“Are you all right?” he asked, taking note of her silence.
“Somewhat,” she said.
“There's a bed waiting for you right upstairs, and if you want me to, I'll sleep downstairs.”
“No,” she said. “It's your bed and I'm not going to ask you not to sleep in it.”
Cleveland scooped Freddie into his arms. “Good, because I was lying anyway.”
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The next morning, Freddie woke up before Cleveland and dipped down to the second floor of his three-story town house where the kitchen was. She figured she could cook him breakfast. Besides, it had been awhile since she cooked in a real kitchen. Once again she was surprised to see Cleveland didn't live like a bachelor. His refrigerator was fully stocked with eggs, turkey bacon, cheese and other breakfast staples. Most guys, she figured, would be doing well to have a carton of expired milk and a box of baking soda in their refrigerators.
Freddie found the pans she needed to make cheese omelets and bacon, then she spotted a box of pancake mix on the top of the refrigerator. She was elbow deep in mixing pancake batter when Cleveland came downstairs, clad only in a pair of cotton boxer briefs that hugged his sexy body like a second skin.
Freddie nearly forgot what she was supposed to be doing when she saw Cleveland standing at the end of the staircase nearly naked.
“I must be dreaming,” he said. “You're the last person I would've expected to cook.”
She returned to her mixing. “Why do you say that?”
“Most beautiful women I know don't cook,” he said.
“I'm a New Orleans chick, cooking is just like breathing to me,” she said.
Cleveland crossed over to the island in the middle of the kitchen between the stove and the dining area. He hopped up on a stool and propped himself up on his elbows. Smiling, he watched Freddie pour the pancake batter on the griddle pan.
“Need any help?”
“Um, why don't you make the coffee,” she said.
“How do you like it?” He hopped off the stool and headed for the coffee machine on the corner of the counter.
“Like you, strong, black, and sweet.”
Cleveland cast a sidelong glance at her. “Sweet? Me?”
“When you're not being an insufferable jerk, you can be quite sweet,” she said. “And I'm sorry I've been such a bitch.”
Cleveland frowned as he measured the correct amount of French vanilla gourmet coffee grinds to put in the brew basket. “You cook and apologize? I must be dreaming.”
Freddie, who was cracking eggs, burst out laughing. “Yes, you are dreaming. I have a question. Why does Lillian dislike you so much?”
Cleveland shrugged as he poured just enough water into the coffeemaker's tank to make a pot of strong coffee. “I gave her a hard time when she and Louis started dating. I guess she's never forgiven me for that.”
“What do you mean by hard time?” Freddie asked as she flipped the pancakes.
“I just wasn't very nice to her. Called her stuck up a few times because she was always complaining when she came to the firehouse. I had no idea she was so sensitive.”
“Well, according to Lil, you're the devil.”
He shrugged again. “Misunderstood is more accurate. Everybody thinks they know me and the kind of man that I am.”
“But they don't?”
He shook his head. “You ever want something but didn't know exactly what it was?”
Freddie shook her head, not quite sure where he was going with this.
“Most men, whether they admit it or not, have been hurt by a woman. Once a man has been hurt, he'll spend his life trying to inflict pain on every other woman he runs across. That hasn't happened to me because I don't let anyone get too close. When I fall in love, it's going to be for real and last forever. If my dad were still alive, he and my mother would be celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Some of the women I've dated wouldn't even last fifty days.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Okay.”
“What I'm saying is, I want something that's forever and I'm very selective. Some people, mainly Lillian, think I'm a womanizer. That isn't true, it's just that I don't waste my time or someone else's when I know it isn't right.”
“So, how do you know when it's right?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “One day, I'll know.” What he didn't say, in order to avoid another argument with her, was this: he felt as if what they were sharing was right.
Chapter 16
After breakfast, Cleveland had to go into the fire station for his first shift since his vacation. Freddie decided that she was going to spend the day with Lillian, since Cleveland was going to be gone for the next twelve hours. She knew that her friend was going to have a lot of questions about her being with Cleveland. Questions that Freddie wasn't sure she had the answers to.
Listening to him this morning really made her wonder if she had pegged him all wrong. Was he different? Was he the kind of man that she could actually fall in love with?
“No,” she said to her reflection as she stepped out of the shower. “He could've been saying what he thought I wanted to hear.”
She dressed quickly and headed downstairs. Cleveland had left his house key so that Freddie wouldn't be stuck in the house all day. As she locked up, Freddie was amazed at how comfortable she was in Cleveland's house. And a small part of her, a part that she desperately wanted to ignore, felt as if this could be the start of something good and fresh. That tiny part of her said she was falling in love with Cleveland Alexander.
Shaking her head and hoping to push those notions of love away, she got into her car and headed to Lillian's. Maybe she needed to hear her friend's voice of reason to get her back on track. This thing with Cleveland was just about sex and just about pleasure. There was no substance, no future, and no way she was going to give in to that tiny voice.
As she drove, Freddie called Lillian. “What's up girl?” she said when Lillian answered the phone.
