Let Me Show You (McClain Brothers Book 3)

by Alexandria House

  He tried to leave but I blocked him, and the fact that he was practically dragging Bridgette with him didn’t make things any easier for him.

  “Bridgette, you all right?” I asked.

  Her eyes crawled up to me, and she squinted. “Nolan? Neil? Hey, y’all! You got on the same clothes? Can y’all help me? My-my-my feet won’t work. Why is this place moving?” She gasped, and her eyes expanded. “I think my body is gone. I can’t feel it,” she whimpered. “Can y’all help me find it?”

  “I’ll take her home,” I said.

  “I got her,” Laz said, while shaking his big-ass head.

  “No, I got her. She’s a family friend. I’ll catch it if I don’t help her.”

  “Nole, I got this—”

  I moved closer to him, lowered my voice, and said, “I know you fucking drugged her just like you drugged all those other women you’ve brought here. There are cameras hidden in that room. If you don’t leave now and let me handle this, I’m sending all the motherfucking videos to the media,” I bluffed.

  He stood there for a second before dropping her arm. She would’ve hit the floor if I hadn’t caught her.

  “Pussy probably ain’t that good anyway,” he mumbled, as he left.

  If I hadn’t been trying to keep Bridgette from falling, I would’ve knocked his ass out.

  I stood there for a moment before leading Bridgette through VIP to the staff elevator. I damn near had to carry her out the back door to my car, but I got her in there, and my only thought during the ride to my house was that I wanted to break Lazarus’ fucking neck.

  9

  Now...

  I didn’t have to open my eyes to know I wasn’t in my own bed or my own home. This place didn’t feel like home, and the sheets didn’t smell like my favorite lavender detergent. They still smelled good, clean, but different. Finally peeling my eyes open, the first thing I saw were wooden beams overhead dividing a stark white ceiling. A turn of my head gave me a view of palm trees and ocean through a huge picture window, and I knew where I was. The previous night was foggy, but I remembered being with Lazarus Holmes, having agreed to meet him at Second Avenue when he called, because I needed to do something to take my mind off of my past’s intrusion into my present. I didn’t like him, definitely wasn’t attracted to him, but I was willing to let him entertain me. I was going to have a few drinks, maybe dance a little, and then leave the club—alone, because I wasn’t dumb enough to jeopardize my career by sleeping with the director of a film I was working on. I wasn’t trying to be known as a Hollywood THOT.

  But evidently, I was one, if unintentionally, because I was lying in his huge bed in his beautiful home.

  Shit.

  How much did I drink? I was always careful not to get drunk when I went on dates, but I guess my grandmother’s passing and my reaction to it really messed my head up.

  I moved my hand down my body under the soft covers—I mean, those sheets must’ve had a damn eight thousand thread count—and found that I still had on my clothes. Did the motherfucker re-dress me or something after we did it? And why can’t I remember us doing it? Damn, was it that bad?

  It might’ve been bad, but it must’ve been rough as hell, too, because I was sore all over, like I had the flu or something. I closed my eyes and moaned.

  “You hurting?”

  My eyes popped open, and I sat up a little in search of the voice’s owner. I had to blink a few times to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. Nolan McClain was standing in the doorway of the enormous bedroom, bare-chested and holding a white shirt, looking so damn fine with those pecs and abs and shit that I almost forgot what was going on. I mean, shit. Nolan was just as fine as South!

  “Bridgette, are you hurting?” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  I rested my hand on my gurgling stomach and moaned again.

  “You need to throw up again?” he asked, rushing out the room before I could answer and quickly returning with a small, brass-looking wastebasket.

  “Throw up? Nolan, what are you doing here?”

  He looked just as confused as I felt. “What?”

  “What are you doing here? Wait, did we have a threesome?! Did y’all run a train on me?! Oh my God!” I screeched and then fell back on the bed, closed my eyes, and gripped my forehead because the volume of my own voice made my damn head throb.

  “No!” he said, sounding more than a little alarmed.

  “Then what are you doing here with your damn shirt off?” I asked, eyes still closed.

  “I’m here because this is my house and I’m changing my shirt. Haven’t had time to take a shower, but I thought at least I should put on clean clothes.”

  I opened my eyes and fixed them on him again. “Your house? Where’s Lazarus?”

  He stared at me. “I don’t know.”

  “He already left?”

  “Bridgette, do you remember anything that happened last night?”

  Damn, was he looking for a compliment on his performance or something? “Uh…yeah.”

  “But you don’t know how you ended up here or what happened after you got here?”

  “Um…”

  “You don’t remember Laz drugging you?”

  “What?! I…” Swinging my legs over the side of the bed—an act that hurt like hell because my legs felt like they each weighed a ton—I stared out the window and tried to recall what had happened. The more I tried, the hazier most of the night became, but I did remember drinking one drink and feeling weird afterwards. Lazarus had poured our drinks, and I was in such a depressed funk, I didn’t watch him do it. I remembered it felt like my body was disintegrating after I finished my drink. I remembered him offering to drive me home, and I remembered Nolan virtually carrying me out of the club. It all came in flashes, little bits of recollections. I shared what I’d recalled with Nolan, and asked, “You brought me here?”

