In Her Mind (Mountain High Valley Low ) (10 page)

“I found a good one,” she said, smiling.
“Cool.” I got comfortable again on the opposite side of the couch, put my feet up on the trunk/coffee table and set the goodies nearby.
Lori hit the
PLAY
button just as I began to swallow a large gulp of my ice-cold beer. Two naked, blond beauties appeared on the screen, licking either side of some black dude’s penis. Lustful moans and cries filled the room, closing in on my comfort zone. Some of the frothy brew that I had attempted to swallow suddenly detoured down the wrong pipe. I gagged violently and propelled my body forward to keep from spitting all over my clothes. A vital but involuntary cough caused the lager to fly out of my mouth, spraying my designer button-down shirt and blue jeans, the coffee table, the snacks, the couch, and Lori.
“Ewww, Brian!” Lori said, trying to contain her laughter. “How nasty! You spit all over my legs. Yuck!” she added for good measure, swatting at the liquid dripping down her legs.
The dude getting his rocks off on TV started moaning loudly as I made an effort to clean myself up. Some beer had splashed out of the bottle when I’d leaned forward during my brief strangling. I thought of what Lexie would say when I finally got home smelling like a brewery, but the sounds of passion emanating from the TV kept stealing my focus. From the looks of it, those ladies knew what they were doing and the brother on the receiving end wasn’t complaining.
Lori had run off to retrieve some towels to clean up with. Returning with a spray bottle of cleaning solution and a dish towel, she swiftly cleaned the mess, wiping me up in the process.
“Damn, B. Can’t handle a little porn anymore?” Lori said, smiling.
“You said you were putting in a movie!”
“This is a movie. What did you expect,
Steel Magnolias?
You know me.” Lori wiped my shirt with the towel. “You’re going to have to take this off. It’s soaked.”
“I’ll be fine.” I grabbed her hand to stop her from wiping. This was getting to be too much.
Lori kept her other hand on my chest and stared at me. “Brian, are you scared of me or something?”
Scared wasn’t my problem. Now the black dude on the screen was ramming himself into the back of one of the blond bombshells while the other played with her assets in front of him. The images flashing across the huge flat-screen mixed with the sexually charged grunts filling the room didn’t seem to faze Lori. My highly sensitive “sex sense” was ferociously pushing my resolve to dangerous limits. I knew I should have listened to the first voice telling me to leave the moment I stepped through the door.
“Lori, I got to roll,” I said, lifting myself past her attempts to help clean me up.
Lori pouted. “All of this because of a little movie? We used to watch these things all the time and laugh about them.”
“Yeah, that was back when I didn’t have a Fiancé. And we always ended up in bed after we did all of our watching and laughing. Things have changed.”
Lori just stared at me. Was she really missing my point? Whether she was or not, it was time for me to go.
“Am I still invited to the wedding?” Lori asked as I walked out the door.

“Brooke, the wedding’s off,” I said before the damn broke and my tears spilled insistently down my face.
Thinking it and saying the words were so different. The thought didn’t seem real. Speaking the words aloud made them real. The thought of not marrying Brian tore me apart.
“Lex, stop crying. Are you home?” Brooke asked.
“Yes,” I whimpered like a lost child.
“Well, I’ll be right there,” Brooke said before abruptly hanging up. I didn’t even get a chance to respond. I simply dropped the phone and folded myself up into a ball on the kingsized bed I shared with Brian.
My tear-soaked pillow felt cold against my face, but I didn’t have the will to move. I loved Brian more than I realized I could love someone. The thought of living life without him caused physical discomfort. My chest felt bloated, causing my breath to abandon its usual rhythmic flow. Leaving him felt wrong, but staying was too much for me to handle. I could only imagine our problems getting worse. Child support, baby-mama drama to the highest degree, and the thought of Shelly being a permanent fixture in our lives because of Brice was too much to bear.
I’d been hurt before and got over it. I could get over Brian, too. I thought my ex-boyfriend David was different, too, yet he broke my heart and I survived.
The overstuffed down pillow muffled my cries of despair until I felt another presence in the room with me.
“Lex,” Brian called softly.
When I looked up, Brian was standing in the doorway to our room, his expression revealing the comfort he wanted to surround me in. I couldn’t break now. My mind was nearly made up. I had to go.
