Chapter 13 #2
Her eyes search my face, and I can see her trying to place that without making it worse than she can handle. “Okay. Wait, what? That doesn’t even make sense. Private.”
“Private,” I say. “I love you, but I can’t give you the bedroom parts of my life if you catch my drift.”
That hurts her. I know it does, and I fucking hate it.
But I just can’t give her those details like that.
“What I will tell you,” I continue, “is that he signed paperwork. An NDA. He knew there were boundaries. He knew discretion mattered.”
Lizzie stares at me, and since she got here, this is the first time she looks less confused than hurt. “Bedroom parts of your life,” she says, still trying to process what’s happening. “So what are you saying? You’re fucking him? Is he playing me to get to you?”
“In all honesty, I don’t know what all of it is yet.”
Her mouth opens, but my phone lights up on the table before she can say anything.
Driveway motion detected.
I look at the alert.
Then at Lizzie.
Nobody should be in my driveway.
The second alert comes through before I touch the screen.
Vehicle detected.
Lizzie looks at my phone. “Are you expecting somebody?”
“No.”
I open the camera feed.
Where the fuck is Ashton Kutcher at this point because why the fuck is Bryce’s big broad-shouldered black ass in my driveway?
As she stands next to me, she asks the million-dollar question. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“That’s what I need to know. Did you tell him you were coming here?”
“Hell no. You said we needed to talk, why the hell would I tell him?” Lizzie has always been a loyal friend over the past few decades.
Always honest with me about everything. I’ve never had to question where she and I stood.
I’m not about to start now because Bryce decided to create some unnecessary bullshit.
The doorbell rings. And before I can even make it to the door, the knocking starts. It’s obvious I’m not moving fast enough because then the banging starts and the hollering of my name. “Desiree, open the damn door.”
I move in front of her before I think about it. “Lizzie,” Bryce calls from the other side. “I know you’re in there. I need to talk to you.”
Lizzie steps back like the door itself said her name.
“Desi.”
“No, Lizzie.”
“How did he even know I was here?”
“Hopefully, we’re about to find out.”
The doorbell rings again, and this time he knocks right after it, harder.
“Lizzie, come on. Open the fucking door.”
How the hell is he going to tell someone else to open my shit? This negro really has some damn nerve.
I hit the speaker on the camera instead of opening the door. “Get the fuck off my porch, Bryce.”
He looks directly into the lens. His shirt is still pressed, but his face is tense now, nostrils flared, all that pretty-boy charm starting to look cheap and desperate. With the way his eyes move, I can tell he’s trying to calculate how much I’ve told her.
He looks past the camera like he can see through the door, “Lizzie, I need you to hear me out.”
“You need to leave,” I say.
“Shut the fuck up. I’m not leaving until I talk to her.”
I step closer to the door, my hand still on the phone. “Bitch, you're on my porch. Watch you’re fucking mouth. You don’t get to decide what happens at my damn house. You fucking asshole.”
Lizzie steps closer, the hunter-green fabric moving over her hips. “How did you even know I was here? Did you fucking follow me?”
“Lizzie,” he says, softer now, reaching for whatever version of Fredrick he thinks still works. “Baby, this is not what it looks like.”
Baby.
At my fucking doorstep.
At my house after lying to her for months.
I open my mouth, but headlights sweep across the front windows before I can say anything else. Two long beams of white light cut through the sheer curtains, blinding the hallway.
Lizzie looks at me. “Desi, who the hell is that?”
“I have no clue.”
I already have Bryce standing at my door, and now another car pulls up. What the hell is going on?
I switch the view from the doorbell security to the driveway camera and I’m completely over tonight’s bullshit. A man steps out of the driver seat, walks over to the passenger side to open the door, and I’ll be damned. Out steps Jetta.
She has on fitted stonewashed blue jeans that make her ass look juicier than usual, an off-the-shoulder blouse, some ankle-strap heels, and that little pleased smile women wear when they think the man beside them is about to take them somewhere worth getting dressed up for.
They both walk toward the front door where Bryce is still standing, and all I can do is watch the camera feed like my brain needs permission to understand what my eyes already know.
Jetta’s smiling with absolutely no idea the shit show she’s about to walk into.
The man beside her says something I can’t hear through the camera, and she laughs like she’s still on a date. Like she is walking up to somebody’s pretty house before dinner and not straight into the middle of the ugliest shit these men could have dragged to my doorstep.
