Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Burkeley
“Mr. Morgan, I truly appreciate you making time to meet with me.” I shook the lady’s hand as I ushered her into my door, leading her to my office.
She’d called early this morning when I came back from doing surveillance for another client.
Over the phone she made it sound urgent that this happen today.
Since I knew my schedule had a thirty minute window, I agreed to squeeze her in.
Honestly, when I took the appointment, I wasn’t expecting it to be the spouse of someone I had a file on already.
This type of situation didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unusual.
“Not a problem. What can I do for you, Ms. Johnson?” I made note of her going by her maiden name as I wrote it down.
“I believe that my husband is cheating. Correction, I know he is. Well, in the past for sure. I’m working on another legal matter, and in order for me to walk away from him and be safe and taken care of, I need proof. Can you help me?”
I paused, leaning back in my chair to gauge her body language and mood before I agreed to take this one.
In this particular case, the moving parts could be messy since both had been under my surveillance at one point in time.
I saw something in her eyes that looked like desperation—no, maybe fear—I didn’t know exactly.
But it was enough to have me nodding as I held my hand out to seal our contract verbally before I drew up the physical copy.
“Okay, give me all of the information you can. Name, typical hangouts, his job, and a picture of him if you have one handy. If not, email works.” Even with already having the majority of information, I asked anyway to keep this clean. She didn’t need to know that I knew her husband.
While she rattled off everything, I wrote it down.
By the end of our consultation, I had more than enough to get everything she needed, especially with the added hangouts for her husband. She came prepared.
“Okay, I’ll be in touch once I have something or if I need anything else.
Give me a couple weeks to a month. I have a few other cases ahead of yours, but I promise to keep you in the loop with my findings,” I said, sliding the contract over for her to sign with her placing a stack of money on the desk at the same time.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Morgan.”
Once everything was signed and sealed, she was up with me following her to walk her out. We made it to the front door when I heard my back door opening.
I smiled and said my final words just as Tino called out to me.
I already knew why he was here. Both he and Boss had been blowing my phone up with questions I had no idea how to answer just yet.
I knew one or both would pop up eventually.
The other night at the bonfire, McKay had been a completely different person from who I’d met and made this arrangement with.
That night, the way she was all over me physically, had even me believing she was my woman for real.
I mean, that is the plan, BK.
Yeah, but I hadn’t even had a chance to properly woo her yet. So I knew the switch up couldn’t have been that damn quick with us.
Could it?
Naw.
In our short time together, I’d learned my damn woman was the type who needed to see the full script to trust that her happily ever after was still very much real and possible.
I still had work to do to show her it was just with a man she didn’t see in the story she’d once dreamed of.
So yeah, I couldn’t see McKay just falling that fast into our love story.
“Yo, where you at?” Tino called out again as we met in the dining room.
“Right here. I just walked a client out. What’s going on that’s got you doing a pop up?” We dapped each other.
“Not shit for real, but my bad. Wait, naw, this on you. Had you answered your phone instead of ignoring me, this could’ve been a simple call.”
“A simple call would be a yes or no type of conversation and I’m pretty sure your questions go beyond that shit.”
Tino kissed his teeth. “You don’t even know why I’m here, fool.”
I let out a breath. “You wanna know if things have changed, and when for that matter, with McKay. Because Saturday we gave more than the play dating shit I told you and Boss about.”
“Well shit, if you already know, get to answering then. When did y’all make things real?
Because as much as y’all thought that blanket was hiding, we all knew hands were touchy feely underneath.
Not to mention the way Mickey was looking at you all night.
If you ask me and all the other partygoers, it’s a love thang now.
I knew I was right to bet on y’all falling for real.
Thank McKay for me. Boss already ran me my money!
” he joked as he held his hand out, waiting for me to acknowledge him, but I smacked it away as I glared at him.
“We haven’t, they aren’t, so you need to give that man his money back.
I don’t know what Saturday was, man. Shit, days before she wasn’t even like that.