Brian slowly walked to the bed and sat along the edge. Placing a large, strong hand on the small of my back, he leaned in closer and kissed the back of my shoulder. I moved away from his touch, still lying on the bed.
“Lexie. Babe. We need to talk,” Brian said and sighed.
“Brian, there isn’t much to talk about. I can’t do this,” I said, attempting to make it sound final. I nearly choked trying to hold back the tears.
“Babe, we have to talk. We can’t end things this way. We can’t end this at all,” Brian said, coming closer to me on the bed. “There are plenty of couples out there who deal with children from previous relationships. We won’t be the first and surely won’t be the last. If you break up with me today, who’s to say that your next man won’t come with a child and a baby’s mother? There aren’t many men out here without children. As a matter of fact, there aren’t many women out here who don’t have kids.”
By the time Brian was finished, he was sitting at the edge of the bed again, facing the door. His back was to me and I was facing the other side of the room. I loved him too much to talk about breaking up while staring in his handsome face. I had already turned my tear-soaked pillow over so he wouldn’t be able to tell that I was lying around crying over him. If I faced him, he would see the wiggly red veins traveling through the whites of my eyes and my tough-girl cover would be blown.
“Well, Brian, many women have to deal with it every day, but I just can’t do it. I’m quite sure all of them aren’t dealing with a Shelly Winston either,” I said without lifting or turning my head.
I felt Brian quickly shift his position on the bed.
“When did you become this weak woman? You dealt with Shelly when we first got together. Is this how you planned on being a wife? Bailing at the first sign of trouble? I can’t believe you just want to give up on us and let her win.” Brian spoke poignantly, spitting the words out as if they caused him physical pain.
“Excuse me?” I asked, sitting straight up in the bed. Damn the bloodshot eyes and wet pillow, Brian had my attention now. Did this brother just call me weak? I thought to myself. Attitude replaced my sadness. “First of all, who are you calling weak? I’ve never been weak a day in my life! And what do you mean I’m letting her win? This is not a game!” I was so mad my speech was sloppy.
“Well, that’s exactly what it is to Shelly. She doesn’t want us to be together. Why do you think she’s here? After all this time she just comes out of the woodwork with all of the shit she’s been doing lately. She had to have gotten wind of the fact that we were getting married.”
“Game or not, Brian, she is still your son’s mother. You’re officially attached to her for the rest of your life. Regardless of what you think her intentions are. You still have to deal with her. And as long as I am with you, I’ll have to deal with her.” Before I could get another word out, my doorbell rang with urgency.
I jumped from the bed in my powder blue lounge pants and matching tank top and stomped toward the door with Brian on my heels.
“Who is it?” I yelled, then pulled the door open without waiting for a response.
“Damn, girl. It’s me. You knew I was coming. What’s the problem?” Brooke said before looking past me and seeing Brian. “Hey, B! What’s up, big brother?” she said cheerfully, walking past me to give him a hug.
I guess it didn’t matter to her that I was pissed off at him. Maybe it shouldn’t have mattered, but since I was angry with him, I wanted everyone else to give him their ass to kiss.
“What’s up, Brooke?” Brian said, returning her warm greeting as they embraced.
Keeping my position by the door, I held on to the doorknob, waiting for Brian to leave now that Brooke had arrived. Brian completely ignored me while he talked to Brooke.
“You want something to drink?” he asked, trying to play happy host.
“Yeah. Can I have some ice water? It’s hot as me out there,” Brooke said, and fell into a fit of laughter.
“You’re something else, Brooke,” Brian said, smiling. “Sit down. Let me get you that water.”
I couldn’t believe the two of them. For a minute I thought I was watching the first episode of
Fake-Ass Friends,
but I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly what they were doing. Besides annoying me, they were trying to make light of my being upset and I wasn’t happy about it at all.
“Brian, Brooke came over so we could discuss a few things. You can leave and I’ll call you later, and we can finish our conversation then.”
“Leave? I live here, remember? Why would I leave?” Brian asked incredulously.
My ears felt like they were on fire, which always happened whenever I became really mad. I wanted to scream. Brooke carried on a conversation with Brian as if everything was fine. Their small talk was making my blood boil. I was still holding the door open and wished Brian would get out. I couldn’t handle him being here. But he was right, he did live here.
