Chapter 28 #2
“Dammit!” Adam bellowed, trying to figure out how he’d screwed things up so quickly, even though that wasn’t his intention. He’d let his anger at his father permeate him, and when he’d turned to Janae to ask her to tell him that she was okay, she’d thought he was about to defend his father.
There wasn’t a chance in hell of that then or now.
“What the hell have you done, old man?”
His father waived his hand, dismissing the palpable loss in the room without Janae’s beautiful presence.
“You’re better off without her. Did you hear what she said to me?”
“And you deserved every bit of it and more.”
His father’s jaw dropped.
“You have gaslit me my entire life, and I’ve allowed you to do it. But I’ll be damned if I let you cost me the only thing I want.”
“You’d better—”
“No, Dad,” Adam interrupted. “You’d better listen for once or this may be the last thing you ever hear me say to you.”
His father’s body was rigid in that bed, his eyes glued on Adam.
“I never wanted to play basketball. But you wouldn’t let me quit and I let you rule my life well beyond the time that you should have because you were my father and I love you.
But the only thing you did was teach me that I wasn’t enough.
That my voice wasn’t enough. And I let that poison every facet of my life.
“My self-esteem, my view of myself as a man, my career, and my relationship, all of it was poisoned by the hidden belief that I would never measure up to your expectations of me. Well, you know what, Dad? I love me now. I love who I am, I love what I do, and I love that woman who used her professional connections to make sure your grouchy self was taken care of. I don’t care anymore if I’m not enough in your life.
I’m enough for me. And if I’m lucky, and I can make things right with that brilliant woman who just left here, hopefully I’ll be enough for her too. ”
He pulled his hands through his locs and looked over at his mother, whose eyes were shimmering with tears.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” He walked over to her and kissed her on her weathered cheek. “I gotta go.”
His mother’s trembling smile was like a fist around his heart. He didn’t think he could take her disappointment too.
“You go find that sweet girl and you tell her the next time she lays eyes on Grady, he will have an apology for her.”
He glanced over to see panic flash across his father’s face. Good, if anyone deserved his sweet mother’s wrath, it was Grady Henderson. And apparently, he was going to get it on full blast.
He left the room, running down to the main entrance and seeing the same security officer sitting at the front desk who was there when he’d brought Janae dinner.
“My man, did you happen to see Janae Sanders pass through here?”
“Yeah,” the man replied. “She didn’t even respond when I called out to her. She just tore outta here and headed toward the parking lot.”
“Thanks,” Adam said as he walked toward the parking lot, hoping he could catch her before she made it out. But as he stepped through the automatic main doors, he saw her car drive past him, and right through the front gates before he could step off the curb.
He was too late.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Adam didn’t bother to turn his head to see who was giving him shit. He knew from the growly voice and the particularly annoying way his door was being slammed that it was none other than his bear of a friend, Michael.
“If you came here to give me crap, you can drop my keys on the coffee table and get out.”
Michael’s footsteps didn’t retreat in the slightest. Instead, they continued to travel across Adam’s floor until Michael plopped himself down at the opposite end of the couch.
“When I was acting the ass with the woman I loved, I seem to remember you berating me on the phone and then rolling up to my house, setting my younger and slightly spoiled sister straight.”
Michael’s memory was spot-on. Adam had done all those things. Still, that didn’t mean he was in the mood for Michael to be in his face right now.
“Yes, but you were at fault then.” Adam’s reply made Michael chuckle.
“Bullshit.” Although said in jest, it was clear Michael was serious. “If you weren’t at fault, you wouldn’t be sitting here in the quiet staring at the ceiling trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Also, your woman is at my house crying her eyes out with my woman and Cree.”
Adam groaned. The last thing he needed was Cree and Vanessa on his case.
Cree, he could handle. Deep down with all her teasing, she was a softy at heart.
But Vanessa, she was another matter. Elegant, poised, always appearing in control, she looked like she could plot your destruction in a matter of seconds.
They’d been cool since she’d arrived in Monroe Hills a few months back, and he certainly didn’t want to change that.
“I guess that means they were having a bashing session in my honor, huh?”
Michael shrugged and repositioned himself on the sofa so he was sitting to the side, facing Adam. “I wouldn’t know. As soon as I walked in the house and three sets of eyes landed on me I got the fuck outta Dodge and came over here.”
“Man, you’re the town sheriff.” Adam’s wry laughter made Michael shift uncomfortably on the sofa cushion. “You carry a gun and a badge and you’re afraid of three women commiserating in your house?”
Without hesitation, Michael nodded. “I haven’t stayed safe working in law enforcement all these years being stupid. I know how to assess a situation and plan accordingly. That was a fight I couldn’t win, so I wasn’t trying to say or do shit that would put me on their radar.”
Adam couldn’t blame him. As lovely as all three of those women were, they owned any room they entered.
“Seriously, man,” Michael continued. “What happened? I would like to go back to my house and make love to my woman at some point tonight, and if I’m cut off because of your bullshit, I’m not gonna be happy. Tell me what’s up so we can figure this out.”
Adam took a deep breath, realizing his friend wasn’t about to cut him any slack. In all fairness, he hadn’t been exactly gracious when he’d lectured Michael on the mess he’d made of his relationship with Vanessa when they were having issues. Turnabout was definitely fair play.
“I’m only gonna say this once. You might as well get Derrick over here too so I can tell you both at the same time.”
Michael looked down at his Apple Watch and counted aloud. “Five, four, three, two, one.” He lifted his eyes and pointed to the door as Derrick walked in on cue with a six-pack in one hand and a bag from Jersey Mike’s.
