No Ordinary Love (19 page)

“The victim? What the hell?”

How could he explain that he blamed Catrina for as much as he blamed David when it came to what was lacking in their relationship? They both played games, and he knew that Catrina was not an innocent party. Yet, everybody would vouch for how hurt she was when David cheated on her six years before and gave a wave to how she’d treated David afterwards.

Irritated because his anger actually had nothing to do with Catrina or David, Daemon flagged, “I’m positive that you will take this the wrong way so I’m not even gon’ say shit.”

“Are you the fuck serious? We have been down since we were kids. What the fuck you got against Trina and how she “
workin”
your boah?” She used air quotes to show her irritation.

Daemon sat down on the edge of the bed. “I not ‘bout to get into it with you. You know I got love for Trina. But right now I’m more concerned with my own shit than I am with theirs,” he explained.

His own shit?
Casey’s eyebrows rose slightly. She couldn’t control her facial expressions so her lips easily slid into a frown. “What shit?” The question didn’t carry the air of confusion, but the demand of authority. She straightened her back and folded her arms over her chest. “Is there something going on?”

Daemon walked over to his dresser and picked up two pieces of paper, walked back to Casey and handed them to her.

“What is this?” Casey questioned as her eyes briefly scanned the sheets and honed in on Tamika’s name. “She tryna get back with you?” she concluded before reading the actual words.
“No. You gon’ read it or do you want me to tell you?” Daemon offered. Prepared for anything, Daemon took a step closer to Casey. He was prepared but quite unaware of what to expect.

“Why the fuck is she writing you letters then?” She looked from him then back down at the sheet. Afraid of what she’d read, Casey began reading silently then aloud when she reached, “…and the only reason this concerns you is because I have a four-year-old daughter,” she then looked directly into his cinnamon-colored eyes. “You have a four-year-old daughter?” she finished.

Casey turned away from Daemon and began pacing the hardwood floor with one hand to her hip and the other holding the two sheets of paper. Millions of thoughts raced through her mind. Not one coherent.

Casey stood still for a moment. It was really no more than ten seconds. “Is she serious?”

Daemon put in hands into the pockets of his pajama bottoms. “From what I understand she is,” he responded. This time he stayed where he was, confident that she wouldn’t want him crowding her.

“From what you understand?” Attitude was dripping from every word that fell from her lips. “You mean that you ain’t call this bitch and see what she talking ‘bout?”

Daemon shook his head. “I attempted to call her but I’m still thinking.”

Casey scratched her left eyebrow. “Okay and how is it possible that you didn’t know that she had a four-no, she’s five now. How you ain’t know when you just told me last night that you guys have talked and seen each other since y’all broke up?”

Impatient, Daemon removed his hands from his pockets and rubbed them together. “Casey, I didn’t know that she had no baby. You know me better than that.”

It was true, she knew him better than to keep that type of secret.

This is like some type of nut-ass Lifetime movie
, she thought. “Call her.”

“Case,” he interrupted.

She wasn’t having any of that. “I said call her and find out what the hell she is talking about,” she told him very firm. She shook her head to rattle her thoughts a little. “We’n got time for this. You believe her?”

That was a very good question and one Daemon wasn’t entirely sure he could answer honestly. If he said yes, Casey would question his sanity. If he said no, she would get all womanly on him and tell him that it was a possibility that the child could be his. The safer way to play it was just not give a direct answer, he decided. “We gon’ get a test to see.”

The pose went from standing straight to hands on both hips. “I asked if you believe her.”

“What the fuck you want me to say, Case? If I say I believe, you gon’ get mad, if I say I don’t believe you gon’ be mad,” he shouted. “I was completely blindsided. How you think I feel? I’ve had less than twenty-four hours to take in the fact that I might have a kid I knew absolutely nothing about.”

There was no way to object. Daemon in this case was as innocent to it all as the child was. He needed her support. She understood that’s what he was asking for without saying the words, there was no need to.

