8. Faith
The music was way too loud. The drinks were way too strong.
Plus, my bladder had been filled to capacity for the last thirty minutes.
None of that mattered more than the tequila shot sitting in front of me.
For the past hour, I had been watching and hating on my big sister as she shook her ass on the dance floor.
All I wanted to do was drink. I could have done that from the comfort of my own home, but thanks to Hope and her shenanigans, I was outside. She had successfully got me out of the house, but that didn’t mean that I had to have fun.
My sour mood was my own fault. I’d put myself in a crisis by underestimating the allure of the man who stole my innocence and my faith in true love almost a decade ago. As bad as I wanted to make Reed pay for ruining my outlook on life, I knew from the start that I had to be careful with him.
“Don’t let Grace’s self-righteous ass get in your head, sis,” Hope said, plopping down on the stool next to me.
“I’m not worried about Grace, girl.”
“Then why are you drinking like a fish, and why haven’t you called that man? You know you want to.”
“I’m not thinking about any man. I’m trying to decompress from a stressful week, if you don’t mind.”
“You still love him, Faith. Why don’t you just admit it?”
“I don’t love him. I want to chop him in the throat.”
That made her grin like a fool. “Same difference from where I’m sitting.”
“Well sit on this,” I said, holding up my middle finger before throwing back the shot in front of me.
“Thank you, but no thank you. I’m about to find a nice handsome face to sit on for the night. If you’re lucky, you can probably wake Jasper up so he can come knock the cobwebs off that thang once and for all,” Hope said before sliding off her stool and shimmying her way back out to the dance floor.
I didn’t have a chance to say fuck you to my sister before she was shaking her ass again. It pissed me off that she brought up Jasper. He was the sweetest. He was ten years older than me, but he was so handsome I didn’t even consider our age difference.
Jasper was tall, dark, handsome, and a two-time divorcee.
He had three kids from his previous marriages and shared custody of them with his ex-wives.
For some reason, he just didn’t do it for me.
For one thing, I’d always said I would never be a man’s second wife.
I damn sure didn’t want to be the third fool.
He could thank Reed for that. Still, Jasper was a good guy.
Jasper moved into the house a few doors down from me about a year ago.
When he moved in, I took him some muffins and welcomed him to the neighborhood.
Once he realized that I was single, he started to take my trash cans to the road every week.
He even cut my grass when he cut his own.
Since he lived alone, I always made sure that I took him a plate if I cooked on Sundays.
In any other circumstances, he would have been the perfect guy for me.
Hope wasn’t usually right about a lot of things, but she was on the money to say I had no business out bar hopping with her.
I should have had my ass at home. Then again, a woman had to live sometimes.
Jada had begged to spend the night with my mom, so it wasn’t like I was shirking my motherly duties. I still felt bad about being out.
There were so many other things that I could have been doing, like reading over my notes from my employee interviews. For the most part, they had been fruitless, but I had a few good quotes that I could use.
It was actually good that I came out. I felt better already, but it could have been the tequila talking. I had been so dedicated to my obligations over the past couple of years that I rarely let my hair down.
Thanks to Reed, Cashville, and the mysterious fake chips, there I was drinking away my anxiety and dreading the fact that in a few minutes, I would either have to break down and use a club bathroom or pee outside in an alley.
My bladder was screaming for relief. I did a quick scan of the crowd, and Hope was nowhere in sight.
Instead of trying to find her fast behind, I hopped off the barstool and headed to the bathroom without letting her know where I was going.
Being on my feet made me realize that I probably should have stopped drinking before that last shot.
Now I was two margaritas and three shots in trying to wade through the crowd with a full bladder.
The group of men who’d brought me and Hope our second round of drinks happened to be posted up right by the bathroom.
It was OK to flirt with them when Hope was dominating the conversation, but now their rapt attention made me nervous.
I didn’t feel like turning down a bunch of drunk men.
All I wanted to do was use the bathroom.
Still, I forced a smile once I made eye contact with the most talkative one.
I knew better than to wear my emotions on my face. Drunk men could get dangerous fast.
“Ma, you way too pretty to be walking around in here alone. Might get snatched up,” he warned me.
“I’m a big girl. I’m sure I can handle myself.”
