“You should at least reply to his text.”
“Saying what?” I asked Treasure.
She looked at me as if I should have known. “That you miss him too. Duh!”
‘That was a week ago. He doesn’t want to hear what I gotta say now.”
“So—” Just then, Ross walked into the kitchen, so Treasure’s conversation stopped immediately.
“Babe, I’m out.”
I hate this nigga.
“Where you goin’?”
Why did I even bother asking? Because his reply was just, “To take care of some business.”
He kissed my cheek while Treasure eyed me from behind him. On his way out of the kitchen, he kissed Sunshine on the cheek as well. “See ya’ll.”
“Bye,” Treasure and I mumbled.
Once he was out of earshot, I asked Treasure, “See what I’m saying?” I felt my anger boiling into rage. “Where the fuck he goin’ this early?”
Treasure shrugged. “You’re right.”
“It was the same shit last week and on the same day. Whatever bitch he hanging with must be off on Thursdays.”
Just then, we heard the door close. I picked up my phone and unlocked it. The picture of Mello and Diamond was still on the screen. I was so pissed that tears were coming to my eyes. I had lost Mello’s friendship all because I was so busy being a submissive fool for Ross. It wasn’t fair.
My fingers started dialing Mello’s number before I knew it. I wanted my friend back. I wanted the chance to grovel and tell him that I was so sorry. That one night I had spent with him had me feeling him in the worst way. But I treasured his company and his friendship more than anything. And since that was all I could have of him, I wanted it.
But my call went straight to voicemail. I hung up and called again, and again… and again. Each time, my call was met with the automated voicemail message. I gave up and guessed after he’d texted me again, he had put me back on the block list since I never replied.
Suddenly, I stood up from the stool. “I’m ‘bout to go over there.”
I could feel Treasure eyeing me. “Where?”
“To Mello’s house.”
Treasure grinned from ear to ear. “Yas, bitch!”
“Divine!” I called for my sister as I helped Sunshine down off of the stool.
I heard Treasure’s stool scrape against the floor as she scooted it back, hopped down, and followed me out of the kitchen. Divine was at the bottom of the stairs with the same sadness that she’d had last week. It had only gotten worse after she and Treasure compared notes on Damo. Her abortion was scheduled, but there was no termination scheduled to take away the hurt that her heart was pregnant with.
I told Sunshine, “Baby, go play with your toys.”
“Okay, mommy!” As she ran off in the direction of the living room, I told Divine, “I’ll be back. Watch Sunshine for me. Esperanza went to the grocery store.”
“Where you goin’?” she asked.
“Uh…” I paused, trying to think of something fast. “I’m going to the ER.”
“I thought you were feeling better?”
Shit. “I got a little nauseous when I tried to eat breakfast,” I came up with. “So I’m gonna go see what’s wrong with me.”
“Want me to go with you?”
Gawd damn it. “No, Treasure will.”
Finally, she slowly nodded and stopped giving me the third degree. “Okay.”
Divine headed to the living room. Treasure was on my heels as I went into the living room to get my purse.
“What am I supposed to tell Vegas?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Think of something. You’re good at lying to him.”
She cut her eyes at me. “Okay, bitch, that’s your second time shading me today.”
“I’m just sayin,” I said as I rushed towards the door.
She laughed. “You know I got you.”
Ross
Miranda crossed her legs as she sat in the loveseat. She looked over some sexy-ass black, cat-eye glasses at me as I sat on the couch. I felt intimidated as fuck sitting across from her. Miranda was a beautiful biracial woman. Her skin was dark, but it was obvious that she was mixed with something like Indian, because her dark hair was long, down to her ass, and wavy. She often swung it over her shoulder because it kept falling into her slim face, covering her exotic eyes. What made her beauty even more intimidating was the fact that she was so intelligent and was not intimidated by my terrifying stance and natural scowl at all.
“So, what did you do to manage your anger this week?” she asked me.
I leaned back on the couch, adjusting my jeans and getting comfortable. “Worked out, played some basketball… shit like that.”
She nodded slowly and smiled. “That’s good,” she told me through her grin. Then she jotted something down in her notebook.
I smiled proudly. “Thank you.”
“Have you had any episodes of lashing out this week?”
“No,” I told her proudly.
“No?” she confirmed. “No one you work with or your wife?”
“No.”
Miranda had another satisfied grin on her face. “So, the things that we talked about last week were helpful.”
“Most definitely. I mean, I figured the way that I treated Heaven had a lot to do with the shit I went through when I was a shorty, but I guess it just took someone else to tell me, ya know?”
She nodded again as she asked, “Have you tried opening up to Heaven?”
I rested back on the couch, making myself more comfortable. “I told you she knows what my mother did to my father already.”
Just then, my phone rang, and Miranda glared at me.
“I know,” I insisted as I saw that it was Heaven. Then I turned my phone off. “No phones on in your therapy sessions. My bad. I turned it off.”
