CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Early that next morning when JJ woke up to find Tish no longer in his bed, he showered and dressed and then dropped by her room, just to make sure she was okay, before he went downstairs. But when he saw that she wasn’t in her room either, panic did set in. Because it was early still. Just after seven am. She didn’t have to get up that soon. Where was she?
It wasn’t until he made it downstairs did he feel a sense of relief. Because he saw her there, in his kitchen cooking. And just seeing her there, along with that wonderful smell of bacon frying, just warmed his heart. She was cooking for him. That wonderful person who’d never had a break in her life and who could take a break for the rest of her life as far as he was concerned, was cooking, once again, for him. For a man like JJ, it didn’t get any better than that.
“Thank you, Tish,” he said as he made his way up to the center island.
“Don’t thank me too soon. You haven’t tasted it yet.”
JJ laughed and went around the center island to give her a morning hug. Then, still holding her, she leaned her head up to him and he kissed her. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby. You?”
“Like a newborn baby,” he said, and they smiled. And kissed again.
“You didn’t have to get up this early,” he said as he walked over and sat on one of the island stools.
“I know, but I wanted to do something for you for a change. I always fix you dinner. You’re usually gone before I have a chance to fix breakfast.”
“You’re doing plenty for me,” JJ said as she smiled. Then he continued to stare at her. He still saw that trepidation in her eyes. “You okay?”
She nodded. “I am, yes. Just have lots of errands to run. Your lists aren’t getting any shorter. And guess what?”
“What?”
“I talked to my P.O. this morning.”
That surprised JJ. “You spoke to her?”
“Yes! And she’s doing great. I mean, she says she’s in a lot of pain still, but she was grateful to be alive.”
“She should be,” JJ said. Then he saw that look in her eyes again. “She blamed you. Didn’t she?”
Tish nodded her head regrettably, and then looked at him.
“Forget about her, Tish. Just leave her alone. I told you she didn’t give a damn about you, or she would have made it clear to you that the only person to blame is Danny Walls.”
“She’s just in pain, that’s all. I understand how she feels.”
JJ studied Tish. “Why don’t you hate people the way they treat you? How can you still believe they’re worth a damn?”
“Because they are,” she said with a smile, as she began plating the food.
They ended up leaving at the same time. Tish wanted to get an early start on her chores and a couple places on her list opened at eight. She pressed down the window after getting into the Mercedes and JJ placed his hands on the door track. “Drive carefully out there.”
“I will.”
“Pay attention to your surroundings. I placed Chief Goslin’s personal cell phone number into your contacts. If you get pulled over, you call him directly. I spoke with him when you were in the bathroom after breakfast. After that nonsense on the news last night, I wanted to make it clear to him that there’s no open season on you. He said he’d remind his guys, and that he’ll accept your call if you have to call him.”
That did make her feel better. “Thanks.”
“He still doesn’t know who made that false 911 call, but it doesn’t matter. We got this,” he added as he pointed from himself to her.
Tish reached her fist out to JJ as if he was down with the movement. JJ, grinning, gave her a fist bump. Then he kissed her and went and got in his Bentley.
But their blissfulness took a quick turn when the Mercedes drove out of the big brick-surrounded private security gate in their gated community only to be met by a huge contingent of reporters and photographers from seemingly every single county in the fourth circuit. It was so many that Tish was stunned when she drove out into that firestorm of press. She tried to press back up her window, but they hung onto it and wouldn’t let her. And they pounced, hurling all kinds of offensive questions her way and shoving microphones in her face.
JJ, who was in his Bentley behind her, was stunned when he drove up fifteen seconds or so behind her and saw that her car was stopped at the gate’s entrance, rendering the gate unable to close as the press completely surrounded her car. She could not drive an inch even if she wanted to. And he knew she wanted to badly.
He hurriedly parked his car on the side of the road inside the security gate and ran to the Mercedes. The press, seeing him, ran over to him, but like an unforgiving linebacker he was able to get through. When Tish saw him coming, she moved over onto the passenger side of the car so that he could hop into the driver side once he cleared those reporters.
