what… my bad,” I said, slipping the phone into my pocket. I didn’t want this to turn into enough of a scene that KJ did notice, and I knew Brandi wasn’t tripping about getting a text back. “Everybody, I’m sorry for being on the phone. You good, Audrey?”

  “Whatever,” she mumbled, then went back to picking at her plate. These rest of us ate in silence for a few moments, and then my father spoke up.

  “Alright. You go ahead and finish up that plate,” he said to me, slapping me on the shoulder. “And you too,” he told Matt. “Then come on downstairs to the pool table. You can watch me whoop Butter Feet’s ass.”

  &

  “Hey… where you at?”

  I shot that text to Brandi, and then leaned back against the wall beside the door to her apartment. The code to get into her building had flowed naturally from my fingers on the way up – I hadn’t even had to go back into our message thread to double-check. We’d done this often enough that I knew when we made plans to meet up, they were solid. If something needed to change, we let the other person know… which is why I was a little bit baffled that she wasn’t answering her door.

  We’d set this up last night, after I left the dinner table from hell. Audrey hadn’t stopped acting pissy, so I finished up my food and went downstairs with Pops, since KJ wanted to stay with Fran.

  If it wasn’t a Monday, I may have taken a couple of hours to dip out, to help B with her little problem. Since it was, we followed through with what she mentioned last night. Kids off to school, appointments pushed back to later in the afternoon. I woke up looking forward to burning off some stress, but now that I was here… apparently, she wasn’t.

  Frowning, I scrolled up through our messages again to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood. The messages were clear though – I was supposed to be meeting her here, at her place, and I was right on time.

  But there was no point in hanging around forever.

  I pushed off the wall, and was about to head for the stairs where her door suddenly opened, and she peeked out.

  “Hey…” she said, in a tone that just seemed… off. “I am… so sorry. I got back from seeing Zion off, and I just…” she shook her head as her words trailed off, and I stepped up to the door, putting myself right in front of her. The usual light was missing from her eyes this morning, and they were glossy and red.

  I frowned. “You got back from seeing Zion off, and… what?” She didn’t offer any resistance when I pushed past her to get in the door, which was relieving. I wasn’t sure what it was, I just… felt like I needed to be in there.

  She shrugged off my question, and closed the door, then just kind of stood there, looking at me. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she raised hers right back, with a questioning lift of her hand. “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?” I took a few steps toward her, and she backed up, which caught me off guard. “We had plans, but your whole energy is off, and now you’re backing away like you don’t want me touching you. Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “There’s nothing going on,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself protectively, and I scoffed.

  “Man, here you go with the bullshit again. Didn’t we already talk about this? If you’ve got some shit going on, and you don’t want to talk about it, whatever. You can just say that, but don’t do that “I’m fine” stuff when you’re obviously not.”

  Her face scrunched up at me, and she shook her head. “Like you fuckin’ care.”

  “I’m fuckin’ asking,” I shot back, which seemed to piss her off.

  Brandi’s crossed arms went from protective to defiant, and her weight shifted to one side. “Then here you go – nothing is going on, like I said. I just got promoted, which means more money, which means my bills are paid, and I’m good. It means my son is good. He’s happy. Doing well in school, and his father is being consistent with showing that he gives a damn. My friends are happy. My family is happy. And still – I just want to cry, okay? I got Zion off to school, and I came back in here, and I just felt… heavy. I don’t feel happy, but I don’t have shit to not be happy about, but you can’t explain that shit to people cause they want to talk about happiness being a choice and some other hippy-dippy bullshit that don’t nobody give a fuck about. All I know is how I feel, and I… felt like crying. Felt like d—” she caught herself from continuing her rant, and shook her head. “Look… I’m sorry, okay? Sorry that my… whatever this is, messed up your booty call. My bad.”

  I shrugged. “Nah, B. You’re good.”

  I could te
ll she hadn’t realized she was crying again by her reaction to the tears that suddenly dripped onto her arm. Her eyes flew to me first, obviously embarrassed, and then she took off down the hall, scrubbing her face with her hands.

  Shit.

  I definitely hadn’t come over here expecting this.