“I should be asking you the same question, Flavor.”
“Flavor?”
“That's what you are, Cleveland's flavor of the month.”
“Oh will you stop it?”
“Not until you tell me when you lost your mind,” Lillian said. “I mean really, even if this wasn't Cleveland âPlaya, Playa' Alexander, you guys don't even live in the same city or state for that matter.”
“Stop yakking my ear off, I'm in your driveway.” She hung up the phone and looked up as Lillian opened the front door to her Stone Mountain home. Freddie had to admit it, Lillian had come a long way from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Sometimes she wondered how her life would've been different if Loraine had followed the Thomas family to Georgia.
Can't change the past, can't control the present,
she thought as she stepped out of the car. “Lillian, aren't you at least happy to see me?” Freddie said as she bounded up the steps.
“I saw you last night, remember. Anyway, Cleveland is not the man for you.”
Freddie shook her head. “Did I say I wanted to marry the man? And just for argument's sake, how do you know he isn't what I need?”
Lillian threw her hands up like an African dancer. “You've really lost your damned mind. The only difference between Cleveland and Marcus is that Cleveland doesn't know that finding your daddy would make him a millionaire. He's that same kind of arrogant jerk that's going to do nothing but break your heart.”
“It's not like that and you know what? You don't know Cleveland.”
“I'm sure I don't know him like you do, but every time I see him he has a new woman on his arm. A new flavor of the month, like I said before. You're better than that and I don't want to see him use you and toss you aside.”
Freddie sat down on the sofa in the living room and looked up at her friend with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on her face. “Who says that I'm not using him?”
Sitting down beside her friend, Lillian shook her head. “You don't do casual relationships any more than I do. The moment Louis and I met at Gladys Knight's Chicken & Waffles, I knew I was going to marry him.”
Freddie cocked her head to the side. “Rewriting history, aren't we?”
“What do you mean?” Lillian asked.
“You didn't even like him when you first met him, according to what you told me. It wasn't until our senior year at Xavier that you gave him the time of day because you were lining up your MRS degree.”
“Whatever,” Lillian said. “I wouldn't have gotten closer to him if I hadn't known that he was the man for me. Our wedding was no accident. It had been planned since we met in Atlanta our freshman year. Sure Louis isn't the man of my dreams, but he loves me and respects me. I've never seen Cleveland show a womanâother than his mamaârespect.”
“Have you ever sat down and had a conversation with the man?”
“Why would I?” she said. “Do you want something to drink or eat? All of this stuff about Cleveland is giving me a headache and it's very unpleasant. Do you remember when my mother moved to Georgia? I really didn't want to come. But I think being in Georgia allowed me to grow as a person, to really get a grip on the kind of woman I want to be.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Freddie asked, looking at her friend with questions dancing in her eyes.
“Maybe you need a change of scenery, a chance to rewrite some of the history of your life and meet the right man. North Carolina is close to Atlanta, but far enough away from Louisiana . . .”
“What if I want to start over in Atlanta, with Cleveland?” Freddie said then laughed. “Let's eat something, I'm starved.”
“You're playing with fire,” Lillian said as they headed into the kitchen.
“Good, Cleveland can put it out,” she said and playfully swatted Lillian on the bottom.
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Cleveland sat on the ratty sofa next to the widescreen TV in the fire station. He was so sick of Louis and Roland questioning him about Freddie. Roland ate barbequed chicken, which was dripping sauce on his thigh and asked Cleveland, “How the hell did you swing that?”
“For the last time, I'm not talking about Freddie.”
Louis nodded in agreement. “I'm sick of hearing about you and Freddie. Lillian acts like she's that woman's mother and you're the big bad wolf. Ever since you two walked into Darren and Jill's place it's been, âI can't believe Freddie is with him.'”
“Your wife,” Roland said in between bites of chicken, “is evil.”
Louis smacked the chicken bone out of Roland's hand. “I've warned you not to talk shit about my wife. She just doesn't think Mr. Playa over here is good enough for her friend.”
Darren walked into the break room. “You guys haven't gotten it out of him either, huh?”
Cleveland stood up. “First of all, there's nothing to get out of me. I have nothing to say.”
“Aw, whatever man!” the three men exclaimed in unison.
Roland picked up his chicken bone and walked over to Cleveland. “Your dating stories got us through a lot of long shifts. Now you're with this bona fide babe that has got to be a freak-and-a-half and you're not sharing stories.”
“Roland, get a life,” Cleveland said. “Freddie is different.”
Darren raised his eyebrow and looked at his brother, who had a goofy smile on his face. “Different? Say it ain't so? My baby brother has fallen in love.”
Cleveland tugged at his locs and looked at his brother. “Did I say I was in love? The woman is different, not like a lot of these other woman that I've run across, but I didn't say I was in love.”
“Where is she now?” Louis asked.
“At my house.”
“Alone?” Roland asked. “You left a woman alone in the bat cave? You know she is going through all of your stuff.”
“Freddie's not like that,” Cleveland said. “Besides, I don't have anything to hide. We know where we stand.”
