Chapter 19
Caleb
I pulled up to Aneka’s, a smile on my face and a lightness in my step. We made dinner plans for tomorrow, but I felt like seeing her tonight to talk about everything on my mind.
I parked and walked around the unfamiliar car in the driveway to the porch and rang the bell. When the door swung open, I was face to face with a man I’d never met but instantly recognized.
Elijah Shaw.
It felt like a strange moment of symmetry to see him while standing in the same spot where Mr. Powell once surveyed me and found me wanting. The memory stung, but I pushed it aside, focusing on the present.
“I told you I would get it.”
Aneka’s irritated bark floating out of the house from behind Elijah instantly made me feel better.
“Caleb! You’re back!”
She rushed through the entryway, forcing Elijah stepped back. She gave me a brief hug and turned, squaring her shoulders.
“Elijah, this is Caleb,” she said, tucking one hand around my elbow before gesturing with the other toward her ex. “This is my ex-husband, Elijah.”
He flinched, blinked, and extended a hand.
I pulled mine out of Aneka’s light grip to shake it.
“Nice to meet you.”
Which, of course, it wasn’t.
“Likewise,” he lied.
“Tulips?” Elijah asked with a mild sneer.
They’re not for you, asshole.
“I love them. Thank you.” Aneka took them, her fingers brushing mine as lightly as the quick kiss on my cheek. “They’ll look perfect in my room.”
I stopped myself from telling her that’s what I thought. The poppies dotting her bedspread were the same color, but when I asked about poppies the florist, he balked.
“The gift of poppies is associated with eternal sleep. Are you trying to bore or drug this person? From the look on your face talking about them, my guess is no,” he mused, scowled, and dropped his chin.
I laughed. “I want to tell her I care. I’m here for her in...a more long-term capacity. This is kind of new,” I confessed. “But old.”
I’d looked again at the spread of choices in the coolers lining the shop walls.
“Red roses...” I started, but that felt...
“Cliché,” he filled in, as if reading my mind. “Tulips. Red. They’re for someone declaring a fresh love. They say believe me. My heart is true.”
I hesitated.
“Too much?”
“No. That’s the right neighborhood,” I sang, reminding myself of Aneka. “And she loves that color. It’s cheerful.”
So I bought a dozen complete with simple crystal vase because I didn’t want them to wilt on the drive.
Andwas now giving them to her with her ex gawking.
Aneka darted a look between us. “Elijah brought some things he’d taken with him from the house and delivered our...papers.”
Papers? I glanced at her with a raised brow. She gave a slight nod, and I felt like break dancing. Elijah scowled and pointed out the door.
“I should grab those things from the car and bring them in while you fix dinner,” he said brightly and scooted out.
“I didn’t know he was coming,” Aneka grumbled once her ex was out of earshot.
I unclenched my jaw and tamped down my irritation. “I’m sure he’s feeling... well... however a guy might feel after signing divorce papers. I should go. We had plans for tomorrow, not tonight.”
Aneka shook her head vehemently. “No. Stay. Please. I only invited him to dinner because he was out of sorts, and I feel guilty for telling him to go to a hotel. I think he expected to stay here tonight and talk or reminisce or...I don’t know. And I don’t know what boxes he thinks he had to hand deliver.”
“You want me to stay for an awkward dinner with your ex?”
“Tomorrow, I will roast you the most perfect duck, and I bought tiny little potatoes and fresh rosemary,” she sang and wrapped her arms around me. “I have a hot red dress I planned to wear.”
“Red?” I asked.
“Short and red.”
“Tight?”
She smacked my arm. “This is about doing a sista a solid. Not booty.”
“All right!” I yelled, avoiding another smack.
The sound of a trunk slamming outside jerked our attention to the door. I leaned over to her, eyes still watching for Elijah’s return.
“I’m a man. It’s always a little about booty.”
She rolled her eyes, but I think we both knew my little confession applied to Elijah too. Showing up with the papers, expecting to spend the night?
Please.
Aneka sighed. “He just turned up like a bad penny. I’ll make some dinner and send him to his hotel.”
“How red is this dress?” I asked again as the door started opening. “We’ll talk later.”
She stifled a laugh. Elijah struggled through the door with a large box, and I turned to help him, my earlier irritation fading. If Aneka said she was done with Elijah, I believed her. I trusted her word. And if she needed to support him through a health crisis for the sake of her kids, I’d stand by her.
