Chapter 14 Made to Love - Eva
Several Days Later
“What do you need from me?” I inquired, running my hand down his arm. The heartache I knew he had to be experiencing from the draining events of the day, had me wishing I could take the pain away.
I knew as a woman I could be a lot to handle, but for those who were close enough to me to have earned a space in my heart, I immediately had an overwhelming source of empathy and desire to make them feel better. With Zeke, I wanted to ease his grief and subdue every ounce of agony.
“Honestly, I just need you to be here,” he confessed. “I’m not trying to be by myself right now.”
From the time I arrived at the church to attend the funeral, I’d witnessed him have a handful of breakdowns, and it took everything in me not to run to the front of the sanctuary when he dropped to his knees as they opened her casket to say a final goodbye.
My heart broke for him every time I looked in his direction.
He had buried his mother only hours earlier, and it would have been foolish for me to expect him to be okay under the circumstances.
“Okay,” I noted, processing his words and interpreting their meaning. I heard him say he wanted me to be there, but I knew there could hold a different meaning for him than it did for another person.
“Are you hungry? I can cook something for you while you take a shower,” I offered, trying to gauge his definition of there .
“I’m not hungry. I really want to shower and get in the bed,” he confessed, leaning in my direction, resting his head in my lap.
He could say he wasn’t hungry, but I’d been with him majority of the day, and I hadn’t seen him consume anything. Even after the funeral and the graveside, when we went to the repass service, he declined everything aside from water.
With his head in my lap, my hands naturally gravitated to his well-kept dreadlocks, and I innately began to massage his scalp, allowing him to be completely still and silent.
I knew people had been pulling on him all day, and at the end of something as traumatic as losing a parent, silence could be worth more than any gesture.
Somehow, I had managed to massage his scalp until the both of us drifted off to sleep, and when I opened my eyes, my head was hung over the back of his couch.
Raising my head, I opened and closed my eyes to adjust to my surroundings before lowering my head back down in the direction of my lap where Zeke’s head was resting.
Instead of being asleep like I expected for him to be, his eyes were opened, and he was staring at me.
“Please, don’t tell me you are a creep,” I stated, making him smile. His nonverbal response gave me the impression there was some truth in my statement, and I couldn’t help but to shake my head.
“No, I’m not. Besides, why would I need to be a creep when you’re in my house?”
“What does me being in your house have to do with anything?” I questioned with my face twisted up. “You know what? Never mind. Please don’t feel the need to answer that question.”
“If you want an answer, I can give you an answer,” he coaxed looking up at me with too many emotions to name in his eyes.
Before I could respond to his shenanigans, his doorbell rang out.
“Are you expecting company or something?”
“Zeke, why would I be expecting company at your house?”
“I don’t know, but I’m damn sure not expecting anybody. Do you know what time it is?” Zeke rhetorically questioned, showing me the time on his phone just as his alarm sounded.
Whoever it was granting themselves entrance into his house was either bold or familiar. They could have been a combination of boldly familiar.
From the click-clacking of heels against his tiled floor, I knew it was more than likely a woman or a sharp dressed man. The prior had me looking at him in disbelief as he pulled himself from my lap.
“Chante, what the hell are you doing here? Is everything okay? Where are the girls? Is something wrong with them?” Zeke asked, sliding his feet in the loafers positioned in front of the couch, simultaneously walking in the direction of where his keys lay.
My heart silently went out to him because it was as if his mind went to the worst-case scenario like he was in preparation mode for the next most unpleasant thing to happen.
He was so mentally distraught he was missing the obvious.
Her little visit didn’t have anything to do with their kids. Sis was at his house on a social call, and I knew it from her attire.
She was dressed in a taupe shaded trench coat, and although I didn’t know what the dynamics of their co-parenting relationship was, I would bet big money she had little to nothing on under her coat aside from her God-given skin.
Staring at her, I couldn’t place her face, but I knew I had seen her before.
After a few seconds of having my gaze fixated on her, I realized she was one of the employees who greeted me when I bought cleats for Egypt and Tyger. Well, it was more like when Zeke gave me the cleats I had intended to buy for my sons.