“You need to stop lying to yourself,” Darren said. “I've known you all your life and you don't like to leave Ma alone in your house, but this chick is at your place alone? Who are you and what did you do with my brother?”
“Man, I'm tired of all of you,” Cleveland said. “I'm going to wash the truck or something.”
As he left the break room, Cleveland thought about some of the things that the guys said. Everything that he was doing right now when it came to Freddie was out of character for him. What if Freddie was in his house looking for proof that he was the womanizer that Lillian said he was? It didn't matter to him what the guys thought. Freddie, the woman who cooked him breakfast and made his toes curl, wasn't the kind of woman who would ramble through his house.
How did they figure that leaving her alone in his house meant that he loved her?
Why am I lying to myself?
Cleveland thought as he filled a bucket with water.
I'm falling hard and fast for a woman that has made it clear that she doesn't want anything more than this physical relationship we share. She's going to go back to New Orleans and I'm going to spend the rest of my life searching for someone that measures up to her.
“Cleveland,” Darren said, walking up behind his brother. “Hey, sorry about giving you a hard time. But I saw this coming.”
“Man, I don't feel like talking about this. Freddie and I are two adults, having fun. She's going though a lot right now. Her house was blown away by Katrina, she has these family issues, and she needed to unwind after Mardi Gras,” he said. “She's made it clear that she doesn't want a serious relationship.”
“Your line, huh? I can see in your eyes that you want more than just a bedroom buddy with this woman. If she's all that, enough to make you bring her to Atlanta and . . .”
“So what if I want more? She doesn't,” Cleveland said in a low voice. “All I can do is go with it.”
Darren shook his head. “Not if you feel about her the way I think you do. You've never been in love or even in deep like this. You never let a woman get close, but this one is in there.” Darren pointed to Cleveland's chest. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
“This might be a little more than I can handle. Freddie is an amazing woman, but she has this wall that she just doesn't want to let me cross.”
“What kind of family issues does she have?”
“I have to go and check something out,” Cleveland said. “Why don't you finish up washing this baby?”
Darren shook his head at his brother. “And I thought I was in charge here.”
Cleveland dashed inside and headed for the computer. He needed to know exactly what Freddie was dealing with when it came to her father. He typed Jacques Barker into the Google search bar, but came up empty.
This man is a mystery,
he thought as he typed in Jacques Barker and New Orleans. Still there was nothing.
Cleveland hoped that Freddie would tell him about her father, and he could tell her that he was falling in love with her and would do whatever he needed to do to help her work out her past issues.
“What are you doing?” Louis asked as walked up to Cleveland and looked over his shoulder at the screen.
“How much do you know about Freddie's family?”
He whistled. “Sore subject. Her pop is a big time felon. She doesn't even have his last name anymore.”
“What's his last name?”
“Babineaux,” he said as he headed down the hall.
Cleveland typed the name Jacques Babineaux into the Goggle search bar. Ten pages of information popped up. An article from Crime.com caught his eye.
Its headline read,
Evil has a name and it is Babineaux
.
Wow,
he thought as he started reading.
In 1986, New Orleans pastor Nolan Watson was found dead behind a French Quarter hotel. His body had been mutilated, his genitals nearly severed off. Watson, a proud member of the New Orleans community, was known for helping any and everyone who needed help. His church in the upper Ninth Ward was a stop for presidential candidates and anyone seeking office in the city of New Orleans. That's why his murder was so shocking.
Who would kill this man of God?
“This crime shook New Orleans because people don't kill preachers. That's real evil when you do something like that,” said Bishop Thomas Brodreaux. “Reverend Watson was a beacon of light in the community when there was a lot of negativity. When he was killed, a feeling of evil just settled over the city.”
A few weeks later, New Orleans saw the face of evil when Jacques Babineaux, the owner of The French Garden Inn, the hotel where the Reverend was found, turned himself in for the crime. He offered no explanation and avoided trial with a guilty plea.
But he wouldn't stay in prison long. Though Babineaux was sentenced to life in prison, he escaped after serving only five years of his sentence. Though many people thought he'd return to New Orleans, he was never spotted in the city. The FBI and the New Orleans Police collected over $1 million in reward money hoping the public would flush him out.
Police and federal authorities questioned his ex-wife, Loraine, who dropped her husband's last name after the trial. For three years, she and her daughter were under police protection. Police thought that Babineaux would return, kidnap his family and go underground.
He didn't. Loraine Barker, his ex-wife, declined several requests for interviews. Police don't suspect that Barker helped her ex-husband escape because she has never shown public support for her husband.
Cleveland printed the story and shook his head. No wonder Freddie wanted answers from her father. How could a man do something like that? He was beginning to think that there was more behind the story than what was on the Web site. But how was he going to get Freddie to open up about it? Did he really want to know? Taking the story from the printer, he folded it and placed it in his jacket pocket. When the time was right he and Freddie could talk about her father and why she'd even want to find him. But not while she was in Atlanta. This was a pleasure trip that he was determined to make her enjoy.