But damn, I couldn’t wait to get the man out of her house and have her all to myself.
* * *
Getting through dinnerwas a cumbersome hour and a half. Aneka threw together some soft tacos, and now the three of us sat around her kitchen table, the silence broken only by the clink of silverware on plates.
“So what’s in the boxes you had to deliver?” she asked.
We couldn’t see them from the kitchen, but they were still stacked in the foyer with “FRAGILE” emblazoned on the side below upward-pointing arrows.
Elijah cleared his throat. “It’s the Christmas dishes. The ones I inherited from Grandma Shaw. I know how much you always loved them.”
Aneka’s eyes widened. “We have a lot of memories of holidays eating off those plates.”
“Remember our first Christmas with the twins? They were teething and fussy. We went to Mama Shaw’s, and everyone took turns holding the twins so we could eat?” Elijah chuckled and turned to me. “Man, we had to eat in shifts. The kids were crying non-stop. We celebrated when ‘Neka got to an empty plate.”
“Mama Shaw collected this elegant Limoges dinnerware with Christmas trees in the middle. It took her years to afford all the pieces she wanted, but she got there. And she gave them to us before she died because I took over hosting Christmas and she knew how much I admired them,” Aneka said, looking torn between fondness and suspicion. “I asked for them in the divorce, and Elijah said they were Shaw family heirlooms. I gave up.”
She looked at her ex and waited, eyes wide, for him to explain.
He gave a one-sided shrug. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s important. I wanted you to have them. Besides, you’re the one who’ll be hosting the family Christmases.”
“You’re the one who loves the big holiday parties,” she replied.
“One way or another, I have a feeling the kids are more likely to be with you than me.”
Elijah capped his declaration with a faraway look and a sigh. My bullshit detector pinged like crazy. He excused himself to the bathroom.
Aneka leaned in, whispering, “He’s acting like he might not be here at Christmas. I don’t know why he’s talking like that. So far as he’s told me, the doctors haven’t diagnosed him with anything.”
“Could there be something else going on?” I whispered back.
“Like what?”
“Something with his case?”
Maybe she knew something already, and I wouldn’t have to be the bearer of bad news.
“No,” she said, but her face crunched in thoughtful suspicion. “But who knows with him? He bobs and weaves when I ask about whether the church board is going to follow through on firing him and having him prosecuted.”
“I can’t believe they haven’t fired him already.”
Aneka smirked and shook her head. “You underestimate how popular he is—even now. He’s pitching this imperfect King David bullshit. Butts in seats mean money in the collection plate. He’s always been tremendous for membership.”
Before she could continue, Elijah returned, and we made stilted conversation for a few more minutes before he finally stood to leave. I stayed put, fiddling with my napkin. Aneka walked him out, and I heard the door close with a definitive click.
She returned to the kitchen, her brow furrowed. “That was so weird.”
“You didn’t want the dishes?”
“No. I do. I did. I don’t care.” She sighed and chewed her bottom lip. “I’m afraid things are worse than he’s letting on, but he won’t tell me. I thought about calling his doctor, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. He’s being so...”
“Shifty?” I offered.
Aneka closed her eyes and huffed.
I cleared my throat. “He could be doing this for sympathy.”
“What for? He signed the papers. I’m having them couriered to my attorney in the morning, and he’s scheduling a hearing with a family court judge to get the decree signed. He texted me. He expects to get it all done tomorrow. It’s over.” Aneka twisted her hands together. “There’s something else.”
“Being divorced doesn’t mean he’s giving up. This tonight,” I paused and circled a finger around the kitchen, “didn’t seem like a man who’s done.”
Her eyes sharpened on me. “But I am.”
“What about being there for him while he’s getting treatment?”
“I’m going to help him if he needs it,” she said, blinking as if that was the obvious thing for an ex-wife to do.
Mine barely spoke to me, and not only because we didn’t have kids. That was the whole point of a divorce—especially a contentious one. You don’t want to see them again unless, well, it’s life or death.
But this wasn’t. Something was off.
“He’s counting on your being there. Getting you emotionally off balance.”
“But if he’s sick, what else am I supposed to do?” she asked, voice rising.
“If he’s sick.”
“He wouldn’t fake fucking cancer.”
