Chapter 7
A few days passed since Liv’s birthday, which meant it had been over seventy-two hours since I’d listened to Pat’s excuses about what I’d heard on the voicemail, gotten way too drunk, and relapsed with my best friend’s brother.
You ever seen a dick so big you just had to suck it?
That might’ve been my inner ho talking, but that was exactly how I felt about Oak.
Not to mention, he had my pussy smitten like a kitten as if I was eighteen all over again.
Dealing with that, along with everything else on my plate, meant that nothing in my life had seemed to get straightened out since then.
If anything, it had only gotten more complicated.
My sleep schedule? Fucked. My eating schedule?
Also fucked. Pat had been back in town for the past day and a half.
I made it clear I wanted space, and he’d been giving me that by staying at his family’s hotel downtown. It was for the best.
I still didn’t know what I was going to do about our relationship or the wedding.
Pat had asked me out to dinner to talk face-to-face, and I was dreading it.
Not because I felt guilty for letting my best friend’s brother make my pussy sing like Alicia and Keyshia combined, but because the closer my wedding day seemed to get, the more and more apprehensive I got about going through with it at all.
Besides that, I still hadn’t managed to get Poppy’s words to stop replaying in my head like a broken record.
To me, they meant something more profound than they sounded on the surface.
They’d somehow hooked into my heart and wouldn’t turn me loose.
I did my best to push my racing thoughts to the side as I stepped out onto the rooftop restaurant to meet up with Liv for lunch.
I’d been doing good at staying away from her apartment and her brother.
I figured if I didn’t see him, I didn’t have to acknowledge what we did, and I could block it out like a bad dream.
But just because I didn’t see him with my eyes, it didn’t mean he wasn’t living rent-free in a big ass condo inside my head, like his dick had been living rent-free in my pussy.
Oak was still the best dick I’d ever had.
I’d never had a nigga talk me through the dick down the way he did.
Thinking about it made my toes curl and had me ready to dry hump anything like a dog in heat.
Pull it together, bitch.
I approached the hostess station, and she led me over to a corner cocktail table where Liv was already seated. The Chicago skyline stretched on for miles as the distant sound of lunchtime traffic hummed below us.
“Hey, girl.” Liv greeted me as I took my seat across from her.
“Heyyyy. Sorry I’m late. Trying to find parking down here during the lunch hour is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
“No worries. Do you know what you want to order? I’m starving,” she said, swiping her long, black hair behind her ears as she looked over the menu.
I nodded while quickly glancing over the food options. “I think I’m going to do the grilled cheese and tomato soup. I need something comforting,” I replied with a heavy sigh.
Liv eyed me closely, immediately noticing how off my game I was without me having to say it. “This still can’t be the hangover talking, right?”
“No. It’s not that. But speaking of hangovers, please remind me to never, ever drink that much again or go that hard on the dance floor. My thirty-year-old bones are still trying to recover.”
She giggled. “Mine too. I woke up the next morning with my clothes still on, hanging halfway off the bed with half a chicken nugget lying on the pillow next to me. It was crazy.”
Our laughter trailed off as our waiter approached, took our food orders, and delivered a pitcher of ice water and an iced tea for Liv.
Once she left, we remained silent for a few beats, taking in the skyline and watching the waitstaff glide between the tables in their sections, taking and delivering orders.
“So, what’s up with you and Pat? Where are things with the wedding? Fill me in!” Liv finally spoke up.
My lips twisted to the side as I shrugged off her questions. “Shit, I wish I knew.”
“Have you two spoken?”
I nodded slightly. “Yeah. Here and there. We’re supposed to be going to dinner tonight to talk.”
I’d never had the chance to fill her in on our conversation the night of her birthday, and hadn’t had the mental bandwidth to bring it up after what went down between Oak and me.
“So what happened? What did he say?”
I huffed. “He gave me some lame ass excuse about his flight being delayed and how they didn’t have any reserves to cover it, so he had an overnight somewhere and lost his phone, blah, blah,” I explained briefly.
Her perfectly arched brows creased. “Seriously? So who the fuck had his phone?”
“That’s what I said. I mean, I’d have to be stupid to believe that, right?”
