Chapter Nine

 

 

When a Bitch Take You Out Of Character

The next morning I awoke with a smile on my face, remnants of the conversation from the night before playing over in my mind. My good mood lasted through the morning rush at the coffee shop and into the afternoon when I left work and went home for a shower before heading to pick up my son from his father’s house. I sang along with the radio, using Xeno’s melodic rhymes as a distraction from the task ahead of me, and I could only pray the news wasn’t too traumatizing for my baby boy.

As soon as the door to their apartment opened, Ava, Evan’s fiance, greeted me with a bright smile and widespread arms, moving toward me in an attempt to wrap me in a—probably but probably not—friendly hug. I sidestepped that shit with a quickness and watched with a quirked brow as she dropped her hands to her side lamely. She knew better than that shit. We weren’t friends. Never had been, never would be.

Ava had graduated from high school the year after me and Evan, and while she and I hadn’t been close, we were close enough for her to know that Evan and I had gotten married two months before our graduation. That didn't keep her trifling ass from creeping into his bed not even a month after I moved out of the crappy apartment that we shared, though, and it definitely didn’t keep her from thinking that she had won a prize over me in a competition I hadn’t known we were in. Even though it took two years for Evan to call her anything other than a friend, and another three years before he let her move in with him, she really thought she was running something.

I’ll never forget the ill-advised “woman-to-woman” chat she called herself having with me after Evan finally asked her to marry him. She’d accidentally-on-purpose ran into me while I was at the mall buying track cleats for Wisdom’s first year on the team. After suffering through a few minutes of pleasantries, I tried to walk away only for her to drop the sister-girl act and voice her true intentions. She wanted me to stay away from Evan—the dummy had the audacity to accuse me of still being in love with him—and assured me that he was now officially hers and that my chances were over.

I laughed in her face. Straight up burst out laughing, overcome by the humor in her accusation. I laughed so hard that tears sprang to my eyes and my ribs began to throb. When my laughter tapered off a bit, I looked her in the eye, the fair skin on her face splotched red—probably from embarrassment at the attention my howls had brought to us—and her arms were crossed over her chest.

“Ava. Are you in love me? Seriously, because you’re always in my damn face about something that I don’t give a fuck about. If Evan is ‘officially yours’ then shouldn’t you be up under him instead of here, annoying me? You know what; at first, I thought you were just jealous of me, but now I think you really are obsessed with me. Girl, get a fucking clue. I don’t want Evan and I don’t want you, and as long as my son is safe and well cared for when he’s at his father’s house, you and I have nothing to talk about. Please hop off my clit and go get you some friends. I know you don’t have any because they would have told you this was a bad idea.” Rolling my eyes, I skirted past her, muttering, “Getting all in my face about a man who proposed without a ring. The shame of it all!”

The next time I saw her, she was sporting a crackerjack prize ring on her finger that did nothing but amused me further. It was obvious he only gave it to her because she fussed about it and he wanted to shut her up. It looked like a spite ring, and the fact that she was so pressed about me was both hilarious and annoying. Not once had I ever attempted to rekindle anything with Evan since the day he asked for a divorce, so I couldn’t fathom where she got her crazy ideas from. Three years later and they still hadn’t tied the knot, and the only change had been Ava’s entire demeanor. She’d gone from trying to ice me out to trying to be my best friend. She was misguided on both attempts.

“Hey, Tonya! Wis is coming right—”

“Hey, Mama!”

We both turned as my growing boy came lumbering into the living room with a thin backpack slung over his shoulder, followed closely by his father—and relative twin. They both had the same peanut butter brown skin and square, bucket-shaped head. Once upon a time, I used to dream of having a son who was the spitting image of Evan but now that I had it, I only wished I’d listened to my parents and waited until I was older before becoming somebody’s mama. Wisdom was my heart, but Evan, I could do without.

With a smile on my face, I tilted my head, offering my cheek to my preteen, who already knew the drill. After a tight hug and a quick kiss, he pulled out of my arms.

“I’m ready. I just need to go grab my game really fast.”

No stranger to that particular phrasing, I pursed my lips and propped my fisted hands on my hips. “Boy, you knew I was on the way. Why didn’t you already have it ready?”

“Mama.” His voice took on a whining note, reminding me that even though he was fast approaching my height, he was still barely out of his babyhood. “Me and Daddy were playing it while I waited for you.”

“Hmph. Fine. Gon’ ‘head and get it so we can go. You know your grandpa is gon’ want you to help him with dinner.”

The smile that appeared as soon as he came into view and held as I watched him jog back in the direction of his bedroom disappeared from my face the moment Evan opened his mouth.

“Can we talk?”

