Chapter 2
DUKE
“Yeah, that’s good. Can you put a couple more of them baby breaths in there for me?” I asked the florist before fishing my ringing phone from my pocket.
For the third time today, I was getting a blocked call. Because I didn’t do those, I sent whoever to voice mail. Again. With a sigh, I leaned on the counter and brushed my hand down the top of my head.
I was at the flower shop, grabbing NeNe two dozen of yellow roses.
Earlier this afternoon, she hit me up after her meeting, letting me know she’d secured another contract.
I was proud of her. Damn proud of her. So, right after I got off, I hit Total Wine, grabbed a bottle of red, and stopped at the florist shop.
I wanted her to know how proud I was of her.
Back in the day, a couple of years ago, I would have left it at ‘congratulations, I’m proud of you’. But these days, more was required.
Mahogany and I met when we were teenagers.
I was sixteen—she was fifteen. We had the whole puppy love thing going on until she ended up pregnant and things took a massive turn.
I grew up, the puppy love faded, and I ended up ruining us by cheating one too many times.
Fast forward damn near twenty years later, I felt us going in separate directions.
Every single day, through every little touch…
I could literally feel it. Mahogany wasn’t my Mahogany anymore.
Not the one I married. For damn sure wasn’t the one I met.
She was a little distant. Tensed up every time I touched her.
The kisses weren’t really kisses. They were passionless.
Lifeless . Fucked me up every time I kissed her, and her lips were cold.
Not cold in the sense of feeling but… ‘feeling’.
They were tight and hadn’t conveyed the emotion of ‘I love you’ in years.
She’d been giving me ‘here nigga’ kisses for the past five, six years and that shit ate at me viciously.
“Perfect,” I told the florist before patting around my pockets for my wallet. “How much I owe you?”
She gave me the total with a smile. “Sixty-five.”
Nodding, I passed her my card and thanked her.
“What’s the occasion?” She asked, putting the payment through.
“Ain’t one, really. My wife secured a new client today so I’m surprising her with a little something.”
“Aw, that’s nice. I’m sure she’s going to love them. What a lucky, lucky lady,” she complimented, completing the transaction.
I just smiled, thanked her again, grabbed the roses, and walked out.
Every time someone called Mahogany a lucky lady, I felt guilty.
She wasn’t the lucky one; I was. For eighteen years straight, she’d loved me unapologetically and unconditionally regardless of all the bullshit I’d put her through.
It took me a minute to get here… to see her for the blessing that she was.
Sometimes, these days especially, I felt like I might’ve been too late.
A nigga was clawing, trying to reach back for the Mahogany she was before I hurt her.
A couple of years back, I would have validated the bullshit I was on by claiming I was a young nigga and just had some growing up to do.
But that was just an excuse. The way I treated NeNe had nothing to do with being young.
I just didn’t give a fuck and well… I was comfortable.
Knew that just because she was loyal to me by default, I could mess up and fix it all within the same week.
Well, shit had shifted. Started to shift that last time I was caught cheating.
She didn’t get mad enough. In fact, she didn’t get mad at all.
She caught me texting another woman. I lied, of course.
Told her it was my sister I was telling I missed her.
Instead of questioning the phone number at the top of the phone, she just stared at me unblinkingly, nodded, said ‘oh, okay’, and carried on with the rest of her day.
The way she handled it scared me straight.
I was used to tears, yelling, and arguing.
Not quiet. Chaos. To me, that was the calm before the storm.
The storm being her uprooting our whole lives by filing for divorce.
I didn’t want that. Probably couldn’t tell by the way I treated her, but I didn’t.
It was greed… lust. My flesh was weak. That was it.
Nothing more, nothing less. So, I stopped.
Looked at my wife… my kids… and decided nothing was more important than them. Especially not a piece of pussy.
That was two years ago and every day since, she’d been slipping.
The fucked-up part about her slipping at this point in our marriage was that I stopped.
Calmed down. Devoted every single hour I wasn’t working to her and the children.
Might not have showed up the way she wanted me to, but I was showing up.
And a lot better than I did in the past. Felt like all of the effort I was putting in, was for nothing though.
Every day, I woke up, hoping and praying that today would be the day that I felt her drawing closer to me again instead of further. So far I hadn’t met that day yet.
