BELIEVE THAT SHIT
Grunts and groans filled the room around me. Sweat coated our limbs from the physical exertion we’d placed our bodies under, chasing the endorphins we both craved.
“Come on. Five more.”
I was committed to spotting Serenity with the hip thrusts she claimed grew her ass. She continued lifting the two hundred pounds attached to the barbell. My feet cemented in place as I encouraged her to complete the remaining set. Varnished in sweat, she gritted her way through the pain, raising the barbell upward and onto the rack with the final thrust.
Concluding our workout, we ran through our cool-down exercises and stretches, wiping down the equipment we’d utilized as we finished.
“My phone.”
Patting around my pockets led me to realize the device wasn’t in my possession.
“It’s by the window sill,” Serenity pointed, exiting the gym simultaneously.
As I crept toward the door, light banter between her and a woman on the opposite side caused me to squint upon exit.
“Duke, this is Julie. Julie, this is my boyfriend, Duke.”
Silence coated the five feet between the three of us as I appeared in the door frame. Recognition anchored my body and stiffened my features, further elevating the tension eating at our closed quarters.
“I know exactly who she is.”
Frantically, Serenity’s gaze ping-ponged between me and Julie . Mya’s smile deepened in acknowledgment of my presence. Dancing between myself and Bee, her eyes wavered. She was up to no fucking good as always with the Devil. She was a woman, and she stayed scheming.
“Really, Duke? My wellness coach ? How long will you keep up this foolishness? How long will you continue these attempts to humiliate me with innocent women?”
Like unmanaged diabetes, my anger spiked. Heat rose, coursing through my bones and aggravating the drumming of my heart. The once steady rhythm became spasmodic. I could feel the vein in my temple pulse at her presence.
“Everything ain’t about you, Mya. Come on, Bee.”
Grabbing her hand, I pulled my woman along beside me toward the penthouse. Unshakeable, the desire was to shield my present and future from a debasing past. Mya was a disease. Like cancer, she bloomed in the most inconvenient way and time, seeking to destroy everything in her path.
“He ain’t worth it, Serenity! Give me a few seconds of your time. I’ll tell you all about it,” she shouted at our backs.
Unruly, my lips curled over my upper teeth, and steam freed from my nostrils. Fighting an inclination to yell over my shoulder, I maintained my stride down the hall. My feet didn’t halt movement until we reached the door to the penthouse. Not offering a single word to a lingering Mya or a perplexed Bee, I dragged the keycard from my pocket and tapped the console to allow us entry.
Inside, I toed out of my dunks. Inching deeper into the space, I rested the keycard on the kitchen counter. A sigh was liberated as I stripped from my saturated shirt, steering my limbs toward the shower.
“Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”
The delicate vocalization of words requesting clarity sliced through an awkward silence. The coolness of the air conditioning, paired with the tackiness of sweat-stained skin, kept me focused on the task at hand, however. I felt disgusted, and at present, I couldn’t tell if it was because of my interaction with Mya, Serenity’s question, or my soiled limbs.
“I don’t know. Do I owe you an explanation, or do you owe me one?”
Dropping my shorts, I cut on the shower, seeking to wash away the funk of the interaction resting atop the funk of an intense workout. Unbridled, confusion loomed, failing to settle at the sound of the showerhead. How the fuck did I miss this ?
“Don’t use that reverse psychology on me.”
Stepping toward the shower, Serenity switched off the showerhead. Sweaty arms crossed, weight thrown to a single hip, she voiced her frustration. Full lips pouted. Ample cheeks tightened. Bright eyes squinted. Even in anger, her beauty reigned. It held me captive. A subject in her court.
“Answer the question, Duke. And not with a question.”
“What explanation do you want, Bee?”
“That’s another question.”
“Mya— Julie is my ex-wife.”
A deep sigh emancipated from her chest. Bee didn’t know. How could she know? Mya’s narcissistic ass was walking around telling people her name was Julie.
“ Okay ,” she dragged, waiting for me to explain further.
“Her name is Myaquanna Julliette Stepford. I was married to her for six years while she maintained a previous sexual relationship with my best friend.”
The dryness in my throat rivaled the Sahara.
