Chapter Four

Chapter Four

This Is Meant to Be

Rock Chick Rewind

Still some time ago, but now even less…

“Okay, does doing crazy, stupid shit run in you all’s family?” Toni asked.

“Shh!” my sister Lena shushed her.

She was looking through a pair of binoculars.

Toni was in the middle of the back seat of my car. I was in the driver’s seat. Lena on the passenger side.

And Lena was spying on her boyfriend, who she was certain was cheating on her.

We were parked across the street from his place, so the binoculars were overkill.

She put them down, turned to me and announced, “I’m going in for a closer look. Cover me.”

I opened my mouth to stop her, but she was out the door before I could.

“Cover her?” Toni asked.

I smiled, trying not to laugh because this wasn’t funny, not really.

And it wasn’t because I was pretty certain my sister was right. Michael was cheating on her. The dude was shifty as all heck.

But still.

We watched as Lena tiptoed across the street, looking every which way, her long braids swinging along her back (causing me to wonder if I should make an appointment at the salon, those braids looked good on her), making it so obvious she was somewhere she shouldn’t be doing something she shouldn’t be doing, in broad daylight no less, I no longer felt like laughing.

Instead, I groaned.

“She’s terrible at this,” I stated the obvious.

“One of us should stop her,” Toni noted.

She was right.

“And that someone isn’t gonna be me,” Toni went on.

Ugh.

I started to open the door to go fetch my sister but stilled when Toni muttered, “Holy crap.”

Holy crap was right.

This was because, out of nowhere, Eddie Chavez and Lee Nightingale were there.

Lee was heading to my car.

Eddie was heading off Lena.

“Oh boy, that man grew up f-i-n-e, fine,” Toni declared, eyes glued through my windshield. “Both of them are fine. But seeing as I’ve already taken in the grown-up fineness of Eddie’s fine, and I’m just now witnessing the same from Lee, I can tell you the two of them together is too much fine. I might not be able to handle this. And I got experience with fine, since Tony is right now at home, waiting to get the call to bail me out of jail. He said I better make this a misdemeanor, since he isn’t pawning our new flat screen for your foolishness.”

Lee rapped on my window with his knuckles, and when I hit the switch to roll it down, he bent over to look in at me.

And, um…yeah.

He was a good-looking kid.

But now he was fine.

“Hey, Lee,” I greeted. “Long time. Are you home on leave?”

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“Hey, Lee. Lookin’ good,” Toni greeted, pushing in between the seats to peer around me at Lee.

“Toni,” he returned, his lips twitching in a ghost of that famous Liam Nightingale smile. Then, with no further ado, he got serious and said, “Eddie’s gonna put Lena in the car and you three are gonna get the fuck out of here.”

I noted his mouth had not cleaned up since back in the day.

And it was still hot.

“Sure, sure, good,” I babbled.

“She thinks her man is cheating on her,” Toni told Lee.

I lost his face when he looked over the roof of my car.

He came back into the window when I heard the door open beside me and the car bobbed when Lena’s bottom hit the passenger seat.

The door closed again.

Lee pinned me with his eyes.

“Go home,” he ordered.

I nodded, because he said two words, but other words were unspoken. How I knew that, I couldn’t tell you. I just knew.

He disappeared from the window. I heard his knuckles rap on the roof, his macho-man reminder to get the eff out of there. I hit the button for the window, started up the car and we rolled out.

It was a miracle I didn’t plow into some cars considering my eyes were fixed to my rearview mirror, watching Eddie walk through my now vacant parking space to join Lee on the curb, both of them watching us leave.

Toni was right.

That was too much fine.

“Did you see that?” Lena’s voice was breathy.

“Oh, I saw it all right,” Toni answered.

“Eddie was a cutie in high school,” Lena started, and I snorted, because “cutie” was not how I’d ever describe Eddie Chavez.

A babyshark was cute, it was still a shark.

“But…whoa.” Lena finished.

“You got that right, sister,” Toni agreed.

“He was so whoa, and Lee was so oh man, I forgot what I was doing,” Lena said.

I could totally see that.

“And now I don’t know if Michael has a girl in there with him or not,” she concluded.

