by B. M. Hardin
I wanted her to know that I hadn’t slept with Kane once I’d found out that she was his wife.
And I’d also wanted to let her know that he’d forced me to.
I was sure that if she knew the real reason behind the “affair” she would maybe be able to see my reasoning.
Not that I needed her forgiveness or anything.
I didn’t.
She was cool but she wasn’t a must have in my life.
But I felt like she should at least know the truth and understand why I made the choices that I had.
She knew what it was like to do whatever was necessary to protect the one that you loved.
It just turns out that I wasn’t the only secret that he had in his closet.
The secret of Naomi was much bigger.
He was the father of her daughter and the baby that she was carrying.
They both needed they asses whooped for that!
I’m just saying!
And I’d watched him defend his mistress from his wife.
Kane ain’t shit!
He was doing the same thing to Jinx that Drake had done to me, times two, carry the one, to the tenth power!
He surely had a date with karma that I was hoping that he didn’t miss.
And if Jinx had anything to do with it, I was sure that she would see to it that he got just what was coming to him.
One way or the other.
The knock on the front door caused me to jump to my feet in a hurry and rush to the living room as though I was expecting someone.
I wasn’t.
I rushed to it and peeped through the hole.
It was my oldest sister Chardonnay and my sister Lee Lee.
I hadn’t spoken to Lee Lee since that day but there was so much that I had to say to her, which is why my oldest sister promised to bring her over some time soon.
I had a ton of questions and this time she wouldn’t be able to avoid them and I wasn’t backing off.
“Hey Moe,” Chardonnay said and hugged me.
She’d missed all of the big drama outside, but I’d filled her in and I was sure that Lee Lee had given her an ear full too.
And then again, I didn’t really know what Lee Lee was up to these days.
Lee Lee reached to hug me next but instead I turned my back to her.
“What’s your problem? I don’t have anything to do with what’s going on,” she said, shutting the door behind her and taking a seat.
“Then what do you have to do with it?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“I mean it’s nothing in regards to your business. I have enough issues of my own.”
“Then why did it look to me as though you were taking up for Naomi?”
“I wasn’t taking up for her Moe. I was just being the voice of reason. Both of you are pregnant and though you are both in the early stages, standing out there fighting each other could have caused either of you to lose your child. And I know neither of you wanted that. And like I said. I have my own problems.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes really. My own life has been a little weird lately, so you and your issues are the least of my concern. Not saying that I don’t care about you, but I’ve just been dealing with a lot.”
I crossed my arms and waited on her to explain.
“Well, for starters, I have been seeing Vicki, on a different kind of level, for a while now. I wasn’t sure if it was just a phase, so I kept quiet about it. I still don’t know what it is that we are doing, but we were just friends at first…before all of the experimenting started to happen.”
I turned up my lips, but I stayed quiet and listened.
Experimenting?
With Vicki?
“Of course I met Naomi, through Vicki, and we became quite friendly too. We’ve shopped together here and there and had a few lunches but I didn’t know that she was Drake’s wife, well ex-wife, until after they were already divorced. The only man she’d ever mentioned before then or to me was Kane. Kane was the only one that I knew of. She talked about him all the time and of how much she loved him. When she’d said that she was married, I assumed that she was married to Kane. It wasn’t until one day that we were all hanging out at Vicki’s place that she mentioned Drake. She’d said that their divorce was final and she could finally be free of him and live her life with Kane.”
Lee Lee took a deep breath.
I just looked at her.
Why didn’t she tell me all of this before?
Why was she lying to me about being with her?
“Once I found out, there was no point in mentioning it. They were already divorced. And I actually like her as a friend, so, I figured that you didn’t need to know about our friendship and since I wasn’t exactly sure about Vicki and I yet, I just kept my mouth shut about it all as a whole.”
“Wait a minute, so you like women?” Chardonnay quizzed Legacy.
“Not really. I don’t know. Maybe kind of. I’m confused. I think it may be that I just like Vicki. Or maybe it was that I just wanted to try it with Vicki. See what I mean? I am so, so confused. That’s the problem. And I think that Vicki is into it a little more than I am, so it’s just so much pressure. But we were friends before we started fooling around with each other. Truthfully, I miss men. And I mean I miss them with a passion. Hell, I had a dream where a big, black cock was chasing me; like literally chasing me. And hell I wanted it to catch me but for some reason in my dream my dumb ass kept running. So, I know that I am well overdue for a piece. I’m sure these days are coming to an end. But I don’t know how Vicki is going to feel about that. She’s a little all over me when it comes to whatever this is between us. Possessive even,” Lee Lee said.
I listened to her but I wasn’t exactly sold on her explanation.
It was just questionable to me.
