AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t have all the right words to say to you, Bully, but I can say that if there was a chance that God handpicks who He chooses to give certain obstacles to, then He picked you because He knew that you would be strong enough to handle it. Bully, you have to be the strongest person that I have ever met in my life. I don’t know anyone in this world who could have gone through half the shit that you’ve been through but still find a way to go on through life and keep it pushing like everything is okay.
“I’m so sorry for the death of your father. I personally know how much you loved him and how there was even a time when you wanted to be just like him. At the same time, Za’Kai, remember that we have two little ones that we need to live for. I’m hearing in your voice some kind of defeat, and I don’t want you to give up. The kids need you. Hell, I need you,” Breshay said, laying some real shit on a nigga.
I heard her, but I was hurting right now, so I wasn’t trying to hear her, if you know what I mean. It was crazy because I never really craved to have someone’s presence, but at this moment, I felt myself craving Takari. I wished like fuck that it was her behind me, rubbing my back and telling me that everything was going to be alright. Maybe it was the state of vulnerability that a nigga was in or something. Who knows?
5
Valentina Garcia
“So, how have things been between you and my son?” Jerrod’s mother, Sonya, asked me.
I liked Sonya for whatever reason, but I’ll admit that she could be a little pushy and also a little bit too demanding. It was almost as if she was obsessed with the whole idea of Jerrod and I becoming a couple. Don’t get me wrong, I was eager to have that too, but, at times, I felt like her ass was way more eager than me.
I’ll start from the very beginning of how the relationship between Sonya and I formed. Like it was already mentioned, I moved to Miami from New York after accepting a very big promotion that could change my life for good. Because my boss had homes throughout Florida, New York, and Texas, he was able to refer me to a good realtor in Miami, and the community where Sonya lived happened to be the community that I fell in love with at first glance. It was so much different from New York, so I found myself signing the contract to a house that was literally next door to Sonya’s in days.
Because the area that I now resided in was filled with other rich people who drove cars like Teslas, Ferraris, and Rolls Royce, just to name a few, then they still believed in the proper introduction of new neighbors. Sonya happened to be one of the many neighbors who had come over bearing gifts like wine, apple pie, and even some candles to burn throughout the house. What should have just been a quick introduction turned into she and I sitting outside in the lounge chairs by the pool having a few glasses of wine and getting to know each other better.
She talked my ear off about her three sons, and out of all her sons, I took to Jerrod the most. It wasn’t even because he was the only one that I had access to since he lived in Miami as well. He and I were the same in age and he just screamed that he was a boss. She’d shown me a few pictures of him, and he was easily the most handsome man that I’d ever seen. I knew from the gate that he was off limits since she told me about his wife and kids. Like I told Jerrod a few days ago in the car, I was a beautiful woman who was well aware of the fact that I could get just about any man I wanted, so I knew I didn’t have to settle for a married man, but the heart wants what it wants.
When we met the first time, I was instantly drawn to him. The pictures that has mother had shown me of him didn’t do him
any justice because he looked ten times better in person. We made love that one time in his kitchen, and I just couldn’t get him out of my head, heart, or legs ever since. I thought about the question that Sonya asked me, and then I released a sigh.
“It’s difficult. I think that’s the right word to describe what he and I have going on. Crazy thing is, I put myself in this difficult triangle of a love affair. Growing up, I had a lot of older cousins that I would spend time with, so by the age of like thirteen, I knew from my older cousins that it was never okay to date married men. I remember my older cousin telling me about this woman who had gotten caught with another woman’s husband and how the wife ended up beating her to death with a hammer. Hearing things like that, I vowed to leave married men alone because I didn’t want to go out like that.
“I guess I let good looks and good love making blind my judgement. On one hand, I believe Jerrod when he tells me that him and his wife are in the process of divorcing, but on the other hand, I don’t know. I listened to the way she talked to him the other day because he had the phone hooked up to the car, and I could just feel the hate in her voice that she has for him. When I heard her voice and all the animosity that it came with, it made me question something that Jerrod had told me.
“He told me that his lawyers had divorce papers sent to her but she was taking her time in signing them. A woman with that much hate for her husband, what does she gain from taking her time with ending something, that I could tell she wants out of so badly? I’m just wondering if there are even divorce papers in the first place. Let me know if I’m a fool, Sonya,” I said, looking up at her with eyes that were filled with hope. Hope that she had the answers to all the problems that I was dealing with right now.
