Chapter 4 #2
“May, please!” Mona giggled as she did a twirl in the red dress that I convinced her would be perfect for her and Tahmir’s first date.
She looked so good, and with any luck, this first date would be exactly what she needed to get her mind off Malik’s adulterous, decomposing ass.
After the story she told me, I had smoke for his corpse, his wife, the kids, and the fucking pastor.
The universe was working in our favor when I got sent to LA because if I had been in that church, we would have worked that whole building over.
Mona was with the shits, but she was too understanding—she gave niggas way too many chances before she popped off.
Sometimes she just needed a little push, and that’s usually where I would come in.
“Girl, it’s perfect! Don’t even start with me. You can deny it all you want, but you like him, bitch!”
“I do,” she said with a nod. “But if you ain’t the pot calling the kettle black, then I don’t know what is,” she teased, pinching me playfully as she hung the dress up on a hanger.
“What?” I frowned, swatting her hands away.
“Chase,” she cooed with a knowing smile while quickly changing back into her regular clothes. I turned and looked at her like she had an orange dick growing from her forehead.
“What about him?” I asked with a warning tone because I knew she wasn’t about to say what I thought she was.
“You gon’ sit up in my face and act like you don’t like him?”
“Girl!” I damn near choked. “I don’t! He’s my client!”
“Yeah, your client that you fired and let come back. I know you! You don’t give second chances like that.” I turned to give her another warning glance.
“It was for the job, and Oliver has been on my ass about him. I don’t fucking like him, MoMo!” I snapped with absolutely no animosity.
“Okay,” she chuckled over her shoulder as we finished up to head up to the register.
“I don’t!” I repeated with my arms crossed.
“Amaya, I didn’t say anything else,” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up. I couldn’t stand her ass, acting like she knew me.
“So not him, but who? When do you plan on putting yourself out there again?” she asked sincerely.
“Girl,” I sighed and rolled my eyes, not trying to have this conversation yet again. “You already know what I’m about to say, I don’t need the headache.”
“But you deserve to be happy,” she whined.
“I am happy, MoMo,” I argued.
“You know what I mean! May, you can’t let his punk ass run your life forever.
You don’t have to be ready now, but you have to at least start entertaining the idea of love.
” I stopped and stared at her blankly. My girl wasn’t male centered, but she kept a nigga around.
She was chasing that happily-ever-after, and I prayed that she found it, but I was realistic enough to know that was just a dream.
I only had to bump my head once before I got the fuck out of dodge.
“I’m not saying never, MoMo… I’m just saying it would take someone real special for me to even consider dating right now.”
“I can accept that,” she said with a huge smile.
“As long as you’re open to it when it comes.
Stop running from it.” I rolled my eyes and laughed at her, knowing that my Prince Charming was not lurking around the next corner.
The pickings were slim, and bitches loved to scream about how niggas weren’t shit, never considering that they may be the problem—it was me, I was bitches.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in love, I just knew that statistically speaking, I would never find a man who could love me like I needed, fuck me the way I craved, and not manage to be a complete piece of shit in the process.
We finished everything up with dinner, finally parting ways just as the sun went down.
Once I got home, showered, and comfortable, I pulled out my laptop and did the research that I should have done from day one.
First, I pulled up Chase’s social media accounts…
not too much to see there. His pages were most likely run by someone else because they seemed very polished, very professional, very boring.
He wasn’t a flashy man by any means, and his interviews told a story of humble beginnings and a lowkey lifestyle.
I went a little deeper, finding a few newspaper, magazine, and online articles. I damn near dropped the laptop when I stumbled across one. He was lying in a bathtub, Pac-esque with nothing but a football covering up his nether regions… and the football looked… bigger than a normal one.
My God, today! This stupid ass nigga knows he’s fine!
I quickly slammed the laptop shut like someone else was in the room with me, looked around, then opened it back up.
Once my eyes had their fill, I bookmarked the tab and searched up any and everything I could about him and Chanel’s relationship.
Midway through my third deep dive, my phone rang from an unknown number. Without thinking, I picked up.
“Amaya Lewis speaking,” I said like it wasn’t well past business hours. With my career, business hours were nonexistent, because my needy ass clients had no issue with calling me any time of night.
“Angel Cakes! You answered! Hey, baby.” My blood ran cold as I froze completely. My brain told me to hang up the fucking phone, but my body couldn’t move.
“I-…” My voice fell off before he could hear the tremble in my words.
“Baby?” He paused. “You know what? You don’t have to say anything, just listen.
You know how sorry I am for how shit went down, right?
You have to know that!” This delusional nigga continued on like he actually had a chance of getting back with me while I sat there in shock and continued to silently scream at myself to just end the call.
“Angel Baby,” he continued on, as if we were having a normal conversation. “I know you heard the news… it wasn’t even mine! We did all that for nothing,” he said with a chuckle.
“That still doesn’t excuse all the other shit you did… or what happened after,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, I know, but I was being falsely accused of something! That should get me points for something, right?”
“Points?!” I snapped, my voice catching up to me. “Nigga, you lost your fu—”
“Watch your mouth, Angel Baby,” he said in a sweet but extremely menacing tone.
Just like that, I reverted to the scary bitch that I only became around him.
How I managed to stay in a relationship with that man for five years was a wonder, even to me.
He didn’t like loud women, or women who expressed themselves, or were independent or smart.
I dimmed so much of my light for that man, and I would be single forever before I dealt with something like that again.
“P-Please stop calling me… and my family. It’s over Malcom,” I mumbled and hung up the phone, quickly blocking his number and silencing it.
I had done so well in ignoring him, only to have that ruined by one careless moment.
Tonight was the first time I had spoken to him since I left two years ago, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t force away the panic that coursed through me.
Before I met that man, I was just a normal girl. One who still believed in love, happily ever afters, and all that other shit. Five years, an engagement and a messy breakup had me looking at every man in the vicinity with suspicion. I was off that, and knew I would be for the foreseeable future.
“I’m fine,” I said to no one in particular. “I’m okay. I’m fine,” I repeated as I wiped the tears that threatened to fall from my eyes. With my high for the day completely blown, I finally closed my laptop and drug myself to my room where I could fight sleep until it won the battle.