Forever. (This. Is. Not. Over. Book 3)

by Shannon Dianne

  Win 1:45 pm: Yo, you knocked me up.

  Me 1:47 pm: Who is this?

  Win 1:47 pm: Haha!!

  And so it was, nine weeks ago, that Gwyneth Anne Blair, gave me something no other woman in the universe could ever give me. My first child. I won’t lie, I worship the ground this woman walks on now.

  “You smell good, Gwyneth.” Demetrius says. But back to this clown …

  “She does.” I say. He and I lock eyes with each other; his are taunting, mine are bored. Attorney Westlake, get a fucking life and stop flirting with my wife. She comes home to me. I put my baby inside of her. He has my last name. She has my last name. Get the hell out of here with that bullshit.

  “Demetrius, I tried to call and tell you about my son Ralphie but as soon as the call connected it hung right up.” Winnie says, a dash of humor in her voice. I shift my eyes over to her and see that she’s looking directly at me, a little smirk on her face. I smile at her and give her a wink.

  “Is that right?” Demetrius says as a voice booms over the sound system, causing the band to taper their music off into silence. After a moment, we’re all asked to take our seats so that the ceremony can begin. “I’ll see you afterwards?” Demetrius says to Winnie as he begins to slowly back away from us. “I’d love to catch up.” Black guy, 6’2”, Navy lawyer, dressed in a tuxedo. What the hell does Winnie see in this guy?

  “I’d love that too,” Winnie says as she gives him some girlish ass wave. Are you kidding me? He winks and turns around to walk away. “Well,” she says as she lets out a deep breath, “that was D. West.” I see her trying to suppress a laugh.

  “Gwyneth Blair.” I say to her as I step up to her, pressing her body against mine. She drops her head back to look into my eyes.

  “Yes. Can I help you, Attorney Blair?”

  “Don’t get that muthafucka killed.” She lets out a light laugh before giving me a wink.

  I was up all night with Winnie and her Braxton-Hicks contractions, so as I drive towards St. Michael’s with my family, I’m exhausted. The kids undoubtedly had an action-packed night at my parents’ home. By the time I picked them up this morning (since Winnie promised them breakfast) they were already complaining about wanting to take a nap. That’s the first clue that a child is truly exhausted, they ask you for a nap.

  “We’re going to have to lay them in the church nursery,” Winnie says as she turns around and watches Ralphie, Harper and Beckett asleep in the back seat. I’m Dane, Winnie’s Black Irish, but all three of our kids came out with my darker skin, Winnie’s black hair and the signature Blair brown eyes … and people thought Mac and I were Italian.

  “I’ll have somebody help me get them out the truck,” I say as I make a right turn.

  “Okay.”

  And then there’s silence. Nothing but the sound of Amy Winehouse coming through the speakers. Love Is A Losing Game. Winnie always did love Amy. Amy was reckless. Bold. Devil-may-care. Tough. And a hopeless romantic. Finally, someone who I can relate to, Winnie would always say when she read or watched another interview of the now reckless, bold, devil-may-care, tough, hopeless romantic, dead singer. Winnie was more devastated than a normal person should be when Amy died, obsessively talking about it for weeks. Ever since Winnie and I married, she’s always been close with my four older sisters. Sarah, Rachel, Eve, Leah and Winnie are known for their drunken bar stints where Malcolm, Nat and my brother-in-laws would have to pay off an owner, buy new jukeboxes or in one case, rebuild the bar from the bottom up … because they tore the muthafucka down. But at the end of the day Eve, Rachel, Leah and Sarah are pretending to be good. Winnie is not. Winnie wants to be herself. Her bold, devil-may-care, tough, reckless, hopeless romantic self. This is where Danielle and Rena come in. But I don’t want my wife to feel as though she has to travel outside of her own home to find someone who she can finally relate to. I want her to feel that kinship with me, her man. I may not have loved Winnie when I married her but the fact is that I love her now. No matter what I do. That’s what matters.

  “I was thinking,” Winnie says, “maybe you can move to Cadence’s place. You know, just for another break.” Hell no.

  “Don’t do this shit, Winnie.”

