Chapter 14 #2
Navy’s whole face changed before she could catch it. Her shoulders started moving while she remained seated, and she pointed toward the DJ booth like he had personally done her a favor.
“Okay, now he playing something,” she said, and I laughed as she mouthed the beginning of the verse under her breath.
I raised a brow and took a shot of Don Julio. “You was just judging that dude for dancing.”
She waved me off, still rocking to the beat. “That wasn’t dancing. He was fighting for his life.”
The alcohol had pulled something different out of her, something Marv probably got to see more than anybody else had lately, and for a few minutes we sat there talking about nothing important but just enough to keep the conversation going as I continued to study her.
It wasn’t forced, and I didn’t have to carry the conversation or pretend to be interested in some made-up shit just to keep her talking.
Navy was funny without trying too hard, and once she got comfortable, her mouth was slicker than I would’ve expected from the quiet nurse I remembered.
A man walking past the table slowed down long enough to speak to me, and Navy watched the brief exchange while I shook his hand and promised to return a call I had been ignoring for two days. The second he left; she tilted her head and looked at me with a small grin.
“So, you really are important.” I picked up my glass and took a drink before answering. “Who told you that?” She nodded toward the man disappearing into the crowd. “Everybody who walked past this table since I sat down.”
I glanced around the room as if I hadn’t noticed, even though I had. “Miami is small.” Navy smiled and took another sip. “That’s exactly why I’m glad I moved farther out. I got tired of feeling like I couldn’t go anywhere without running into somebody who knew somebody, even the grocery store.”
“Moved from where?” I asked, and I didn’t ask because I was trying to question her, but because she had left the sentence unfinished. She then shrugged. “The house I shared with my husband.” She said it plainly, then lifted the drink to her mouth again.
I let my eyes shoot down to her ring finger before looking back at her face. There wasn’t a tan line or an indentation, nothing that said a ring had recently been removed, but that didn’t mean shit. “Marv know you married?” I asked, and she nearly choked on her drink before setting her glass down.
“I’m separated,” she corrected me, wiping the corner of her mouth with the tip of her finger. “And yes, he knows. I’m not sneaking around on anybody.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
She gave me a look that said she heard it anyway, then leaned back when a waitress passed carrying a tray of shots above her head.
“Legally, I’m still married,” she explained once the woman was gone.
“But that’s it, we’re not together and we don’t live together.
As a matter of fact, we don’t do anything together. ”
The words came out faster than they needed to, as if she had repeated them enough times that they no longer required much thought.
I nodded and let her talk without interrupting.
“Sometimes shit just changes,” she continued, glancing toward the crowd before looking back at me.
“You wake up one day and realize the life you kept trying to hold together isn’t even yours anymore. ”
There was more behind that statement, but I didn’t reach for it. She would either hand it over or she wouldn’t.
“So you left?” I asked, and something in her expression changed before she gave a small nod.
“Yeah. About a month ago, I just…left.” Her eyes dropped to the table as she rolled the bottom of her glass between both palms. “I got an apartment, bought all new furniture, dishes, towels, everything. I didn’t take much with me, so I had to start completely over.
It was expensive as hell, but I needed it.
” She laughed quietly, though there wasn’t shit funny in what she had said.
“My couch took forever to come, and my bed came in a million pieces but it’s mine.
I come home, close my door, and nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do. ”
A month, I thought while she kept talking.
Marv had been shot a month ago and fifty thousand dollars had disappeared before he made it out of trauma, and Navy had been one of the last people close enough to his clothes to touch anything without raising suspicion.
Now she was sitting beside me talking about leaving a husband, getting an apartment, and replacing everything she owned within that same timeframe.
None of it was enough by itself because nurses made decent money, people saved, people used credit cards, and people got help.
However, the way her voice had changed when she mentioned the cost told me she knew exactly how much starting over should have taken from her.
Navy looked up and caught me studying her, and whatever comfort the drinks had given her started slipping away.