  He nodded.

  “So, I didn’t have sex with Lazarus?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless you did at the club. I mean…did y’all have sex at the club?”

  “No…I don’t think so.” I inspected the white, carpeted floor and thought for another minute or two. “No, we didn’t.” Letting my eyes rise to meet his, I asked, “Did we…did we have sex?”

  “What? No! I mean, not that it would’ve been a bad thing, but you couldn’t have consented, so no. I just…I brought you here and put you to bed. Not to bed, but in my bed, and I sat here and watched you sleep, helped you when you got sick. That’s it.”

  “Then…then thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why’d you bring me here and take care of me? Why didn’t you let me leave with Lazarus?”

  “Because I knew he’d drugged you and I knew why he drugged you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. This whole situation was upsetting as hell.

  “You thirsty? Hungry?”

  I nodded. “My mouth is dry. Water would be good.”

  He left, and when he returned, handed me a glass. “It’s ginger ale. I thought that’d be better than water with your stomach like it is.”

  I nodded again, took a sip, let my eyes peruse the room, and said, “You sure it’s okay for me to be here?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s my house.”

  “You live alone?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Oh, never mind then.”

  “Never mind what?”

  “I thought maybe your girlfriend lived here.”

  “No. I mean, I don’t have one. You need me to call anyone? Tommy, maybe?”

  “Tommy? No. Why would I need you to call him?”

  “Aren’t y’all…together?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  “Did you say you were hungry?” he queried.

  I shrugged. “If I threw up earlier, I guess I probably nee
d to put something in my stomach.”

  “Okay, don’t have much food here, but I’ll go get you something.”

  “You don’t have to. I can leave—” I attempted to stand and would’ve fallen straight to the floor had Nolan not caught me. My damn legs were like rubber. What the hell did Lazarus Holmes give me? Rat poison? And shit, Nolan smelled so good. I felt like crying from the confusion swirling around in my brain.

  “Stay here. I’ll run out and get something. Okay?” Nolan said, concern in his eyes as he peered at me.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  The plan was to grab us something from McDonalds, something quick so I could get back to her in case she needed me, but after I started driving, I found myself passing McDonalds. Shit, I passed a bunch of restaurants, and when I finally stopped my car and looked out the windshield, I halfway couldn’t remember driving there. It was like I was on autopilot or something. Like I was the dude from that movie, Upgrade. When I climbed out of my car and walked up to the door, it was almost as if I was outside of my body watching myself do it. I knocked, waited, and when the door swung open, I just stood there for a minute, because shit, I didn’t know why I was there.

  “You came to apologize for that shit you pulled last night? Long as we been boys, you coulda told me you was feeling ole girl and I wouldn’t have messed with her, but instead, your ass decided to fuck my night up right when I had that pussy in the palm of my hands. I hope it was good. Tell me this: can she suck dick? She got some nice lips, so I figure she can. That’s what I was on—getting my shit wet. That’s why I called her after Honey said she was too busy to kick it with me…”

  I frowned as this gorilla-looking motherfucker wearing nothing but a pair of boxers went on and on, saying stupid shit about Bridgette.

  “…yeah, you fucked up, so you know what that means, right? That means I get to fuck her on principle and you need to be the one to set it up.”

  That’s when I hit his ass dead in the mouth so he would shut the hell up.

  He stumbled, grabbed his mouth, said, “Nigga, are you out your mind?” and swung at me, but I ducked and came up swinging at his ass.

  Yeah, he was bigger and taller than me, but he was out of shape and I was pissed the hell off, so I thrashed him over and over again, knocked him to his expensive marble floor, and started stomping his ass. Then I dropped to the floor and started punching him again. He kept yelling for help, and I knew his brother hung with him a lot, so I expected him to come pull me off this asshole and I was ready to mess him up, too, if I needed to. But the only person to show up was a little Latina woman in a t-shirt and panties who came from the direction of Laz’s kitchen.

  Her shriek made me stop, and my eyes focused on his bloody face. “Don’t you ever fucking contact her again,” I said through my teeth. “If I find out you even fucking looked at her, smiled at her, hell, if you accidentally run into her at the grocery store, I’ma have your ass killed and you know I got the connections to do it!” I looked up at the woman. “You need to raise your damn standards.”

  Then I turned to leave, stopped in my tracks, and squatted beside Lazarus again. “And if I hear any shit about you doing this to any other women? I’ma release that footage and make sure your ass gets locked up.” I stood, rubbed my knuckles, and spit on his ass, and as I left, added, “Oh, and you’re fired.”

  *****

  “Are you going to fire me now?” Bridgette asked, breaking our mutual, eating-induced silence. Breakfast wasn’t much, sausage biscuits and hash browns, but it took care of the hunger pangs.

  I looked up from my food and frowned. “What? No, why would I do that?”

  “Because of the thing with Lazarus. I mean, he’s the big name. I’m just a little unknown actress. A bomb-ass actress, granted, but I don’t have any clout in this town. My name won’t sell any tickets. It’d make sense for you to fire me and keep him.” She didn’t sound upset. It was like she was used to taking lumps and moving on, like she was made of Teflon or Kevlar or something.

