Thicker Than Water (26 page)

“Alright, but if you change your mind let me know. Our suite is so huge you can stay in it with us and the girls and we probably won’t even see each other.”

They laughed some more and kicked it for a few minutes before they hung up. When Tatum hung up the phone she noticed a young black boy staring at her. She tried to ignore him but his eyes were literally drilling holes through her Tommy Bahama bikini and she had paid too much money for that.

He walked over to her wearing a big smile. Up close he wasn’t bad looking but he wasn’t cute. When he finally reached Tatum he stood right in front of her, blocking her sun.

“I just had to come over and see you up close. From a distance you looked like this beautiful singer, but I can’t think of her name. Up close though, I can definitely see the difference.” Tatum just looked at him still keeping her dark shades on.

“Oh,” she answered, a little offended.

“You’re much prettier.”

She blandly smiled but looked around wondering when Ree would make his way down. He was still in the room and Tatum was so happy that he was getting his well needed rest, she hardly saw him sleep. She looked at mystery man still standing there and wondered why. He wasn’t even saying anything. Then randomly, he decided to help himself to the lounge chair next to her. Oh Great.

“You know, my boyfriend should be down any minute.”

He looked at her arrogantly, and reclined his lounge chair.

“It’s a free country, I can sit anywhere I want, plus I’m not worried about your “
boy
friend.” Tatum whipped off her shades and squinted her eyes at him.

“Man friend,” she corrected. He laughed.

“Oh, sorry.
Man
friend.”

Tatum slowly put her shades on and continued reading her copy of the latest Takerra Allen novel. Ree walked out into the bright pool area and looked around for Tatum. He saw Chanel and Tangee kicking and trying to swim with their floaters on their arms. He chuckled at them.

As he spotted Tatum he noticed her going back and forth with somebody, not arguing, but not so friendly. He walked over coolly and greeted her with a kiss, then looked at the guy and then her.

“You alright?” He asked her.

“Yeah I’m alright. I was saving you a seat but somebody decided out of all the empty seats, they had to sit next to me.” She was frustrated with this dude, prior to Ree coming over there, he had told Tatum that if he didn’t want her next to him, that she should move. He was an asshole. The guy laughed obnoxiously and looked up at Ree.

“Free country, huh?” Ree said smiling at Tatum. Then with the swiftness, he picked up the man who tried to hold on to the lounge chair, and threw him into the deep end of the pool, lounge chair and all! Chanel and Tangee scurried out of the shallow end laughing, and Tatum started cracking up. This would be one of those things they laughed about the whole vacation.

After the pool incident, they all dressed and headed to Victoria and Albert’s, a restaurant on Lake Buena Vista, very expensive but with delicious food. It was the first time Tatum had seen Ree semi dressed up, it was definitely a jacket and tie restaurant, although he didn’t go that far.

The girls behaved well and dinner went superbly. Afterwards they went to a night time fireworks show and the girls ran around with other little kids as Tatum and Ree sat in the grass. It was like heaven.

After another moment or so he figured he would continue telling her how he felt. Something about taking this vacation with her just made him realize how much happier he was when he was around her, just in her presence.

“I see the way you are with them. You know, you’re practically raising them and you do a good job, too.” He paused then continued. “I would love for you to raise my children one day.”

She smiled but she didn’t answer, and there was no need to. There was no question posed. Just as the finale came, with multiple exploding stunning fireworks, they kissed.

Sasha sat on the phone trying to tell her mother everything without telling her much at all.

“Ma, for once I need you to not think so superficially but actually think of your daughter’s well being. Like can you be my mom?” She begged.

“Sasha what do you want me to say? I can’t believe you got yourself into this mess. One minute I’m planning the biggest wedding of your dreams and the next you’re telling me that my future son in law is in prison and you are going to have a baby. Don’t you keep that baby, get rid of it. It will ruin your life. You’ll get fat, and you’ll be tied down. Now if you want to marry Chauncey still, that’s fine,” Terri answered, feeling like she had all of the solutions.

“That’s fine? That’s fine! How can that be fine ma, he fucked my best friend!”

Terri was appalled.

“First of all young lady, you watch your damn mouth when you talk to me and second of all, Penelope was not your best friend, I told you that she was jealous of you. Chauncey was just being a man.”

Sasha got so frustrated with her mother that she didn’t even answer. She just banged on her. Five seconds later, she was calling back.

“Ma, leave me alone!”

“Sasha, princess it’s daddy.”

The instant she heard her daddy’s voice her mood changed. She poured out everything she had been feeling, everything that happened not sure what to do.

“Baby why don’t you move back home? I don’t like you being up there all by yourself.” Sasha didn’t answer so her dad tried another approach.

“Well why don’t you come home for the weekend so we can talk?”

She agreed to that and went to pack her Fendi duffle for a weekend in the suburbs of some hardcore decision making with her mommy and daddy.