  A deep sigh pressed out from my lungs as I dropped to a seat on her couch, then swiped a hand over my face. I’d seen Brandi go off before – the night I came to her place that first time, as a matter of fact. But I’d never seen her go quite like this.

  “You’re still here,” I heard from behind me a few moments later. I looked up to see Brandi standing at the entrance to the hall, arms folded, but the flash of anger from before was gone. Now she just seemed… melancholy.

  I stood up, pushing my hands into my pockets. “Is that your way of telling me to leave?”

  Her lips parted, and shifted in her position against the wall. “I just… I figured that my little spazz out just then… I figured you’d hightail it out of here at first chance.”

  My shoulders came up, then dropped. “Do you want me to leave?”

  Her gaze dropped, and her teeth appeared, scraping over her top lip as she subtly shook her head. Struggling with her answer. But then she looked up, and gave me a clear, “No.”

  “Aiight, then… I’m good.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I just… I need a minute to get my head right, and then we can…do what you came for.”

  Immediately, I waved her off. “Nah, B. That’s not even on my mind right now.”

  Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Okay… so what is it that you expect us to do?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.” A few seconds passed, with neither of us saying anything, and then I asked her, “What do you want to do?”

  Brandi’s lips parted again, like she wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t have anything… I…” her gaze skirted around, and then came back to me, settling on my face for a moment before her eyes drifted upward. “Uh… did you still want me to tighten up your hair?”

  “That would be dope,” I said, running a hand through my locs. “Is that really how to want to spend your morning though? And do you have time for all that?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I pushed one appointment back, and my other one cancelled, so I have all morning. And… something to occupy my mind, and my hands… is exactly what I need.”

  “Okay. Then… my head is yours. What do you need? Do I need to go grab anything?”

  She gave me a smile – just a tiny one – but I was glad to see it. “Nah, I still have everything from when I used to touch Iris up before she cut hers. I’ve got it.”

  And, she did. I stayed quiet, letting her zone out as she washed my hair in her kitchen sink. And hell, I zoned out too, cause the shit felt good. I’d looked at her like she was crazy when she explained that I needed to get up on her counter, but that was the only way to get my head to the sink at the right angle, and there was a decent amount of room, so I rolled with it.

  Between the warm water, the tea tree and mint shampoo she was using, and the feeling of her fingertips on my scalp, I damn near fell asleep. It felt like way too soon that that part was over, but I got over that quickly once I was able to settle on the floor in front of the couch to sit between her legs.

  “So,” she said, spreading a thick towel over my shoulders to catch any water still dripping from my hair. “You’re always asking what’s up with me… but what about you? What’s up with you?”

  “Do I seem like there’s something up with me?”

  She finished her work of separating my hair into four sections before she answered. “Well, when we were texting to make our plans last night, you just seemed… dryer than usual. Not really what I would have expected after that picture I sent you.”

  I grunted as that picture came back to mind. “My bad. I didn’t give that masterpiece the proper reaction it deserved,” I said, hooking an arm around her bare leg, and pressing a kiss against her calf. “Audrey was on some bullshit. Had my head messed up.”

  “Oh. Audrey was there?”

  “Unfortunately,” I grumbled. “She rolled in my parents house with her new boyfriend, who happens to be Zion’s pediatrician.”

  Brandi let out a low whistle. “Yikes.”

  “Yeah, yikes is right. And not only does she do that, she makes this big scene at the table about me texting you, when her man is sitting right beside her.”

  Brandi’s hands stopped what she was doing. “Me? Why does she know anything about me?!”

  “Not you,” I chuckled. “Relax. She probably picked up that I was texting a woman, but she doesn’t know shit about who it was. She just… shit, I don’t know. I don’t get her.”

  “What’s not to get?” Brandi put one of her metal clips on the loc she’d just finished twisting, then moved to the next one. “The mother of your child doesn’t want to see you happily moving on to someone else. Wasn’t it just “complicated” with her, like a month ago?”

  I scoffed. “Yeah – uncomplicated by the fact that I found out about her dude, and she told me she was getting serious with him. I’m not even kicking it with anybody like she is, so I don’t understand where she finds room to be pissy about anything I do.”