I still couldn’t believe that she had tried the other side.
She had been a hoe; not a whore, but a hoe, since we were kids, and I’m not talking about a little, slight hoe.
Oh no she had always been a hoe-hoe.
She was so loose that you had to say it twice.
So of course she missed men!
“I know I’m going to have to tell her sooner or later but she is a little aggressive sometime. Well not a little, a whole lot.”
That’s what she get.
“I tried to say a little not too long ago and she flipped out, so I never bothered to finish the conversation. I think this was a bad experiment, now that I’m talking about it with you guys.”
Nah, you think?
But I’d always known that one day her loose booty was going to get her into something that sex couldn’t get her out of.
“Oh and I have to tell you something else,” Lee Lee said.
Here we go.
“What?”
“Well…”
I stared at her.
“Vicki says sorry.”
Huh?
What was she talking about?
“She was the one that attacked you.”
What!
But why?
“It’s no secret that we haven’t really spoken of you much since, well, you know. So, initially, Vicki didn’t know that you were my sister; Naomi didn’t know either of course. I don’t know if you noticed this or not but once we came back into contact, the few times that we had gone to lunch while you were working, I didn’t come into the job once I found out you wwhere you worked and that you worked for her. Remember, I always called and told you when I was outside. And most of the time I only came on days that I knew that she wasn’t working. I only found out that you’d quit because she was complaining about having to hire someone else. Telling you I had gone by had just been a cover-up. Like I said, I wasn’t sure about the situation yet, so I tried to keep it all separate.”
My legs began to shake as I waited for her to get to the good stuff.
“Anyway, somehow, she spotted us one day. It was after you�
��d already quit. Since I’d never mentioned you before, she became extremely jealous. And I mean she gets really jealous. I’ve been telling her for a while that she needs therapy or anger management or something but she won’t listen. She’s a little on the crazy side and I’m not sure that she even knows it. It’s like she has sudden crazy spells or something that just makes her seem a little psychotic from time to time.”
I could tell that Lee Lee was procrastinating.
“Anyway, she caught sight of us one day and she thought that we were involved versus being sisters since I hadn’t told her anything about you. She called me livid and before I could explain, she was already up to no good. She’d used the information that she had for you and came to your condo. She said at first she was just going to talk to you and ask you about our relationship but when she saw you she said her jealousy took over her and she blacked out and hit you instead. Later on, I mentioned the incident stating that it had happened to “my sister” and after telling her what happened she confessed. She says that she’s sorry though.”
I looked at her as though she was smoking crack or something.
Sorry?
She was sorry?
Oh no, sorry just wouldn’t do.
She could have caused some permanent damage or even killed me had the blow to the head been done just right.
But she was sorry?
Oh she would be once I was through with her.
Her ass was mine, on sight, and from the look on Lee Lee’s face, she knew just what I was thinking too.
“So, what’s happening with you and Drake?” Chardonnay asked, changing the subject.
I was still looking at Lee Lee but she smiled as though to tell me that no matter what, her loyalty remained to me.
But I wasn’t so sure about that.
“He won’t listen to anything I have to say.”
“Are you going to keep the baby?”
Now that was something that I’d thought about.
This was the second pregnancy by Dray and there was no way in hell that I was going to have another abortion; especially not by him.
I wanted the baby more than anything in the world and even if Drake didn’t want me anymore, I was going to have my baby and there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do to stop me.
I answered her question and the conversation continued from there but there wasn’t much said.
There wasn’t too much to say.
Lee Lee was somewhat into women.
Her little lover was also Drake’s ex-wife’s sister, and also my ex-boss.
Not to mention that she’d attacked me thinking that Lee Lee and I had something going on.
She was a damn lunatic in disguise.
She seemed as harmless as a small kitten, but I guess she’d had me fooled.
But she’d messed with the wrong one.
I needed to hurry up and drop this load because I had a whole lot of ass that I wanted to beat.
And I couldn’t forget that Drake still hated me.
I just couldn’t get through to him.
Kane was still calling me, for what reason, I didn’t have a clue.
Jinx was ignoring me and probably thinking of the perfect revenge.
And to top it all off, I was pregnant by a man that probably didn’t want anything else to do with me, so I was probably going to end up being just a “baby momma”, which I’d vowed that I was never going to be.
Recapping it all just made me feel depressed.
I was under way too much stress for my current predicament and in a way I was scared for my health.
My life just couldn’t be anymore screwed up.
And then finding out the news from my sisters that our baby sister had just recently been proposed to, definitely made me a little jealous.
I wanted to be married too!
I was happy for her, I really was, but I deserved that day at the altar just as much as anybody else.
But Naomi had taken that away from me.
