Chapter 3 #3
No matter how much she explained that it wasn’t about the money, he didn’t get it.
Especially since her starting salary was less than $100,000 a year.
Cedric didn’t understand why she wanted to be away from her child when she wasn’t making as much as the male players earned.
Blossom blocked out the noise and continued to do what she loved and by her third year in the WNBA, she was at $200,000 a year.
Seventy thousand more than he earned, and that didn’t include endorsements and bonuses she received.
When Creed was five, Blossom got pregnant with her second son, Chosen.
Despite Cedric’s disapproval, she went back to playing when Chosen was five months old.
After two more years, she finally gave in and retired.
Cedric was finally happy, but Blossom learned that she was resentful.
There was never-ending tension in the house, sex wasn’t the same, and conversations felt forced.
After a year of not playing ball and living in dysfunction, Blossom couldn’t take it anymore.
She was the most miserable she’d ever been in her life, and she told Cedric that she wanted a divorce.
The kids were eight and three. Blossom didn’t work, but she had money.
Even when she was in the WNBA, Cedric’s pride wouldn’t allow him to let her pay any bills, so she saved most of her money.
Deep down, Cedric wasn’t happy either, but he felt slighted that she wanted a divorce.
He threatened to ask for alimony, full custody of the boys, anything to stress her out and add to her misery.
For a year leading up to the divorce, she let him have the house, her and the boys moved out, she lost weight, and cried almost every day.
It was tough, but the judge finally signed off on the divorce, and Cedric didn’t get a thing from her.
To make matters better, she was asked to be a co-host on a podcast geared toward women athletes.
The podcast became very popular, and soon, she was making five figures a month just from that.
For two years, she did the podcast, and then she saw a job opening for a coach.
Nervousness almost made her decide against applying, but she did, and she got the job.
Blossom had been coaching for six years.
Her sons were eighteen and thirteen. She was still single and happier than ever.
The original podcast ended, but she started her own, and was paid well for that.
She also wrote a book about her experience in the WNBA as a wife and mother.
Blossom had two endorsements and her own athletic wear line.
Add up the revenue from all of her hustles, and Blossom was making well over $500,000 a year.
Cedric did well for himself. She wasn’t sure how much he made annually, but it wasn’t more than $150,000.
He lived in a nice, modest three-bedroom home, and he drove a Lexus.
She didn’t put him on child support and let him do for the kids without putting money in her hands.
Blossom wished him well and didn’t bother him, but the feelings weren’t mutual.
Cedric was very bothered. Blossom flourished without him, and he hated it.
She refused to shrink herself and just let him be the man and take care of everything.
The five-bedroom home that she lived in with the $4,000 a month mortgage was above his paygrade.
So were the BMW and the Range Rover she drove.
Blossom was comfortably living a great life all on her own, and he despised it.
Cedric hoped it ruffled her feathers when he began dating a woman ten years younger than him, but she couldn’t have cared less.
A younger woman was what Cedric needed; someone that didn’t quite have it all together and wanted to be kept.
A woman who would go along with whatever he said and wouldn’t challenge him.
If that stroked his ego and made him feel like a man, she loved that for him.
Blossom had dated over the years, but she always ran into the same issues.
Either the man was financially comfortable and an asshole that thought he was the prize, men like her ex that were threatened by a woman with her own, or men that didn’t have as much as her, and she refused to subject herself to the drama that would bring.
There was one particular guy that she had fun with.
He was thirty-six, one child, no baby mama drama, and a good job.
But he was a liar and a man whore. Blossom hated liars but even more than that, she hated people that lied to her when they didn’t have to.
Ty liked to play mind games and tell her bullshit like she was the only woman he was sleeping with; lies that didn’t even sound believable. Lies that she didn’t ask for.
Blossom pushed all of that to the back of her mind and called him when she had an itch that needed to be scratched. It was nothing more and never would be. In her opinion, marriage was like trouble—easy to get into and hard to get out of. If she never got married again, that would be okay with her.