  “What? I just think it would be best.” No, I’m not going through this again with her. I’m not going through another separation and another divorce. I pull over to the side of the street, in front of the W hotel and put the truck in park and watch as the valet approaches me.

  “Attorney Blair,” he says with a nod before walking away. I give him a half wave and then look at Winnie.

  “Winnie, I’ll never leave you. Okay? We match. We may love each other differently, but that doesn’t mean you love me better. You just love me crazier. Wilder. My love for you is more down to earth. More rational. More balanced. It doesn’t mean that I love you less, I just love you differently. And that’s a good thing. Together, you and I are already bombs ticking slowly. If I loved you the same way you loved me, we’d have already exploded. You and I are the same person, the exact same person. There isn’t another person alive I can say that about. So you can divorce me every other year if you want, but when it comes down to it, you’ll never be done with me and I’ll never be done with you. So why go through all of this shit over a picture? Or over me loving another person before you?”

  “The shit is hard, Jacob,” she whispers as she looks away. And my heart sinks for her. I want to love her like she loves me, but it’s not possible. I do love her, but I can never love her the same way she loves me. She’s my second love, not my first. I’m her first love, not her second. I’m the type who will always have feelings for the first person he ever surrendered his will too. I can’t promise Winnie that I can ever stop loving Jasmine. I can’t even promise Winnie that I’ll stop sleeping with Jasmine because honestly, I want them both.

  Every human alive has an alter ego. A good and bad side. Most people spend their entire lives searching for someone to fulfill the places that their husband or wife can’t fill. I see it all the time in my business. But like Rossi who has Cynthia, I have Jasmine. And I know it sounds bad, but I want them both. To want them both is human. To have them both is selfish. Unfortunately, I’m selfish.

  But I do love Winnie.

  “I love you, Winnie. I’m not leaving our place. I’m not leaving you.” I watch her nod, still looking out of her window. I reach for her hand, take it in mine and kiss the back of it. “And I’m not letting you leave me.” She nods again. I place her hand back on her leg before turning to check on the kids again. Still asleep. Good. The last thing I want them to see is Winnie and I talking about divorce. I put the truck in drive and we’re off again. I look at Winnie and she has her eyes closed, her head resting against the back of her seat, her hands across her stomach.

  “Is he kicking?” I whisper.

  “He is,” she whispers back. I reach a hand over and rest it on her stomach. She places a hand over mine and guides me towards the kicks. Knock. Knock. Yeah, he’s in there. I feel for Winnie, I really do. She deserves better. But I’ll never let her go.

  Unfortunately for Winnie, she and I will never be over.

  I continue to feel my son’s kicks. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The beat of his kicks feel different.

  “Is that him?” I ask as I feel him kicking like clockwork now.

  “No, he stopped.” She says faintly.

  “Then what’s that pounding?”

  “I don’t know, probably my heart.” She turns to look at me. “You can feel that?”

  “Yeah … I can.”

  Jasmine

  (the. bridge.)

  I know that Malcolm said he taught Nicky the Ray Charles version of “Little Drummer Boy” but I have to say that Nicky sounds exactly—and I mean exactly—like Michael Jackson in his Jackson 5 days. The little riffs, voice tricks and everything! He’s really good!

  “He’s what you call a natural,” Cadence turns around and whispers to the row I
’m sitting in.

  “Shh, Cadence. The bridge,” Angie says as she closes her eyes like someone enjoying a splendid rendition of a Beethoven symphony with a glass of vintage wine. Cadence grabs hold of Lola’s hand.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Malcolm, who has Roman on his lap, is wearing a wide smile, different than his normal smirk, and Danielle is wearing her usual confident smile as she rests a hand over her bump. Roman has just put both of his pointer fingers in his ears. Marla is sitting next to Malcolm, on the edge of her seat, mouthing along to the words and Jon is trying not to laugh. He’s not doing this in a taunting way, but in a ‘this damn boy’ way. But now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure if “Little Drummer Boy” has a bridge. I mean, does it? Doesn’t it sound pretty much the same from beginning to end?