“Let me put my ear to the ground,” I said.

“What ground?” Lena asked.

My eyes found Toni’s in the rearview.

She knew.

But I hadn’t told my sister.

If Lena knew I was holding out on her, she’d be ticked, but more hurt.

It was just…I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell anyone, but Toni.

And I wasn’t even sure I should tell Toni, but I had to tell somebody, and I trusted her not to do anything I wouldn’t want, like tell my parents, or Lena, or get up in someone’s face who wouldn’t appreciate it.

This being the fact that three years had passed since Liam and I had moved back from Fort Collins, and in that time, it wasn’t a habit, but it wasn’t infrequent, and the fact Eddie and Lee showed up when I was doing something stupid with my sister wasn’t a surprise.

Because, first, Darius Tucker kept an eye on me.

And second, Darius Tucker found reasons to visit me.

It was always at night, when Liam was asleep, and it was always when we needed him.

Like when someone plowed into my car in the grocery store parking lot and didn’t leave a note. Thus, in order that I wouldn’t have to claim it on my insurance, Darius showed with a loner car that very night, had my car taken away and brought back, not only fixed, but detailed.

And when Toni and Tony moved in together, and were in the market for a new couch, and I’d gone with her to look, and oohed and aahed over the furniture. Darius was at my place late that night, telling me I was going to get a delivery in three days, and someone needed to be at my townhouse between noon and four to accept it.

That “it” being entirely new living room furniture, all the pieces I most oohed and aahed over.

So out went the ratty, secondhand furniture I’d scrounged from relatives and friends, and in went classy, expensive stuff I probably would be able to afford only after Liam finished college.

A week later, he was back, sharing someone had to be around for another delivery, and that one was our flat screen TV.

Of course, there were three Christmases and Liam’s three birthdays, when Darius brought wrapped gifts for his son, but all the cards said they were from Santa…or me.

How he knew Liam’s birthday, I didn’t know, because he didn’t ask me.

He also didn’t give me the opportunity to ask him.

In all that time, with all those visits, he never clapped eyes on his son (that I knew). He never asked to see him, not so much as to walk upstairs and watch him sleeping.

And he never hung around enough for us to have a conversation.

He told me what he was going to do to take care of me, of us, and then he vanished.

Okay, not vanished, he wasn’t a superhero. He walked out. But he made no bones about it and took great pains not to be waylaid, those pains being my pains, since he gave me a wide berth and exited, pronto.

I was confused by all of this.

Toni was confused by all of it.

But the only person who could explain it was in my life, in my son’s life, in very real ways.

Except he wasn’t.

And the way he was, he gave no explanation.

It had occurred to me I could probably track down Eddie and ask him, but something stopped me.

Not something, I knew what it was.

I loved Darius.

This was all he felt he could give.

And since I loved him, I was letting him give what he could how he could give it and not push for more.

I suspected Toni knew I was doing this, but in that scenario, she loved me. So she didn’t push it either.

By the way, thatfive thousand dollars was still on my kitchen counter the first of every month, and my rent was paid, and never by me.

In fact, I had enough (actually, more than enough) to make a down payment on a house, and I was considering it because Liam was going to be in school next year—real, big-boy school, first grade. And I needed to settle into a school district that was good for him in a home he could count on.

“What ground?” Lena pushed, cutting into my thoughts.

“I’ll just…ask around,” I said lamely.

“Me too. And Tony too. He knows everybody. He’ll get the skinny,” Toni added.

This mollified Lena because I had no ground to put my ear to. My life was my job, my kid, and every once in a while, going out with Toni and/or Lena, but always getting home before nine so Mom or Dad or one of the aunties or cousins could go home after babysitting Liam.

But Toni did not lie. Her man knew everybody.

“Okay, now that I’m over that one-two punch of Eddie and Lee, um…does anyone but me think it’s weird they showed up?” Lena asked.

Again, I glanced at Toni in the rearview.

“Maybe Eddie lives around here,” Toni said, giving me guilt eyes in the mirror, since she was lying for me.

“Lee said he was home on leave,” I added.

“I kinda hope Michael’s cheating now because I sure had cheatin’ thoughts when I clapped eyes on Eddie when he grabbed me,” Lena muttered.

