Chapter 4 #2
“My room. I figured if you were gonna cuss me out, I want it to be in private. I might be on vacation, but I’m still a household name, and the last thing I need is to be on the tabloids with a photo of you smacking the shit out of me for the world to see.
” I tittered, although the look on her face told me I might not have been too far off.
I unlocked the door with my key and stepped back to allow her inside. Her arms were crossed as she stepped inside and looked around. I could tell she was wondering if I was the only person staying in my room, but she never asked.
“Would you like something to drink? I have sodas in the fridge.” I offered.
“Let me guess. You chose Orange Fanta as your drink of choice.” She smirked.
“I guess you know me, huh?”
“I used to think so.” Her response was somber.
“Look, I’m sure I can speak for us both when I say I wasn’t expecting us to run into each other here, but since we are here, I want to collect on the opportunity you took from me.”
Her face twisted with an attitude, and her lips were pressed as if she wanted to cuss me out.
“I took from you? Hmm, that’s interesting because I don’t recall it going the way you’re stating.”
“Well, how do you recall it? Please enlighten me, Lai. Because all I know is that I went out of town for an away game with a happy home and a fiancée I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, but came home to an empty house, and my engagement ring on the kitchen counter. Tell me what I’m missing, because nothing has ever added up for me. ”
“Yeah, you aren’t the only one. I thought we had a good life, but I got the shock of my life when I realized it was all a lie,” she vented.
“What do you mean it was a lie? What is it that you think I did? What did I lie about?”
“It’s not about what I think, it’s what I saw with my own eyes. Before you even think you’re about to lie and act like I’m crazy, I need you to know I saw the proof.”
I stood there genuinely confused as I waited for her to elaborate.
“What is it?” I never raised my voice at her, but I was anxious to get an answer to the one question that had plagued me for years.
“When you were out of town, I got a message from you in the middle of the night. It was the night of the game between you and the Nuggets, so I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t heard much from you.
I rolled over thinking I was going to get a sweet message from my man telling me you loved me or you were out with the fellas, but instead I received several pictures of you with some random bitch in bed.
“I sat in the bed and turned on the lights to make sure I wasn’t tripping because I couldn’t wrap my head around how the person I loved would hurt me so deeply when you knew what I had been through.
I tried to call several times, and when the phone finally picked up, the girl answered, moaning and calling your name.
I was so sick to my stomach, I hung up the phone and ran to the bathroom to throw up.
“I was devastated, Kyon. I trusted you with my heart, and I thought you would protect it the way you always promised. I called China over and told her I needed to get out of there before you made it back home, because if I had stayed, the police would have been called for domestic violence. My heart was ripped into pieces, and I knew there was no turning back. Cheating was a deal breaker for me, and I wasn’t gonna be one of those women who turned a blind eye to keep up with a lifestyle.
I would rather have been dead broke than put on a facade while you made a fool of me. ”
My head shook in disbelief as I listened to her talk. I’m not sure what I thought her explanation would be, but I hadn’t anticipated the answer she gave. My heart was twisted up, and now I was even more confused than before.
“Cat got your tongue, huh? Now you can stop with the innocent act as if you don’t know what happened.
You had me believing you loved me and that I actually meant something to you, but it was a lie.
While I was home praying for you and wishing you luck, you were out fucking random bitches and letting them record you. Dumb ass.”
Laikyn blinked back tears as I stood there feeling as if someone had pulled the rug from under me. It had to be some kind of sick joke because what she was describing never happened.
“Naw, this isn’t an innocent act because I didn’t do anything wrong.
I’m trying to calm myself down because you’ve got me fucked up, right now, and it’s taking everything in me not to yoke your ass up for the disrespect.
I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I’ve never cheated on you, and if you think I would ever risk my relationship for sex, you’re out of your fucking mind.
There isn’t a bitch bad enough to get me to give them a second look when it comes to you.
What the fuck are you even talking about? ”
“Oh, please, Kyon. How can you stand here and lie when I saw the truth with my own eyes? I never knew you to be a liar, but I guess I didn’t know the real you after all,” she shot back.
I could feel rage taking over, but it wasn’t necessarily directed at her. I hated not having control, and this situation left me completely stumped.
“I swear on my grandmother’s grave. I don’t know what you think you saw or heard, but I never fucked another bitch.
Hell, most of the away games I spent on the phone with you or in my hotel room decompressing.
I’ve never invited a girl back to my room under any circumstances, and I damn sure didn’t fuck them. ”
“So, you’re calling me a liar? Am I blind too? Wow, Kyon. A part of me really thought the two of us would be able to have a civilized conversation to clear the air, but you can’t even be honest about what you did. This conversation is a waste of my time.”
Her words stung and infuriated me at the same time. I knew for a fact I hadn’t cheated on her, so her telling me something different made no sense to me.
“Do you still have the pictures?” I questioned. My hands were stuffed into the pockets of my shorts as I tried to calm myself down. Either she was lying, or someone I trusted fucked me over in the worst way.
“I-I don’t know. I think I might have sent them to myself via email because I originally planned to confront you about them, but things changed.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I never gave you a single reason to believe I would do something to hurt you. What the fuck, Laikyn!” I roared, pacing the floor with my hands above my head. My anger grew stronger as I tried to recall what happened the night of the game she mentioned.
I remembered us losing to the Nashville Nuggets, and the coach threatening to bench me after I tore up the locker room.
I hated losing, and it irritated me even more because my team acted as if it were no big deal.
My teammates tried to get me to hit the club with them, but I told them no because there was nothing to celebrate when we were going home as losers.
Instead, I went to the hotel bar and got drunk off my ass.
One of my teammates offered me some water and advised me to sleep off the liquor.
I remember Laikyn sending me a scripture followed by an encouraging message because she knew what losses did to me.
I would usually shut down and stop talking for the rest of the night, but it never stopped her from being in my corner.
The liquor hit me harder than usual, so I hurried and got to my room where I passed out.
“Are you serious right now? You’re going to pretend like you didn’t do anything wrong when I’m telling you that I saw you?” Laikyn’s statement snapped me out of the trance I was in.
“Did you find the picture yet?” My tone was flat as I tried to hold it together.
“No, I’m still looking.” She chewed on the tip of her nail while she searched through her phone. It was something she often did when she was nervous or anxious.
I couldn’t even begin to relax until I saw whatever it was she was talking about. There were so many pieces to the puzzle that didn’t make any sense to me, and I needed to put them together to understand what happened.
“I found them,” she whispered, holding her phone in front of her.
I snatched it from her hand so fast, I almost dropped it.
When my eyes landed on the photos, I studied them closely, trying to make sense of things.
There was a girl straddling my waist while I lay there seemingly asleep.
She wore a black bra and panties, and from the angle of the poses, it looked as if I was naked with the sheets covering my lower half.
I took a moment to study the woman’s face, but recognition never set in.
The last thing I remembered from that night was drinking at the bar and then stumbling to my room.
I was alone the entire time, so I had no idea where she could have come from or how she had gotten into my room.
I shared a room with another teammate, so even if I had brought her up, there was no way I fucked her in that room.
One, I wasn’t a cheater, and two, I needed my privacy at all times.
“Something isn’t right,” I murmured, zooming in on two of the photos.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, and it caused me to sympathize with Laikyn because, from the outside looking in, it appeared as if I had gotten caught slipping.
That wasn’t the case, though, and I was determined to get to the bottom of things.
“That’s all you have to say?” Lai sneered with her arms folded across her chest and her nostrils flared. It looked bad, but I wasn’t about to cop to something I knew in my heart I hadn’t done. No matter what it looked like.