“I’m not going be mad,” she paused. “At you anyway. I’m the hell angry with her. You know I don’t like this bullshit game irresponsible parents play with their kids. I have zero tolerance for this type of shit. Daemon,” she dragged her hands over her face in frustration then clasped them together close to her lips, “you really need to call her. The faster things are out in the open, the quicker we can take care of them. I’ma go to my room so you can have some time.”

“Casey,” he said. His voice was pleading.

She found that his eyes were as well when she separated her emotions from what this was doing to her and took time to see what it was doing to him.

Daemon went over to her and captured her hands in his and used the joint hands to tip her face up to his. “I need you. As my friend, as the woman I love to stick with me,” he told her sincerely.

There had been a time when needing a woman equaled weakness to him, now need ran an equality race with necessity. Casey wasn’t just any woman. She was the girl he’d spent his adolescence trying to ignore; his adulthood trying to deny, and the only woman he’d loved with such intensity that he saw a future with her.

Casey sighed as she unwound her hands from his. “I need you too, D. But if this is real— I mean if this is true, it changes everything.”

There would be the permanent presence of a vulnerable five-year-old little girl and her mother. The child’s mother and her permanent presence. Taking this situation at its worst, which would be him being the child’s father, her dreams of being the only woman to bear his children would be ruined.

“Babe, we have to find out if it’s true. I’m not gon’ stress until I know the truth.”

The truth was that he was already stressing but didn’t want her to stress along with him.

Chapter Sixteen

Our Friends

Briannah and Tyree

“Boo, do you have any idea what time it is?” Tyree questioned Briannah as he flicked on the sofa-side lamp as soon as the front door was securely shut and locked behind her.

Briannah rolled her eyes and rubbed the ache in her back. “Don’t scare me like that,” she told her fiancée. Tired, Briannah sat beside him on the sofa. She laughed and put her hand on his leg. “You all sittin’ in the dark and shit.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

His dark chocolate-colored face carried a frown. “I been worried ‘bout you all night, Bri.”

Briannah smiled. “I told you I was going out with Trina after the wedding.”

Tyree looked at his watch. “It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

“Well, we had to drive Trina home. And let me remind you that you just came in the house last night at quarter to three.”

“I’m not seven months pregnant. You weren’t answering your phone; Trina and Case ain’t answer theirs. I was ‘bout to start calling hospitals. I thought something happened to you.”

Briannah squeezed his thigh. Her man was so protective, and mad as hell apparently. The vein in his neck made an appearance.

“Awww,” she cooed as he pulled her into his lap. Smiling, Briannah wound her arms around his neck and kissed it. “Baby, I’m sorry. For some reason me, and Case ain’t get no service and Trina was so fucked up that she turned her phone off.”

“What happened with Trina?” he asked curiously. Tyree had no doubt that Briannah was going to spill the beans about whatever was troubling Catrina so he, in turn, could tell his best friend.

“The shit is going to hit the fan tomorrow,” she began.

Like the male gossip he was, Tyree sat patiently waiting for the next tidbits of information.

“Trina knows about Atlanta, and she is so hurt.”

“Whoa!”

“I know.”

Tyree leaned back a little to look into Briannah’s face. “Bri, I know you did not open up your damn mouth.”

“What?”

He sighed. “You know that shit ain’t none of your business,” he told her.

Briannah’s arms fell from around his neck. “Whoa, what you say?” she asked him.

Tyree rolled his eyes. He knew she hated when he chastised her actions. “Nothing, boo.” Briannah removed herself from his lap. “That’s what I thought,” she said.

“You funny,” he told her.

“Whatever. She one of my closest friends and I neglected to tell her.”

“Well how she find out then?”

“If you would let me get the story out, you would know. Gosh.”

He chuckled. “My bad. Go ‘head.”

In detail Briannah relayed the story to him.

“That’s fucked up,” was his response. Tyree picked up the phone.

“What you ‘bout to do?” Briannah questioned him.

“Call Dave and let him know what’s up. He was a lil’ fucked up today.”

Briannah folded her arms on top of her bulging belly. “No you not. Mind your own damn business.”

“Boo, he stressed the fuck out. She told him that they were done, and that she didn’t want to talk to him today,” he embellished.

