“Oh.” Well, I felt like an asshole. “That was sweet, Steven. And you know, I really think you’re an incredible guy.”
“So you’ve said. Do you believe it enough to give me another chance?”
I chuckled. “Not quite. But I do have a friend you may like.”
“No, I only have eyes for you. It was worth a try,” he added with a laugh. “Again, sorry for the confusion. Won’t happen again.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
That was easier than expected.
Kevin walked out of his bedroom once he heard me talking. His head cocked to the side as he approached, his eyes narrowed. He reached his arm out once he got to me, yanking on the chain around my neck.
“This looks familiar…”
“It should. It’s my old engagement ring.”
“How did you get this? And where have you been?”
I rolled my eyes. “Wes proposed again. And I might just say yes. I don’t want to hear your mouth about it.”
“Oh, you’re going to hear my mouth! Are you crazy? Is that where you were all night?”
“Kevin! I'm grown, and I don’t need to explain anything to you. If you don’t have anything nice to say, shut the hell up.”
He scoffed. “You’re giving me lip when I’m just looking out for you? I love you, babe, so I'm going to tell you when you’re being dumb.”
I folded my arms. “Well, I don’t want to hear it.”
He threw his arms in the air. “I can't deal with you. I can't even
look
at you right now. Do you remember how devastated you were? How broken you were? And you’re going to let him play with your heart again?”
He turned and walked into his bedroom without giving me a chance to reply. Twenty minutes later, I was making myself a sandwich and he stormed back out.
“Where are you going?” I asked, eyeing at the duffel bag in his hand.
“I told you, I can't deal with you right now. I’m going away for a few days. Hopefully by the time I come back, you’ll have regained some damn sense.”
“What?” I said to myself as he slammed the front door behind him.
Kevin was my brother; he had been with me through everything. I’d done plenty of things I’d considered worse, but he’d never been so angry with me. I knew he hated Wes, but was his hatred so deep it would cost us our friendship?
10
I packed a light bag and took care of a few things around the house before heading back to Wes’s, my argument with Kevin still replaying in my mind. I’d spent half the afternoon trying to call him, but he kept sending me to voicemail. I just hoped he would calm down in a few days.
As I waited for Wes to respond to the doorbell, I toyed with the ring hanging from my neck. Just as I was about to ring the doorbell again, the door swung open.
My mouth dropped as I stared at a pair of long and toned legs. My eyes trailed up the bare legs to a curvy frame in a loose t-shirt. Loose or not, I could still make out the thick body underneath it. I locked eyes with the woman, who had a familiar head of red hair.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Uh, I-I’m here for Wes.”
Her eyes widened like I’d just said something crazy. “Oh… he’s in the shower.”
She stepped aside to let me in. After closing the door behind me, she sauntered past me back down the hallway, the bottom of her ass cheeks out as she moved. I headed for the stairs and up to Wes’s room immediately.
“Shit!” he gasped when he emerged from the bathroom. “You scared me.”
I sat on the edge of the bed with my arms folded, eyebrow raised. He walked over to me, his dripping wet body temporarily distracting me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Met your roommate. That’s… some roommate,” I said with a nod.
He had a brief moment of confusion before everything clicked. “You knew I had a woman living here. You saw her clothes!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was the redhead from the wedding. She’s gorgeous, and she walks around with damn near nothing on.”
He sat next to me, pulling me close. “Nothing is going on- nothing has
ever
gone on between us. She’s a friend who’s in a bad place and I’m letting her stay with me until she gets back on her feet. Besides, it was nice to have someone to come home to; I was starting to get lonely. That’s all.”
“And she followed you here from Texas?”
He shrugged. “She has nothing keeping her there, and I appreciated the company.”
“I don’t know… I don’t like her walking around like that.”
“This is her home as much as it is mine. She should be allowed to be comfortable. And I’m sure you can relate. I’m sure you and Kevin have seen each other in various states of undress plenty of times.”
“That’s different; Kevin’s gay.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, but you don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do! He got drunk and tried to have sex with Amira the other night. Couldn’t get it up.” I folded my arms, smug. “Because he’s gay.”
“That proves nothing, but it does suggest he had a case of whiskey dick.”
