No Ordinary Love (25 page)

“Oh, shit. You always breaking hearts. She’s nice.” Tyree’s grin was wide as he pictured Mi-Chelle. Mi-Chelle was fine as hell, had been with David off and on for the past four years and deserved the ring that David kept in his safe.

“What you be doing to these women?” Daemon asked, really wanting to know.

“Y’all niggas playing. I’m serious. Y’all think I got a chance with her or what?”

Tyree shook his head, Daemon just stared. “Hell no,” they both let out a laugh, but still managed to say it in unison.

“Whatever, I’ll ask her.”

“Beyond that. I’ma need you to make sure you clear your calendar next week. We have to damn near do an overhaul on the wedding ceremony site,” Daemon informed David.

David scratched the top of his head. “I’m confused. Why y’all getting married outside?”

Daemon had no idea, but what he said was, “It’s what my baby wants; that’s what she’ll get.”

“Where is it at again?”

“I don’t know what it is. It looks like it used to be part of a house, kind of like a long hallway. The structure is kind of still intact, with a whole bunch of windows. I don’t fuckin’ know. It’s on Strawberry Mansion Drive and Huntingdon or Cumberland, I think. Right across from the Dell, you know where you turn before you get to the bridge?”

David knew the place well; he and Catrina had spent many nights in their youth parked there. He figured he would make a point to drive by it, to see for himself what type of work would need to be done.

Irrational Thoughts

As much as Briannah loved Catrina if she had to listen to Bonnie Raitt’s, “
I Can’t Make You Love Me
,” one more time, she was sure that she was going to scream.

“Are we still apologizing for letting him come?” Briannah quizzed as she scanned the table with horror. Between the song and the manual labor of favor making, she was already suffering. The task was proving to be as tedious as she thought it was going be. Hundreds of assorted miniature chocolates, personalized labels and ribbons, silver bells, and miniature clear heart-shaped blown glass vases were scattered across the table in the production room of Perfect Perceptions.

The current chaos on the table was a vast contrast to the meticulously organized space where their friend created favor after favor for every occasion under the sun. The lilac and violet painted walls displayed black and white photos of the most precious moments of past events managed by Perfect Perceptions. The black wood shelving behind her held a magnitude of wedding books, magazines, and other reference materials. The glass shelving facing her held crystal and glass bowls in a variety of styles, shapes, and colors. Catrina prided herself in centerpiece creation as well as floral designs. The area was a design of contrasting colors and textures.

Casey had captured Catrina’s essence perfectly in her choice of decor for her entire office space. As much as she was beginning to despise all things miniature, Briannah mused, doing the favors themselves saved Catrina money, which was just as well as she was planning Casey’s wedding for free as her gift.

Briannah attempted to snatch the iPOD control from Catrina’s hands only to have her restart the song from the beginning. Briannah laughed and tried again.

Casey laughed and offered, “I’m sure that’s a yes.” Casey watched with avid interest as Catrina held up the control with one hand and fought off Briannah with the other.

It wasn’t that she was upset, Catrina felt. She was more perplexed that his presence had been able to throw her off. But hadn’t she always been that way when it came to him?

“I’m not upset,” Catrina explained. “I’ve seen him a lot since-since we broke-up. It’s just odd, because I still have feelings for him that extend beyond friendship. Yet, the urge to want nothing more than that maybe the one thing that keeps me sane. I feel like Ally from the movie,
The Notebook
, but without the hope for a happy ending. Who loves someone for that long? I mean, I can’t really still be like in love-love with him, right?”

Casey’s fingers stilled in the middle of tying a ribbon, and she glanced down to the head of the table. She had to talk herself into the question, but could no longer hold it in. “He calls you more since you went down there for that wedding last year. Did you see him when you went to Atlanta?”

Both Briannah and Casey waited for the answer. Briannah was astonished that Casey had even asked. She had thought to ask the same question a while back, but chose not. If Catrina could leave it alone, then they all could and should seeing how it was not their love lives; it was not their business.

Catrina scrunched up her face and let it go as her decision to be honest with them surfaced. If she couldn’t share everything with them, who could she be able to share everything with?