“One of my best friends just spent the last three hours crying over that nigga. She stressed the fuck out.”

Tyree rubbed his head after replacing the telephone in its cradle and thought about all the things that had come to surface concerning his best friend and Catrina. “They got a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah. How your friend keep on disappointing her. I’m messed up, ‘cause I felt guilty for not mentioning it.”

“It wasn’t your place, and Trina got her secrets.”

Briannah sucked her teeth and frowned. “She ain’t even got no secrets from that nigga.”

“Okay, all right. Don’t play dumb with me.”

“Whatever, Tyree. He know everything about her. How many niggas she fucked; how many dicks she sucked, everything.”

“Yea, okay, boo. That’s your girl, and you gon’ say whatever to protect her.”

“Protect her from what? She ain’t scared of shit. What are you talking ‘bout?”

“You ain’t know that she was pregnant back then?” he challenged.

Those words closed her already open mouth.

Oh shit
, Briannah thought.

“That’s what I thought,” Tyree responded.

Briannah was so taken aback, she didn’t know where to begin her questions. “How you know?”

“When you hurting ‘bout something, you talk to your friends, right? Well, mine talk to me.”

“Dave know about the baby? How he find out?”

“Don’t worry about it. She ain’t tell him.”

Excuse the fuck out of me
, Briannah thought. “I know he better not bring that up.”

“If she’s gonna be kicking the shit to him like I know she going to, he gonna bring it up.”

“Tyree, she would really flip out on him.”

Normally there were no secrets between the two. It was surprising to Briannah that Tyree had known and not shared the information with her. It was not however, surprising to Tyree that Briannah had known and had not shared the information with him in an attempt to protect her friend.

“I know, Bri. Their situation is fucked up right now. All I know is that I love you,” he told her.

A smile spread across her caramel-colored face as she went to him. “I love you too.” Quietly, Briannah fit her body into his, the baby pressing into his side. “Seeing our friends so upset just makes me so thankful that I have you,” she murmured as he rubbed her stomach. The baby kicked beneath his touch.

“Your friends are gonna need you, Bri,” he said close to her ear.

Because his eyes were serious, she asked, “You know something?”

An explosion of air. “D may have a five-year-old daughter by Tamika.”

Frowning, Briannah leaned back. “What?”

Tyree laughed and tighten his hold around her. “That’s what we said. She wrote him this letter saying that she had a daughter and that the little girl was his. She even had the nerve to give the kid his last name.”

I know Case is flipping out,
Briannah thought. “You think that’s funny?”

He shook his head. “You know the boah always calm and composed. I think this shook him up a little bit. And we think he believe her ass.”

“I know he ain’t that stupid. What he say she said when he talked to her?” she inquired.

Tyree shrugged. “He hadn’t talked to her before he talked to us.”

“Niggas.” As a female, Briannah could imagine what was going through Casey’s mind.
The news warranted an ass whopping for Tamika from all parties involved. “When is he going meet her?”

The inquires she made couldn’t be answered.

“Boo, I don’t know. I’m just saying that she is definitely going to need you. And Trina is too, cause no matter what happens, he gonna move.

Chapter Seventeen

I Ain’t Tell You,
You Ain’t Tell Me

Catrina

There was no justified reason for her to feel pissed. Not when she’d told him that she couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with him, and that for once in their confused relationship, he’d listened. That being true, why did she feel so utterly incomplete after experiencing the greatest career success in her life? Success somehow seemed hallow without him to share it.

Never being one to drown her sorrows in liquor, Catrina had done just that. At least she had tried to, in any case. The alcohol that Casey and Briannah had encouraged her to drink to numb the pain had not done its job. There was still a faint pounding in her head just above her right temple. She had dry tear streaks down her cheeks. The tears had come so easy when she was in the presence of her friends.

The fact that they’d known about David’s decision to move to Atlanta hadn’t made her any angrier; it actually made her more emotional. As usual they’d been there lending shoulders for her to cry on. They both apologized to Catrina for not sharing their knowledge of David’s plans to move before she had discovered it in the way that she had.