Ten minutes later, I was pulling into the driveway, nervous as hell. All I wanted when I walked into the crib was to feel something genuine. A real smile. A hug filled with love. Something other than the forceful shit she’d been giving me these past couple of years.
After grabbing the flowers, her wine, and my phone I got out. Before I could put the key in the door, I heard my baby girl running up to greet me. If I couldn’t count on love from my wife, I could for sure count on it from my kids.
“Daddy!” Yelled my youngest baby, Sparkle. Before she could run and jump into my arms I put a finger over my lips to shush her and showed her the flowers.
With wide eyes, she giggled and put her hand over her mouth. “For mommy?”
“For mommy. She had a good day at work,” I whispered, before bending to give her a one armed hug. “Where is she?”
Sparkle jumped up and down, a fit of giggles. “Upstairs! Upstairs!”
Just as expected, as soon as I came out of my shoes and headed upstairs, she was on my tail.
I loved her excitement. Showed me that I was leading by example, showing her how a woman should be treated.
Damn near every day I thanked God for giving me the opportunity to make shit right with my wife, for them—my kids.
When I made it to the top of the stairs, the soft sound of India Arie playing from the speakers spilled into the hallway. She was bathing. Always bathed to some India, Erykah, or Jazmine.
“Mommy is taking a bath, Spark’,” I told Sparkle before we entered the room.
She pouted. “But I wanted to see her get her surprise.”
“Next time, okay?”
I could have waited for Mahogany to get out of the tub to give her the roses.
That’s what Sparkle wanted me to do. But I needed to see her.
Despite the tension, I missed my wife every time I was at work.
I looked forward to seeing and feeling her, regardless of if her face would be frowning, or she would be distant.
She was my other half; I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t see her beautiful face within the first few minutes of being in the crib.
“Okay, daddy,” Sparkle continued to pout.
Because she was my baby, I kneeled and pulled one single rose from the bouquet. “And for my princess.”
She excitedly jumped up and down again, with a smile spread wide across her pretty little face. “Thank you daddy! Thank you.” She put the rose up to her nose, closed her eyes, and inhaled with a smile. “Mmmh.”
I lightly laughed, kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her.
“I love you too, daddy,” she said before running off downstairs to show her sisters. “Honesty! Aubry!”
I shook my head, wishing I would’ve gotten them roses too. But today wasn’t about the princesses; it was about the queen.
Upon entering the room, I sat my phone and the bottle of wine on the dresser and crept towards the bathroom.
Lightly, I pushed the cracked door opened and walked inside.
Her eyes were closed so she didn’t notice me.
For a moment, I just stood there watching her.
She was absolutely breathtaking. The most beautiful woman in the world to me.
The way the plethora of bubbles sat against her Hershey Kiss, chocolate skin.
The way her natural hair sat, dampened, resting on her slender shoulders.
Full, pouty lips moving, elegantly as she mouthed the words to India’s, The Truth, subtly swaying her head from side-to-side. I really was the lucky one.
Kneeling at the tub, I softly ran my fingers along the side of her face, startling her.
She gasped. “Oh God, you scared the hell out of me, D!”
“My bad,” I said with a laugh before leaning forward to kiss her on the same cheek I’d caressed. “I was on my slow creep, trying not to.”
“That’s exactly how to scare somebody… creeping,” she said with a light giggle.
A giggle. Might’ve been because the glass of red wine, she went for, sitting on the bathtub tray-table. Regardless of the reason, I got a giggle. A real one.
I reached over for her phone and lowered the volume on it before pulling the roses from behind my back. “Congratulations, NeNe.”
Her jaw dropped and she sat up to wrap her arms around my neck with a hug.
Think I gave a fuck about the water dripping from them?
Shit no. I wrapped my arms tighter around her, embracing her in a way I hadn’t in a minute.
Today her hug was filled with something other than ‘here nigga’.
I could feel the appreciation. However, appreciation, when I did something nice, was always felt.
It was love I was looking for. But because I got a giggle and a hug I could feel, I was grateful.
Pulling away a little, I kissed her on the lips. “Twenty-three instead of twenty-four because I had to bribe the little one.”