One would think that I would have gone to my own mother and talked to her about the way I felt, but I knew she wouldn’t agree with my actions. You couldn’t talk to a married woman about sleeping with a married man because they wouldn’t side with you, and I knew that. I watched as Sonya took a sip from her wine and then closed the magazine that was resting in her lap. We were doing one of our favorite things on this Saturday afternoon, which was siting outside in the backyard, enjoying this little wind that Miami was giving today.
“If I felt like Takari was the one for my son, then yes, I would definitely feel like you were a fool. I just know where their marriage is going, which is to crumbles, so you’re no fool. My son does not love that woman the way that a man is supposed to love his wife! She’s trash! Every other week it’s something new with her, and I cannot wait until the day my son takes her ghetto ass to court and seeks full custody for their children. She doesn’t deserve either one of those kids. What type of mother allows her thirteen-year-old daughter to run out and get pregnant? If that’s not enough, not long after that, her five-year-old son is shot in the very same projects where their other grandmother lives. Do you hear this? This is the type of trash that my son is married to!
“You are so much more of a woman than she’ll ever be, and I cannot wait until my son wakes up, smells the roses, and realizes it for his damn self! I never even told him this, but truth be told, I don’t even think their oldest daughter, Journey, even belongs to him,” she said, and I put my hand over my mouth in shock.
Granted, I knew she didn’t care for Jerrod’s wife, but to make accusations that their child may not even belong to him was a bit much. Hell, I was in shock at just about everything she was saying to me because all of this was new news for me. Jerrod didn’t pillow talk with me about things that went on in his household. The only reason I knew about his son getting shot is that he literally had to pull out of me the night it happened.
“Wow. Why do you think she doesn’t belong to him?” I asked her.
“She acts or looks nothing like my son. Yes, she has his hazel eyes, but Takari told me that the eyes could have came from her side because her great grandmother had hazel eyes as well. She literally looks nothing like my son, and she acts nothing like he did when he was her age. Everything about her is her mother’s doing. There’s no doubt in my mind that the twins belong to him, but that Journey, that’s a whole different conversation. I’ve been convinced for years that she wasn’t my son’s daughter,” Sonya said.
When she talked, and those hateful things actually left her mouth, I couldn’t help but notice just how evil her ass was. I prayed to God that I never made it on her bad side. I was about to respond to her, but my phone quickly buzzed in my lap, indicating that I had a text message. As upset as I was with him because I just didn’t know what to believe anymore, I still smiled when I read the text. It was Jerrod, letting me know to be ready by 7:30 tonight because he had reservations for us to go to dinner. This was the side of him that I loved. Not the side where I had to question my position in his life.
“That must be my son,” Sonya said, once she picked up on the goofy smile that was on my face.
“Yes, that’s him. We’re going to dinner tonight,” I let her know, and she smiled as well.
“Valentina, in the few months that I’ve known you, I’ve grown closer to you than I am with my own daughter in law. If it’s the last thing that I do, I’m going to make sure that it’s you that my son ends up with. You have my word, okay?” she said, and I nodded.
I’m not even going to lie, the way that she said it caused chills to run down my spine. Not for my sake, but for Takari’s. Like, what lengths was she willing to go to assure that I ended up with Jerrod? I was only playing when I said that she had become obsessed with the thought of Jerrod and I being together, but now I was beginning to feel like my statement may have held a little truth to it.
Later that night
“I know I told you this probably ten times already, but you look beautiful tonight,” Jerrod said and reached over the table that he and I were sitting at. He grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it.
Jerron had made reservations for us at Houston’s restaurant, and we’d just placed our dinner orders. There was a bottle of Krupp Brother’s wine in the middle of the table that he and I were enjoying together. I looked this man in his beautiful, hazel colored eyes and realized at that whatever Sonya planned to do in order to get Takari out of his life, I was down with it too. He was too beautiful of a man for me to just walk away from.
Jerrod was the type of man who always dressed up because he worked just about every day, so the job required him to dress the part. Tonight, he wasn’t all professionally dressed, though. He was dressed in an olive green dress shirt with the first two buttons undone, which provided a glimpse of his perfectly chiseled and caramel colored chest that was free of any ink or hair. He paired the shirt with black slacks, and on his feet were a pair of all black Salvatore Ferragamo dress shoes. Even with him sitting on the opposite side of the table from me, I could still smell the intoxicating scent of his cologne that had me thanking the heavens that I chose not to wear any underwear with this beautiful red dress because I wouldn’t have done anything but messed them up.
