Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Ramel
After finally getting Gina and me on the same page, Lacy was the next person I had to convince.
I had to convince her to give up this shit like I’d been trying to do since the moment I walked out of our engagement party.
Now that Gina knew I was serious about us, I needed Lacy to know I was serious, that I wanted nothing to do with her.
I didn’t want to take her on dates. I didn’t want to get to know her, because we had known each other our whole lives, and nothing had ever changed. If there wasn’t a spark between us by now, there would never be one.
After finally getting Gina to accept the car I bought her, I hopped in my truck and headed toward Lacy’s spot.
I hadn’t seen her since she and my mama walked into my house unannounced, but I really needed to talk to her ass.
She knew better than that. Even if my mama didn’t, she knew never to show up at my crib.
I didn’t care who she had with her. Showing up at my house was a big sign of disrespect.
“Who is it?” I heard her soft voice through the door as I knocked.
“Open the fucking door.”
“I am coming, Ramel, damn.”
Lacy swung the door open so that we were face-to-face. I pushed my way in without even saying good morning. I was past pleasantries because this motherfucker was disregarding everything I was telling her. She had me fucked up.
“You know that shit you pulled the other day was fucked up, huh?”
“Coming to your house was not my idea, Ramel, so don’t even start with me. That was your mother’s idea.”
“And you thought it was cool to tag along instead of talking her out of it? You wanted to pop up just as much as she did, so don’t even lie.”
“Have you ever tried talking your mother out of something? You know when that lady got her mind made up, that’s just what it is. So I just followed her lead and came over.”
“Lacy, why you even continuing along with this shit? You don’t want me no more than I want you.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. Yes, I have a man, but I can also see a good life with you.
Look, this situation is a win-win for me.
If I don’t marry you, I get to marry my man.
And if I do marry you, then I get to marry a good man.
Either way, I’m happy.” She laughed as she made her way over to the sofa that sat in the middle of her living room.
Crossing one leg over the other, she gave me a smug look like this shit was my problem alone.
I couldn’t stand a dizzy bitch, and that was exactly what Lacy was.
She had the potential to be so much more, but she just didn’t want to.
“Lacy, you laughing, but this is not a game. This is my life. I don’t take marriage lightly, and I want the woman that I marry to be the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. You and I both know that ain’t you.”
“Damn, Ramel, you don’t have to keep shoving it in my face. I know you don’t want me. I know you’re not interested.”
“Let’s come up with a plan to put an end to this. How can we help our parents without us having to walk down the aisle?”
“They honestly don’t need us to make this thing work.
My parents just want something that attaches them to your parents so that if this deal goes wrong in some way, we are still connected.
We don’t have to be married for that to happen.
We’ve been in each other’s lives our whole life.
They are literally best friends. There’s nothing stronger than that.
My dad just wants to know that his investment is guaranteed, and if he doesn’t trust your people to hold up their end of the bargain, they were never friends.
All we have to do is get them to see that. ”
“And I can depend on you to carry this through?”
“You can depend on me. If we’ve never been anything else, Ramel, we’ve always been friends.”
“Yeah, until you start trying to marry a nigga.”
“Boy, bye,” she said before playfully pushing my shoulder.
I was happy that we were finally coming to an agreement.
Now, all we had to do was band together and show our parents that we were serious about not going through with this dumb ass plan.
This shouldn’t have even been something we had to do as adults.
We should have been able to make our own decisions and live our own lives, but coming from a family like ours, sometimes, that shit was hard to do.
Regina May was the finest woman I’d ever seen.
She was dressed in an all-black dress with strappy heels that went up her legs.
Her thighs were thick as hell, and her calves were set up just like any man would want to see.
She was the epitome of a bad bitch. And if I were ever going to call a woman out of her name, this would be the time.
She smelled good, too. It was a fresh scent, like fresh laundry, but I knew it was perfume. It brought out her natural scent and all the other scents she had on, so anytime she walked by, it was like she was electrocuting my nose all over again.
Gina had me gone. I was open from the moment I saw her in the bar, and the more time I spent with her, the more she had me wrapped around her finger.
I couldn’t imagine anybody not wanting to be around her, let alone her parents.
Why Gina felt like she was so lonely in this world was unfathomable to me because I would do anything to have her next to me for the rest of my life.
I grabbed her hand and hooked her arm with mine as we walked hand-in-hand up to my parents. Lacy and her dude got out of the car around the same time as we did, so it was the four of us walking up together.
The place was packed out, as it normally would be.
My parents alone always drew a crowd, and when you added Lacy’s parents to that, they brought the whole city out.
Some of the most important people in the city were there tonight, getting ready to open their wallets and become donors to the new Ponya Medical.
The way they’d been raising funds left and right from the time they even conceived the idea was insane.
I had no idea why my parents even needed another loan from Lacy’s parents.
They should have had everything they needed, but they still wanted to meddle in our lives and use us as leverage.
Luckily, by the time we found our parents, the four of them were already alone in my dad’s study.
I could tell by the way they stopped talking when we walked in that we had been the topic of the conversation.
That was perfect because it was time for it to be the last time they ever put mine and Lacy’s names in the same sentence with marriage ever again.
“You see? I told you it wouldn’t been long before your disobedient child rubbed off on my daughter.
” Lacy’s uptight ass father spoke first, as he usually did.
He was the type who actually believed his daughter did not do wrong, even when the wrong was staring him right in the face.
Lacy was standing right next to me, holding another man’s hand, and somehow, I was the one corrupting her.
“What is going on, son?” my pops asked.
“We came to get you to understand there will be no wedding. Seeing us together with the people we love should further show you this is not a game.”
“You don’t make the decisions. We do, and if I say you’re going to marry my daughter, then that is exactly what you will do. Do you understand me?”
My father was silent for a while as he looked between Lacy’s pops and me.
Seeing my dad at a loss for words was rare because not only was he a master of medicine, he was also a master of being able to spin any conversation in his favor.
My father looked at me, then at Gina and how close we stood before he spoke.
“Watch your mouth when you speak to my boy. My son is a grown man, and if he has found a woman he loves, there is nothing else to discuss.”
“If you pull the plug on this marriage, you may as well pull the plug on Ponya Medical and tell everyone here tonight to go home.”
“Then that is what I will do, but first, you get the hell out of my house right now.”