“Thank you.” Then Miranda went on, “Have you been honest with her about how it makes you feel, how it hurt you when you were a child?”
I frowned. “No.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged, getting frustrated that she was bringing up my past. Even though I knew what I was there for, I still didn’t like talking about the things that I had gone through as a kid. I had watched my father hurt my mother with the men she was giving herself to. I watched him whoop her ass because he loved her too much to leave her, even though she was making a fool out of him. All of that had me feeling like a scared and confused little boy back then. I hated rehashing those memories because I never wanted to feel like that little boy again.
“I don’t know,” I replied. I felt the frustration showing on my face. I was probably looking like the little boy that she was referring to.
“Put your ego to the side, Roosevelt—”
“Ross,” I corrected, cutting her off.
She smiled her apology. “Ross… Heaven needs to see a side of you other than anger. She needs to see why infidelity is such an issue for you. If she understands your fear and how it hurt you as a child, she will see why you lash out the moment you see a possibility of her cheating.”
“She won’t get that because while I am scared to death of her doing it to me, I am still doing it to her.”
Miranda sat her pen down between the pages of the notebook. “And you are doing it to her because you are trying to hurt her before she can hurt you. You saw your mother do it, so you think that every woman will. You want the upper hand because you are expecting her to cheat any day now.”
I shrugged, running my hand over my beard. “I guess you right.”
Ever since I had started seeing Miranda, my therapist, last week, I was learning a lot of things about myself. I had never known anything about getting therapy. I always fixed my issues with alcohol, a blunt, or taking my frustrations out on somebody. But I had surprised myself when I purposely made Heaven sick all last week just to make sure that she didn’t leave me. The day that she found Tisha’s thong in my luggage, I was conv
inced that she would leave me, especially when I came back home and she was treating me the way that she was. Heaven had never stood up for herself with no apology. She had never told me about myself and stood on that shit.
I was scared to leave the house because I felt like when I came back, she would be gone. So, I put Visine in her drink that night and continued to put it in her food just to keep her with me, until she got the point that I was willing to change for her.
I knew then that I had some real fucked up issues that I needed to fix if I didn’t want to lose my woman by killing her or pushing her away for good. So, I found Miranda online. This was my second session with her.
I knew I should have told Heaven that I was going to therapy, especially since disappearing during the day was making her think I was still cheating. But I was just too much of a man to tell her that I needed this much help.
“You’re punishing her for something another woman did to you,” Miranda went on. “Your mother hurt you and your father, not Heaven. She hasn’t done anything to make you think that she is cheating.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “Well… she hasn’t done anything to make me think that she was cheating…not until recently.”
“What did she do?” Miranda asked. She then picked up her pen again.
“Her attitude changed. In the past, no matter what I did, she never left me. She never got mad at me. I would get caught cheating I would hit her, but she would still be her loving self. Now, I can tell that she has suddenly had enough. She treats me as if I have one foot out the door.”
“Maybe that is simply because she is tired of you treating her the way you have.”
“She can only be tired if she knows there’s someone out there that will treat her better. I was all that Heaven had, all that she knew. If she now knows that there is something better, it is because some man done showed her.”
“So, you put a tracker on her car, instead of just talking to her?”
I frowned at the judgmental smirk that she was giving me.
I knew I should have never told her that shit.
“Yeah,” I answered boldly. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. “I don’t wanna just talk to her. I wanna know who the nigga is that got her turning on me.”
Just saying that shit out loud was leaving a fucked up taste in my mouth. I knew I had put Heaven through some shit. Obviously, all of my wrongdoing had turned her into my mother. But I wasn’t going to be my father; taking that shit lying down. I was going to find out what the fuck was going on and dead it, once and for all. That’s why I had put the tracker on her car a few days ago. Heaven hadn’t left me yet. But it was clear that, though her body was physically in my bed, her mind was somewhere else. And I was about to find out where.
Heaven
♫ You say you got a girl
And how you want me
How you want me when you got a girl?
The feelin' is wreckless
Of knowin' you're selfish
Knowin' I'm desperate
Gettin' all in your love
Fallin' all over love, like
Do it to last, last ♫
I was zooming through the city heading towards Mello’s crib. To keep myself from feeling guilty, I kept calling Ross. Every time I called, just like I thought, my call went straight to voicemail. So, I felt better about going to see Mello, even though I had no fucking idea what was about to happen when I got there.
♫ Hanging out the back, all up in your lap
Like is you comin' home?
Is you out with her?
I don't care long as you're here by 10:30
No later than, drop them drawers
Give me what I want ♫
I turned the radio up and started to sing loud as hell along with Sza. “My man is my man is your man. Her, this her man too. My man is my man is your man. Her, that's her man. Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I just keep him satisfied through the weekeeeeend!”