Shower. I needed the shower. Leaning forward, I cut on the showerhead again. Mimicking my action, Bee turned it off again .
“Serenity!”
“Duke. I just need to understand.”
“Understand what? I walked in on them.”
My voice dipped. Paired with the desiccating of my vocal cords, the retelling of my sordid past was near fucking impossible. Hard and fast, the pain of relived trauma returned. “In our home,” I croaked. “Our bed. My best friend and wife .”
Serenity’s voice lowered. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It just conjures up a host of shit I probably haven’t dealt with.”
“Regarding her?”
“Regarding him ,” I confessed, realizing I hadn’t fully grieved the loss of my twenty-year friendship. As far as Mya was concerned, I’d done my share of things to add misery to her life in passing, but I was over that now. Over her.
“What was all that stuff she was saying about humiliating her with innocent women? Am I—was I part of your revenge plot against her?”
“Baby.” Stepping closer, I reached for her arms. Surprised she didn’t retract, my feet consumed the space, keeping us distant.
“Was I on your list of women you intended to use against her? The “ self-care team ” you fucked?” Softly, she asked the question, her inquiry eerily calm.
“No, Serenity. No. You know I wouldn’t—”
“I don’t know shit, Duke.” Stepping away from me, she peeled my hands from her limbs. “I don’t know anything because you haven’t told me anything. You still aren’t telling me anything, leading me to believe everything that woman out there said.”
“ Believe that shit ,” I shrugged, turning the showerhead back on. “She didn’t lie.”
The wind fled Bee’s chest. Before she could leave the bathroom, I dragged her sweaty limbs into the shower with me by her shirt. A mountain of tears pricked her eyes. Thumbing them away, I latched on to her orbs.
“I fucked her hair stylist, her brow lady, and her nail tech. I told you that when I met you.” Shirking the details that her nail tech was the woman on stage at Genevieve , I exposed the truth.
“So I was—”
“ Not a part of that plan, Bee.” Tugging the hem of her shirt upward, I pulled it over her head. Without a fight, she allowed me to undress her from the waist up.
“I had no idea you were her ‘ wellness coach .’ When I approached you that night at Sin , I had no idea of your affiliation with my ex-wife .”
“What did you do?”
“What do you mean, babe?”
“Why did she say that you humiliated her with innocent women? You gave me half the story. Tell it all.”
“Baby,” through shuttered eyes, I sighed. The filth of my past was rearing its dirty head, attempting to sabotage all I held dear. The shower wasn’t helping me come clean.
Hooking my fingers in the waistband of her yoga pants, I dragged the elastic fabric over her ass.
“Duke, stop. Get your hands off my body and tell me what you did.”
Straightening my spine and removing my hands from her limbs, I sighed. “I’m ashamed to say it out loud.”
“Tell me, or I’m leaving.”
“I slept with them, and then I told her about it.”
“That’s it?” Her features corrugated into a sheepish scowl.
The heat and steam of the shower were causing blisters of sweat to form on both of our faces. Behind me, the three showerheads pounded relentlessly against my naked skin.
“That’s it. I wanted her to feel a semblance of the pain she caused me. I wanted her to feel lower than dirt. I wanted her to feel less of a person, scum of the earth, because that’s exactly how I see her.”
“So, do you still have feelings for her?”
“ Bee —”
“—Is that why both of you live here?”
Raised above a few octaves, her voice quaked. “Why didn’t you tell me she lives here? Have you been fucking her?”
“Serenity!”
She was taking the shit too far.
She scoffed. Shook her head. Bit her lip.
“I love you. I’d never intentionally hurt you, but I can see how this might be stinging somewhere in that vast and beautiful fucking heart of yours. I’m sorry.
“The shit I did to Mya was childish and shameful. It should have never happened, which is why I don’t care to discuss it. I know you need to understand, so I’m trying to explain it as much as I’ve come to understand it so that you and I are on the same page.”
She turned her head to stare at an inanimate piece of granite coating the shower walls.
“Look at me, Bee.”
Stubbornly, she refused the request, forcing me to hook a hand around her chin and tilt her head in my direction. The somber undercurrent of disappointment was heavy in the walk-in shower. Anything I could do to eradicate that uncomfortable energy, I would.
