Chapter 28
Drake
After a wild Christmas morning at home, we finally make it to Nia’s old house around one in the afternoon. It’s been a busy week. From the letter from Scarlett to the visit from my mom, and my talk with Nia later that afternoon, I’m exhausted.
Scarlett’s letter was a long ramble. She went from apologizing about the kidnapping and fire to blaming me for her situation in life. She ended the letter begging me to visit her and declared her undying love for me.
Nia was not impressed, but instead of being afraid, she promised to give Scarlett the beat down of her life if she ever tries to come near any one of us.
The following day, I talked with Wyatt about getting a restraining order. He contacted Scarlett’s family and sent them a copy of the letter. Her father managed to call me and promised he would get her help but can’t do that unless she’s released. He asked that I not contest his petition to release her under house arrest. I promised him that I would, and had Wyatt start the proceedings for the restraining order.
Now, we’re in the loud Nash household. Langley made dragons for the nephews too, and they are flying them in the living room while talking and laughing at once. Nia’s mother is helping Priya with hers.
“Hey,” Nathanial Nash says. I look away from watching the kids to see him pointing at me. “Get your ass in the kitchen and help me. Why are you sitting down?”
Nia snickers at me and points at the kitchen. Nathanial throws my apron in my face and whistles for me to follow him.
“That sweater you’re wearing is ugly,” he says, and I look down at it.
“You have a problem with Santa?”
“When you’re in this house, it’s black Santa,” he says. He points to the kitchen island, and tells me to get to work. It’s the same spot he made for me last time, and after putting on my apron and washing my hands, I get to work.
Ray comes in with fresh drinks for us and says, “I found a spot for us to go to in the Bahamas. It will be our first of the new year.” He holds his drink and he and his father toast. When they all stare at me, I take my glass and clink it with theirs.
The father and son reminisce about when Ray was Mason’s age and how excited he was that Christmas when he got a PlayStation.
That triggers my own memories of Christmases past with my own father. I can’t think of a single bad holiday with my family, especially Christmas. Our parents hardly denied us any material things, but Christmas was always over the top. There were so many presents we’d have stuff to unwrap for days. When we got older, we received more experiences like trips, but it was always the parties and the time we spent together as a family that I cherished the most.
We were the perfect nuclear family. We loved each other, and other than the typical squabbles that siblings have, I was extremely close to mine, especially Langley since we’re only two years apart. We shared the same interests and even had some of the same friends. We were inseparable as boys but grew apart as we got older. We barely had a relationship for five years, and unbeknownst to me, that was because of our father too. Even though he didn’t do it intentionally, his obvious favoritism of me led to resentment from my brother.
I miss the childhood I had and the father I had before I learned about his deception. The man who left me that self-serving letter is someone I don’t recognize. How could I have gotten it so wrong about him? How did I miss the signs? Yet how could I have ever guessed that my father hid my son from me and destroyed the relationship with the only woman I will ever love?
I don’t realize I’m crying until a tear lands on top of my hand. I can’t even blame the onions since I haven’t gotten to them yet. Another tear falls, and I wipe them with the back of my hand.
“Ray, go get his coat,” I hear a voice say before the knife is taken from my hand, and I’m dragged out the sliding door onto the deck. Ray returns moments later with my coat and leaves me alone with his father.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” is all I say. I look into the backyard without saying another word.
“Tough,” he says. “If I catch you crying in my kitchen, you have to tell me why.”
“I wasn’t crying,” I lie .
“Right. Dust,” he says. “Go on and talk.” But I don’t say a word. At least not right away. I stare at him and then look away into the distance. “I’m waiting,” he says.
“Seeing you and Ray together triggered some memories about my dad.” I shrug. “I was thinking of the good times. And then I wondered how he could do what he did.”
He walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “That’s normal. It will probably happen again. It’s okay.”
“I don’t want my kids to see me this way.”
“Like what? As a human with feelings? Let them see it. And you need to understand that you had no control over what your father did. He hid that part about himself from you, and he did a good job of it. But you got it all back. I know you lost some time, but my daughter is in there and so are your children. I know it’s easier said than done but think more about the future and less about the past. It will always hurt, but in time, it will hurt less.”
I mull his words over and can’t imagine a time when this will hurt less. Then I remember I was in a great place until I decided to read that letter. Maybe it’s just new and raw, and once the holidays are over, things will get back to normal.
“I hope you’re right,” is all I can think to say.
“I’m always right.” He bumps my shoulder with his.
“I feel so guilty whenever I think of the good times. Like I’m betraying my wife and son.”
“Nia understands this is hard for you too. My daughter won’t—”
“She’s been amazing.” I smile at the thought of my wife. From the moment she forgave me and gave me another chance, she’s been all in. She was not only open to giving me a second chance, but she accepted my family too .