She blinked a few times and then reached for her glass even although it was nearly empty.
“I’m talking too much,” she said with a nervous laugh, pushing her chair back before I had a chance to answer.
“I need to use the restroom anyway.” She grabbed her purse from the back of the chair and stood up, pulling her dress down over her hips before stepping into the crowd.
I watched her make her way toward the hallway, waiting until she disappeared past the security guard.
Marv was still across the room exactly where he’d been a minute ago, with one hand wrapped around a bottle while talking to Ant them like he forgot all about us over here.
Whatever story they were telling had every nigga standing around them bent over hollering, completely oblivious to anything happening outside their little circle.
I watched them for another second before my attention drifted back toward the hallway Navy had disappeared down.
It would’ve been easy to sit back down and let the night play out easier to convince myself I was putting pieces together that didn’t belong but that wasn’t how I’d survived this long, cause coincidences got people buried.
I took another shit and then eased away from the table without saying a word to anybody.
The closer I got to the hallway, the more the energy of the club faded behind me.
The walls muffled the bass as a couple brushed past me arguing about whether they were leaving or staying for another hour.
Life kept moving like it always did, but my mind never left the conversation we’d just had.
Most muhfuckas would’ve heard a woman talking about escaping a bad marriage.
That’s all Marv would’ve heard because his interest wasn’t in her pockets, it was in her pussy.
While mine was focused on the fifty grand that disappeared while he was laid up in that hospital bed fighting to stay alive.
Nobody outside a handful of people even knew the money existed, and yet here she was describing a fresh start that somehow lined up a little too neatly with the timeline.
It wasn’t even about the money; it was the principle.
It still wasn’t proof cause proof mattered.
Accusing the wrong person got innocent people hurt, but ignoring what my instincts kept screaming had never made me any money either.
I stopped a few feet from the restrooms and folded my arms across my chest, giving myself another minute to think before doing something I couldn’t take back.
My eyes followed people coming and going through the hallway.
The closer I got to security, I realized it was Tron.
He gave me one look and shoot his head. “Damn Lev, what you about to do? I see the look all in your eyes. Don’t get me fired tonight man.”
I slightly cocked my head to the side and told him. “I never had to take no pussy, and nobody’s getting killed tonight, so you don’t have shit to worry about, but I’m going in this restroom.”
I didn’t even wait for him to respond; I walked in and as soon as I did and two females were just leaving from fixing their makeup in the mirror.
They didn’t bother to question me or frown.
I gave them that look and nodded my head toward the door only speaking with my eyes telling them to get the fuck out and they did just that.
I could hear Navy having a whole conversation.
“I don’t know Tasha,” she whispered. “I think I fucked up, or maybe it’s just my conscious.
I’m telling you, the cousin is crazy and it’s like we were talking but he was reading me like a book.
I’m done fucking drinking after tonight.
On top of that Rome keeps calling and I want him to leave me the fuck alone.
Wow, maybe I should’ve just stayed home tonight.
You think Lev read into my words enough to know? ”
I stood with my back causally against the wall listening to her sounding stressed and defeated while whoever she was talking to must’ve been trying to calm her down.
A few minutes later she hung up and the restroom stall that she was in finally opened and she stepped out with her purse hanging from one shoulder, with her attention on fixing the clasp as she secured it shut.
It wasn’t until she lifted her head that she noticed me.
She wore a puzzled look on her face as she grabbed her chest. “You okay?” she asked. “I thought everybody was still at the table.”
“I needed a minute.”
“So did I.” She laughed softly, running her hand down her hair. “That music got loud out there.”
People continued passing between us and the entrance to the club, but neither one of us moved. Navy searched my face like she was trying to figure out why something suddenly felt different. “What is it?” she finally asked.
I continued to glare into her eyes emotionless. “I got a couple questions.” I told her watching her breathing change although she tried to keep it cool.”