Chapter 10 Let Me Know – Zeke Simmons
A Week Later
It has to be my lucky day , I thought to myself as I saw her walking across the parking lot of Just Air, one of my shoe stores located throughout North Brooke Port.
“I had a feeling today was going to be a great day,” I greeted her, approaching her from behind.
As luck and strategic placement of my body would have it, when she turned to face me, she bumped directly into my chest. What I was sure she thought was an attempt of a smooth pickup line was the truth.
I hadn’t been to the store in a week and the day I decided to come in and check on my staff, I happened to run into her.
“Zeke. Hey! How are you doing? I’ve been meaning to return your call, but I’ve been busy with work.”
“I don’t know if you’re lying for the sake of protecting my ego, or if you’re lying to deflect, but either way you’re lying,” I called out, making her giggle and smile which in turn showed off her deep-set dimples.
“No, it’s not like that, Zeke. I honestly have been busy.
My sons are both signed up for soccer, so I’ve been running them to practice,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, blowing out an overwhelmed breath.
“I go from work to practice and then home where I’m playing mommy, tutor, and chef.
I really want to take you up on your offer, but life is a little chaotic for me right now. ”
“It’s your world, I just want you to make time for me in it.
” I sincerely stated, sizing her up, not hesitating to take notice of just how delectable she looked in her gray pin-striped pencil skirt, matching tailored blazer, and tall black heels that had her legs calling out to me to be licked like the aphrodisiac they were.
“My eyes are up here, Zeke,” Eva sassed, calling me on my bluff.
Allowing my eyes to enjoy the trip back to her face, I was met with a smile.
“I understand being a single parent, so you don’t have to explain.”
“You do?”
“Hell yes, I do. You didn’t know I had kids?”
“ Kids ?” she repeated as if she was questioning my use of the word.
“Kids, as in children… as in I’m a father.”
“Really? Why didn’t I know you had kids? And how many do you have?”
“Because I keep them off of social media, and I make sure their mother does the same. There are too many sick people out there trying to exploit kids, and my daughters won’t be in that population if I can help it.”
“I understand your stance because I rarely post my sons on social media. I feel like the people who need to know or care to know what they are doing will make it a point to be a part of their lives beyond statuses and pictures online.”
“Facts,” I agreed. “Oh, and I have three daughters to answer your question.”
“You have three daughters by one woman? I have to ask now to avoid it being a problem later just in case I do decide to let you take me out on a date,” she said with a seductive smile. “Why didn’t your relationship with the mother of your daughter’s work?”
“She cheated on me.”
“Really?” Eva questioned, matching the same level of surprise I had when I found out my ex-fiancée had an affair and had me taking care of the next man’s baby. “I wasn’t expecting you to say she cheated. I’m sorry you went through something so detrimental.”
The day I found out about her infidelity, I told her, ‘ You’ve probably been cheating on me for our entire relationship ’.
To take the disrespect and pettiness a step further that day, I told her I had doubts about our daughters being mine, even though I didn’t at the time.
That day, I found out how wrong I was in my sureness when she pulled my card and confessed how she wasn’t one hundred percent sure of the paternity of our two youngest daughters.
Naturally, I got all three of my daughters tested, only to find out the youngest daughter wasn’t mine, not biologically at least because in my heart all three were my daughters and legally my name was on all of their birth certificates.
“It’s a part of life. I got three beautiful daughters out of the situation, so I can’t do too much complaining,” I reasoned, pulling out my phone to show Eva the picture of Chasity, Elise, and Paige which decorated my phone’s lock screen.
“Awww. They are so pretty. They must look like their mama.”
“So, you want to be a comedian?” I inquired, causing her to bless me yet again with her dimpled smile. “Paralegal by day and comedian at night. You must be looking for a talent agent.”
“No, I’m not. Thank you but no thank you,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at me. “As much as I like talking to you, I have to get these shoes so I can go back to work.”
“Let me ring you up,” I offered, taking the two boxes of soccer cleats out of her hand, motioning in the direction to the nearest empty register.
Once I swiped my employee card, I was able to log in to the system and scan the cleats without error, making sure to give her my discount which brought her total up to nothing. I’d only scanned the shoes so my inventory wouldn’t be off.
“Don’t disrespect me like that,” I fussed as she pulled her wallet out of her purse.
“What do you mean? How else am I going to pay for them?”
“You’re not.”
“Zeke, let me pay for these shoes.”
“No, it’s a perk of dating a man who owns a shoe store.”
“We aren’t dating,” she denied with a smirk.
“We will when you have time. Go back to work, and I’ll see you later,” I assured, handing her a store bag containing her shoe boxes.
“I feel like I’m stealing taking this from you.”
“You have a receipt to show you’re not stealing.”