As she packed, she noticed that Mike had left a t-shirt there.
Ugh! What the hell, I hope he didn’t do that on purpose.
She took her time as she moved around because she was a little nervous about seeing her parents. Although she was an adult, somehow when she got around them she always felt like a child, and she knew that her pregnancy wouldn’t necessarily be a good discussion.

After she was all done she closed up all of the windows and turned off the lights, then headed out the door on her way to Somerset, NJ.

“The key is not moving,” Tatum said, while giggling at Ree bouncing up and down waiting for her to open the door so he could relieve himself.

“C’mon, why you playing?” He asked, jokingly.

He had to piss like a racehorse. She jiggled the key in the lock and finally the door opened. Ree took off through the dark house straight to her bathroom. She dropped her bags laughing hysterically and turned on the hallway light, and then she took Chanel and Tangee upstairs to get them to bed.

They had fallen asleep on the plane and she was hoping that they stayed asleep. She made her way to the kitchen and noticed two dirty pates and cups in the sink. She stopped, wondering if she’d left them there but realized that she had definitely washed her dishes before she left. That could only mean one thing; her brother was out of jail, but how?

She stood still wondering where he was now and hoping that he didn’t come back with Ree there. She knew that whole stolen money situation was not handled and she did not want them two to run into each other. As Ree came out of the downstairs bathroom she tried to play it cool. He took off his tee and laid it across the couch but Tatum picked it back up and handed it to him.

He looked at her for a while and then put his tee back on. He wasn’t going to show his disappointment but he had just taken a girl and her family on vacation, showered them with everything they wanted, and opened up and told her his feelings, and now she was acting brand new.

He was disappointed and he wondered if he should have gone this hard in the first place. He had never behaved the way he did when he was with Tatum and for the first time since he met her, he was having doubts.

“Alright. I’ll talk to you later,” he told her, as he gave her a kiss on the cheek and walked out the door. Tatum stood there not wanting him to go, they had planned on watching The Wire and ordering pizza but then she flipped it on him. She felt horrible.

“Goodbye. I’ll call you later, okay?”

The minute he walked out she sulked on her couch and turned to HBO wondering where her brother was and if he knew just how much she sacrificed for him.

Chapter 18 - Resentment

Ree pulled onto his street and drove slow approaching his house.
Oh shit!
He rode by it as he watched the swarm of police officers move in and out of his home. Automatically thoughts raced through his head.

He started wondering why Tatum was trying to get him to go home. Did she set him up? Was she down with her brother? He couldn’t even fathom the idea. He hopped back on the Parkway, not sure where he was heading as his cell phone rang. He didn’t answer the first two times but then picked it up the third time when he saw that E was calling.

“Yo,” Ree answered, cautious and not sure who was listening.

“Respect, yo shit is crazy right now! Fucking Feds crawling all over the stash houses and everything. Muhfuckas came to my crib too!”

“Where’s the money?” Ree asked, concerned with the money.

“It’s at three.” Three meant that it was at the third stash house which is a place that only Chauncey, Ree, and most recently E knew about. “Safe and sound.” E said assuring Ree.

Ree passed the exit for Newark and then for Union, he wasn’t sure where he was going.

“What you think?” He asked, being very general, but it was already too late anyway, they was at his crib so that meant they already had some type of incriminating evidence. Wasn’t even no point in talking in code, but he kept it safe anyway. E answered instantly.

“Respect, it’s what I know. Guard down at booking told me, they had the nigga Chris down in interrogation for hours, then he walks. Nigga said they were asking specifically about you.” Ree knew this day may come.

The game was coming to an end and it wasn’t the way it was when niggas first started out. It used to be enough money for everybody to eat, so they respected the code of the streets. It also used to be that if you weren’t a stand up dude, you couldn’t survive in the game.

But nowadays, the snitch and the bitch niggas come up and the real niggas get knocked down. These dudes get in the game and can’t take those numbers like a man when they get caught so they go against the grain and usually knock the man that put food in his mouth and fed his fucking family. And as far as Ree and Chris were concerned, he literally fed his family.

Ree quickly hung up the phone and headed to Tatum’s house. He needed to know what the fuck she knew and he needed to talk to her. Shit was definitely hitting the fan.

He pulled up quickly to her curb and jumped out the car. He ran up her stairs and began banging on her door. She came to the door sleepy with a slight smile, happy that he had returned.

“Hey,” she said, not knowing anything but she soon recognized the anger and urgency in his face. “Is everything alright Ree?” He lightly pushed her into the house and closed the door behind him.

“Tatum, why were you trying to get me to my house?”

She thought of her brother and then she thought of Ree. She had been real with him up to this point so she figured she might as well continue. She couldn’t look him in his face and lie anyway.

“Ree when we got back I saw that my brother had been here. I wanted to get you out just in case he came back, I know you still think that he took-” He cut her off.

She kept her same perplexed look on her face. He had left the country plenty of times but he had never seemed so critical about it.