She was lying too. She’d fallen for Michael.

I saw in him what I saw in a lot of the attorneys who tried their cases in the courtroom I worked in.

Narcissism.

So I hoped he was cheating on her too, because I’d rather my little sister be in a bit of hurt after scraping off a cheating boyfriend, than live her whole life with a man who thought the most important person in the world was him, and everyone should agree.

“I’m hungry,” Lena declared. “Brother’s for a sandwich and a beer?”

“I could do a ticky turkey,” Toni said.

I could always do a ticky turkey.

I pointed the car toward My Brother’s Bar.

* * * *

I knew he’d come. I just didn’t know he’d come that soon.

The evening after our run-in with Lee and Eddie, I was in the sapphire blue velvet sectional Darius had bought us, on the lounge section, with a glass of wine and a book, when the door opened.

Something else I didn’t know, and had never asked, was if he had a key from the guy he knew who got me this pad, or if he picked the locks.

I was dying to know.

I was also dying to know, if he picked the locks, when he learned how to do that.

I was further dying to know how his mom was, his sisters, and if they knew about Liam.

They should know.

But if he wasn’t taking that step, I knew he wouldn’t want me to.

Something else I wished I could talk to him about, because Miss Dorothea was a lovely woman, she’d be a great grandma, and although my boy already had one, it never hurt to have two.

In fact, it was impossible to enumerate all the things I was dying to know about Darius Tucker.

But I was getting really good at burying how much I needed to know them, and ignoring how not knowing them, or being able to ask, was slowly killing me.

He showed in the living room, and he looked as good, and as scary, as ever.

This time, he was holding a large manila envelope.

Yes. I knew he’d come.

Because I needed him.

In this instance, Lena needed him, but to him, it was the same thing.

He took me in where I was stretched out on the lounge section, his body held in a weird, still way that I understood, because I was holding mine in the same way.

It’d been three years.

Three years since that kiss.

It felt like yesterday.

This happened every time he showed, both of us bracing, both of us fighting it.

Fighting the need to jump each other like crazed fuck bunnies and have at it until we couldn’t breathe.

He broke the stillness first by tossing the envelope on the lounge at my bare feet.

I put my wineglass aside, the bookmark in my book, and set it on the couch, pushed up and retrieved the envelope.

“She needs to dump him,” he said.

I pressed the metal tabs back and pulled out the pictures.

On viewing the top one, my face scrunched.

“Ew! You could have warned me,” I said, shoving the photos back in, now having seen more of Michael, not to mention his side piece, than I’d ever wanted to see.

“We made sure she didn’t have any questions.”

“You did that all right,” I muttered.

“You need to date.”

My stillness came back at his words. That was, it did after my head snapped back to look at him.

“Why aren’t you dating?” he asked, his words gruff, forced.

I could hear the emotion. I could even feel it.

And it ticked me off.

“Oh, are we chatting now?” I asked back. “Are we buds? You show with the means to save my sister a lot of heartache.” I waved the envelope in the air then tossed it to the side. “We share about our lives, then you vanish for a couple of months. Where are my manners? Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Stop it,” he grunted.

I was lamenting sitting on the lounge section, because even if it was comfy, it was a pain in the behind to get out of gracefully.

Even so, I was so mad, I scrambled out, took my feet and put my hands on my hips, ignoring how Darius’s beautiful brown eyes watching me do that made me feel, and asked, “Are you dating?”

He dropped his head but lifted a hand, palm out my way, and said to his boots, “Fucked up. Apologize. Not my business.”

“It’s not?” I demanded. “How’s the couch look, Darius? It’s nice, isn’t it? Liam is into plants. He makes me let him water them. I have to follow him around—”

He lifted his head and dropped his hand.

“Stop it,” he bit off.

I didn’t stop it.

“And he begs me to take him to the nursery so we can buy more, which I can afford, seeing as my baby daddy gives me three times more than I make in a —”

I didn’t finish that time, because one second, he was four feet away.

And the next, he was towering over me and right in my face.

“Don’t ever fuckin’ call me that.”

He was trying to intimidate me.