After a few seconds of a heated stare down, Eva finally accepted the bag and thanked me for the gesture. It really wasn’t a big deal in my eyes, and when she became my woman, she would receive the perk of receiving shoes and so much more, because for a woman like Eva, I had everything to give.
“Chante, I’m going to my office. If it gets too busy, give me a holler, and I can come out to relieve you,” I stated to my assistant manager and the mother of my daughters.
Infidelity aside, I trusted Chante with my life and my money.
I trusted her more than any other qualified person off the street because she knew the store contributed to both of our livelihoods, and therefore it put food in our daughters’ mouths.
Chante may have been reckless with my heart, but I knew she would never be so careless with something which had the power to affect our daughter’s future.
“Okay. I got you covered, Zeke, but there is something I need to talk to you about. It can wait though,” she said, intently staring at me with her light brown eyes that once drove me crazy.
If nothing else, aside from being a great mother, Chante was a beautiful woman.
She always had been, and I was sure age would only cause her to get better like an aged whiskey.
We started dating not long after we had literally bumped into each other one night at the club.
She ran into me and wasted her gin and juice on my white Alexander McQueen shirt and offered to buy me a drink to make up for her clumsiness.
We spent the rest of the night getting to know each other, and when the club closed, she ditched her friends and came home with me.
From there we became damn near inseparable.
There weren’t too many times you would see me without seeing her, and if I would’ve been given the chance, I would have gladly lived in her skin.
At the time, you couldn’t have told me I hadn’t found my soulmate, so when I found out she cheated on me, hurt didn’t even remotely begin to describe the pain I felt in my chest. It was like once the lie came to the light, I knew without hesitation things could never be the same because even if I could forgive her indiscretion in my heart, I knew my mind would never trust her again because I knew what she was capable of.
In my eyes there wasn’t such a thing as talking it out and making it work, especially when I found out she was careless enough to get pregnant which meant she wasn’t using protection. To me, that was the final line to cross aside from having the next man’s baby.
“No, you can say it to me now,” I stated, shaking off thoughts of the future we would never have.
“You know the guy I’ve been dating?’
“The one with the lazy eye?” I asked seriously, making sure we were on the same page.
“Zeke, why do you have to describe him like that every time I mention him? His name is London. It’s not hard to remember.”
“Does the man not have a lazy eye?” I questioned, folding my arms across my chest, recalling the day he brought her lunch to the store and she made the introduction.
We had been apart for close to three years, and we had a mutual understanding to let each other know when we were getting serious with someone and wanted to introduce the person we were seeing to the girls. In the past three years, London was the second guy she had introduced me to.
Chante had decent enough judgment, and in the fifteen to twenty minutes I talked to him, there weren’t any obvious red flags.
“Yes, one of his eyes is a little lower than the other, but it doesn’t define him. He’s a good man, and the girls like him.”
“Yeah, okay, so what about him?” I asked, checking my watch for the time because the conversation was lasting longer than I expected, and from where I stood, it didn’t seem like it was directly affecting our daughters, so she was on borrowed time.
“He asked me to marry him.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes,” she announced, holding her hand out to show me her small diamond engagement ring.
“Congratulations.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I’m happy for you,” I added in a questioning tone, unaware of the reaction she wanted.
“You really don’t feel a way about me moving on with someone else?”
“Yeah, I care,” I confirmed, causing a smile to appear on her face.
“I care about him being around the girls, so naturally I want to have another conversation with him before the two of you officially take this next step. However, as long as he treats them good and respects you, I don’t see why I would have a problem with what y’all are trying to do. ”
“You’re right, Zeke. Just forget I said anything, and thank you for being happy for me.”
Despite what Chante thought, I wasn’t clueless to what she wanted my reaction to be.
Nevertheless, it was a reaction she would never get from me.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t made it clear she wanted me back time after time, but with each plea to get her family back , as she said it, I made it clear we were done, and it would never happen.
Standing in front of her, I was almost tempted to ask her if I was missing something merely so she could get it off her chest, and I could remind her she needed to keep the past where it was at, but the ringing of my phone prevented me from doing so.
Typically, I wouldn’t have had my phone on the sales floor with me, but due to the circumstances surrounding my mama, there weren’t too many moments where my phone wasn’t on me.
Seeing Shannon’s name flash across my screen had my feet in movement to the back of the store where my keys were sitting on my office desk.
“Hey, Shannon. What’s going on?”
“Hello, Mr. Simmons. Please come to your mother’s house as soon as you can. She’s been taking shallow breaths for the past few minutes, and her body temperature is dropping significantly.”
I’d had a feeling those were going to be her words, but when they registered, it wasn’t something I could have ever been prepared for.
Hanging up the phone, grabbing my keys, and racing out of the store, I couldn’t process how I was ever going to go forward without my mama, but something in my heart let me know I would soon be finding out.