After my sisters were gone, I tried to call Drake a few more times but he still wouldn’t take my calls.
I wondered just what I had to do to catch a break.
And as though the flood gates of Heaven had opened up, I started to cry again like never before.
I was just so full.
I was just so tired of going through stuff when all I wanted was to be happy.
The tears fell rapidly from eyes and then out of nowhere a sharp pain pierced the side of my stomach.
Uh oh.
And then another pain.
And then another.
Immediately, I tried to pull myself together.
I was not going to let this mess cause me to lose my baby.
I just would never forgive myself if I let that happen.
And then it hit me.
I was in control of my life.
I was in control of my destiny.
If nothing else, I knew how to survive and I knew how to get through.
I’d gone to prison.
I’d settled for second hand love.
For years my family abandoned me and for the most part I had been alone.
But I survived it.
From that moment on, I was going to do everything, anything that I had to do to make sure that myself and my child had the life that we deserved.
And I didn’t care who I had to let go or step over to make sure that I made it all happened.
Maybe it was time for me to stop worrying about everyone else and just worry about me.
Hell, that’s what everyone else around me was doing anyway.
~***~
I pressed on the horn again.
Everyone was looking.
Everyone had come out of the building and they were all just looking.
Everyone stared.
Some even laughed, but I didn’t care.
The only one that I cared about had yet to come outside, so I pressed on the horn again and this time I didn’t let off of it until he appeared.
Drake looked at me as though he wanted to smack me.
He ordered his employees to get back to work and then slowly he approached my car.
“This is my job. My place of business Moet.”
I looked at him.
He wouldn’t even look me in the eyes.
“I just need five minutes Dray. That’s it. If you could just give me five minutes.”
My request seemed to make him angrier.
“Five minutes for what? For you to look me in my face and tell me more lies huh bitch?”
What?
I literally had to snap my own fingers to pull myself out of the sudden trance.
Did he just call me a bitch?
Drake had called me a lot of things before but never had he called me the “b word” and he damn sure wasn’t going to start now!
I got out of the car and he shielded himself as though he expected me to swing on him.
I wanted to but I didn’t.
I noticed that he quickly glanced at my stomach but he didn’t dwell on it too long.
“I may be a bitch but this bitch loves you. She loves you enough to go to prison for you. She loves you enough to sleep with another man to keep your ass from behind bars and out here running this little business of yours. So how about saying Thank You to this bitch. That’s what you can do,” I said with more attitude than a little bit.
He had officially lost his ever loving mind!
Maybe he was hurt but so what he had hurt me plenty of times!
And I didn’t care how hurt he was, he was not going to disrespect me!
He was going to get his act together or I was walking away from him forever.
“What?”
I almost forgot that he was standing there from being so consumed with my thoughts.
“You heard me. I only had sex with Kane to save you. He was there that night. The night that you killed his brother Mario dumb ass,” I said with my hands folded across my chest.
“He said that he was there, and saw you fleeing the scene after you shot his brother. He said that if I didn’t sleep with him, he was going to tell his police friends the truth and I wasn’t sure if he was bluffing or not, so I did what I had to do to make sure that you didn’t end up in prison. And hell I had to make sure that I didn’t go back there either.”
He was angry but he tried to control it.
“Why didn’t you tell me Moe?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. I was just trying to help. I was just trying to keep you out of trouble. I didn’t want you to go to prison and I wasn’t sure if Kane would really rat us out so I had to make a choice.”
Drake shook his head.
“That’s just it. Kane wouldn’t have gone to the police Moe. I knew he was there that night. He was supposed to be.”
Wait a minute…what?
****************************
Chapter TWO
I looked at Drake confused.
“He was supposed to be there that night Moe. I’d run into him in the streets and I’d pulled my gun out on him but he came with a request. He wanted to take over his brother’s territory and he wanted Mario out of the way. He’d planned to be there that night so that he could get the money and drugs out of the house that Mario had stashed away so that he could pick up where Mario left off. You were already involved enough, so I just didn’t mention it.”
I stared at Drake.
Why in the hell hadn’t he told me this before?
So Kane was playing me all along?
“We didn’t keep in contact after that night and when we saw each other in the streets, we never even spoke. He knew that from the papers and news that my woman had admitted to killing his brother, so he knew all along that you were in on it and that you were mine. He didn’t know the whole time, but once we spoke about the murder of his brother, he knew that you were my woman. He knew that you belonged to me. For your sake, we tried to stay discreet with knowing each other once we’d run into each other at the condo but on my life, I’m going to fuck him up! He was blackmailing you for ass? What the fuck! But that’s okay. I got something for him. He wasn’t loyal to his own blood, so he didn’t have to be loyal to me, but coming after you crossed the line.”