I was so done with this dance, I wasn’t about to be intimidated.

“Why not? That’s what you are, aren’t you? You don’t even ask to see him.”

“I don’t exist for him.”

“You’re standing right here.”

“I don’t exist for you either.”

“My couch and car and bank account says different.”

“You’re not gonna want, and neither is he.”

“Well, rest assured, you aren’t falling down on that job. It’s just other jobs you aren’t up for.”

I saw the anger flare in his eyes. It was intense, burning.

But that didn’t intimidate me either.

“What jobs you want me to see to, Malia?”

“How long you got?” I asked. “Because I have a list and you might want to take notes.”

His voice got warm, sexy…lewd. “Like you said, baby, I’m right here. What you need?”

And now he was trying to be an a-hole.

I wasn’t buying that either.

But he wanted to play with fire, we’d see who’d get burned.

“I haven’t had a man touch me since I was sixteen, you could take care of that.”

Another flare in his eyes, surprise.

And something else.

Something deep.

Possessive.

Hungry.

Okay, dang.

It was me about to be burned.

It would turn out I was right. I just had no idea how much I would love dancing in that fire.

His arms closed around me, and his mouth slammed down on mine, and I should have stopped it. If he was going to hang around, we had so much more to talk about.

I didn’t stop it.

He kissed me, and more fool me, I kissed him back.

Three years since we kissed.

Even longer since we took it further, but he was in my life, in my business, in my heart, I couldn’t stop it.

This time, I wasn’t going to tear myself away.

I needed it.

No.

I needed Darius.

I tried to pull him down on the couch.

He resisted, and fear took hold of my soul, because one thing I’d learned these last few years, when Darius was done, he was gone.

But he said, “No, baby, not on the couch. Not this time, not our first since…will he wake up?”

“He’s a sound sleeper.”

That was all I said, all he needed.

He let me go but took my hand and we were up the stairs before I could blink.

We were in my dark bedroom before I could get my head straight.

And then he was kissing me again, so I wasn’t thinking about anything but that.

He might be hungry, but I was starving.

Starving for his warm skin and the touch of his hands.

Starving for his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth, dancing with mine. His lips on my neck. The crush of his arms around me.

Then my shirt was off. His shirt was off. He went after my jeans. I went after his.

Both of us only in underwear, he leaned into me, and I fell to my back on my bed, Darius on top of me.

Oh man, he felt good.

Even so, I rolled him to get more of him.

He rolled me to get more of me.

I squirmed under him to push down my panties.

He took over and whoosh! they were gone.

Nice.

I pushed at his boxers. “Now you.”

“Slow down, sweetheart,” he murmured, hand at my breast, thumb and finger teasing my nipple, the sensations he created firing their way all over my skin, his mouth was in my neck.

“Slow isn’t an option, Darius,” I told him.

His fingers stilled, his head came up, and he looked down at me through the dark.

“You sure?” he asked, and I closed my eyes.

There he was.

That tender sweetness.

There was my Darius.

I knew it.

I knew he was in there.

I opened my eyes and put my hand to his cheek. “I’m sure, honey.”

“I don’t have any condoms.”

I nearly started weeping.

I got an imagination.

A man who was getting some somewhere else, or open to it should it happen, would carry condoms.

It was me for him.

And it was him for me.

I knew then, just like me, there was no one else.

“I love him with everything I am, and I’d never make another choice, but I got pregnant at sixteen, baby,” I whispered, smiling so there’d be no sting. “I’m on the pill even if I’m not active.”

He started to detach, murmuring, “This is a mistake.”

I grabbed on with everything at my disposal and held tight.

“This is meant to be,” I informed him of something I knew he had to know. “I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Let me finish.”

He shut his mouth.

I smiled again. “You don’t buy a couch for a baby momma.”

“Sure you do,” he muttered.

“No, you didn’t hear me correctly. You don’t buy a couch for a baby momma.”

Another eye flare, but after it happened, he said, “You’re gonna regret this.”

“I can assure you, I…am…not.”

He hesitated a beat.

But he was Darius.

And I was me.

He didn’t leave.

He kissed me.

I pushed down his boxers.

Darius took over.

In everything.