Lizzie’s still next to me, looking at the feed over my shoulder. “Is that Jetta?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“With who?”
I stare at the man on the screen as he turns slightly toward Bryce.
The shape of his face. The clean cut. The way he holds himself just waiting for somebody else to speak first so he can decide which version of himself to bring forward.
This has got to be the sickest joke anyone could play on me.
What in the entire fuck is Linden doing with Jetta?
Bryce steps away from the door just enough to let them come closer, and that’s the moment I see it. Not surprise. No, he looks at Linden like he’s seeing a teammate who arrived right on schedule.
Lizzie sees it too.
“Oh my God,” she says under her breath.
I don’t answer because my hand is already on the lock.
“Desi,” she says.
“No.”
I open the door before she can finish whatever warning she thinks I need.
The porch light hits Bryce first. Then Jetta. Then Linden.
Bryce is closest to me, standing too near my door for a man who’s already been told to move.
“Back the fuck up,” I tell him.
He looks at me like he wants to argue. If he values the structure of his face remaining intact, he bet’ the fuck not.
“Now.”
He takes one step down.
I step on the porch and pull the door mostly closed behind me. Lizzie comes with me, stopping close enough for her bare arm to brush mine. She doesn’t say a word but her presence says it all.
Jetta’s smile finally gives out.
Her eyes move from me to the house behind me, then back to me. “Boss lady?”
Reality hits her that this isn’t some random stop. This is my house.
My place.
My damn name on the deed.
Confusion turns to embarrassment so fast it makes me want to put my hands on somebody for her.
“Uh, why are we here?” she asks, checking the man who’s supposed to be her date for an answer.
“Good question,” I say, my interest piqued with my attention on Linden. “I’d love to hear the answer.”
Her embarrassment now turning into suspicion. “Nate?”
What the hell? Who the hell is Nate?
Nate and Jetta.
Fredrick and Lizzie.
This is some straight bullshit.
And the worst part is how calm these bastards are trying to act while standing on my porch with women I personally know like they haven’t been fucking me on a regular basis for the past few months.
Jetta is still waiting on an answer, and Linden, or Nate, or whoever the hell he’s pretending to be, is still taking too long to give her one.
“I know you heard me,” she says, her tone a bit feistier. “Why are we at my damn boss’s house?”
Linden clears his throat, motioning his chin from one side to the next, taking too long to become Nate again.
“He didn’t bring you here by accident,” I tell her, keeping my attention on Linden long enough for him to understand I’m not asking him to explain.
“Did you, Nate?” I ask, making air quotes around his name.
Jetta turns toward me, confusion now back on her face. “What the shit does that mean?”
“It means I know his ass and not as no damn Nate.”
Her head snaps back toward him. “Nate?”
Linden takes too damn long to answer. Long enough for the lie to start showing on him. “Jetta, let me explain.”
I see it happen. The first real crack. Because women know when a man stops answering and starts preparing a defense.
“Explain what?” she asks. “That you not only neglected to tell me you know my boss but on top of that, you know where she lives?”
He glances at Bryce.
Lizzie catches that shit instantly. She’s been locked on Bryce since we walked outside my front door, just waiting for some shit to make sense. “What was that? Why did he just look at you?”
Bryce turns toward her. “Lizzie—”
“No. Answer me. Why the hell did he look at you?”
Whatever little date-night story Linden conjured up to get Jetta to this point, starts falling apart. Jetta looks from Linden to Bryce, then back again, putting pieces together.
“Oh my God,” she says. “You. You were at the clinic earlier. Delivering roses to Boss lady.” Then gesturing between the two men. “So wait. Y’all two know each other too? Okay, what the fuck is all this? Somebody better start talking.”
Nobody answers fast enough.
“Hold up,” Lizzie says, tilting her head as she speaks.
“You showed up here trying to explain whatever bullshit story to me and you were delivering flowers to my best friend earlier today? At her fucking place of business? After your head was buried between my thighs this morning? What kind of fucking games are you playing, sir?”
Bryce starts, “Lizzie—”
“Negro, please. Don’t Lizzie me.”
I clear my throat. “Okay look. Since these jackasses are under NDAs, let me lay this shit out my damn self. Both Bryce and Lind—”
Headlights cut across the porch, the white glare catching everybody in the face before I can finish.
Aw, hell. This shit just became something nobody on this porch is prepared for. My goddamn Alpha just made it home.