I tried to stifle my laugh, but it came out anyway, sounding like a snort. Wes laughed with me, happy the tension was finally broken. He put on a pair of sweatpants and offered me his hand. I took it, and he led me downstairs to the living room, where the redhead was curled up on the couch with a bag of chips watching TV.
“I’m sure you two didn’t take the time to introduce yourselves. Vivian, this is my soon to be fiancé, Keisha. Key, this is Vivian. She’s been living with me for about a little over a year now.”
I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Sorry, you threw me off at the door. Wes doesn’t ever invite women home.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” I looked up at Wes with an amused grin. “‘Soon to be fiancé?’ Really?”
He shrugged with a boyish grin. “I’m calling it.”
I shook my head and smiled, turning back to Vivian. Forcing myself not to stare at her long legs and exposed panties, I tried to get to know her without judgment.
“So, how’d you two meet?”
She brushed some crumbs off her shirt. “I was homeless and pregnant. Wes took me in. He’s allowing me to stay here until I finish my medical transcription training and get a job I can survive by myself on.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but thankfully snapped it back shut. I hadn’t seen all of Wes’s house yet, but I hadn’t seen anything that would suggest a child lived there. I doubted she had custody of her baby, and I didn’t want to bring up a sore subject. Wes rubbed my back.
“That’s so lovely of you, Wes,” I told him, my heart swelling with pride at his generosity.
“How’d you two meet? We’ve only been in town for a few months, and I’m hearing talk of an engagement?”
I didn’t like the way she asked the question, but her skepticism was warranted if she didn’t know about me. It was sweet she was looking out for Wes- hopefully her intentions were as pure as his.
“We were engaged before-”
She gasped. “Oh, you’re the girl in the picture! I knew you looked familiar.”
Her smile widened and I looked at Wes. “What picture?”
“The picture I showed people when I was searching shelters for you. That’s how Vivian and I met- I was searching for you.”
“He keeps it in his wallet now. He looked for you for so long.”
Her words made his eyes glaze over, as if he were reminiscing on his failed attempt to find his true love. A twinge of guilt pinched my heart, but I decided not to dwell on it. I gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m here now,” I whispered. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled. “I know.” He looked at Vivian. “We’ll let you get back to your show.”
“Okay. Pot roast should be ready at about seven-thirty. Plenty for you too, Keisha.”
“Pot roast?” I asked him as we left her.
“She makes dinner most nights.”
“Oh…” I rarely made Kevin dinner if it was anything more than setting the microwave for ten minutes; she was making him pot roast. I took a breath. She was just a friend.
“So, where’s her baby?” I asked when we got back to Wes’s bedroom.
He folded his arms as he leaned against the nightstand.
“Gone.”
My brows shot up. “Like… gone?”
He ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly. “When I first met her, she was vomiting in a plastic bag in the alley she lived in. I asked her what happened to her. She was pregnant and her boyfriend kicked her out of the apartment they shared when she refused to abort the baby. She had nowhere to go.”
“That’s awful.”
“She was a mess. Track marks covering both of her arms, her hair was full of bald patches, and she was missing a front tooth.”
“She took drugs while pregnant?”
He nodded. “I don’t judge her for it, though; she needed access to help she wasn’t able to get. She never left that alley. I started volunteering at the local shelter, hoping to come across you. I would walk by her every day. Once she began showing, I asked her why she didn’t try to find placement. The women’s shelters were all full, and she could never get into them. When she was about six months pregnant, I found her out cold. I took her to the hospital, and they said she overdosed. She spent three days in the hospital. When they released her, I took her in. I just had to. I don’t know why I was so drawn to her, but I was. And I had to do something.”
I reached out and rubbed his back. “Because you’re an amazing person, that’s why. What happened to the baby?”
He shook his head. “She went into labor about a month later. The baby… lived less than four days. She doesn’t like to talk about it. She blames herself.”
“Is she clean now?”
He nodded. “I make sure of that. And I’m not going to allow her to live on her own until I’m confident it will stay that way. She’s like family to me now, like a little sister; you don’t have to worry about her.”
She must’ve been the woman he spoke about at the awards ceremony. I wish I could’ve said my amazement at his generosity remained, but Vivian was the kind of woman who made it hard to look the other way. We came downstairs for dinner, and she was reaching high above her head, trying to get the plates out of the cabinet, her backside completely exposed as her shirt lifted. Damn, that thing was bigger than mine.