Then he proved how vivid his imagination was.

And I was right.

I didn’t regret a damned thing.

* * * *

I lay with my head on his chest.

Darius was on his back. He had his arm around me, his fingers drawing random patterns on the small of my back.

We’d been silent after.

But now, when his fingers stopped and his muscles bunched, I knew what he was doing.

“If you leave me, there are going to be problems,” I warned the delightful bulge of his pec.

“Malia—”

I lifted my head and looked down at him. “Don’t leave.”

“Fuck,” he murmured, put his hand to my face, slid it back, curled it around my head and pulled my forehead to his before he bit out, “Fuck.”

I wanted to jump off the bed and do a victory dance.

Because this meant he not only didn’t want to leave, he wasn’t leaving.

We were so…totally…meant to be.

And seriously, he’d given me orgasms back in the day, but usually with his mouth or fingers.

But the sync we just got into made the slow burn we’d endured totally worth it.

And yeah, I knew what I was saying.

Six years’ wait.

Totally…

Worth it!

He relaxed his hand so I could pull back an inch, but just an inch. He put enough pressure on I couldn’t get too far away.

“I don’t want him seeing me.”

And there was the splash of cold water at the end of my victory lap.

“Why?” I whispered, not able to hide the hurt weighing down that word.

He rolled us so I was on my back, he was pressed down my side, but our faces were still close.

“It’s not safe,” he said.

I opened my mouth, but his finger rested on my lips.

“Hush,” he whispered. “Hear me out. Please.”

I closed my mouth.

“It’s…I can’t…” He drew in a deep breath. “I can’t explain how hard it is to be this close to him and not—”

I framed his face in my hands and whispered, “Honey.”

“The shit that I’ve made of my life—”

“We can—”

“Baby, let me get this out.”

I shut up again.

“If anybody knew about him. About you. They could hurt me. Through you. And I don’t give a fuck about hurting, except they’d hurt you.”

“Whatever you’re into, we’ll get you out,” I said.

I mean, he was this “bad dude,” but you could just stop being a bad dude. Other people had turned their lives around. I couldn’t imagine it was easy, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have support. He’d have me. My family. His family. Eddie and Lee.

“I’m in now—” he began.

“Okay, so—”

“And I can’t get out while she’s still in.”

She?

Who was she?

“She?”

“Aunt Shirleen.”

“Miss Shirleen?” I asked, shocked.

I couldn’t say I knew his aunt as well as I did his mom, but she’d been around. She was funny. She gave good hugs. Though, she seemed…removed. Like she was isolated, even when she was with people who loved her.

And I’d never quite understood, with how loving and sweet his family was, why she always seemed so sad.

“It’s him. He got me into it. He got her into it. And he isn’t…nice to her.”

My muscles got tight. “He isn’t nice? Who’s he?”

“Leon.”

“Your Uncle Leon?”

Leon was Shirleen’s husband. I’d met him, once.

He was all expansive smiles and grand gestures. He gave me the creeps.

Darius nodded. “It happens less because I’m around now. But it still happens. If I get out, it’ll happen like it used to. All the time.”

“Then both of you get out.”

“She can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Fuck,” he whispered. “I love it that you can ask that question and it’s a genuine question, because you don’t know how deep this shit is, how it sucks you in until you’re under and you can’t breathe anymore.”

My heart was beating so hard, he had to feel it. “Darius, you’re scaring me.”

“Good, you’ll get it then when I say, I’m giving you tonight. Tonight, we pretend. And after that, like I’ve been doin’, I’ll do what I can to look out for you. But this can’t happen again. Leon doesn’t know about you, and he can’t know. No one can know. The more people know, the more dangerous it is because he’s the kind of guy who puts his thumbs to something you care about to make you squirm. He did that with me to keep Shirleen in line. He’ll do it to you and Liam without blinking.”

It was the first time he’d spoken our son’s name out loud.

“If Liam meets you, it’s not like he can tell this guy,” I pointed out.

