Chapter 11 #3
“Okay, don’t be shy… you took your anxiety meds?”
“Yes… I’ll do my best to not be so shy.”
“I have no doubt you’ll find the right friends… Thank you for calling to check in, Ryan.”
“No problem dad… I gotta go.”
“Aight, be safe.”
We hung up, and a text was sent minutes later. I smirked at my phone, trying not to think the worst.
He was going to be fine. Don’t trip.
Lauren’s place fell back into that quiet, white-velvet stillness.
An electronic device started vibrating somewhere in the condo.
Again.
And again.
And again.
My eyes lock onto the kitchen island. An iPad was lying face up on the marble counter, and its screen kept lighting up white over and over.
“What do we have here?”
The notifications were stacked on top of each other like the device had been vibrating itself across the counter all night trying to get someone's attention.
Unknown numbers, spoofed burner digits, messages crowding the lock screen in a blur that told me everything I needed to know about what kind of situation my wife had been sitting in the middle of while I was in Atlanta minding my business.
I picked up the device and tried our anniversary. It didn’t go through.
“That’s rude.”
Then I tried my birthday, and it didn’t work.
“She finna hurt my feelings.”
I tried her birthday, and sure enough the screen unlocked. I shook my head because that was a conversation for another day.
The messages were open.
I put the device face down on the counter and opened the cabinet closest to me because I ain’t eat all day.
This was gonna require my full attention and I couldn’t give it on an empty stomach.
The first cabinet had glasses and a collection of mugs that Lauren had with no organization whatsoever.
I moved down the counter and tried the one above the stove, and I found a box of organic popcorn pushed to the back behind a container of pink himalayan sea salt.
I held the popcorn up and looked at it for a moment.
"Damn, no regular chips?" I kept looking, opening and closing cabinets. This woman ate like she was being filmed for a wellness documentary that nobody had asked for.
I closed the refrigerator, grabbed a water and found a good seat on the couch.
I rubbed my socked feet together and started scrolling. The first thing that came up was a video thumbnail. I pressed play with my free hand.
A bearded man was sitting in what looked like a parking garage filming himself cry into a phone camera like he was auditioning for something.
“Babe, I swear we can talk this out. You are the air that I breathe. BABY PLEASE!” His voice was cracking so bad, I snickered.
His shoulders bounced as he covered his face while he continued to cry.
I watched the whole thing with my hand in the popcorn bag.
“Damnnn, that shit was lame as fuck. Nigga can’t even cry right.”
Then I watched it again.
“One mo’ time.”
I pressed play a third time and zoomed in. This man was in a whole parking garage with the ring light on and everything like he had set up intentionally.
“Oh, give me a damn break. This nigga was as lame as they come. Just cheesy as hell.”
I was crying myself by the end of it but for an entirely different reason. I was trying not to laugh too loud and get her attention.
“You tried it bitch ass nigga.”
I sat back and looked at this man for a long moment.
“Oh, she gotta a type. I thought I was special.”
Apparently she ain’t stray too far from the original. This man looked like my twin, but the off-brand version.
"Got him out here crying on video." I shook my head and grabbed another handful of popcorn. "Oh she got this man whooped. And then he sent it to her? Nigga you sent it to her?" I had to set the bowl down. "That's the saddest thing I've seen since Lauren tried to load a gun."
And Lord knows that was saying something.
She had almost shot me that night. Not on purpose, or at least I was going to keep telling myself that, but she had been fumbling with the thing I had given her for protection and I had walked around the corner at the exact wrong moment and she damn near took me out of here.
Then had the nerve to get mad at me for giving her the gun in the first place, as if I was the one who had been pointing it in the wrong direction.
I laughed to myself just thinking about it because Lauren was a lot of things but she was not for the streets and never had been.
I finished what was left in the bag, and kept scrolling.
I sent his name and number to myself, along with the video.
He had sent paragraph after paragraph, each one more desperate than the last. It was entertaining in a way.
I finished the popcorn and read every single word this man had typed to my wife.
Then I got to the other messages, but these were recent.
Her messages started calm enough.
Unknown: You fuck my man?
Unknown: Count yo days bitch. I know where you work.
Unknown: He’s mine and if I gotta take you out, so be it. I’m finna light you up fat bitch.