But she could hear every single question they were hurling his way. And every question was about her:
“Why are you sleeping with a criminal, Judge?”
“Manny Davis says she was your girlfriend before you reduced her sentence. Is that true?”
“The Bar Association is investigating whether you broke the law when you reduced her sentence. Do you care to comment on that, sir?”
“Judge Brant, Manny Davis now has a thirty-point lead in the latest Ipsos poll. Will you drop out of the race, sir?”
Then one reporter, being shoved back as JJ opened the front driver side door, asked Tish: “Why are you destroying Judge Brant?”
And then JJ was able to get in and slam the door. But unlike Tish, he was more than willing to run a motherfucker over. He began moving forward like a man on a mission and those hateful reporters be damned. Fearing for their lives, because they knew Judge Brant, they quickly began moving out of the path of the Mercedes like scattering roaches, and JJ sped through. It was illegal in Scottsdale for reporters or any paparazzi to tail public officials, so they let them go.
But as JJ was getting away, what those reporters said were still echoing in Tish’s ears: Down thirty points. The Bar Association investigating. Will you drop out? Why are you destroying, Judge Brant? It was like a bad song that kept playing over and over in her head the same bad tune. But the hook was the same: You’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good. Baby you’re no good - for our chief judge. Tish looked out of the side window with anguish on her face. She always believed that happiness in this world was for other people, but never for her. And as soon as she thought it just might be for her too, they snatched it right back.
When JJ was certain he was clear of the press, he pulled into the parking lot of the local CVS and parked in the back. He was staring forward. As if he, too, was hearing a tune. But a very different one. “They don’t respect you,” he ultimately said. “And that’s my fault.”
Tish looked at him. How could it be his fault?
“They see you as just another woman in my bed. Not even a girlfriend. Just somebody with no rights, no claims, nothing but a poor girl trying to make a come up. When nothing could be further from the truth.”
Tish continued to stare at him. Why did he always see so much more in her, when everybody else saw nothing?
And then JJ, as if that encounter with the press finally woke him up, phoned his office.
“Hello, Judge.” It was Nancy, his secretary.
“Put Reeva on the phone.”
“Yes, sir.”
Within seconds, Reeva was on the line. “Good morning, Judge.”
“Clear my docket, Reeve. I’m taking a leave of absence.”
“Beginning when, sir?”
“Now.”
“Now, sir? To go where, if you don’t mind my asking.”
JJ exhaled. “Alabama.”
When he mentioned her home state, Tish was shocked. Why would he need to go to Alabama?
Even Reeva seemed surprised. “Alabama, sir?”
“Make certain that every judge receives their share of my cases. Don’t overload Judge Bruce.”
“How many days are you expected to be away, sir?”
“I don’t know right now. Clear my docket for the rest of the week,” he ordered, and then ended the call.
Then he looked at Tish. “Give me the address,” he said as he pulled up the navigation.
Tish was confused. “What address?”
“The address to your parents’ home.”
Tish’s heart squeezed. Was he taking her home? Did he now realize what she was doing to his career and wanted to get rid of her? But why her parents’ house? “They don’t want me there,” she said.
“You’re going there. And so am I.”
“But why?” She needed him to say that he was wrong. That she was a destructive force in his life after all. She needed to hear him say it.
A look of concern appeared on JJ’s face. “It hadn’t even occurred to me. But when I heard those awful questions those reporters were asking, and when I saw your face when I got in this car, I knew I had to do this right. Every step has to be right.”
“What steps are you talking about? Just say it.”
He looked at her. “I want to ask you to marry me, LaTisha,” he said.
“Marry me?” She was so shocked that she could hardly believe it. “I thought you was going to get rid of me.”
“I know that’s what you thought. When I saw your face, I knew it. But nothing could have been further from my mind. I want you in my life for the rest of my life. That I am certain. But you aren’t. Because everybody that should have had your back didn’t. They’ve all let you down. You’re just waiting for me to let you down too. That’s why I’ve got to do this the right way.”
She still didn’t understand what the right way meant to him. “What does that mean?” she asked him.
“I need to speak to your father.”
Tish didn’t expect to hear that! “To speak to my father? About what, JJ?”