“Baby,” he said softly, “can’t you see? Think about it. You don’t have him, but you know he exists, but you can’t be a real part of his life. If I get one look, I know I’m done. I won’t be able to walk away. But what I do, what I got myself into, you don’t get out. You don’t get out without paying in one way or another. And the fee for that is steep. I won’t let Shirleen pay. You pay. Our boy pay. And I can’t make it so I can’t give you two what you need. I got no choice. I gotta stay in.”

“Forever?”

“I don’t know. And tonight, we’re pretending. We’re not talking about that now.”

“Darius—”

This time, he put his whole hand to my mouth and said, “You derailed your life to give our son to this world. That’s the sacrifice you made. I fucked up. This is the sacrifice I gotta make. And you have to trust me, Malia. I sense you know, if I could, I wouldn’t be anywhere but here. But I can’t. You have to trust that there are reasons why. Because it is killing me, and if you add pressure, baby, I’m gonna cave. And I know what that could mean, and I can barely live with being apart from you two, don’t make me live with that.”

I wrapped my fingers around his hand, pulled it away, and said, “Okay.”

His relief was so great, he instantly buried his face in my neck and let out a heavy breath.

I turned into him and wrapped him up in my arms.

Because I might have agreed.

And he might think we were pretending.

But I knew the truth of it, my mom had told me that truth six years ago.

I just had to grow up and learn the way of it.

Not pressure.

Patience.

In other words the bottom line was…

I had to take care of my man.

* * * *

I woke when the bed depressed at my side.

I opened my eyes to see Darius, fully clothed, sitting beside me.

It was early dawn.

“You’re leaving,” I mumbled, not bothering to hide I wasn’t happy about it.

He ran his knuckles down my cheekbone. “Yeah, but not before we talk about something we should have talked about last night.”

Last night’s convo hadn’t been fun.

Luckily, after I came to terms with what I had to do, I distracted him by kissing him, which lead to a fresh round of orgasms for both of us. But we were in a lot less of a hurry that time, so it took longer, and we’d broken the seal, so in the end, our climaxes were less intense, but that didn’t mean they didn’t reach soul deep.

Or, at least, mine did. But the way Darius had looked at me after he’d recovered from his, it was a guess, but I was thinking he felt the same way.

I got up on a forearm and held the covers over my breasts with the other hand.

“Do I need my teeth brushed and coffee before this talk?” I asked.

“No, since I’m gonna tell you not to do stupid shit with your sister again, and you’re going to nod your head and say, ‘Yes, Darius. That was a one-time thing, baby. You don’t have to worry about me doing stupid shit with Lena or Toni anymore.’”

Oh boy.

I could see the challenge ahead of me since it hadn’t even been twelve hours and my patience with my man was waning.

“I think you were wrong. I need coffee. Or at least an empty mug in hand I can throw at you.”

He grinned, wide and white, and my breath left me.

God, I forgot how drop-dead beautiful he was when he smiled.

He then leaned in and touched his mouth to mine.

When he lifted away, he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Michael is a low-level player. He’s also ambitious. I’ll take care of him. You can show her the pictures, but don’t do anything stupid anymore. If Lena had looked in his windows, she might have seen him cutting coke. And he wouldn’t have liked that. Get me?”

“Yikes,” I breathed.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “So, you get me?”

I nodded.

“You need anything?” he asked.

I thought about orgasm three, but asked back, “Like what?”

“Clothes, shoes, for you? The same or toys for the boy? Tuition for your last year of college?”

It was my turn to smile. “I think we’re covered.”

“Mm…” he murmured, and I had a feeling I knew what that meant.

“We’re fine, Darius.”

“Great, baby. Gotta go before he gets up.”

I really, really, really wanted to encourage him to just stick his head in and watch Liam sleep for at least a beat. He was adorable when he was asleep. Though, it must be said, he was pretty adorable when he wasn’t asleep too.

But I got it. If I took one look at our boy, I wouldn’t have been able to stay away either.

Patience.

“Okay.”

“Later,” he said.

Oh yes, there’d be a later.

I smiled.

Love you, I thought but did not say.

He saw it anyway. I knew when he dipped in to touch his mouth to mine again.

But he was way stronger than me.

He left it at that.

And then he left me.

* * * *

By the way, Iwas right in my earlier thoughts.

My envelope at the first of the month didn’t have five thousand in it.

It had seven.