“He’s like my Mr. Big y’all,” she spilled, making reference to the Sex and the City character and quickly let her forehead touch the table. “I slept with him. I’ve been out with him on dates. Before Atlanta. It started like three years ago when we all went to Punta Cana. We did it again during the Poconos trip the winter before last.” Catrina lifted her head at the gasp and just in time to see Casey’s hands go to her mouth. “I know that this is menial and makes no sense but he is the only man I’ve dated who knows that I never give away the top of my blueberry muffin.”

Briannah shook her head and laughed as she asked, “The blueberry muffin? That is too funny.” Even though she laughed, Briannah understood that it was the small things that mattered to Catrina.

“In Atlanta we had lunch, went to a couple museums and then dinner that Saturday night, He still knows those spots that make me want to melt. The spots that Shawn hasn’t even discovered yet. This shit is in the way. I’m thirty, and I still want him like I did when I was twenty, shit, like I did when I was sixteen.” The admission served to shock both her friends.

A bit confused at Catrina’s confession and her own blindness to the situation, Briannah dug deeper. “So what happened? And why so secretive about it? You never mentioned it to either one of us.”

Frustrated now, Catrina pushed her seat back. “How could I? It sounds stupid that I would let this happen, so to spare myself the pitiful looks from both of you, I just didn’t mention it. Any of it. Besides, neither one of you understand what this feels like.” She honestly replied.

How could they when Briannah had been with Tyree a total of almost twelve years, and Casey had loved Daemon as for as long as she herself had loved David, or maybe even before then.

Simple contemplation of it left her numb to all things.

“I never should have slept with him. I wasn’t dating anyone and the first time was before Shawn. I just wanted to and I did. I don’t think either one of us thought of Mi-Chelle. Anyway, he was supposed to drive me to the airport on Monday morning. I missed the plane on Sunday, because I was doing him. He called me the next day instead of showing up at my hotel and said he was gonna be late. I could hear a woman in the background cussing. I assumed it was Mi-Chelle. I just hung up and got a taxi. When he didn’t show up before the flight left like he would have had this been a romance novel or movie, I just pushed it along with all the other fucked up stuff between us.”

The room suddenly seemed small and stuffy.
That’s enough talk of him
, she concluded in her mind.

“Well what did Shawn say about him at the party?” Casey inquired.

Catrina frowned, causing her eyebrows to crease. She’d had to deal with Shawn and all his questions regarding the relationship between her and the stranger at the party. Of course he’d heard of David from Tyree and Daemon but nothing more in relationship to who he had been to Catrina.

On his own, Shawn had come to the conclusion that Catrina had dated David in the past just based on the fact that her two best friends dated his two best friends. She’d at that and point agreed that David had been her teenage boyfriend, revealed information about the baby she miscarried, but spared him the details of their relationship in between.

Instead of the lovemaking Shawn had promised, he ended up sleeping on the couch and she slept alone in her king-size bed.

“Yea that was fun. He went the fuck nuts. Accusations and a whole bunch of stuff about why y’all invite him to a party he helped pay for and more blah, blah, blah. I tuned him out for a minute, and then ended up telling him all about Dave, minus a couple details.”

Catrina went to the small refrigerator, grabbed three bottles of water and handed one to both women. “You have way more to be thinking about than me and my mess,” Catrina said taking a sip from the bottle. Back in planner mode, Catrina glanced over at Casey and handed her a checklist. “Final count for the reception is due ASAP so I can fax it the Marriot. Then you and D can do the seating charts. The menu is finalized, centerpieces and arrangements approved. Everything with the reception is good. Nita gonna be there to oversee set-up for that. Gonna hit the florist after we finish this. Then on to Denise’s for a final cake tasting. Everyone has their dresses. All the guys’ tuxes are rented. I do have to say that damn near everything is done.”

“I’m so excited about the cake tasting. So leaning towards red velvet. I do have to say that you’re the best friend there is to have. I love you. Gimme a kiss.” Casey smiled.

