Let Me Show You (McClain Brothers Book 3)

by Alexandria House

  “What’d I miss?” Bridgette asked, as she settled in her seat. “I know Uncle Lee been cutting up. He’s my favorite part of any Houston trip.”

  Kim was in tears from laughing. Everett’s and Leland’s asses were both cackling, too. Jo was giggling, but managed to say, “You missed Uncle Lee giving Nolan instructions on how to handle you in bed.”

  “Yeah, it was disturbing as hell. He showed his ass in this community center,” Kat said.

  “Wow, well did you tell him you be handling the shit out of me, baby?” Bridgette asked.

  “Didn’t get a chance to,” I replied.

  “Hey, y’all! Looking good, Neil! Nice clothes!” Cousin Barbie said, as she passed our table.

  “When did your family start confusing you and Neil?” Bridgette asked, sounding just as perplexed as I felt.

  I shook my head and sighed. “Shit, today.”

  I was wide awake in our room in Aunt Ever’s house, my eyes on the ceiling as I thought about Aunt Ever and Uncle Lindell. They were honeymooning in Vegas, thanks to Leland. Both of them were in their seventies, but they looked like teenagers when they left in that limo. They’d waited forever, but they did it. They got married. I honestly never thought about getting married until now. Until Bridgette. Now, I could see myself standing in front of my family saying, “I do.” Funny how your idea of happiness can change.

  “Nole, you up?” Bridgette asked softly.

  I rolled over on my side to see her pretty eyes on me. “Yeah. What you doing up? I thought you were tired.”

  “I am. I was just wondering…you think this distribution deal with Paramount is gonna happen?”

  “Hmm, I think so, if the numbers are right.”

  “That’s huge, Nole. To get a distribution deal like that for your first film? Huge!”

  “Yeah, it’s gonna be huge for everyone, especially you. You saw how people reacted to your performance at the premiere. The critics are still buzzing about it, and with wide distribution, it can only get better for you.”

  “I believe that. My agent is already getting all kinds of offers for me to read for parts. For the first time in my career, I’m actually having to pick and choose what I want to pursue. It’s crazy!”

  “No, it’s well-deserved, baby. You put in the work. You earned this.”

  “So did you. You’re the best director I’ve ever worked with, and I’m not just saying that because I love you.”

  “Thank you, baby.”

  After a beat or two of silence, Bridgette sighed. “I always love coming here, to y’all’s hometown. I usually stay at South’s, but this is nice. Aunt Ever’s house is so cozy.”

  “Yeah, my mom loved this place. She’d be happy to know Aunt Ever is taking good care of it.”

  “You miss her? Your mom?”

  “Every day. My dad, too.”

  “I wish I knew what that felt like. I wish I could make myself miss my family, but I can’t.”

  “I’m sorry it’s like that for you, baby.”

  “You really love me, Nole?”

  I raised up in the bed and turned the bedside lamp on, giving her a crazy look. “You know I do, Bridge, with all my heart. You don’t believe me?”

  I watched as she lay there on her back now, her eyes on the ceiling. Then she turned and glued them to mine. “I do, it’s just that there’s stuff about me…my name, my real name, is Jessie Mae Turner. I changed it when I turned eighteen because I was named after my grandmother and I…I hate her.”

  No wonder she used to spaz out on me when I mentioned my assistant manager’s name—Jesse. “She hurt you?” I asked.

  Bridgette nodded. “My mother, her daughter, lived with her, was living there when she had me. I grew up there until I was taken from them.” She faced the ceiling again. “My grandmother was so mean. She sold drugs, she did drugs, she drank like a fish, and she cursed me out for merely existing. There were always dope fiends hanging around the house…and men. My grandmother loved men. Didn’t matter to her if they were married, single, doped up, whatever. Didn’t even matter to her if they were her daughter’s boyfriends or my father.”

  “W-what?”

  “Yeah, she took my daddy from my mom, was with him until he got locked up for stealing, because he, like my mom, was a crackhead, and it didn’t matter that she was sleeping with him. Nobody got a free ride from my grandmother; he had to pay for his fix just like everybody else. I liked my father, because he was the only person who took up for me. He might’ve been sleeping with my grandmother, but he would curse her out over me. That’s more than I can say for my mother. She just let her hurt me. She let it all happen…everything.”

  She reached over on the night table and grabbed her phone, tapped on the screen a few times, and handed it to me. I took it and found an obituary on the screen. An obituary for a Jessie Mae Parker.

  “This is your grandmother?” I asked, staring at the old, black and white picture of a beautiful woman. She looked like she could’ve been a movie star back in the day.

  “Yeah. She died a few months back, and I…I was glad when I found out. That’s fucked up, isn’t it?”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Not if she hurt you. She didn’t give you any reason to be sad about her passing.”

  “Her death, or my guilt for being relieved about it, is the reason I accepted Laz’s offer to go out. I was in a messed-up head space that night and I just needed to go somewhere and do something, but I wasn’t going to sleep with him. I’m not the least bit attracted to that man.”

  “I didn’t think you were, baby. I knew something was up with you. I could tell you were dealing with something.”

