Chapter 3  

Marietta, Georgia – Zoie’s Condo

Trev

9 months ago

M

arietta, Georgia is not where I expected to end up when I got on my bike this morning and decided to go for a drive. I was riding to clear my head. It isn’t working. In fact, I feel as if things are getting worse before they are getting better.

This thing with Zoie is messing with my head. I would’ve bet money I called her in a moment of weakness last month. My thoughts are always on her. They tend to be heightened when I mix a little alcohol with my need for her. She’d been in my thoughts a hell of a lot more on the night in question. I’d wanted her so bad that I could taste her.

My thoughts had me believing I had. The woman is a delicacy if her scent tells anything about her. She’ citrus and floral combined. I should know. I breather her in every damn chance I get. I’m sitting on my bike just outside her building trying to muster up the courage to ring her bell. I have a package for her.

Moms said I should. She actually had a hell of a lot more to say than that. I just boiled it down to the gist of the conversation.

“Tag, don’t be a fucker. Get your balls out your ass and ask her to get naked with you or whatever.”

“Ma, what the hell? That’s not how these things work. Damn.” I pause and collect my thoughts  “Why would ... when did it ever ... I’m not going to ask because you’ll tell me the answer.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yeah Ma.”

“Do you want her?”

“What? Ma, come on.”

“You know. Do you want to fuck her?”

“I can’t believe this question is coming from my mother.”

“Believe it, Cher. Your mother has never been one to curb that base need to speak her mind. Whatever enters her thoughts is short-circuited to come out of her mouth. “Don’t do it, Nik. You don’t have to do it. You should be sleeping. You have students to see. Tomorrow afternoon, but that’s not the point here. This has disastrous consequences written all over it. This is NOT the opening you’re looking for.”

Adélaïde Delphine Dennis is my marraine or my godmother. I used to call her Aunt Addy when I was younger, but now I call her Marraine. Every so often I slip back into the endearment. She talks about my mother not having a filter when she is just as bad. Aunt Addy is technically my aunt because she is the first wife to my father’s brother. She couldn’t handle the lies. Some say she had him taken care of because no one knows what happened to Bruce Dennis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce and Bobby—the man who donated sperm to my mother and quite a bit of Tennessee—weren’t off together in hiding.

Both know better than to surface anytime within this lifetime. I’ll be gunning for Bobby. Aunt Addy’s crew will finish what they started with Bruce. Addy is the head queen of everything in Louisiana. She’s from New Orleans. All three of us are, but she still lives there. The woman speaks too many languages to count. She was born in the French Quarter. The woman has survived things that would make grown man weep. Addy is a beast in the kitchen, the best baker I know and is wicked skilled with knives.

She has an older sister named, Cherie, who is just as bad ass. The Moreau Sisters are well known in the Quarter. Moms became an honorary member when she and Addy met in high school. They both decided to venture out and travel the country together. Where my mother got caught up in the biker gang madness, my aunt refused to be used.

My mother and I owe our lives to Aunt Addy and Cherie. To this day, we don’t know what was said to give us our freedom, but we walked away from that life and lifestyle and never looked back.

It doesn’t stop from feeling the taint of my past. It’s the main reason I’m not delivering this basket of Creole goodness that the aunts prepared. My phone rings and I don’t have to pick it up to know who is on the other end of the phone.