Blossom’s best friend, Fancy, had impeccable timing because the moment she was done with her last meeting, her phone vibrated, and Fancy’s name appeared on the screen.
“What’s up, Chick?” Blossom asked as she cradled her phone between her ear and shoulder while shutting down her computer for the day.
“You left the office yet?”
“I’m shutting down the computer as we speak.”
“Yay. Tell me you don’t have plans. I want you to meet me at that cute little lounge by the boxing club. The one we went to last month with the fye wings.”
“You do know I have kids, right?” Blossom joked. “I might have to go home and cook or help with homework.”
“Um first of all, you don’t have kids, you have grown men. Creed is on his way to college, and Chosen is more mature than me. They will be okay while you have a few drinks with me and listen to me vent about my terrible life.”
“Oh Lord,” Blossom groaned. Fancy could be dramatic for sure, but she attracted drama like magnets attracted metal. If she said she had some tea to spill most times it was piping hot and made Blossom’s eyes bulge out of her head.
“Yeah. It’s real. So, can you meet me or not?”
“I can. You are so needy. It’s exhausting. You owe me a drink.”
“Baby, I’ll buy you two.”
“Okay, Crazy. I’m on my way.”
With a chuckle, Blossom eased into her BMW, wondering what Fancy had gotten herself into this time.
Her drama didn’t even always include men.
There was work drama. Family drama. Neighborhood drama.
Drama simply loved Fancy. She was a gorgeous OBGYN, and Blossom was obsessed with everything about her friend.
She didn’t have a gay bone in her body, but everything about Fancy was tea.
Face, body, fashion sense, hair, car, house—all tea.
Fancy was five-foot-five with cocoa-colored skin and hair so thick and long no one believed it was hers.
People always swore it was K-tips, tape-ins, or some kind of extensions.
Fancy was model thin and had a sharp nose, pouty lips, and deep dimples.
There were days she got up at four a.m. for work and didn’t get home until nine p.m., and she never complained.
Fancy and Blossom met in college and had been inseparable ever since.
Blossom wasn’t joking when she called Fancy needy, but she honestly didn’t mind.
She hated that she was the type that held everything in.
Blossom felt letting people know just how broken and sad she was during her divorce would make her appear weak or pathetic.
Many days, she faked smiles in public and cried her eyes out behind closed doors.
She even tried to fake it for her sons. Blossom didn’t have anyone she allowed herself to be vulnerable around, and she admired Fancy for always being so open and transparent about her struggles.
Whether it was a cheating man or a drug addicted father, a brother with six kids that was a deadbeat father, and he expected her to pick up his slack, or a co-worker that didn’t respect her because she was Black and a woman. Drama for days.
When Blossom arrived at the lounge, she spotted Fancy’s Audi right away.
Flipping the visor down, she checked her appearance and reapplied her lip gloss.
Thank God, she cared about how she looked when out in public, and she wasn’t underdressed for the lounge.
As a basketball coach, people expected her to dress like a boy and not be so girly.
Blossom loved heels. She also loved her super long stiletto-shaped nails.
That day she chose to wear grey, wide-legged sweatpants from Alo, a cropped white tummy shirt underneath a grey zip-up jacket and black strappy heels.
Before getting out of the car, she removed the jacket.
The heels and the crop top made the sweats sexy and just like that, she was dressed for the occasion.
Blossom wasn’t a man hater. She loved love but since her divorce, she felt free.
She didn’t have to not be herself to make other people happy.
She did what she wanted when she wanted and didn’t have to hear anybody’s mouth.
Being single was so peaceful that it would take a very special man to make her consider a relationship.
Cedric wasn’t the worst person in the world, but he’d done a number on her and made her very leery of sharing her life with another person.
When Blossom entered the lounge and spotted Fancy already in the booth blowing hookah smoke from her mouth, she chuckled. Blossom trekked over to the booth and slid in. “Okay, we already started.”
Fancy rolled her eyes just as the server came over with two strawberry lemon drops and placed them on the table.
“Friend, you know I don’t lie. If I say I’m stressed, she is stressed. I went ahead and ordered your drink.”