Rapture 2: a BWWM, Alpha Male Romance (19 page)

THIRTY

Rush

I sat on the sofa in the small retreat at the other end of our bedroom. “Come here, babe,” I said, pulling Alika onto my lap. “What’s wrong? You seem distant.”

“I’m good.”

“Pretty little liar, you are, Alika,” I said, running my hand down her back. “What’s going on?”

“Where’s Siobhan?”

“She’s in the room I had set up for her down the hall.”

“Oh, she’s gonna be staying a while then? Longer than a week?”

“Well, when she heard about my father, she flew out with intentions on finding me and staying for a day or two. So, she’ll be here for a few more days. I was thinking about going back with her just to see where she lives, how she lives.”

“Really? When were you gonna tell me, Rush?”

“I’m telling you now, babe. We haven’t really had time to talk since everything just kinda happened so fast yesterday.”

Alika fell into silence. I knew there was more that she wanted to say, but she wouldn’t. I suspected it had something to do with my mother being there with us, but couldn’t understand why. She stood from my lap and walked to close our bedroom door, then returned to where I was.

“What happened between the time you were pissed about her being here and then calling her
Mom
? Has she even told you everything, Rush? She’s been gone for twenty-seven years and y’all are acting like she never left. I don’t get that.”

“You don’t have to get it, Alika. You weren’t there for it.
I’m
the one who it affected.
I
was the kid. And now
I’m
the man who has decided that she has told me enough.”

“What’s enough, Rush? What’s enough? She explained to you why she left when you were younger, I assume?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“Did she explain why she
stayed
away? I’m sure the same reasons that she left you as a boy, canceled out when you became an adult. Why did it take your father dying for her to come and find you? What about all the years in between?”

“You’re out of line, Alika. Let’s not do this.”

“How am I out of line? Because she’s your mother and it’s none of my business?”

“Because she is my mother…yes, that.”

“Hmph,” she nodded. “And because it’s none of my business?”

“I didn’t say that it wasn’t your business, Alika.”

“Well, you might as well have, Rush.”

“We’re not doing this,” I told her firmly.

“Where has she been?” Alika fired, dismissing my comment. “She left when you were five. What happened when you turned eighteen? Let’s just say that she was ordered or threatened to stay away from her
child
. Let’s just say that. I would think if she would be counting down the years to
adulthood
to come for you!
Nobody
could force her to stay away from a grown man. Maybe eighteen…twenty-one…twenty-five. But here you are thirty-two, and
now
all of a sudden here she is, and you’re just ready to accept it all.”

“You don’t know what she’s been through. Having something held over your head that could damage you in everyone’s eyes, primarily your young son’s! That’s a lot for any one person to handle. She did what she had to do.”

“Okay, and that thing that was held over her head that could damage her in everyone’s eyes…did she tell you what that was?”

“Yeah, she did,” I stated proudly.

“And there’s my point. If she told you last night, then what was so hard about telling you back then.
Why now
? That’s all I’m asking you to consider.”

When I breathed a frustrated sigh, it fueled Alika’s anger even more. Her stubbornness with this issue was starting to get on my nerves. I honestly didn’t feel like living in the past. I was talked out about the whole situation. I was ready to let it go.

“Was her life threatened, Rush?”

“Alika, let it go.”

“Was she told that she would be murdered if she attempted contact with you? Because to me,
that
is the only thing that
might
keep a mother from her child. So, was it that?”

“What would you know about that, Alika? Are you a mother? No, you’re not. And furthermore, why make someone relive something that was so traumatic in their lives? You, better than anybody, should understand that,” I tried to reason.

However, after the words left my mouth, I instantly regretted them. But it was too late to take anything back. I watched as Alika’s shoulders tensed, and I could also see the ducts of her eyes begin to fill with water. She stood just mere inches from me, and I could see the lump in her throat pulsate from an unexpected swallow. I’d caught her off guard, and I hadn’t even meant to.

“Alika…” I started, as I reached for her. “Baby, I’m so sorry…”

She took a few steps back while shaking her head side to side, in what I knew to be disbelief, and hurt. “Wow. Just, wow,” was all she said, before turning on her heel and walking out of our room.

“Alika, I didn’t mean it the way it came out. Come back,” I pleaded, following behind her.

She turned her brown eyes on me. “Please don’t follow me, Rush,” she stated, firmly. “I’m going down to the guesthouse for the night. I think that’s best.”

~*~*~

As we drove along, my mother was subdued and to herself. She was eerily quiet. It seemed to me that she had a lot on her mind. But it might very well have been that she was just at peace for the first time in a long time, so I didn’t pry. I just left her to her silence.

When I left the house, I looked down to see if the lights were on at the guest house. I wanted to go to my baby, but I knew that she needed to calm down and I wanted to give her that time. I owed her a deep apology from the heart. I had brought a lot to her in a very short period of time and she was handling it all like a real champ. If she allowed me, I would definitely treat her to something spectacular the moment our lives returned to normal.

