Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Venus
I looked over Kara’s schedule for tomorrow.
She’d called me from the hospital a couple of hours ago letting me know she wouldn’t be able to come to work for the rest of the week.
Usually when one of my stylists called out, I handled their clients.
The only people I serviced regularly were my sisters and mom.
Since she was a braider, her schedule was a bit busier than I wanted to handle alone, so I’d texted my team to see if anyone was available to handle her stitch and lemonade braid clients while I handled the knotless braids and island twists.
My doorbell rang, and since I wasn’t expecting anyone, I didn’t get up immediately.
It was obviously someone I knew, or else the doorman wouldn’t have let them up.
My eyes rolled at the thought of it being Trevor.
I turned his notifications back on last night after what happened earlier that day at lunch and saw that he’d texted me and told me to reach out to him when I was done acting like a baby.
If this was him at the door of my penthouse apartment, I could only hope it meant he was ready to acknowledge the fact that he was the one in the wrong and not me.
In no rush to let him or whoever it was in, I closed my laptop, slipped into my robe, then headed toward the door.
My gaze shifted toward the floor to ceiling windows, where I had an amazing view of the city.
Rose Valley Hills was built a little like Chicago.
We had the Mississippi River, a beautiful beach, and a lengthy manmade lake.
My apartment complex overlooked the office district and river.
I believed it was the second best view in the city outside of the beach.
I considered moving there, but I would have ended up paying twice the amount for a condo or apartment near the beach, and ten thousand dollars a month for my current living space was more than enough.
After looking in the peephole, I sighed at the sight of Trevor. He was such an attractive man, but sometimes the shit he said and did truly made him ugly to me. I opened the door, and as much as I didn’t want to, the sight of his smile made me smile.
“What do you want, Trevor?”
“You.”
He stepped into my apartment, dropping a kiss on my forehead in the process.
As he squeezed my ass, I pushed his hand away.
If he thought sex was going to magically erase the tension between us, he had another thing coming.
One could say I had a type. Trevor was it.
He was tall, wide, and had medium brown skin.
Tattoos littered his neck and arms. His square face was chiseled as if God Himself took His time sculpting it.
He had dark under turned eyes, thick and juicy dark lips, and a mustache-goatee combo that constantly drew my attention to them.
Trevor Bowens looked good as fuck, and he acted like he knew it.
After locking the door, I went to my bedroom and grabbed my phone to see if anyone had texted back about Kara’s clients yet. When I was done, I went to the living room, where Trevor had made himself comfortable.
“How long is it going to take you to get dressed?” he asked.
“For what?”
“I’m going to take you out.”
I crossed my arms over my chest as my hip poked out. “I’m not interested in going through the motions with you, Trevor. We have a problem, and until we talk about it—”
“Let’s talk about it now,” he interrupted me to say, patting the seat on my merlot colored sofa that was next to him.
I took small, slow steps in that direction and sat down, and he wasted no time taking my hand into his. Since he called himself being ready to talk, I remained silent so he could continue.
“It’s clear that I’ve made you upset, and that’s not my intention.
Sometimes I forget you operate from a more emotional state than me, and that’s the first thing I want to apologize for.
I’ve been waiting for you to meet me where I am logically, and I realized you literally won’t be able to until you can process your feelings. So… let’s start from the beginning.”
Ugh.
I would’ve been able to stay mad at him had he not been trying, but I had to remind myself trying was the bare minimum and I deserved more.
If this conversation didn’t end with us being on the same page and with him exhibiting changed behavior in the future, I was still going to call the wedding off.
Mama was right. I refused to start my marriage with any form of insecurity.
Men were so quick to complain about a woman being insecure or lacking confidence when their actions were often the reason for it.
I’d never been insecure in the sense of feeling jealous because of another woman or envious over something I lacked, but if a man didn’t make me feel secure in our relationship, I never understood why that was something they felt the need to complain about.
I also never understood why a woman vulnerably sharing her insecurities with a man wasn’t honored for the trust exercise it truly was.
If I couldn’t trust a man with my vulnerabilities and insecurities and he provide a safe, validating space, that was yet another sign that he wasn’t for me.
It was like I knew that logically but loving him put me in a bad habit of ignoring it.
“I told you last Thursday that I wanted you to come with me to the hotel. I understand you’re not into party planning, but I’ve expressed to you how important this party is to me.
My business means a lot, and it would have been nice to have my man by my side as I prepared to celebrate doing something no one else has in Rose Valley Hills.
Everyone always says how proud of me they are, yet the one person I wish I could hear that from, I can’t. ”
“Bae, you know I’m proud of you.”
“How am I supposed to know that? Have you ever said it?”
He thought about it, which I appreciated, before shaking his head. “I guess I haven’t, but I am. I’m proud of you, and I believe in you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the money for the down payment on the building. I even gave you enough money to pay your staff for the first three months…”
“And I appreciate that,” I said quickly. Softly. “But I want more than your money, Trevor. You’ve been the same way with the wedding. Everything has been on me to plan. You haven’t shown interest in anything. It makes me feel like I’m getting married alone.”
“I’m just not that kind of man, Venus. All I wanna do is show up and make you my wife. We could have done that at a courthouse for all I care. You’re the one who wanted a big wedding, so I’m letting you have that.”
“So that’s how you justify it? Since it’s what I want and not you, you don’t have to be involved?”
Trevor shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
“That’s the problem.” I chuckled as I slid my hand from his. “Because you don’t think there’s a problem, you won’t change.”
“What exactly do I need to change?”
“I need more of your support and presence. I’m not asking you to be overly excited and fake.
I just want you to show up, Trevor. The lack of your presence makes me feel like you’re not interested, even if that’s not true.
Do you know how it feels to plan a wedding for you and a man who makes you feel like he couldn’t care less about marrying you?
Every day I get less excited about our wedding, and if I’m being honest, our marriage. ”
Speaking that truth made tears fall from my eyes, and Trevor immediately picked me up and put me on his lap.
As he wiped my tears he said, “I’m sorry, bae.
It was not my intention to make you feel like that.
Of course I want to marry you.” His lips brushed against mine tenderly.
“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you need more of my presence to believe that, I promise I’ll show up more.
And I will communicate that better. Sometimes I feel like I show you with my actions, but if I’m not giving you the actions you need, I can understand how that might confuse you. ”
I just nodded. I was glad he was finally hearing me out, but the conversation was starting to drain me.
I hated crying and getting overly emotional, but handling all the wedding and party planning on my own plus running my business had been weighing on me heavily.
I expressed that to him, letting him know it would be easier for me if he helped and gave me some input…
if he could at least meet with the wedding planner to confirm or reject certain things… and he agreed.
By the time we were done talking, Trevor had synced my calendar to his.
He plugged in certain meetings and tastings he could attend with and without me, which I appreciated.
I felt lighter when he told me to get dressed so he could take me out.
While I couldn’t say this conversation had fixed everything, it did make him aware of how I felt so we could be on the same page, and he did promise to be more involved. For now, that would be enough.