“Looks like I got here right on time.” Derrick closed the door and made his way over to the living room. He placed the bag and the beer on the coffee table before looking at his friends. “As sad as you’re looking in the face, Adam, you could use hoagies and beer.”
Derrick passed out the food and all three men tore into their sandwiches. Adam knew this was his friends’ way of letting him get his bearings before he started this sad tale. That’s what he always loved about this crew, they often anticipated one another’s needs without having to be asked.
Once he finished half his sandwich and washed the salty deli meat down with half of his beer, he felt relaxed enough to tell his boys what happened.
“I fucked up.”
His friends looked at him, both channeling compassion and snark in equal parts.
“We kinda figured that part out,” Derrick said. “The question is, how?”
Refusing to let Derrick’s tendency to be a smart-ass mess with the mellow sensation the food and the beer were gifting him with, he elaborated.
He told them about how upset Janae was when he’d started acting the fool because of what her son had said to him about her getting back together with her ex. And then how she’d put that aside and held him and his mother down while his dad was in surgery and recovery.
He stopped, taking a deep breath before he told them about his toxic-ass father’s mouth and how he’d been so damn mad about what he’d said to Janae, that he’d called her name to make sure she was all right, but she’d thought Adam’s anger was directed at her instead.
“Damn.” Derrick winced as he spoke. “She didn’t even give you a chance to explain?”
“She wouldn’t have,” Adam and Michael answered in unison.
Michael narrowed his eyes as he stared at Adam.
“If you knew that, then why did you let things go down the way they did?”
Michael’s question lingered in the air, pulling Derrick’s attention as he looked between them. “What are y’all talking about?”
Michael nodded, deferring to Adam to answer Derrick’s question.
“Her ex was a manipulative asshole that did Janae dirty in the worst way.”
As mad as Adam was that Michael knew such intimate things about his woman, part of him was relieved that she’d had someone like him to protect her and her secrets all these years. The fact that he’d never mentioned this to either Adam or Derrick was proof Michael had protected Janae.
“Janae has always had to fight,” Adam continued. “That hard shell isn’t there for decoration. It’s there because between her mother always trying to cut her down for her weight, and Marq being a controlling douche, they didn’t help those defensive tendencies go away.”
Adam watched his friend’s jaw tighten, a clear sign that Michael wanted to hit something or someone for hurting someone he cared about.
“Being able to anticipate harm before it happens,” Michael said, “is one of the best ways to keep yourself safe. It worked for me during those years I spent as a cop in Philly, and it’s the only way Janae was able to keep her heart and her confidence intact.”
“So her old red flags went up when you didn’t immediately go apeshit on your dad?”
Adam quietly nodded in response to Derrick’s revelation.
Derrick’s jaw tightened as he asked, “Please tell me you didn’t let your father get away with how he spoke to Janae?”
Derrick’s smooth features were marred by tightly set lips and a furrowed brow as he waited on Adam’s reply.
Derrick was fun and lighthearted most of the time. But he didn’t play about the people he cared about, and that included Janae.
“Of course, I didn’t.” Adam’s reply received a hearty nod from both his friends. “She would’ve been witness to it if she hadn’t run away before I did.”
Adam rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, hoping to get rid of some of the nervous energy coursing through him.
“Have you tried to talk to her?” Derrick’s gaze held a spark of hope, but Michael’s impassive expression didn’t seem to hold such illusions.
“I’ve tried calling her several times, and I went to her house. She wouldn’t come to the door. Just left me out there for over an hour. She’s cut off all lines of communication.”
He groaned, leaning back on his couch, trying to stop his mind from racing and his heart from aching.
“I gotta find a way to straighten this shit out.”
“You damn sure better,” Michael encouraged.
Adam grabbed another beer, twisting the top off and throwing the cap into the shopping bag with a little more force than necessary.
“Not helping, Mike.” He took a long swig from his bottleneck and sighed heavily after swallowing. “Tell me how to fix it. She won’t talk to me. If I keep showing up where she doesn’t want me, she might be calling you to lock me up.”
Derrick laughed. “Nah, Janae would handle you herself before she ever called anyone else, the law included.”
Adam couldn’t help but laugh at that. There wasn’t a single bit of exaggeration in Derrick’s statement.
“What am I gonna do, y’all?” Adam could see his plea fell on compassionate hearts as he watched pity fill his friends’ respective faces. “Janae left that hospital room madder than the time I beat her on that AP chem class final.”
“Daaaaammmn.” Derrick blew out a long whistle. “I remember that. She bitched to Cree for two weeks behind that.”
She hadn’t said anything to him and spent most of their coexistence in school ignoring him. Up until that point, her not noticing him hadn’t felt intentional. After that test, he’d definitely detected a chill in the air whenever they were in class together.
“How do I fix this and get my woman back?”
Derrick smiled, rubbing his hands together like some sort of evil genius coming up with a master plan.
“I think I got something.”
Adam glared at Derrick.
“I’m afraid to ask what it is. Am I gonna like it?”
Derrick shook his head. “Probably not. I think it’ll win you back your woman, though.”
“Don’t worry,” Michael said before Adam could go into full-blown panic mode. “Whatever Derrick is about to get you into, we’ll both be right beside you.”
Hearing Michael say that was a relief. His shoulders and chest felt lighter at the immediate mention of his friends’ aid.
Because whenever Derrick got that devilish gleam in his eye, it meant only one thing.
He was about to get them in some shit that would be super fun, but possibly dangerous or humiliating as hell.