“Son…” my mother began, breaking her silence. “Thank you for sending for my things at the hotel. I really appreciate it. But you really didn’t have to. I was just happy that you listened to me at all, and that I got to see your face after so much time. That was all I needed to be happy.”

“I wasn’t gonna have you staying at a hotel when there’s so much room at the house. How do you like your room?”

“What’s not to like? It’s beautiful. The entire place is! If it weren’t so cold out, I’d be in the pool swimming a couple of laps. I love to swim.”

“Well, when you come back in the summer or spring, then you’ll have all the time in the world to swim.”

“True!” she said, laughing, stroking the side of my face. “And I can’t wait. Now that I’m here with you, the time seems so short. If it’s possible, I would really like to see my granddaughter while I’m here. You don’t have to tell her who I am just yet if you don’t want. I’m sure she’s still pretty overwhelmed with getting to know her daddy.”

“Yeah, there’s for sure been a lot for everyone. But Michaela’s a smart little girl,” I admitted, blushing. “You’d be surprised, Ma. Really.”

“No, I wouldn’t. She’s your daughter. I’m not surprised at all.” She paused and shook her head in disbelief, then turned up the corners of her mouth as she prepared to speak. “I still can’t believe that your father did that to you. I hate speaking ill of the dead, but that man had no heart.” She dropped her head momentarily, then looked back up, but into the distance. “You know, he had me leave under an assumed name in case you ever tried to find me.”

“What!”

“Yeah. Gia Olivette was my name…new identity,” she nodded, sadly. “He erased all traces of me, Hunter. For twenty-seven years I’ve lived as that person. My house is in that name, my car is in that name, and my company has been under that name. People in my circle in Denver know me by
that
name.”

“And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they just did.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you ever really knew just how much he was capable of. But I’m sure you got a healthy glimpse of it with everything that took place recently with your daughter.”

I could feel my temples pulsating, and my anger creeping once again. I’d tried so hard to channel the anger since he was gone now. I didn’t want to continue thinking of him in a negative light whenever his name crossed my mind or fell out of the mouth of someone else. But it seemed inevitable.

“Okay. Listen, I don’t really want to talk about him,” I informed her. “Not as it relates to my daughter.  I have her in my life now, and that’s all that matters. And as far as meeting her, we can try to get some dates together because she and her mother are in the process of moving back to the Bay Area. At this point, we’ve worked on a weekend here and there, and definitely major holidays. So, she’ll be here for Christmas for sure. I’ll see to it that you meet her soon, though. Even if we have to travel to you in Colorado.”

When we pulled up to Chaos, my mother looked around at all the cars, at the building, and her eyes widened. “Where are we, Rush? This place is huge!”

“This is my nightclub slash sports bar. The club isn’t opened until Friday night, but the sports bar is open now. I figured we could come and hang out for a bit. We could get you one of those adult beverages that you turned down last night,” I said, smiling at her.

“
Aww
, drinks…” she pouted. “Why didn’t you bring Alika with us?” she pried. “Are the two of you fighting? Come to think of it I haven’t seen her since earlier at breakfast.”

I shrugged my shoulders lightly. I really didn’t want to get into Alika’s and my issue with her—especially since we were arguing
about
her
. Even if it weren’t about her, I probably still wouldn’t discuss it openly. What she and I went through wasn’t anybody else’s business; not even my mother’s. Alika and I would deal with it on our own.

“We’re okay. She just wanted to give you and me a little time together while you’re here,” I lied.

“But I really want to get to know her too, son. You love her, right?”

“Yep, I do,” I responded. “I’m
in love
with her.”

“I can tell,” she said, as we walked inside the front door to Chaos.

Once we were inside, the music was a little loud for us to continue on with serious conversation, so I led my mother to one of the bar seats and I took the seat next to her.

“What do you want to drink?” I leaned in and asked her.

“I think I’ll try one of the peach margaritas, and a basket of fries! I know the smell anywhere!” she exclaimed, excitedly.

I relayed her order to Pinky, who was tending bar, and then commenced to introductions of nearby staff. Before long, my mother was engaged in multiple conversations with a few of the customers. It felt weird as hell being around her in a bar setting. Life sure had a way of fucking with a person. Lose some family and you gain more. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t have been any losses at all, but shit, the way my life flowed, anything was fucking bound to happen. I was learning to accept that shit and roll with the punches.

Once my mother’s order was delivered to her, and she was being entertained by two other women seated on the other side of her, I decided to take a trip around to speak to some of my patrons. My mind was heavily on Alika. I wanted to call her, but since I knew she was still cooling off, I decided to send her a text instead.

Me: Thinking about you. I love you. Let’s talk soon. This here is not us…

I double checked really quickly to see if my mother was good then proceeded around the place to shake a few hands and engage in a little bit of small talk. That’s when I ended up running into Mike. Ever since we’d had that issue a while back with the prostitutes and shit like that, he had been on guard, and we were good on that front.

“I saw you come in a little bit ago. How’s it going?”

“Shit is cool, man,” I responded, patting him on his back. “How about you?”