Wes rushed to her aid, snagging the dishes.
“Do you need help with anything?” I asked her, trying my best to play cool.
“I was making lemonade; can you squeeze the rest of those lemons?”
“Sure.”
“What is that other amazing smell?” Wes asked her.
“German chocolate cake. It’s my first time making it from scratch. I hope it comes out good.”
I squeezed every last drop out of those lemons, taking my anger out on the fruit to prevent it from showing on my face. Pot roast? Fresh lemonade? His favorite cake from scratch? She was running the kitchen like Betty Crocker.
“Wow; you put a lot of effort into dinner,” I said, trying not to lift my eyebrow.
She shrugged. “Just trying to contribute. I mean, I can never thank Wes for what he did for me, but I was always good at housework. Pot roast is nothing compared to the fact that he saved my life,” she said with stars in her eyes.
I understood that, but I wasn’t entirely sure those were her true motives. I’d never made anything from scratch; when Wes and I moved in together, he was going to have to settle for Hamburger Helper.
My jealousy spiked when we sat down to her meal. The girl really put her foot in it- it was pretty amazing.
“Delicious, as usual,” Wes told her. “Thank you so much.”
She giggled, shrugging casually. “Of course. Anytime.”
“Yes, thank you. It’s really good,” I added out of courtesy.
I forced her to allow me to wash the dishes after dinner, to show my thanks. Wes’s phone rang, leaving me in the room with the competition.
She started drying the plates and replacing them in the cabinets, large beads of water splashing on her white shirt as she wiped. I rolled my eyes. She literally made everything look sexy. I hurried and finished the dishes; I was sick of watching the thin fabric cling to her skin.
Wes re-entered the kitchen and I immediately pulled him out. I was sure he’d seen the dish washing show plenty of times, but he wasn’t seeing it that night.
Once in his room, he crashed on the bed, fingers laced behind his head as he watched me search my bag for my toothbrush. When I looked up at him, he had a smile on his face.
“What?” I huffed.
“Stop being jealous.”
“Stop being entertained by my discomfort. I have every right to be uneasy with you having a hot girl in your house!”
“Well, Kevin’s not a bad looking guy either…”
I threw my hands in the air. No matter what I said, he was going to use Kevin as a rebuttal. And honestly, I had nothing to defend myself after that.
“Besides, I’m not jealous.”
He tried to suppress his smile, but his eyes still glistened with amusement as he spoke. “You sure?”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“You are. You’re not a good liar.” He got off the bed and encased me in a tight bear hug. “Don’t be jealous. She’s just being nice.”
I scoffed. “That’s beyond being nice. I hope you don’t expect anything better than a Duncan Hines cake from me.”
He laughed. “You know how badly I just want to order a pizza or Chinese for dinner? She makes too much of a fuss over it. But it makes her feel better, so I allow it. I can't complain about getting a good meal every night, though.”
I pulled away from him, walking to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Halfway through, I spit it out and walked back into the room, standing over Wes, who’d sat back down.
There’s nothing else to do while brushing your teeth but to think. I had an epiphany; maybe my discomfort over Vivian spawned it, maybe it was just my head realizing what my heart already knew. Either way, I confessed.
He lifted an eyebrow as he watched me walk up to him as I wiped the toothpaste from my mouth.
“You know what? Whenever I think about us, I have a clear vision in my head. When thinking about the future meals I’m going to prepare for you, it wasn’t an ‘if.’ It was a ‘when.’ I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Okay…” he sat up in bed.
Damn Kevin and his opinions, damn my mother and her attempt at destruction, I was
choosing
to be happy.
I snatched the chain from around my neck and removed the ring, slipping it on my finger. I gasped, seeing it on my finger felt as amazing as it did the first time he put it on me.
“Still fits,” I said in a hushed voice.
He jumped off the bed, all smiles. “Because it’s still meant to be.”
My phone rang as I headed to work Monday morning.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe,” Kevin said.
“You back home?”
“Yeah. Just wanted to apologize for my outburst. I just never expected to have to deal with Wes again, and now you’re thinking about taking him back?”
It probably would’ve been best to tell him that the ring was now on my finger, but I don’t think either one of us wanted to have that conversation at that moment.