“Then all I can tell you is to take your time dealing with this.” He moves closer. “And I’m here if you want to talk about anything.”
Out of everyone on this earth, he’s the last person I thought would offer me any comfort about my father, but I’m glad he is.
“I’ve been kind of lost since Dad died. It’s as if I’ve lost him twice. I lost the loving father I thought he was, and I lost the real him without being able to confront him. I think that’s what I’ll never get over. Other than going to his grave and talking into the wind, I’m just carrying this anger, and I have nowhere for it to go.”
“You can tell me. You can talk to Ray. You can unload on your wife. Hell, you can even talk to my wife. We’re your family now, and—”
As I wait to hear the rest, the side door of the house next door opens, and Jelani fucking Harris walks out with another pie. As he lets himself through the gate, I hope he drops the pie and falls head-first into it.
“Merry Christmas,” he says, his cheery voice grating on my last nerve. I don’t bother to smile or return his greeting.
“Jay,” Nathanial says. “You joining us? We cooked a feast.”
I tense and wait for Jelani to take him up on his offer. I imagine him finding a chair and squeezing himself in at the table.
“I can’t, but I’ll see if Ray wants to have a drink after I drop off this pie. It’s apple.” He finally gets to the deck and smiles as if delivering a pie is some feat.
“My favorite,” Nathanial says. “Go on in.” He walks inside, and lucky for him, he doesn’t say a word to me. We stand there in the freezing cold temperature while I gather my thoughts .
“Remember when I was here at Thanksgiving, and you asked me why I blackmailed Nia?” He nods. “I’ll tell you why. Two words. Jelani Harris.”
He turns and faces me fully. His brows furrow while he digests my words.
“What? What the hell does Jelani have to do with anything?” He waves his hand in dismissal. “He has nothing to do with you and Nia.”
“He had everything to do with it,” I say, my voice now hard.
“How?”
“I showed up here the Friday night before we got married, and she was all dressed up to go out with him .” I can’t even say his name. Just the memory of her dressed, ready and willing to go out with him still angers me all these years later. “I was here when he came to pick her up, and I didn’t like it. Imagine looking at the man who was primed and ready to take your family?” I ask.
He runs a hand over his face and says, “Jelani was no threat. As far as I know, they only went out that one time.”
“She was so angry at me. She would have fallen in love with him just to spite me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he says.
“Imagine if you lost Shirley through no fault of your own, and when you find her again, she had your son. You realize you still love her, and then there’s another man in the picture who can take everything?” He stands up straighter, and I think he might finally get my point. “And you’re right. They only went out once because a few days later, she became my wife. I made sure of it.”
“Son, couldn’t you have just talked to her? And let’s not forget you still had a fiancée when you married Nia. She didn’t blackmail you because you had someone else.” She wouldn’t need to blackmail me. If she had so much as smiled at me the day I confronted her about Carter, I would have pledged my undying love and devotion and begged her to take me back.
“That was over the minute I saw Nia in the arcade. Even if there was no Carter, it would have been over, and I would have ended up with Nia. And she didn’t believe me. She was so angry and called me all kinds of names.” My mind travels back in time to when I discovered Nia had my son. All the fights we had, which I admit now, were my fault. “She wasn’t going to listen to anything I had to say. And then she flaunted that clown in my face—”
“Flaunted? She was at home,” he says in his daughter’s defense. “She was single and had every right to date, especially since you—”
“I told you that was over,” I say, cutting him off. The last thing I want to hear is how my wife should have dated someone else. “My plan was to break up with Scarlett and ask Nia for another chance, but that blew up in my face. Scarlett was on a work trip, and when I flew there to talk to her, she refused to see me. I was going to wait until she got home to break it off, but when I went to go see Carter, he wasn’t there, and Nia was waiting for her date. I felt like I had no other choice. I had already hit rock bottom when it came to her, but I knew if I had time and proximity, I could make her see reason. I took that chance, and I don’t regret marrying her. I loved her on our wedding day. I’ve always loved her. But I do regret how I went about it.”
“So, you wish you had blackmailed her better?”
“No! I wish he was never in the picture. I wish none of this had happened, and I wish my father wasn’t a bigot.” I sigh and look away from him. He’ll never understand, and I know he’s only defending his daughter. If someone had done this to Priya, I would not be as gracious as Nathanial is to me.
“It’s not just that,” Mr. Nash says. “And honestly, I don’t give a shit about you threatening me to get Nia to do what you want.” I gambled that if I threatened to have her father fired and sued for assault, she’d do what I want, and I was right. But I remain quiet. “You served her with a custody lawsuit.”
“I wouldn’t have done it.” There’s no scenario on this planet where I would take my kids from their mother. That would only hurt them. The lawsuit was only a tool to get me what I wanted.