  “Yeah, and I almost got in some mess I never want to be in, but you rescued me, and I’ll forever be thankful for that.”

  I fell onto my back. “I ain’t no hero, baby. I knew what Laz had been doing and chose to look the other way like I did everything in that club, because I was always looking out for me, looking for an angle, for some dirt to use to advance my bottom line. I was wrong. That way of living is wrong, and I see that now. If I’d stopped Laz from using Second Avenue to do his shit, maybe he would’ve never gotten to you, never drugged you. You were right; I definitely ain’t shit.”

  “Well, I’m in the same category as you. I didn’t call the police on him, because I was worried about my bottom line—my career. I can’t judge you, and you need to stop being so hard on yourself. You’re a good man, Nole. Flawed, but good, and you get bonus points for loving me.”

  I reached for her, pulled her to me, and kissed her forehead. “I love the hell out of you, Bridgette Turner.”

  “I love you, too. Nole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s something I’ve been wondering about.”

  “Okay…”

  “What’s with you and Neil?”

  “Uh…what do you mean?”

  “Well, you McClains are close. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about y’all. Being Jo’s assistant and best friend, I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with y’all. You know that.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I came to realize just how remarkable you are.”

  “Thanks, baby, but what I’m saying is, I don’t understand why you and your twin are so distant. I’ve been basically living with you for months now, and he has never come over for a visit other than that one time before we got together when he came with South. You barely even look at each other at family gatherings. You never bring him up. I’ve never seen you call him or anything, and when you’re in the same room together, you’re at each other’s throats. Not like the roasting that goes on between you and South and Leland. You two are cut-throat. What’s up with that? I mean, I thought twins were supposed to have a special bond or something.”

  I sighed. “It’s…we do have a special bond, or at least we used to.”

  “What happened?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself that I should’ve expected this. It was strange. I coul
d admit that, but I hated talking about Neil. Hell, I hated even thinking about him. Nevertheless, I loved this woman, and I owed her my truth. “Uh, Neil is just…he hasn’t been right since he and his girlfriend broke up. They’d been together since junior high, basically. It was an on and off thing at first, but they went to the same college and things got serious then. They lived together for years. She even moved out to LA with him, and then, something happened and they broke up.”

  “What do you mean, ‘something happened?’ What happened?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. He won’t talk about it, and neither will she.”

  “You’re still in contact with her?”

  “No, but a few years back, she called me at the club to see if I could convince Neil to stop contacting her. They’d been broken up for over a year, and he was still trying to get her back. Evidently, she wasn’t interested.”

  “Wow, how long ago was the break-up?”

  “Shit, years. Probably close to seven or eight years now.”

  “And he’s still messed up over her? That’s why he’s the way he is?”

  “Yeah. But anyway, up until the break-up, we were cool. Not as close as we were growing up, because like I told you before, we had become more individual. Had our own sets of friends, our own relationships, but there was no hostility between us. Things weren’t like they are now.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I’m getting to that baby. I mean, it’s not black and white. It’s not something he or I did. It’s just…because of our connection, I feel what he feels, and after his and Emery’s break-up, the only thing I felt from Neil was depression and darkness and guilt, and because he wouldn’t tell me what happened, it was confusing as hell, and shit, who wants to feel like that all the time? So, more and more, I distanced myself from him. Barely called him, and it just progressed to where it is now.”

  “You two act like you hate each other with the way you argue every time you’re in the same room.”

  “In a way, I do hate him, or at least his weakness and his inability to move the fuck on with his life. He’s a drunk and a gambler and no telling what else and it doesn’t make any sense. Neil is a damn genius. He can play several instruments and compose music, can take the most compelling photographs, can write poetry, can even paint. We had plans, you know? I was gonna make movies and he would score them. Shit, he should be the most successful of all of us, but instead, he chooses to waste the hell away over a woman who has moved on with her life. She’s married!”

  A minute passed before she said, “Did you…have you ever tried to help him, Nole?” She was delicate in her approach, but the question still hit a nerve.

  “Of course I have. We all have—Ev, Leland, Kat. He doesn’t want it. That’s why Ev is basically running his life now. None of us want to see him like this.”

  She didn’t give me a response.

  “You think I haven’t tried hard enough, don’t you? You think I should do more to help him because he’s my twin?”

  “Do you think you should do more to help him because he’s your twin?”

  “I…I don’t know, Bridge.”

  “I think—never mind.”

  “No, tell me.”

  She moved from her spot on the bed and climbed on top of me, straddling me. “I think you should at least try to mend things with him. He’s your brother. I hate that you two fight all the time.”

  “I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know if he’d want to do that.”

  “You can try, and if he rejects you, it’s on him.”

  I thought about that for a minute and had to admit it made sense. So I said, “Okay. I’ll try.”

  23

  Eight million dollars.

  That was how much Paramount paid for the distribution rights to Floetic Lustice. Eight million dollars for a small film, written by an unknown screenwriter and shot over a span of two months with limited sets, a small crew, and a first-time director.

  Eight.

  Million.

  Dollars.