So that’s what it took to get an f-bomb out of Aneka: defending her ex-husband, who still had all the signs of being a liar. Her insistence made my teeth clench.
“You’re sure about that?”
She hesitated, and I knew she wasn’t, which only made her angrier.
“He has no reason to fake anything.”
“You don’t know that for sure. That’s why you’re bothered. There’s something about all this that isn’t adding up,” I charged.
“I don’t need you to tell me what bothers me,” she barked.
Her hackles were up, but I couldn’t stop.
“Do you even know if he’s out from under the embezzlement charges? Jeni heard this week that he owes even more money because the church found another account he drained,” I shot back.
“How would Jeni know anything about this?”
“The wife of one of our business associates is on the board at the church. Felicia Delgado.”
Recognition lit in her eyes.
“I’ll talk with Felicia. She might be able to fill me in,” Aneka conceded.
“I can ask Jeni to look into it. She’s a bulldog.”
She gave me a hard glare. “And I’m the barracuda, remember? I can fight my own battles, assuming this is one, which it may not be.”
I threw up my hands. “Just trying to help.”
“I don’t need help to manage my ex-husband.”
“I can see him getting to you. He plays on your emotions and uses that to make you feel obligated to him,” I pressed.
“I know! You don’t think I know that? It doesn’t work anymore, and I can handle it. But for all the things he’s done, all the lies he’s told, I won’t believe he’s capable of pretending to be sick just to get some kind of prize. He didn’t even tell me. He told our kids. Had them worried.”
No doubt, knowing one of them would spill.
But Aneka pressed her lips tight, resisting the idea with every fiber of her being, every synapse in her brain. Elijah knew exactly how to tug at her sympathies. He was leveraging her for something. Now that I’d met him and seen his act, it was plain as day, but he still got the benefit of the doubt from her. I would have told her, but she was already looking like she wanted me to hit the bricks.
“I’ve had a lifetime of men telling me how they know better than I do about life, how the world works, and how I should behave. I don’t need another dick with an opinion, right now, thank you,” she barked.
I shuttered out a breath and stood, crossing the room. She leaned on the door frame from the hallway, arms folded. I stopped a few feet from her, palms out.
“I overstepped. I hate it, but I was a little jealous.”
“You have no reason to be.”
“I know, but you have a history with him. And kids. It’s why he’s still in your life, but I don’t trust him.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her expression softened. “That’s because he’s not trustworthy. I know that more than anyone. I don’t need the reminder.”
“Okay. I’ll shut up,” I vowed and reached for her, glad when she let me take her hand.
I planted a kiss on her knuckles. She stepped toward me.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Elijah showing up out of the blue has me edgy. I tired of how he pops up and makes demands, thinking I exist only to service his ego and make him happy. I’m not na?ve enough to buy into that anymore.”
And I’d made her feel like she was as much as Elijah had.
I squeezed her hand gently. “You made those choices for your own reasons. I respect that. I only want to help, but I get it. You need to handle this your way.”
She smiled. “I’m still learning to trust myself. Some of that from you, you know. I’ll borrow your confidence if I need it, and if I do, I’ll let you know.”
Aneka leaned in, her lips brushing against mine in a tender kiss. I savored the moment, the softness of her lips, the warmth of her breath. We shared a few more gentle kisses, the intensity simmering beneath the surface.
“I need space. I’m tired. Tonight went a direction I didn’t expect.”
I hated leaving her when we weren’t in the best place, but maybe this was the only place to be right now.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I still want to make it up to you.”
“Bring a spectacular bottle of wine tomorrow. Blow my socks off,” she commanded.
“That, I can do.” I knew the perfect southern French red.
“I promise I’ll be in a better mood tomorrow when I make you dinner.”
I grinned. “And wearing the red dress? High heels?”
“Sweet perfume. The whole deal,” she said, laughing, then kissed me. “Go home, Johnny.”
“I think I have a high school mix tape somewhere with all my best make out songs, including that one. I may roll it out tomorrow.”
She played with my fingers, then knocked my chest. “Boy, I don’t have anything that plays a cassette tape.”
“I can load the songs on my phone,” I argued, then sang, “My, my, my...”
My terrible Johnny Gill impression faded, and she cackled, shaking her head again.
“You have a lot of talents, but singing isn’t one of them.”
I kissed her goodbye and, thankfully, left laughing.