“She didn’t know that, did she?” he asks. “You had no right to threaten her that way. Not after she went through a pregnancy alone and became a single mother. Then you come along years later and say you’re going to take him away? Do you have any idea how much she loves that boy? How much she went through dealing with your bully of a father and his thug lawyer? Do you know that for the first year of Carter’s life, she was worried about that same scenario? She had nightmares about you coming with your merry band of lawyers and taking him away. She was traumatized by what they did, and you came along and used her fears against her. No one deserves that. How would you feel if someone did that to Priya?”
I hang my head in shame. There’s not a thing I can say to refute his words. He’s right, and I knew all of that before I made the threat. I convinced myself it was okay since I would offer her an alternative to the custody suit immediately.
“The only thing I can say is that I wanted my family with me, and that was the only way that guaranteed that. She’s forgiven me, Mr. Nash.” He’s the only one still holding on to that baggage. His wife and I have a very good relationship. Sometimes she calls me just to say hello. The first time she did, I thought something had happened, but she said she was calling to say hi. We talked for a full fifteen minutes. She calls me every Wednesday at the same time, and I make sure I’m always available to talk. And she never calls to talk about Nia or the kids. She wants to hear and talk about me. I look forward to our chats now.
“She went to Ray first. He’s the first person she told about the pregnancy. Afterwards, she came to me and her mother. She was adamant that she wanted to keep it. Once she said that, I told her that we would support her no matter what.” I’ve never been told this version of Nia’s pregnancy, and I remain quiet, eager to hear more. “When she told us about you, and if my wife hadn’t talked me down, I would have stormed that building and—” He doesn’t finish. He flares his nostrils and looks away. “Anyway, after she showed us the text exchanges and the letter from that scumbag lawyer, I told her we didn’t need you. She had me, her mother and brother.”
His words shouldn’t make me angry, but they do. I’ll forever be grateful that Nia had such a strong support system, but I should have been there. I wish he had gone to the office and made a scene. Maybe word would have gotten back to me, and I would have been able to be there for her during her pregnancy. Maybe I wouldn’t have missed the first three years of my son’s life.
“Nothing would have kept me away if I had known.” The words pain me to say, but the fault lies with me. I should have sought her out and confronted her about those text messages. Mr. Nash puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Listen, I’ll never be on board with what you did, but I’m not going to dwell on it. If Nia can forgive you, I can too.”
I exhale in relief. I’ll take it. “Thank you.”
“And why the hell did you guys keep quiet about your relationship? The ironic thing is, I would have liked you if she had brought you home. Once I got over my shock about you being the Paradise behind Paradise Construction.”
“Really?” I ask, shocked by his admission. He tolerates me now, but I never imagined a scenario where we would have started off on a positive note.
“Yes, because I would have been able to tell that you cared about her. And if I had met you, that shit your father pulled wouldn’t have worked. I would have found you, and we would have fixed this. What I’m trying to say is, if you ever need anything, I’m here.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Then I smile for the first time since I got here and say, “Do you think you can like me now?”
“I’m working on it. If there’s one thing I can’t stand in this world, it’s an idiot. As far as I can see you’re not one,” he says.
“Thanks.” I stand a little straighter at the backhanded compliment.
“Sometimes you show a flash of personality, and you love my daughter and grandkids. I appreciate that about you. And you have balls, I’ll give you that much.” He chuckles when he says it. “Because only someone with balls of steel would do what you did and then show up the next day so you can take her and Carter home.”
“At that point, I had nowhere to go but up.” Nia hated me. Her entire family was against me. I couldn’t sink any lower. “Loving my wife and kids is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. They’re my everything.”
“I know they are.”
“Do you think you can stop inviting that clown to every holiday?” I ask. That’s bothered me for a long time, but I’ve never said anything. I never even brought it up to Nia because when it comes to talking about exes, she will win every single argument .
“What? I don’t invite him,” he says, waving me off.
“You do,” I push back.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You just asked him if he was joining us. You also invited him to stay last month for Thanksgiving, and you did the same thing last year. You invited him last Memorial and Labor Day.” He accepted the Labor Day invitation, and I remember wishing he’d choke on a hotdog.
“You’re crazy. I don’t—” He stops talking, and I bet he’s thinking back to every holiday that we celebrate here. Jelani is always around, even though he didn’t live next door at the time. “Oh,” he says. “I see what you mean.” He grimaces. “It’s just that I’ve known him since he was a kid, and he’s always been a staple here. He used to follow Ray around and challenge him to basketball games even though he was a little runt at the time.” He even laughs at the memory, but I don’t. I remain stoic. “Okay.” He raises both hands. “I get it. I won’t do it again.”
“Thank you.”
“And to answer your other question. If there was ever any other man who was primed and ready to take my place in this family, they would never find his body.”