I shook my head as I continued to sing, feeling the meaning of each word down deep in my soul. The only thing was, I didn’t know if I was the main bitch or side bitch in my marriage because Ross gave these bitches all of his time—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the weekend, the holidays, nine-to-five; these hoes were getting all of his time. I felt like even more of a fool than I had been. After pouring out his heart to me for a week, he was right back doing the same shit.
“Oh shit!” I screamed as the pickup truck in front of me suddenly came to an abrupt stop. “Shit, shit, shit!” I chanted as I hit the brakes. But I had been flying down Cottage Grove, going about sixty miles an hour, so my car wasn’t stopping fast enough. I quickly looked to the left of me. There was a car in that lane. In the lane on the right of me was the Cottage Grove bus. I couldn’t do anything but brace myself and mash the breaks. Thank God, the truck stopped centimeters away from the truck, but the car behind me wasn’t so lucky.
“Ma’am, are you sure you don’t need medical attention?”
“I’m fine,” I quickly told the officer. I just wanted him to get the hell away from here. Even though Ross had people that made our vehicle registration come up legit, I was still nervous. Thank God none of the drivers had been hurt, but my truck and the Neon that had rear-ended me were fucked up. My truck wasn’t in driving condition. I had pulled my car over on the side of the road and called Treasure. The driver that had hit me was very apologetic as she gave me all of her insurance information. I took it, knowing that Ross would just get the boys at the chop shop to get me another car.
“Okay,” the officer told me. “Take this card. Wait twenty-four hours and then go to this website so that you can download the police report for the insurance company.”
I nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” Then I just walked away from him with Treasure next to me.
“I need you to take me to Mello’s house,” I told her.
I should have taken all of this as a sign to take my ass home. Ross still wasn’t answering the phone, though. I had gotten in an accident and couldn’t depend on my husband to come to my assistance. I’d had to call Treasure instead. So, fuck Ross; I needed to go get my friend back.
“Okay. How are you going to get home?” Treasure asked.
I groaned. All of this chaos and deceit was weighing down on me.
“I don’t even care.” At this point, nothing even mattered to me anymore.
“Whose car is that in the driveway?”
Treasure and I sat in her car parked in front of Mello’s house. We were staring at the PT Cruiser parked next to Mello’s Jeep in his driveway.
I squinted to see if I saw what I thought I did. I sighed when I realized that I had. “A bitch’s car, considering the car seat in the back.”
Treasure smacked her lips. “Damn, so he has company.”
“I guess so,” I said as I opened the door.
Treasure looked at me with a slick grin on her face. “You still goin’ in?”
“Yep.”
She laughed, sticking her tongue out. “Aaaaahhh!” she sang. “I heard that shit, bitch! Go get your dick.”
I shook my head as I got out. This wasn’t about dick. It was so much more than that… and that’s exactly what should have told me to get back in Treasure’s car and go the hell home.
I cared too much.
But I didn’t pay attention to all of the signs that were showing me that I shouldn’t have been there.
Bending down to look into the car, I told Treasure. “We are at the emergency room. Don’t forget.”
“Okay. It’s cool. Vegas has been handling business all day. But don’t take all day. You got two hours.”
“Okay.”
I closed the door and instantly got nervous. But I kept walking through Mello’s lawn because this was something that I had to do. I couldn’t take it anymore. I missed him. I wanted my friend back. I wanted him to know that he hadn’t deserved how I had been treating him.
The only t
wo people wrong in this triangle were me and Ross. The only thing that made me worse than Ross was that Mello was his son. But Angel had always told me that karma was a bitch and you got it back worse than how you gave it. So, I didn’t feel bad for fucking his son. I only felt bad for me and Mello because we were stuck in these feelings that we couldn’t do anything with.
As I knocked on the door, I was scared that he wouldn’t answer. A few seconds went by before I heard the locks turning on the other side of the door. I looked back and waved at Treasure, letting her know that she could leave. Once the door opened, I heard Treasure pulling off as Mello appeared on the other side of the door. His face was contorted with confusion, but he looked so damn good. Looking at him made me wonder how I had missed how he felt about me all of these years.
“What up?” He was so nonchalant in his greeting that it hurt. He had never been so dismissive. “What you doin’ here?”
My heart was pounding so hard that I could hardly catch my breath. I was feeling so many emotions; confusion, guilt, … lust… a lot of lust.
Mello stood in the doorway, taking it up with his massive body. His exposed chest was screaming at me. Memories of me running my fingernails over it as he fucked the shit out of me clouded my memory.
“You blocked me,” I forced out.
“I know,” he confirmed.
I pouted. The way that he was being so dismissive was unbearable. “Can we talk?” I was almost begging.
His mouth opened but a noise behind him stopped his words from flowing. When he turned to look behind him, I peeked in too. Diamond was sitting on his couch looking comfortable as hell. My heart exploded. Yeah, I had only had him for one night and had completely dismissed him afterward. But I was feeling territorial as fuck over his generosity and kindness. He had given that to me. That was for me. She couldn’t have it.
When the Side Nigga Catch Feelings 1 Page 18