“Whatever! Majority of the work is gonna be the ceremony site. The guys are going to be cutting down those tree and branches growing out of the building.”

Casey stretched out her arms in a cheer, “Yay! Sweaty men with electric chainsaws.”

“We gonna be pulling up weeds, and doing a lot of strenuous work. I want y’all to mentally prepare for this,” Catrina smiled and turned to Briannah. “Especially you,” she said to her.
Briannah’s frown and pouting mouth did nothing but influence a roll of the eyes from Catrina. “The landscaping crew will be out there all day Friday working on the design that we’ve finally agreed upon.” Hopeful eyes looked up at her friend. The sparkle came when Casey nodded in approval. Catrina clapped. “So, they’re gonna mow down the strip from the stairs to what’s gonna be covered by the aisle runner. The aisle will be—”

Excited, the vision of her perfect day already swimming in her mind, Casey interrupted Catrina, “Umm, did you tell D that he had to stay out there to make sure vandals don’t do anything to my site.”

A hearty giggle escaped from Briannah who up to that point was engrossed in the dream vision of the ceremony site that Catrina was weaving with her description. “Oh, shit. I know you don’t think that he is staying out there all night long?” she said to Casey.

“Yes, he is,” she argued. At least that was what she was going to ask him. She had planted the seed a couple weeks before jokingly, only to be ignored. The chances of him doing it were very slim, but she knew that he would do anything for her. Even if it meant camping out overnight at the ceremony site to protect it from city vandals, spray paints, and bottles.

“Your friend is crazy as hell. I can already see him asking her if she is,” Briannah told Catrina.

They all could imagine that conversation, which would probably end with Casey in tears before the agreement came.

“Shit, if you get D to go out there, I’ll see if Tyree will do it with him,” Briannah added optimistically.

Chapter Twenty-Three

So… that’s the past
Wassup with the future?

Catrina and David

How they ended up riding in the same car was beyond her. All Catrina could remember before being pushed into the car with David was the fact that she’d rode to the site with Casey, who was now riding back with Daemon.

With the wedding a week away, they obviously still had time to meddle in the business of others. The unsubtle hint for them to switch came right after Daemon made up a reason to have to go back home, along with Casey. There was no doubt that Casey had shared the information about Catrina and David sleeping together for the past three years. The information seemed to have proved to be a catalyst for Daemon to join Casey in her renewed interest to see David and Catrina together again.

Catrina shrugged to ward off the nervous flutters in the pit of her stomach. The last time they were alone she’d ended up admitting her love for him and sharing a hotel room with him for the weekend.

This moment would be different, though, Catrina was sure. She’d managed it in her youth and was confident that she could hold her ground with him now as an adult with years of experience under her belt.

“They think they slick,” David said, sliding behind the wheel of his rented black on black BMW X5 SUV wagon. Because they were blessings for his cause, David inwardly thanked God for the opportunity to finally be alone with her. Not that he planned on seducing her in the secluded area of the car, but to just feel her out. He would test her reserve and push just enough to see if there was still any fire beneath the icy exterior she now reserved only for him.

“You know how Casey is. I don’t know why, but she’s always had a soft spot for you,” Catrina hesitantly explained to him. She quickly chastised herself on the softness and uncertainty of her voice. If she didn’t exert extra energy in trying not to relax, Catrina surmised that she would be able to loosen up and become comfortable in his company. Thoughts of him were what kept her too preoccupied to be settled.

“I just told them that I’ve seen you socially and have slept with you since we broke up. They were kind of shocked. They both seemed to suspect something though because Case asked if I saw you when I went to Atlanta. She was like he calls you more since you came back from there,” Catrina remembered.

The notion that she’d been silent about their time together didn’t sit well with him. It was odd, he concluded; she shared everything with them.

“Why haven’t you told them?” he questioned as he adjusted the volume on the car stereo. He already assumed that driving in the confines of a car would be the best time to talk to her. The chance for escape was on hold for the duration of the ride.

“I knew that they wouldn’t approve. Really was no point to, and I, at this point, would rather not talk about it.” Catrina closed her eyes, put on her sunglasses, and hoped that he would leave it at that.