“And to answer your question, no, I haven’t been fucking her. I wouldn’t slide in that pussy again if it were the last one on earth. I didn’t tell you she lived here because I had no idea. I ran into her one time, and our encounter was far from pleasant. We don’t do pleasantries. I didn’t ask her why she was here. It’s a hotel. She could have been here for a number of reasons. She’s fucking my ex-best friend, who’s also married.”
Fixated on the granite again, her eyes failed to connect. Seconds passed. Minutes. The fucking shower I needed to rinse me clean had now become a nuisance.
“Baby, do you believe me?”
She shrugged.
“What is it you doubt about the things I’ve told you?”
“I don’t know, Duke. I’m not sure what to think. You’ve dumped a lot of info on me. You and her.”
“Do you want me to let you shower alone?”
“You’re already in here.”
The calm pirating her tone left me confounded, wary, restless.
“Can I touch you? Just to… to help you get out of these?”
“I can undress myself.”
Her rejection splintered me. Peeling her legs out of the pants, she tossed them in a pile next to my clothes just outside the shower door. We cleansed our salty, sweat-ridden skin in silence, absent the usual ardent touches and deep kisses—with her averting her gaze when I turned to face her. The distance she dealt cramped the air around us, making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that shit one bit.
Cutting the water overhead, I grabbed a towel from the heated warmer and gave it to Serenity, repeating the movement to dry myself as well. She wrapped her body in the cloth, preparing to exit.
“Hey.”
Turning to face me, her eyes held a blank expression. So far removed from the endearing, nurturing Serenity I knew, it was both alarming and disarming.
“Yes?”
“Are we okay?”
Defenseless and exposed, I ached to know what was on her mind and in her heart, so I…checked in.
“I need to process this, and I don’t think I can do that here.”
“You’re leaving me?”
The nuance of that question… So many meanings. So many undertones. It tore me to bits as I braced for the impact of a response.
“I am.”
I’ll reach out to you when I’m ready to talk.
Again and again, I read the text shutting me down and discouraging further contact with the woman I craved with every breath. For the past few days, there’d been radio silence from Serenity.
I blamed myself for the ridge swelling between us. This shit had been all my fault.
My phone pinged, shifting focus to the device. Unlocking it, my eyes cemented to the text message from an unknown number, growing twice in size as I read it.
One million, or I make these videos live.
Blankly, I stared at the device before putting the screen to sleep. Mya had become a thorn in my fucking side. Armed with the knowledge that we lived in the same building, it took every ounce of restraint in me not to stalk down to her condo—a condo bill I was footing—and wring her fucking neck.
I sought no parts of the drama my ex-wife sought to lure me into. Since the day I found her in bed with my best friend, she’d begun to unravel, revealing the concealed and repugnant parts of her true self.
Now was no different.
Had she been a nigga issuing such reprehensive ass threats, she’d be in an unmarked grave somewhere. But she wasn’t. She was Mya Stepford. The woman who’d vexingly chosen to hold fast to my last name with her hands clinging to my pockets. Despite my best efforts, she’d refused to let me go.
Back and forth, I paced the plush rug in the hotel room I’d been in. The weekend in the gulf had been tiresome leaving me to reconsider if I even wanted to run the pipeline business anymore. Shit. I had the parent company. I didn’t need Colonial Pipeline .
On top of the load of stress, I now had to deal with yet another one of Mya’s tricks. Laughter pierced the air as I chuckled in delirium at her delusion. A million ? It was both comical and my fucking fault that she felt so empowered to make such an asinine request. My moment of weakness—my need to be vindictive led us to the present state. I should have never armed her with the ammo to come at me the way she’d been.
If Serenity wanted space, I’d give her an entire fucking galaxy. It didn’t mean I was letting go. It didn’t mean I’d let her walk away. We both needed the time apart. In the meantime, I needed to resolve my past before allowing it to take precedence in my present. Instead of lashing out or responding to the text, I allowed the cooler, patient, more calculated head to prevail. A nigga hadn’t earned the position I was in for nothing.