I glanced at him, his serious expression causing panic to rise in my chest. My eyes flew between him and Ava and swept to the back of the apartment where my son had just gone.

“Is everything okay?”

Ava nodded. “Nothing happened to Wisdom if that’s what you’re thinking.”

That eased the pressure in my chest significantly. “Okay. So what’s up?”

He nodded at the front door. “Let’s step outside.”

I followed him out onto the porch of his two-bedroom apartment and waited as he pulled the door closed and turned to me.

“Did you get married when you were in Vegas?”

My eyes ballooned. How the fuck did he know? “Who told you that?”

“I asked you a question first. Is it true?”

There was no way around this and it wasn’t like I was ashamed of what I’d done, I just didn’t like to be blindsided and preferred to share my business when I was good and ready. Someone had forced my hand, and I needed to know who. “Not that it’s any of your business but yes, I did.”

His lips parted and his face reddened. “It absolutely is my business if it affects my son!”

“Oh? Just like it was my business when you proposed to Ava, right?”

An ugly chuckle burst from his lips. “Is that what this is about? You’re trying to get back at me?”

My eyes rolled so hard, I almost caught a headache. “Contrary to what you are your fiancé seem to believe, I don’t make not one decision with you in mind.”

He glared at me. “I can’t believe you. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.” He kicked the wall next to the door. “Fuck! I thought Cassie was lying!”

And there it was—the missing link. Evan learned from Cassie—his younger sister—who must have heard about it from her sister-in-law who was one of Danielle’s bridesmaids and was at the jazz brunch where Toy barred no plex in informing everyone about my early morning activities. Damn. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since we’d been home, but apparently, the grapevine never slept. His reaction threw me.

“You need to chill the fuck out.”

Dropping his hands from where they were linked behind his head to rest on his slim waist, he swung to face me, disbelief contorting his facial features.

“Chill out? I had to hear from my sister that you basically recreated our wedding with a nigga I don’t even know, and you want me to chill out? I’m sorry, T, it seems I’m all out of chill at the moment. Imagine the fuck out of that.”

Why did it sound like he was more concerned with me than how me being married affected our son?

Rolling my eyes at his dramatics, I opened his apartment door and peeked my head in to see my baby sitting on the couch with Ava.

“You got your game?” At his nod, I beckoned him with my hand. “Let’s go, then.”

“Seriously, Tonya? I’m talking to you and you’re just going to leave? That’s how we doin’ it?”

“Say bye to your daddy, Wisdom.”

“Bye, Daddy.”

Never one to ignore our son, Evan redirected his attention to Wisdom, hugging him tight and dropping a kiss on the top of his head.

“Alright, son. I’ll see you Wednesday at your game.”

Fishing my keys out of my purse, I disengaged the locks on my car with the press of a button and watched as Wisdom climbed into the passenger seat. The moment the door closed, I spun around to face Evan and went in.

“Let me tell you something. I don’t know what sort of crack you and Ava have been smoking lately, but you might need to switch your supplier ‘cause y’all done both lost your damn minds. My personal life is none of your business. None!” I snapped my fingers. “As long as Wisdom is happy and healthy your mind shouldn’t even wonder over to me. What you need to be doing is finally picking a date to marry the only woman you need to be worried about so she can stop being so damn insecure. It’s high time this five-year engagement came to a fucking end!”

Damn near twisting my ankle as I stomped off, I didn’t wait for him to respond or even go back in his apartment. I slid behind the wheel of my sedan, only acknowledging my anger to catch myself before slamming my door shut. No matter how pissed I was, I refused to take it out on my car.

Wisdom didn’t say a word for the first ten minutes of the drive, and the silence from my usually talkative son edged out the rage and brought the nerves right back.

Had Evan told him already?

I didn’t put it past Evan to give Wisdom the news as soon as he received it. Or at least as soon as he shared it with Ava. She was a gossip, just like Cassie, and always managed to pull Evan into some mess.

“You alright over there?”

He nodded, pulling his gaze from the blurred scenery on the other side of his window and glancing at me.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh. I’m just not used to be you being so quiet.” Usually his mouth started moving a mile a minute as soon as his butt touched the seat of the car, with him going on and on about all of the things he did with his father that week, the fun he had with his cousins on that side of the family, the outings his grandparents took him on, and always—always—asking me a million questions to make sure I didn’t have too much fun while he was gone. This had been his routine from the time he began to talk, no matter whether he was with Evan for one week or three. This...this silence from him was nerve-wracking.

After I’d driven about ten miles, he finally spoke.

“Mama? Can I ask you a question?”

I flicked my gaze across the car to see him staring out of the passenger window. “It's ‘May I ask you a question’, baby.”