  “That doesn’t make sense to me, and that’s why I fired him.”

  “You did?!”

  “Yes. What happened was his fault. I’m not going to penalize you for something he did.”

  We both fell silent until I said, “I don’t know if you remember, but last night, you didn’t want me to call the police. Do you want to call them now?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Is that your business?” she asked, with raised eyebrows.

  I reclined my neck. “Shit, my bad.”

  More silence and then a loud, elongated sigh from Bridgette. “Look, I’m sorry. I appreciate you rescuing me but…I just don’t want this shit to overshadow my talent and my career. Reporting him won’t do anything but put me in the news, lump me into this whole #metoo movement stuff. My career will die in the midst of it all, and I’ve barely got my foot in this Hollywood door. My career is everything to me. Can you please just respect my decision?”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you—I think you should at least go to the hospital, get checked out.”

  “They’re mandated reporters. So, no to that, too.”

  This time, I sighed.

  “So…what happened to your hand?” she asked, after she took a sip of ginger ale. She sounded like we’d just had a discussion about the weather.

  I looked down at my torn knuckles and shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Who’d you hit?”

  “No one,” I said, then took a bite of my sausage biscuit.

  “Lazarus?”

  “No one.”

  “Someone posted a pic of him in the ER on IG, said he got jumped this morning.”

  “Did he say I jumped him?” I asked, although I knew he didn’t. He knew I wasn’t playing with his ass.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you think I did?”

  “Because I remembered something else from last night.”

  Taking a gulp of my juice, I nodded, and said, “That’s good. What was it?”

  “The look in your eyes when you first saw me with Lazarus. You looked shocked…and angry.”

  “I was,” just fell out of my damn mouth.

  “And the way you’ve taken care of me shows me you really care.”

  “I do.” Shit, what was I saying?

  “And it took you way too long to buy two McDonald’s breakfast combos. So, you jumped him, didn’t you?”

  I sighed again. “Okay, yeah…I did.”

  “Why?”

  Because it was you this time. “Because what he did to you was fucked up.”

  “And because you care about me?”

  I leaned forward in the chair I had pulled up next to the bed, propping my elbows on my knees, and slid my eyes over the cups and food wrappers covering the night table. Then I let them climb up Bridgette’s body from her pretty pink toenails to her hair that was a mess all over her head. “Yes, I do,” I admitted.

  “But you don’t really know me.”

  “I know enough. I’d like to know more.”

  “But you don’t like black women.”

  “I—”

  My doorbell cut me off, so I blew out a breath, hopped up from my seat, and said, “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  As I approached the front door, I could see a tall figure through the sidelight—Everett.

  Shit.

  As soon as I opened the door, he yelled, “We just started filming and you fired the damn director, Nole?!”

  “That’s fucked up,” said a voice coming from behind him.

  “You had to bring Neil?” I asked.

  “He’s my assistant again while Court is on maternity leave, and I’ma need some assistance to clean up this fuckery you got me in!”

  “It’s not fuckery. His ass needed to be fired! And is this why you didn’t reply to my text about it?
You wanted to come over here and act a fool with me?”

  “First of all, you should’ve called instead of texting me. Second, I did call you back. You ain’t been answering.”

  Frowning, I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my jeans. After checking the screen, I said, “Shit, I forgot I turned the ringer off after I got back home.”

  “Yeah, you did that shit on purpose. Look, Nole, I done put too much money into this movie for you to be doing shit off the cuff like this!”

  “Hell, I put my money in it, too!” I countered.

  “Then what the fuck are you doing?!”

  “Yeah, what the fuck are you doing, Nole?”

  “Shut up, Neil!” me and Everett shouted at the same time.

  “Man, fuck y’all,” Neil mumbled.

  “Ev, you know me. You know I don’t play about business or money, so you know I had to have a good reason to fire the motherfucker!”

  “Okay, why’d you fire him?”

  I lowered my voice. “He—”

  “South?”

  I spun around to find Bridgette hugging the foyer wall looking exhausted.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” I asked, rushing to her. “You could’ve fallen.”

  “But I didn’t,” she rebutted.

  “Aw, shit! You finally made that move, Nole?! It’s about time! And thanks for giving him a chance; he been wanting your ass forever, Bridgette!” Everett shouted, then stepped closer to me, offering me some dap.

  “Uh, Ev—” I started.

  “I got sick last night, and Nolan’s been taking care of me,” Bridgette explained.

  “No, Lazarus drugged her, and I caught him before he could get her out of Second Ave. That’s why I fired his ass.”

  “That wasn’t for you to tell!” Bridgette yelled.

  “Wait, that shit about him is true?!” Neil shrieked.

  “In that case, did you kick his ass, too?” Everett asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, responding to both Neil and Everett.

  “I can’t believe you told him that!” Bridgette screamed. “Hell, why don’t you hit up Tea Steepers while you’re at it?! He’s gonna tell Jo, and she doesn’t need to be worrying about me right now!”