  “Uh, somewhere in all that history,” Brandi teased, and I shook my head. “Are you really going to tell me you didn’t feel some kinda way about her having a boyfriend?”

  “No, I’m not, cause I’d be lying. But I felt that way because her ass had been coming to me regularly for the dick-downs the good doctor wasn’t giving her. She was sneaky about the shit, which I can’t get down with. There’s no need for all of that, you know?”

  “Well… and this is just my perspective as a woman, that I know you didn’t ask for, but… it seems to me like she’s trying to get under your skin. Or maybe… more like… turning the tables on you. Dating someone you both know, sleeping with both of you at the same time, bringing him to dinner, being annoyed about you moving on… that’s all stuff straight out of the “man” handbook.”

  I frowned, and turned to look at her over my shoulder. “Man handbook?”

  She nodded, then motioned for me to turn back around, so she could continue. “Yep. That’s what I said. All the shit you did to her, she’s doing to you.”

  “But I never did any shit like this to her,” I argued. “With the exception of… I might have slept with one of KJ’s teachers back in the day. But, I wasn’t even messing with Audrey like that at the time.

  Brandi laughed. “Did Audrey know you weren’t messing with her “like that” at the time?”

  “I hadn’t touched her in like two months, and we were barely even talking. Only about KJ, and making sure he was good. She was dating other people herself, so it didn’t occur to me that she would think the shit was a big deal.”

  “But she did.”

  I blew out a breath. “Man, she did. Real talk – you would’ve thought she’d found out I was sleeping with her mother, the way she blew up about it.”

  “You were sleeping with her mother?!”

  My eyes got big. “What?! What the hell?! No,” I said, turning to look at her again. “I was giving an example, B, come on!”

  Laughing, she lifted her hands innocently. “I’m sorry, I’m just… asking for clarification!”

  “What kinda nigga do y’all think I am?” I chuckled, shaking my head as I turned around. “That’s part of why me and her aren’t together now, I swear she thinks I’m fucking everybody, and all at the same time.”

  “Then you must have given her a reason to believe that.”

  I let out a heavy sigh, squeezing my eyes shut as I thought about it. “Man…,” I stopped for a second, opening my eyes again before I went on. “When we were together at first… Nah, I wasn’t the best. I can’t honestly say I did right by her.”

  Brandi gave me a playful shove to my head. “And you’re acting all clueless. There’s your answer right there!”

/>   “I’m talking shit from nine, ten years ago though,” I argued back. “I was twenty-two years old, freshly drafted, and I was feeling myself, absolutely. I messed up, and I messed around – no excuses for that. If she never wanted shit to do with me, I couldn’t even be mad at it, because I was foul. But like I said… the shit was ten years ago, but she still operates like I’m the same damn person, and I’m not.”

  “Are you sure?” Brandi asked, and I frowned as I waited for her to elaborate. “I mean, anybody can see that you… get around.”

  I sucked my teeth. “You think that’s what you see. Yes, maybe I get more than my fair share of sex, and it’s not always in a committed relationship. But when one person has my attention, they’ve got my attention. I’m not messing around just for the sake of doing it.”

  “Okay… so how many people have you slept with in the last… three months?” Brandi asked. Clearly, she didn’t believe me, and thought she was about to make some kind of point.

  I was glad to burst her bubble when I firmly replied, “Two.”

  Her hands stopped again. “Two?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Just two? Including oral sex, hand jobs, all of that?”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, two. Audrey, and you. And if you really want your mind blown, ask me how many people I’ve slept with in just this last month.”

  Of course, she didn’t. But I knew that before the question even left my mouth.

  “Well,” she started, “That aside, I’m just telling you what my experience is being a woman, a friend, a coworker, a niece, a daughter… your drama with her is because things aren’t over between the two of you. And it won’t stop until y’all either get together and work it out, or… get over it, and leave each other alone.”

  Before, that thought would have set off a little bit of panic in my chest. I knew she was right though – not that long ago I’d had a conversation with Rob about how me and Audrey just couldn’t seem to let go of the back and forth. Even though at this point, I wasn’t even sure either of us wanted the other… we were just used to the availability, and used to each other.