“Who she calling fat,” I snapped, sitting up. She was talking about Lauren in a way that made the temperature in the room change, and by the time I reached the bottom of the thread she had said that she was on her way to the building.
I checked the time.
The entertainment was over.
I went back through Lauren's camera roll while I was thinking through the exit. She had pictures in there I had no business seeing and a few that I was going to need copies of, so I held my phone up and snapped them myself without a single ounce of guilt about it.
“My wife. My pictures.”
I finished the last of her popcorn, reached into my pocket, and pulled out enough bills to cover it before tucking the cash into her purse. Then I walked to the room, and clapped my hands to get her attention.
"Laurie." I looked at her still moving through the closet like we had all the time in the world. "We gotta go, babe."
She turned around with a hanger in her hand.
"I'm not done —"
"Lauren, the bag you have is enough. We can replace everything else. We need to move."
She looked at me for one long second and then set the hanger down without another word.
I grabbed the suitcase and purse before following her out the building.
Minutes later we were back in the parking deck. I could see her hands weren't completely steady when she unlocked the car. She slid into the driver's seat and I took the passenger side.
She pulled out of the deck and hit the Baltimore streets.
"Why are we rushing?" she asked with her eyes on the road.
"Because his girl is coming after you."
She looked at me so long, I had to gesture back toward the windshield. “Eyes on the road sweet cheeks.”
"His fiancée?" Her voice went up a full octave. "How do you even know that and what do you mean what —"
"You were out here messing with an engaged man, Lauren D’Amore." I shook my head slowly. "Oh you nasty. I didn't know you had it in you. I like it that shit."
"Bane, I didn't know he was —"
"Drive the car."
She faced forward and pressed the gas a little harder than necessary, her eyes darting to the mirrors every few seconds, paranoia already settling into her shoulders.
"Why do you think she coming after me, I gave him back to her, I don't even want him anymor—"
"It don't work like that, baby."
"What do you mean it don't work like —"
I caught the headlights in the side mirror before she finished the sentence. A beat up sedan was two blocks back, moving toward us fast.
"She's behind us."
Lauren checked the rearview and her whole body went rigid. "Oh shit, she got a gun, Bane she got a GUN —"
"Princess." My voice dropped all the way down. "Drive. Keep your eyes on the road and drive the car right now."
"She is literally pointing a —"
"Laurie." I put my hand on her thigh. "I got you. Drive."
She grabbed the wheel with both hands and pressed the gas, weaving through the traffic.
I rolled my window down slow and easy, watching the car get closer.
"Was his dick even worth all this though?" I asked, genuinely curious. "Like between me and him, who was better at —"
"BANE." She smacked my arm without taking her eyes off the road.
"What? I can't ask a question?"
"Not right now, oh my God, not RIGHT NOW —"
"It's a simple question, Princess, I just want some context for the situation I'm currently in —"
"Shut up, oh my God, SHUT UP —"
"Aight, aight." I held my hands up in surrender for about three full seconds before I opened my mouth again. "But real quick —"
"I will pull this car over —"
"No you won't, she's behind us."
Lauren made a sound that I was fairly certain had never been made by a human being before, something between a scream and a prayer and a threat. She swerved around a slow moving cab, trying not to crash with another car.
"Not right now, baby," she finally said through her teeth, clipped and final.
I turned and looked at her.
"Oop." I let that sit for exactly one second. "Baby."
She cut her eyes at me so fast I felt it before I saw it. She looked so furious and so beautiful. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
"Bane, I swear to God —"
"I heard you." I settled back into my seat, checked the mirror, and opened her glove compartment. I checked the chamber and rested the gun back on my thigh. "Drive the car, baby."
I was smiling and she knew it. That made her press the gas even harder, which honestly was what I needed her to do anyway.
I turned in my seat, tilting my head out the window. The woman behind us was waving her gun.
"Let’s see how much you love this nigga."
“Oh my God."
"Eyes on the road, Lauren."
The beat-up sedan lunged forward, closing the gap in a split second, nearly clipping Laren’s rear quarter panel as she swung the wheel.
“She hit yo’ car, I’m killing her rude ass.”
"Bane!" She was swerving erratically to block the intersection ahead of us.