“I mean . . .” She paused to blow out an exaggerated huff. “It does sound suspicious as fuck. I’m not gon’ lie to you there, girl.”
“I knowwwww,” I whined. “Which is what makes it ten times harder to decide on which way to carry this shit.”
“What is your heart telling you to do?”
I rolled my shoulders to shake off the weight of stress on me. “I don’t know. It’s like I’m torn. I guess I’ll see what he has to say tonight, but I don’t know. My heart ain’t in it like it was.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
I sighed while glancing around uneasily. “I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. It’s like I don’t know shit I thought I did about our relationship anymore.”
I was in the most uncomfortable state of indecision I’d ever been in. I had to decide on a course of action, but I was still in the back of the struggle bus trying to figure out which way I’d go.
“Do you really think he’s . . .” she wondered out loud, letting her voice trail off so that I would fill in the blank.
“What?”
“No, never mind,” she said as her hoop earrings shifted from left to right. “I don’t even want to speak that shit into existence if that really wasn’t him on the voicemail.”
“Do you really think he’s telling the truth, Liv? Be honest. What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m not the one about to walk down the aisle to him. You are, Lex. What do you think? I mean, I know you two haven’t been together for years, but what is making you not believe him? Have you asked yourself that?”
“It wouldn’t be like he hadn’t done it before,” I mumbled, spilling out my confession.
Her brows heightened in surprise. “Hold up. Run that back one more time. Pat cheated on you before? And you never told me?”
“Well, it’s not exactly something I’m excited to run and shout to the hills about, Liv.”
“I mean, I get that, but still, Lex. It’s me. Me. The girl who still has the friendship bracelet you made me in the fourth grade! What happened?”
“He cheated with a flight attendant six months ago,” I blurted out. “I saw the messages in his phone when they popped up on his iPad, flew all the way to fucking Toledo to confront his ass about it, and he confessed. How could he not? So, getting that voicemail was—”
“Triggering as hell. I get it now,” Liv answered, finishing my sentence.
I bobbed my head. “Exactly. That nigga begged me for forgiveness and got down on one knee to show me how serious he was about us being together. Told me how in love he was with me, and how he’d never find anyone else like me, how it was his parents’ wish for his grandfather to see him get married before his dementia progresses.
And then popped open a ring box with a fucking diamond ring in it, and I was like putty in his hand. I’m pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic. You’re in love.”
“Am I, though? Or am I just . . . going through the motions? Are these signs? Blaring red flags that I’m choosing to ignore? I mean, I don’t know. The doubt is haunting me like a bad fucking dream. And then there’s that shit Poppy said.”
“Poppy? Like, his grandfather with dementia?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, but the last time we went to see him, it was like he had a lucid moment. He looked at me and said, ‘The goal is to marry the love of your life because love is a commitment, not a feeling.’ I haven’t been able to shake it since. It’s literally tattooed on my brain.”
Liv sipped her iced tea before shaking her head. “Wow. That is kinda heavy. Leave it up to the elders to drop gems when you least expect it.”
“I know, right?”
“And here I was about to sit here and try to play devil’s advocate and say maybe all those really shitty work things did happen to him, and he lost his phone in the mess of it.
I mean, niggas have come up with lamer excuses.
At least he did give you some sort of plausible explanation.
But now that I know he’s out here being a repeat offender, I’m not even mad you’re out here still not wearing your engagement ring and actin’ like you single like a dollar bill in Lil Wayne’s pocket, because what the fuck is up with this triflin’ ass nigga?
I swear, you like a nigga shenan once, he’ll shenan again. ”
Her familiar joke made me chuckle, despite the storm brewing inside me. “Like I said, I guess we’ll see what comes of our conversation tonight, but I don’t have high hopes.”
“Definitely keep me posted, girl, because I need to know if I’ll really be dragging Oak along as my plus-one.” The mere mention of her brother made me choke on the spit in my throat. “You good?” she questioned, screwing up her face.
I nodded. “Mm-hmm. So, you told him yes?”
“Yeah. I did. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to find anyone else worth bringing to your wedding between now and then, so why not? Besides, the nigga made me feel bad when he reminded me that our entire family was going to be there except for him.”
“Damn. I guess you’re right about that.”