  It was always my understanding that a bridge in music is just a small part of a song that’s completely different from the rest of the song. A bridge is always placed right in the middle of a great record as a temporary release from the normal tune. Not that we music listeners don’t like the normal tune—after all, who buys a song for the bridge? It’s just that sometimes a great tune can start to wear you thin if you don’t get a temporary break from it. Honestly, when we say we like a song, we’re not talking about the bridge at all, we’re really talking about the chorus. The chorus is what people really appreciate about a song. It’s where the singer reminds us over and over again what it’s really about in the first place. I think we can all agree that the best choruses are sung in harmony with tenors, baritones, sopranos and altos. It’s all these different voices, different people, different sounds blending together and agreeing to sing the same words, at the same time, in their own unique voice. It’s what makes Catholic choirs so enchanting and Baptist choirs so moving. So, as exciting as a bridge is, as much as it may stand out because it’s so different than the rest of the music, everyone always wants to reach the chorus again. The chorus: that harmonic family where every sound is of the same mind and beautifully blended.

  “Rum pa pum pum … Pa pa la tum...” Nicky says as he sings. Ah, so he’s added a swanky new part to the song and has created, with Malcolm’s help, his own bridge. I turn to Marlon and watch him smile as he shakes his head at Nicky’s blatant show of his vocal skills. Pearl and Tiffany have the nerve to be sitting next to Marlon, ankles crossed, hands folded on their knees, smiling … at each other. What the heck are they up to? (Mind you, Tiffany is the same girl who was dancing on Danielle’s kitchen table, licking a frying pan last night.) I turn and look at Jon again who’s now wearing a wide smile which is odd because it takes a lot for Jon to smile. Even when Nicky was born I caught him staring into the newborn room and running a hand over his face. Eighteen years to go, I heard him say. Look at Jon now.

  I know you’re wondering where Jacob is. Oh, he’s sitting next to Winnie in the row I’m sitting in. (And you know what’s weird? When Jacob came to the row and saw Matt, they gave each other a hand slap and half hug. Jacob then proceeded to whisper something to Matt who then whispered something back. The entire exchange looked covert; I was completely shocked. They looked like they were … friends. And not only friends, but good friends. What’s up with that? Surely Matt wouldn’t be friends with the very group of men who Danielle now considers family. What would Jon say? I wonder if we have a traitor on our hands. You really can’t trust anyone these days.) I have no idea where their Jacob and Winnie’s kids are and I’m sure Winnie doesn’t either. (She never did seem like a mother who would know the location of her children.) Jacob has a concentrated look on his face while Winnie is sitting there big and pregnant and happy. You can tell his body is here but his thoughts are somewhere else. The future? The past? Last night? Who knows? Winnie has on her signature red lips as she leans into Jacob and snaps her fingers to the “Drummer Boy” beat. A half hour ago, they came to sit down, right as Marlon and I entered the pew. I never made eye contact with Jacob but I’m sure I’ll see him at the Blair’s home afterwards.

  But it doesn’t really matter. He made it quite clear that he never had any intention of properly loving me and still doesn’t. Yet, this is the funny thing about love. It’s not based on conditions. So while I know that I would have likely been miserable with him in the long run, I will always think of him fondly. I’ll always remember those motorcycle rides. Those hot dogs on a stick he bought on the Boston harbor. Those Oreo cookies he stashed away in his dorm room. Those pearls that I once wore and that are currently packed away in my suitcase. (Yes, they’re packed away.) I’ll always remember those small things that remind me of the fun times I had when I was a carefree hostage, blissfully unhappy.

  But those days are over.

  “I played my drum for Him, pa rum pa pum pum! I played my best for Him, pa rum pa pum pum!” Nicky croons out.

  Last night between Jacob and me wasn’t ideal. I realize that. But I also won’t apologize. It was morally wrong but I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t feel sorry. However, I’m no lovesick fool. Not anymore. I know that Jacob and I are over and that I am sitting next to the man I believe I was destined for. It’s not because Marlon’s successful; it’s not because we’re possibly going to be asked by Judge Carmichael and his wife to become official members of The Board. I love him because Marlon Kyles, even in my dreams, is the only man who can hear my heart beat.

  And I can hear his.

  Jacob

  (over.)