I will admit, we are becoming friends for real, but up until Saturday, we hadn’t even kissed on the lips.
The whole thing caught me off guard.” I stopped talking while memories of her juicy ass lips against mine flooded my damn brain and had me yearning to taste them again.
I hope we at least put that shit on the table for the rest of our time together.
Even if she tried to put it back on the no-no list, I was already prepared to beg and plead my case on why it would be impossible for me to go back to not having access to her in that way.
“Dun, du, du dum, dun, du, du dum.”
“Nigga, you humming the wedding march?”
“Shit, just getting you mentally prepared for what’s coming. You got the ring picked out yet or naw? If not, I know a guy, shit’s real official.”
This conversation was over. I had other pressing issues to handle first. This was the official week leading up to bringing McKay and her parents home to meet Anna and Paul.
And before I did that, McKay and I needed to talk about Saturday.
I had given her yesterday and a great portion of today to process that night before I jumped in but it had to happen.
“Man, cool out. Trust me, McKay and I are a long way from anything remotely close to that level. I’m still working on her taking out temporary and fake when it comes to us being together.
” I watched Tino’s eyes grow wide with excitement as a smirk began to spread, letting me know I had just fucked up and said too much.
“Oh shit, so me and Boss were right this whole time? You into Mickey on a real tip?”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah and the whole situation is complicated. Like I told you, she isn’t ready for anything after ol’ boy.
I don’t even think they were that deep, but just the fact that they made a baby and his whole fuck nigga shit, McKay’s focus is only on becoming a single mom, not on taking a chance with me. ”
“So don’t let her become one. You’re making things harder for yourself than they need to be. And she took a chance with this whole crazy ass, fake dating setup y’all got going on. You’re giving her too much space and opportunity to not see how much you want this for real.”
“Space and opportunity? Fool, you act like I can kidnap her ass or something. I’m already doing overtime with the dates.”
“Kidnap.” He chuckled but I was lost.
“I mean, technically you could call it that since the baby is yours to the world. No seriously, like right now, you should be popping up on your girlfriend, bringing her and your baby some food. Don’t give her the space and opportunity to not see you as her permanent man.
Keep fucking around and all this bonding gon’ slide you right into the friend zone. ”
I scoffed. “Nigga, not you calling yourself giving me dating advice. You do know I’ve had girlfriends before, right?”
“Yeah in the olden days. It’s a new scene.
You miss one day without communicating and you’re already out of sight, out of mind.
Hell, on some real shit, if my fake anything kissed me the way McKay did you, I promise by the next business day the only thing fake between us would be us faking like we ain’t real.
You’re playing alright, with your own feelings. ”
“Fool, I don’t need you to tell me how to date and treat my damn woman. Between you and Art, y’all trying to play me bad. Had you not stopped by unannounced, I would be on my way to McKay right now.”
“If you know better, then do better. Cancel all this fake shit with yo’ woman before you look up and be playing goddaddy at the end of y’all’s playtime. But let me get up then, so you can see about your baby momma.”
“Now I know you just heard me tell yo’ ass that McKay is my woman. Don’t address her by that baby momma shit.”
McKay was more than that. Hell, I was trying to work on being just her man. I wanted to tie my life to hers in every way possible.
“Yeah, but all this is giving raggedy ass baby daddy,” he said with a chuckle that had me laughing too as I pushed him out of the back door.
“Hehehe, nigga fuck you,” I said as I slammed the door in his face which had Tino’s laughter only growing.
I groaned as I shook my head, making my way to lock my office so I could head out myself.
I went for my phone just as I got in my truck to call McKay, but decided to just pop up instead.
Twenty minutes later I was hitting her unit number, waiting for her to buzz me up.
I snickered the moment I noticed her head leaning out as one hand cradled her swollen belly.
“I hope I’m the only person you’re waiting in the hallway for because I don’t like that shit at all.
You need to wrap up that habit now.” I was laughing but McKay just didn’t understand how serious I was.
She was pregnant and it could be anyone, especially since she didn’t ask who was at the door before giving me access.