15. Malik #3
She had been doing that the whole time checking on Shante and buying things for the babies.
Making sure she was okay while dealing with her own husband’s bullshit.
Even when I ran into her at Somerset, she’d been carrying bags with more shit for the twins.
That woman had been loyal to everybody around her.
And somehow everybody around her had managed to make her look like a fucking fool.
Deuce especially, that nigga had a wife who stood beside him even when she was pissed at him, and he’d risked all that for Kim.
Then dragged Shante into it, hoe ass nigga.
I leaned back in my chair. If I had somebody like that riding for me, there wasn’t no way in hell I’d be out here creating another family behind her back.
Then again, I’d thought Shante was that person for me. That was the lesson in all this shit. You didn’t know how solid somebody was until being solid cost them something. My phone vibrated again, I expected Shante but this time, it was a number I didn’t recognize.
This Alisha.
I stared at the message trying to figure out how she got my number and then a second one came through.
I need to ask you something.
I don’t know what other questions she had. A few moments later, her question appeared.
Why did Shante say she did it? Why couldn’t Deuce just get the bitch pregnant?
I rubbed my hand over my beard. Damn, I could’ve told her to ask her husband.
That would’ve been the easiest answer. It would’ve also been some coward shit.
Enough people had already been sending Alisha from person to person while everybody except her knew what the fuck was happening in her own marriage. I wasn’t doing that.
Shit from my understanding Kim can’t have kids and she wanted one by Deuce.
Deuce had to figure out how to make that happen because apparently Kim’s father is Agent Brown and supposedly she was threatening him to tell.
Shante said she did it to keep him out of the Feds but you see how that worked out.
I sent it, nothing came back for a while. Then another question popped up.
So Shante knew Kim was the woman he was messing with too?
I stared at that one longer because I knew what she was really asking. She was thinking about that baby shower and Kim walking in there announcing those twins belonged to her and Deuce and how Shante stood there knowing the whole truth while Alisha knew none of it, I answered.
Yeah.
A minute later, Alisha sent one word.
Okay.
That shit felt heavier than a paragraph.
I could picture her somewhere staring at her phone, replaying every conversation she’d had with Shante.
Every conversation she’d had with Deuce.
Every time somebody had looked her in her face knowing something she didn’t.
I started typing something but deleted it.
I wasn’t about to send her some fake inspirational shit.
There wasn’t anything I could say that would make what she’d learned hurt less.
So I asked the only thing that came to mind.
Are you good?
Her response didn’t take long.
Nope but I will be.
I nodded to myself, I believed that. There was something about Alisha that told me she might bend, but breaking wasn’t really her style.
I put my phone down and headed back outside.
The sun was still out, and the lot was even busier than before.
Troy and Dre were near the front again, and a few women had gathered around their cars waiting on their details to finish.
Normally, I’d have been right back on the bullshit.
Especially now that everybody knew I was single but my mind wasn’t there anymore.
I kept thinking about how quickly a person’s whole reality could change.
That morning, Alisha believed Shante was carrying my children.
By that afternoon, she knew her best friend was carrying her husband’s kids for his side bitch.
That was some fucked up shit if you ask me.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and it was Shante again.
I declined it, I didn’t hate her. I probably still loved her somewhere underneath all that disappointment, but love wasn’t enough for me anymore.
I needed trust, peace and loyalty. The kind that didn’t disappear when shit got complicated.
I had spent months getting a house ready for a woman who would never live in it. At first, walking through that bitch alone had made me feel stupid. Now, I was starting to look at it differently. The house was still mine, my businesses were still mine and my life was still mine.
Shante’s decisions had changed my plans.
They didn’t get to destroy everything I’d built.
And whenever I did decide to share that life with somebody again, I knew exactly what I wouldn’t compromise on.
She had to be solid. I looked across the lot as Troy started arguing with one of the employees about something stupid.
I shook my head and headed over. I wasn’t thinking about relationships or looking for another woman. I damn sure wasn’t thinking about Alisha like that. She was just somebody else who had gotten caught in Deuce and Shante’s bullshit. Somebody I understood a little better now than I had before.