I expected him to laugh or roll his eyes or even shake his head, but he did none of those things, instead, his gaze stayed on the blur of the city flying by as I drove south at sixty-five miles an hour.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course, baby. Go ahead.”

Finally, his head swiveled in my direction and wide, innocent eyes looked over at me. “Did you get married while you were in Las Vegas?”

I'd anticipated this question, of course, but still, it took the wind out of my sails and knocked the breath out of my chest to hear it come out of his mouth. My shoulders sank with worry at the waiver in his voice, and I swore on everything that was holy that I was going to wrap my fingers around Evan’s neck and squeeze the next time I saw him.

I sighed. “I thought we’d at least get to have dinner so I could tell you on a full stomach, but yes, I did.”

Wisdom's eyes grew to the size of saucers, and his mouth gaped open. He gripped the strap across his chest with both hands. “Really, Mama?”

“Yeah, baby.” I tried to infuse a soothing tone into my voice. “But before we get too deep into that, I need to know where you heard that from. That information shouldn't have come to you from anyone but me. Did your daddy tell you this?”

My baby boy shook his head. “No, ma'am. I heard Ava and Auntie Cassie talking about it.

I cut a side-eye at him at the mention of those two women. They were two messy peas in a miserable pod. “Were you eavesdropping on their conversation, Wisdom?”

“No ma'am! I wasn't, honest! I was just in my room playing my new game when I heard Ava on the phone with Auntie Cassie. I could hear Auntie Cassie really clearly because she was on speakerphone.”

My mind raced as I pictured the scene in my head. “If you were in your room playing a game with the volume up on your TV, how in the world did you hear Ava have a conversation on her phone?”

“I don't know, Mama. It sounded like she was standing right outside my door. The volume on her phone was so loud it was like Auntie Cassie was there at the house with us.”

I saw red, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel as I realized that bitch Ava had most definitely had that conversation in front of my baby's bedroom on purpose. She intentionally wanted him to hear that information. Images flew through my mind of me pimp-slapping that girl across the living room and body-slamming her to the floor. Oh, Evan would still be getting a phone call from me but this time it would be about him checking his bitch.

Before I could get too deep in my head, I pulled into the driveway of my parent’s home and threw the car in park.

“Mama?”

I looked over at my baby who was fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt.

“Hmm?”

“What made you marry that man when you were Las Vegas?”

Whew. That was a question I hadn’t been expecting from my eleven-year-old but thankfully, it was one I could answer honestly.

“You know how we talk about trusting our gut?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You said that even when it doesn’t seem logical if our gut is telling us to do something or not to do something, we should listen to it.”

“Exactly.”

He looked out the window, pondering what I’d said to him.

“So, your gut told to get married?”

Shaking my head, I brushed a hand over his head, the short spikes of his hair prickling my palm.

“No. My gut told me to say yes when he asked me.”

His eyes shifted to my face.

“Were you gonna tell me?”

Heart clenching at how small his voice had become, I cupped his chin in my hand. “Of course, I was. You know we don’t keep secrets from each other.”

He nodded again. “Is he gonna live with us?”

Oh. That was actually a good question. “He and I haven’t discussed living arrangements yet, but it’s a possibility. Nothing is official until the two of you meet and he and I talk about it, though. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now go ahead inside. I’ll be right behind you.”

As if he had been waiting for the green light, Wisdom jumped out of the car and ran into the house. I took that moment to dial Evan’s number, my anger from before merely pushed on the back burner while I talked to my baby. The moment he answered, I went in.

“Explain something to me, Evan. If you felt it was necessary for us to step outside of your house to talk about me getting married—and I'm assuming that was because you didn't think it was time for Wisdom to know—explain to me why your fiancé felt it was okay to discuss it in front of Wisdom's open bedroom door with your sister on speakerphone.

A beat of silence passed before he boomed, “What the fuck did you just say?”

“You heard me. Our son just informed me that he heard a conversation that was so damn loud, it sounded like both women were standing on the other side of his opened bedroom door. He was in his bedroom playing video games—and you know how loud them damn shooting games that you bought him be—yet, he very clearly heard those two trifling birds discussing my private information in front of our child. Now, I just pulled up to my parents’ house, but do I need to turn around and come up there and beat that bitch’s ass?”

“Hold up. Hold the fuck up, right the fuck now!” The sound of something shuffling or fabrics grazing the speaker of the phone filtered through to my line. “Ava!” His yell sounded like he had moved his face away from the phone. I imagined that that bird-brained heifer was hiding somewhere in their apartment. She had to know it was only a matter of time before her shenanigans came to light. “Ava! Come here!” He paused. “Did you tell Wisdom about Tonya's wedding in Vegas?”