“Oh, my bad. I didn’t realize you had company,” she stated, fidgeting with the key ring in her hand. “No, the girls are fine. They are with my mama.”
“You would have known I had company if you would have called,” Zeke pointed out. “Your key is for emergencies, Chante… Why are you out of the house dressed like that? Does London, your fiancé , know you’re out of the house at this time of night, dressed like that ?”
Staring at the interaction between the two of them in my front row seat, I regretted not carrying my larger mom style purse to the funeral because it had the bag of snacks I kept for the boys in it. A bag of cookies and a juice pouch would have been the snack the theatrical moment warranted.
` If nothing else, I was amused. I knew I couldn’t get mad because it was obvious in the moment he didn’t want or expect her presence.
He could have been putting on a show for my sake, but Zeke didn’t seem like the type to put on a show simply because of the audience.
Answer the question. Does your fiancé know you are showing up to your daughter’s father’s house half naked?
Inquiring minds want to know. I thought to myself as I eyed her as her eyes bounced between Zeke and I, desperately wanting to know what she was thinking and eager to see how everything was about to play out.
“Chante, I asked you a question,” Zeke challenged, causing her to pry her attention from me.
“No, Zeke, London doesn’t know I’m here. I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she lied, pulling her trench coat together using the bow wrapped around her waist. “It looks like you already have someone here for that, though.”
“Eva, this is the mother of my daughters, Chante. Chante, this is my lady, Eva, and yes, she’s been making sure I’m good. She’s doing a great job as you can see.”
My Lady? I replayed his false confession in my head, and it didn’t make it any more believable in my eyes, yet he effortlessly allowed it to flow from his lips, when in reality, we hadn’t even remotely tapped danced around the conversation of me being his and vice versa.
Nevertheless, she didn’t need to know that. If Zeke wanted me to be his woman until she walked out of his house, I wouldn’t protest it until the coast was clear.
Allowing my mind to wonder, I couldn’t help but to imagine what it would be like if Zeke were my man. How would our relationship work? What would he expect from me? Would he switch up like Trevor had? Would we be together long before we broke up? Would we remain friends after said break up?
Shaking my head, I reeled myself in because we weren’t even in a relationship, yet there I was mentally flashing through our affiliation, the breakup which I was sure would have something to do with the mother of his daughters, and life after our breakup.
I was going way too far, too fast, and we hadn’t gone anywhere at all, yet I was on his couch planning the next year or so of our tumultuous love affair.
“Your lady? Zeke, why didn’t you tell me you were dating anyone?”
“Because with all due respect, it’s not your business,” Zeke stated, casually leaning up against his kitchen bar which was on the other side of his living room in his open, spacious home.
“We agreed to let each other know when we’re getting ready to introduce someone to the girls, and since she hasn’t met them yet, I didn’t feel the need to mention it to you. ”
“Zeke—”
“Look, Chante, as you know, it’s been a long day for me. If you just wanted to see if I was good, I am, so you can go ahead and head out.”
“Can we talk later?” she questioned, momentarily looking in my direction.
“If it’s not about our daughters, then I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he firmly stated being more respectful than I probably would have been if I were him. “I’ll walk you out.”
Walking in the direction of the front door, his request didn’t seem to be a request at all because he was making the decision to leave for her.
No more than a few minutes passed before he returned, tossing a stray key on his kitchen counter.
“That was crazy,” he called out, running his hands down his face. “I’m sure for you it looks like something it’s not.”
“Honestly, no. It looks like a woman who wants her man back,” I stated knowingly. “I’m going to be overly inquisitive for a minute. How long have y’all been apart?”
“Three years.”
Enough time has passed for her to be over him.
“You told me she cheated, didn’t you?”
“Yes, she cheated on me, and I ended up finding out our youngest daughter isn’t biologically mine. She knew of the possibility Paige wasn’t mine and didn’t say anything.”
“Damn. That’s a tough pill to swallow,” I admitted, gaining a new level of respect for him. “How do you deal with it?”
“I don’t deal with it. Paige is my daughter just like Chasity and Elise are. I was present through the pregnancy. I was there in the delivery room. I’m her daddy. That little girl is my heart, and I can’t imagine turning my back on her because of some DNA test.”