“Well, don’t you have someplace you could go?” I snapped. “I need some privacy right now.”
“There’s no place that I want to go right now. I’m fine with staying home since I do live here,” he said sarcastically and turned his attention back to Brooke.
I swung the door closed and silently walked toward the two of them on the couch. When Brooke saw the expression on my face she stopped speaking. Brian’s back was to me but when he saw Brooke’s face, he too turned to face me. I stared at him for a few seconds, fire flickering in my eyes.
“Technically, babe.” I mocked, “only my name is on this deed. But if I recall correctly, you do have a place of your own where your name is on the deed.”
Brian looked at me as if he wanted to say “no you didn’t just say that to me.” His narrowed eyes focused in on me tightly as I stood before him with my arms crossed, challenging his glare. I knew I’d cut deep with that one. But I really needed him to go. I figured that if I said something messed up, he would get upset and walk out. I think I finally pushed the right button. Brian’s eyes were fixed on me and his defiant stare temporarily cut right through me. In all the time we had been together, he had never looked at me with such venom in his eyes. Then again, I had never before said anything so nasty to him. As we glared at each other, I could see that he was contemplating what he wanted to say. Whatever was on his mind, I could tell he was struggling with whether or not he would let it pass his lips. I just knew he was cussing me out in his head. Brian broke the staring match when he stood, towering over me and biting on his bottom lip.
“Well…” he finally began to speak, “I’m going to my bedroom, right over there, to lie down since I’ve been paying mortgage here for the past six months, even though my name isn’t on the deed. Take all the time you need to talk to your friend in privacy. But when you are all done, I’ll still be here,” Brian said as he brushed past me.
“I know you didn’t just push me out of your way.” I said, my words dripping with attitude. I went there simply because he’d touched me as he passed by and now I was on a roll. Brian stopped dead in his tracks and glared at me once more. I hated the way he looked at me but I refused to back down, so I returned his glare. Then he put his hand up to halt my impending remarks.
“Don’t,” was all he said while looking at me and shaking his head. Slowly he turned away and took calculated steps toward our bedroom.
If he wasn’t the man that he was, he probably would have hit me. When he was out of the room, I swung back toward Brooke, who was sitting on the couch as quiet as a sleeping baby. Her look let me know that she felt I was in the wrong.
“Now you know you went too far,” Brooke said, not wasting any time. “Your ass called me earlier, all teary-eyed, talking about the wedding is off.” Brooke mocked my words like a child would mock his parent after being scolded. “I get here and the whimpering little baby is gone, replaced by Miss Super Bad Ass. That man looked like he wanted to slap the taste out of your mouth. If Brian was any other man, I think he would have. We would have had to jump his ass if he did, but still, you went way too far.”
I plopped down on the couch next to Brooke and put my head in my hands. So many feelings were running through me, I thought I would lose my breath. Brooke rubbed my back as I thought about the things I had just said to Brian, as well as the things he had said to me earlier. Was I really weak? Would walking away automatically give Shelly the win?
A few minutes later Brian emerged from the bedroom and walked straight out the door. He didn’t say a single word, nor did he acknowledge Brooke and me on the couch. He simply walked out and slammed the door behind him. The door slamming shut sent a streak of trepidation through my body.

I wondered how Lexie and Brian were getting along with Brice around. It had been more than a week since I’d left him at their house. Surely, that served as a great example of what life with Brian would be like as long as I was his baby’s mother. I wanted her to marinate on the idea for a while. But missing my little boy began to get the best of me, so I decided to go get him. Hopefully the damage had been done and Lexie had sent Brian packing, right along with our cute little replica. Brian couldn’t have returned Brice to me because I had purposely stayed away from my apartment the entire week. And there was no way he’d take him to my parents’ house—he wasn’t that vindictive. But I admit, I was disappointed that he hadn’t called me all week to ask me to come and get Brice.

All of my bruises from my bout with Brian and Lexie had healed, and I was back to my old self again. I needed to look my absolute best when I saw them again. Lexie had to know what she was up against and Brian needed to be reminded of what he once had, and could possibly have again if he played his cards right.