He laughed but extended his hand. “I don’t think I introduced myself before. My name is Marcus.”
I shook his hand, but I didn’t want him to confuse manners with interest. “Hey, Marcus. I’m actually in a hurry,” I said, looking past him to the bathroom.
“Nah, don’t try to brush my boy off like he a peon or something. All y’all hoes so stuck up these days. Then y’all have the nerve to wonder why y’all are by your damn selves.”
“Well damn.” One of the others chimed in.
That made the rest of them laugh, including Marcus. That was my cue to leave them where they stood. I didn’t have time to entertain them when my bladder was literally screaming at this point. When I moved to walk around Marcus, he grabbed my arm. I hated that shit.
“You ain’t gotta run, shy girl.”
“I’m not shy. I’m just not interested,” I told him, snatching my arm away from his grasp.
I moved around him, hoping that the clear hallway meant that there wasn’t a line for the bathroom. At this point, I wasn’t in the mood for a line. Who knew there would be so many people out.
In my clubbing days, we usually didn’t even show up until after eleven.
Now it was barely ten o’clock, and I was over it.
Hope’s club hopping behind mentioned something about ladies’ night, but I wasn’t really listening after she said there would be half off drinks if we came early.
My heart dropped when I heard footsteps behind me.
“Damn, baby girl, why you rushing off like that? I’m just trying to talk to you.”
It was just my luck that I would go to the bathroom solo and be followed by a drunk stalker when I didn’t have my mace on me.
I kept walking, hoping Marcus would take that as a hint to finally get the hell on somewhere.
I didn’t know why I expected my luck to change at that very moment when it had been shitty for years.
Either way, it didn’t pick that night to get better.
“Aye, you don’t hear me talking to you?”
“I’m pretty sure I said I wasn’t interested,” I called over my shoulder as I reached the door.
“Ain’t nobody trying to do nothing to you, woman,” he said, stepping in front of me before my hand reached the handle of the bathroom door.
“Can you move?” I asked, lifting my eyebrows.
“Why you acting all stuck up like that? Your nose wasn’t in the air when you were guzzling free drinks. You ain’t that damn pretty, ho.”
“I didn’t ask you for shit. Do I need to give you back your seven fifty? If you need it that bad, you can have it back with interest, because I’m about ready to pay you to get the hell out of my face.”
“Oh, you got a smart-ass mouth, bitch.” He snarled, grabbing my hand when I went for the handle again.
“Let my damn hand go!” I barked.
“Girl, calm the fuck—”
The next part happened so fast that I barely had a chance to process it.
One second, the drunk, persistent asshole had a death grip on my wrist, and the next, his arm was twisted behind his back, and his face was being slammed into the wall, over and over.
Time slowed to a stop as I locked eyes with Reed.
His face was dangerously calm as he stopped banging Marcus’s head on the wall to study my face.
“You good, baby?” he asked.
“Um . . . yeah. I’m fine,” I replied, almost too flustered to think.
Reed didn’t look satisfied with my answer, but he still released the back of Marcus’s head.
“Apologize to my fucking wife!” he demanded.
“My bad, man. She didn’t say she was married.”
“Did I ask you that, or did I say apologize to her?”
“My bad, man. My bad.”
“Not to me. Apologize to my queen.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know you were married.”
“Single or not. That doesn’t give you an excuse to disrespect a woman.
You better learn to accept rejection without going out like a bitch.
Tonight is just a warning. I should fuck you up, but I’m going to let you live,” Reed barked before punching Marcus on the side of his face and leaving him slumped against the wall.
As if he hadn’t just knocked a man out in the middle of the hall, Reed shoved me into the bathroom and locked the door behind himself once he was inside. His dark eyes bore through me like I was the one who had no business here. Was this a dream? Where in the world had he come from?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he shot back immediately.
“Minding my damn business just like you seem to be doing.”
“You’re welcome,” he retorted.
“I didn’t thank you for anything. I asked you what you were doing here.”
“Did you drive here?”
“What does that matter?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips. I was grateful for Reed saving me, but he wasn’t my daddy.
“You’re drunk, Faith.”
“I’m not drunk, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” I protested.
“Yet, I just had to tear some random man off of you in a club hallway.”