“What? Ev, no. I wouldn't do that.” I could hear that lying-ass bitch with her fake ass innocent I-don’t-know-what-you-mean voice turned up to the max. I scoffed.

“Oh okay. Well, did you have a conversation with Cassie on speakerphone outside of his bedroom?”

“Uhhhh…”

“Uh?! What the fuck does ‘uh’ mean Ava? “

“Um…I'm trying to think.”

“What do you need to think about; just answer the question.

“She can't answer the question because she doesn't know how to tell the truth!” I screamed.

“Tonya?”

“Oh, you can hear her? Great; let me go ahead and put it on speakerphone since you prefer to do that cuz that's how you like to speak. Go ahead.”

“Yeah, it's me, you Mother Goose yellow-beak dog-faced-ass bitch! Let me tell you something; let this be the last time you fix your dumbass brain to make a decision concerning my son without first discussing it with me or his father! I let your ass slide when you told me to stay away from Evan but messing with my baby just opened you up for an ass-whooping. Lucky for you, I just checked my schedule, and it looks like I’m free all week!”

“Wait a minute? You told her to stay away from me?” Evan’s voice sounded like barely contained rage, and I wanted to cackle with glee.

I pressed a hand to my chest as I gasped in fake surprise. “Ava! You mean to tell me that Evan didn’t put you up to that?”

“I didn't even say I did anything.”

“You didn't have to say you did anything,” I snapped, over her trying to play me for a fool. “Wisdom already told me what happened, and he didn't even try to incriminate you. All he said was it sounded like you were right outside his bedroom, but he was in the middle of a game so he didn't get up to go check. To him, it sounded like his aunt was there, meaning you had her on speakerphone turned all the way up and you had to be standing not even a foot away from his open bedroom door. You did that shit on purpose, thinking you were being cute. But that’s okay because I got something cute for that ass.”

“Well, he needed to know anyway.”

My blood boiled but Evan beat me to the punch.

“That wasn't for you to decide, Ava. You didn't even give Tonya chance to tell him because she hadn't even gotten home yet.”

“How much information do you share with your children, Ava?”

She didn't say anything, so I followed up with another question.

“When it concerns details about your life, how much do you tell your children, Ava? Do your kids, the ones that you pushed out of your own pussy or were cut out of your stomach, know the information as soon as you get it, Ava?” She still hadn't answered me. “Is she still there, Evan?”

“She here. A cat must got her tongue now.”

“Shut up, Evan. You know I don't have no kids, Tonya.

“No, actually, I don't know because the way you're running your mouth to me about what my child needed to know sounded like you were trying to come at me on some mother-to-mother bullshit, but I know good and damn well you wouldn't do some shit like that when you don't even know what being a mother is about. Hell, you can't even halfway mother a child that's already been raised and is only sent to you essentially for babysitting. All you got to do is feed that nigga and make sure he got Wi-Fi to play his games, and you can't even do that shit right!”

There was a moment of silence before she muttered, “You gonna let her talk to me like this, Evan?” She had the nerve to sound choked up.

“Hell yeah. You stepped all the way out of line when you did that shit, and you deserve what you're getting right now. Wisdom is my son, too, and you knew I didn’t want him to know, but you did that sneaky shit anyway, and for what? What was the purpose? What did you hope to gain? I don’t even want to look at you right now.”

I could hear Ava sniffling, and it only made me angrier. How you fuck up but want to turn around cry?

“One last thing, Ava; the next time you feel in your non-motherly ass feelings that Wisdom should know something, bring that information to me or his father and we—his parents—will decide when and how the information should be delivered.”

With that, I hung up the phone. I sat in that car huffing and puffing, trying to get myself under control before I went into my parents’ house, but nothing was working. All I kept thinking about was Ava stepping outside her lane and doing something she had no business doing. I just kept imagining myself punching her in the mouth and how good it would feel. Not to my knuckles, of course, but just to know that I knocked that ass out and gave her what was long overdue.

Not even a minute passed when my door was wrenched open. I looked to my left, expecting to see my son impatiently tapping at his watch, telling me to get out of the car because he was hungry. Instead, I was shocked into silence to see Jereth standing there, looking down at me. He leaned against the car, resting an arm on the roof and ducking his head to see me, a sexy smirk on handsome his face.

Was I dreaming? Was he an apparition?

Had my rage caused me to imagine him standing in the driveway of my parents’ house, wearing a white v-neck t-shirt that clung to his flat stomach and displayed his slender but defined biceps and the ash-gray denim jeans that encased the thighs that had managed to bruise my ass from a round of powerful fucking the day before? A hand reached out to me, and I blinked at it before lifting my gaze to its owner.

“What's taking you so long to get out of the car, woman?”