  Winnie divorced me. It’s been ten months and eleven days since Winnie filed for divorce. Since she went back to her ex-boyfriend, Demetrius Westlake.

  “I remember the day fondly.” I hear Marlon say. “You had on a light blue button-up sweater,” He says as I stand outside of Jasmine’s suite, the sound of crickets creeping in through some open windows. It’s midnight. I thought she’d be alone.

  Matt has become a hell of a friend to me and is probably the only man who can drink me under the table. Nat doesn’t get drunk, Malcolm always sets a drinking limit and Cadence spends a lot of his time in DC. I call Matt up, head to Roxbury and the two of us drink the bar dry, especially when we’re talking about Winnie, Demetrius Westlake’s lame ass and my divorce. He’ll sit at the bar with me until sun up if he has to. I called him tonight to do just that when he told me that he and Rena were leaving the birthing center and that he’d meet me at the bar in an hour. I overheard Rena tell Marlon to be careful heading home and that he should have brought his overnight bag with him. I figured Jasmine would have a moment alone. I thought I’d make it up to the hospital before her husband returned.

  “Cardigan,” Jasmine says to him. “It wasn’t a sweater, it was a cardigan. Cashmere, J. Crew.” Their backs are turned to me but I can still hear the smile in her voice. They’re both sitting in a loveseat, his arm draped across the back as Jasmine’s presumably breastfeeding her daughter, Tiffany. She just had her earlier this morning. “And I remember thinking ‘Heck no, this tall black athletic guy is a player. He’s too good-looking to be faithful’. So I didn’t even take you seriously for the first two years.” She lets out a light laugh. Jasmine had her baby in a birthing center, which is a typical Jasmine move. So her suite looks like the insides of a log cabin and is even equipped with a fireplace that’s currently lit. There are a few candles scattered around and by the smell of them, they’re vanilla. Jasmine’s favorite.

  “And when I saw you,” Marlon says with a smile as he turns to face her, “I thought, I’m gonna marry this girl.”

  “Oh, you did not!”

  “I did.” He kisses her on the temple. “I have my issues like everyone else, but being faithful was never a problem for me.” He moves even closer to her. “I knew I wanted what my folks had: a condo in the city and at least three or four kids to fill it. Oh, and a wife too.”

  “Oh, hush.” She nudges him with her shoulder and looks down. I’m guessing at their daughter.

  “I think I chased you around for, what, four years? Calling you, taking you to
Vermont to the Breyer’s Ice Cream plant—since that was the only place that still carried your favorite flavor that was discontinued.”

  “It was my favorite.”

  “I’d take you to Cali when Jon went back to visit family so that you could go to Downtown Disney and eat at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen.”

  “The service is impeccable.”

  “I’d take you to Aspen because that’s the only place you like to drink hot chocolate.”

  “It’s the entire experience I’m going for.”

  “I’d take you to balls in Philly, black ties on The Vineyard. I snuck up to Boston right before a game to watch you be crowned Miss Black Massachusetts. Mind you, I could have been benched for that.”

  “You thought you were so smooth playing ball.”

  “Oh I am, baby. And I did all of that before you admitted that you were in love with me.”

  “I had to make sure,” she says as she turns and looks up at him through her lashes. “A girl can’t be too sure if a guy’s being real or not and I didn’t want to be a fool for love.”

  “So you did love me while we were in college.” He flashes his eyebrows at her.

  “I really liked you,” she says with a playful eye roll. “I started loving you once you moved to Boston and we moved in together. You started putting fresh tulips in the kitchen vase instead of me having to always do it, and I loved how you took care of the household while I worked on recipes for that cookbook I’ve been wanting to write. You just wanted to see me happy and I liked that. I had never had that before. I started loving you as soon as we bought that condo together and I haven’t stopped since.”

  “Well, I loved you from day one,” he says as he kisses her on the temple. “When you stepped off that plane and smiled at me and said, ‘Hi, my name is Jasmine Harlow of the Boston Harlows’. And then I said, ‘Hi, my name is Marlon Kyles and you can’t be from Boston—’”

  “Because you must be from heaven above,” she finished with him. “You were so corny.” She let out a light laugh.