  And they were expediting the wide release. This would be the first film I’d acted in that would actually be seen by more than a few people in two or three theaters in LA and New York, just so it would be eligible for awards season and then sent straight to the DVD market. Nolan’s movie would be seen across the country on many screens, and news of the distribution deal had spread so wildly that anyone connected with the movie was now a hot commodity for the entertainment blogs, internet shows, and morning talk shows. I had been invited to the Loretha Halter Show. I’d always admired how she parlayed a popular Instagram account into a Wendy Williams-esque TV show. She could be shady, much like Wendy, but Loretha always came off more genuine and real, in my opinion.

  Sitting in Nolan’s living room, playing with little Nat—because I’d been missing my godbaby and decided to rescue her from that bougie daycare and spend this Friday with her—I was almost overwhelmed with gratitude. My career was taking off, I had great friends, and my man? He was more than I even had sense enough to hope for. He wasn’t perfect, but he was mine, and I believed in my heart that he was made for me.

  Speaking of my man, I looked up to see him sitting on the sofa with his laptop balanced on his thighs, but his eyes were on me and Nat. He’d decided to stay home with me today but was supposed to be handling some McClain Films work.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working instead of grinning at me and Nat?” I asked.

  “You’re good with her. I like watching y’all.”

  I reached over and rubbed my hand through the bush of curly hair on Nat’s head. “Me and Nat are BFFs. Didn’t you know?”

  “Yeah. You want kids, Bridge?” Nolan asked, catching me a little off-guard. I was hoping this subject wouldn’t come up for a while longer. My answer tended to shift things in my relationships.

  “Um, to be honest…no. I know that’s weird, because who doesn’t want kids, right? But I just don’t. My career is kind of like my baby, you know? I’m focused on taking care of it. Plus, I got two godbabies. I just wanna be a good Teetee Bridgette to them. I always wanted to be someone’s favorite auntie, but I’m an only child, so I didn’t think it could happen.” I ended my statement and waited for him to tell me to get my stuff and leave because he came from a big family and wanted ten sons.

  “I feel you. I like being an uncle, too. You get the kids without the diaper changes and stuff.”

  “So…you’re okay with me not wanting kids. I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna marry me or anything like that, but I’m just saying…if we were to have a future together, you wouldn’t want kids?”

  “Bridgette, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m focused on my career, too. McClain Films is in its infancy, and all I can think about, all I care about besides you, is growing it. I wanna build this company into an empire and travel the globe. I wouldn’t want to bring any children into the world knowing I’m so committed to my work. And if I’m being honest, I’d have to admit that I never really wanted kids, either.”

  I squinted at him. “Are you serious, or are you just saying that?”

  “I’m serious, baby. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a liar.”

  I tucked my lips between my teeth and glanced at Nat, who was staring at Peppa Pig on the TV screen. Then I shifted my eyes back to Nolan. “If Nat wasn’t here right now, I would show you how much what you just said turns me on.”

  He raised an eyebrow and licked his lips. “Uh…ain’t it about time for Jo to pick her up? No rush, but…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Damnnnn, I want you right now.”

  I turned to Nat to see her staring at me, and to play it off, asked, “Is that a new lion you got there, Nat? It’s so cool!” like it was my first time noticing the thing. That child had to own at least a thousand stuffed lions.

  “Yep! My daddy gave it to me!”

  “Really?” Dang, when did she start calling Stupid-Ass-Sid “daddy?” This was a new d
evelopment.

  “Yeah! I love it! He got my sister one, too!”

  Sid bought Lena a toy and South let him? What was going on over in Calabasas? “Nat, what’s your daddy’s name?” I asked.

  “Ebbwitt!” she said, as if I should’ve already known the answer. Nolan and I exchanged a surprised look, but to be honest, it made my heart melt. Before I could comment, my phone began to buzz.

  “Hey, girl! You on your way?” I said, after seeing that it was Jo calling.

  “Yeah, but have you talked to Sage?”

  “Actually, no. I’ve been trying to reach her for over a week to see if she’ll be available to do my makeup for the Loretha Halter Show. I don’t like the way her people do hers.”

  “Me either. They have her casket-ready every week!”

  “Right! So you haven’t been able to reach her, either?”

  “No. I was trying to see if she could hook me up for this ridiculous post-baby photo shoot Ev wants me to do. He’s even picked the outfits out, and all of them are showing way too much boob. He is so obsessed with my boobs now that I’m breastfeeding.”

  “Well, they are gargantuan…”

  “Whatever. I think I’ma drop by her place tomorrow.”

  “Okay, keep me posted. I know she said life was getting her down. I hope nothing serious is going on.”

  “Me, too. Anyway, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “I got a fine man over here making eyes at me, so speed it up.”

  “Ew, let me come get my baby out of that den of iniquity.”

  “You better, because we finna be iniquitying all over this house.”

  “Nasty ass.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I walked into the master suite bathroom in my house and scanned the boxes crowding the floor. It was a huge bathroom with a dual-sink vanity, toilet, garden tub, and a neo-angle shower with a built-in bench. This bathroom was what made me buy the house when I decided to sell the one Everett bought me and upgrade, but my lady’s possessions were making the space look like a coat closet.