“About you. Us. I need to secure his blessing.”
What was he talking about? “I haven’t seen my father since I left Alabama with Shake, and he was yelling and screaming at me even then. Why would you want to get his blessing?”
“Because you won’t be complete until your parents are back in your life. You need that extra layer or you will always be doubtful. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder ready to run to only God knows where wherever the heat is on in my world. And that will terrify me.”
Then he turned his body all the way toward her. “The truth of the matter is, Tish: I’m not enough for you. And it’s not your fault. It’s our fault. All of us who should have had your back. You’re going to need people in your life who you know beyond a shadow of a doubt truly loves you. Who will protect you should something happen to me. Our children will need that too. I’m going to do this and do this right.”
Tish could not even begin to unpack all he had just said to her. But one thing stood out like a boulder. “Children?” What children, she wanted to add.
JJ realized he had forgotten to bring it up. “When we get married, I want children.” Then he stared at her as if her response would make or break them. “Don’t you?”
“More than anything,” he heard Tish say without hesitation, and his heart soared. “But we haven’t even discussed marriage. We haven’t even talked about it before right now.”
“I didn’t want to scare you away. I know you may not be ready right now, that’s why I haven’t brought it up, but when you are ready to take that next step with me, I want your parents already onboard.”
Tish would be thrilled to have that conversation. There was no other man she’d rather be with and no other place she’d rather be than by his side. But her father’s blessing? She couldn’t see that ever happening.
But JJ kept talking. “Our children will need that backup too. They will need to know their grandparents. I don’t want them to live without having that unique, wonderful experience. I had a wonderful grandmother before I left home too. It was the best relationship of my life. And since my family is out of the question, yours will have to do.”
Tish realized she knew so little about his family. “Why is your family out of the question?”
“Too many rivers to cross before I could ever reestablish a relationship with them. That ship sailed in my childhood, when my parents were too busy being socialites to take care of their children. I couldn’t wait to get away from that mansion.”
He was born rich, she realized. But she couldn’t worry about his family. She was too worried about her own! “But they don’t want to be a part of my life.”
“They’re going to be whether they want it or not. It’s the right thing to do. And if they’re these great people you still insist that they are, then they’ll do the right thing. But from here on out, I’m doing nothing but right by you.”
When Tish heard those words, and realized everything he was saying was about helping make her life better, tears began to fill her eyes. It all sounded like fairytale words. And she still wasn’t one hundred percent certain that she understood why. But to have a relationship with her family again would be the most wonderful thing. Something she stopped dreaming about years ago. “When did you decide all this?” she asked him. “Just now?”
“Last night,” he said. “While you slept in my arms. I knew I loved you. I told you that I did. And it’s true. But people throw that word around all day long and never really mean it. That’s why love for me is an action word. I decided to fight back, Tish. But not to keep some damn job. But to keep you. Because I saw it when I hopped in this car at the gate and looked into your eyes. You were ready to forget being with me, forget this life, and run. Weren’t you?”
Tish couldn’t help but nod her head.
“You can run,” he said, which made her look at him differently. But then he added: “But only if you’re running to me. Because I’m doing it right this time. By the book and all the way by the book. If your father gives his blessing, then I’ll ask you to be my wife.”
Tish thought of something as she wiped away tears. “What if he gives his blessing,” she said, “and you ask me to marry you. But I say no?”
“Then I’m going to look like a stupid motherfucker,” JJ said, and Tish burst into laughter. They both did.
Then JJ got serious. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take. But I’m not asking you until I speak with your father. Until I know that you know you’re complete.”
It was all about her. He always was looking out for her. She reached over and hugged him.
JJ smiled and gladly returned her affection. He’d never met somebody like her who was so filled with love. Why nobody else could see it was a mystery to him.
When they stopped embracing, Tish thought of something else. “What if he refuses to give his blessing?” She asked it then looked at JJ. It was, to Tish, a very real possibility.
JJ had already considered that possibility too. But he didn’t have an answer for her. She needed a relationship with her family, even if they didn’t approve of him. It was still worth the trip to him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said. “Now give me the address. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”