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She reached up to kiss my cheek, and I smiled. Kevin was already in the Media Center talking to a friend. I kept walking down the hall alone, and my mind immediately went to Jeb. I hoped his meeting with Trey Cox was going well. He had always dreamt of opening another club in Atlanta, and this was his chance to make that happen if Trey’s background checked out. I was so excited to get back home to hear how it went.
I was about to turn down the seventh-grade hallway when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see that, unfortunately, Rodney had caught up with me.
“Ahh, so you escaped Ms. Smith’s room unbruised, I see?”
Rodney laughed a laugh that I hadn’t heard in years. “Man, I had the toughest time trying to get my hand back from that lady and unscathed at that.” He shook his head as he chuckled.
“The Rodney I knew would’ve milked that situation. But then again, the old-Rodney wouldn’t even be here,” I couldn’t help but to mention the facts.
His laughing quickly subsided, and he looked at me curiously without saying a word. “You know, I have no recollection of a time where I didn’t love you deeply. And you haven’t heard this from me yet, so I want to make this clear, but I am terribly sorry for the way that I’ve treated you.”
By this time, he had pulled me to the side of the hallway to get out of the way of the moving traffic of hurried and tired parents.
“Regardless of if I remember who I was at that time or not, it happened. I was a jerk, and I didn’t love you the way I remember always loving you. So, for that, I apologize, Tameka. You didn’t deserve that. And the kids didn’t either.” By this time, he was holding my hands and looking into my eyes the same way he did when we recited our vows to each other.
I tried to avoid the eye contact, so I looked down the hallway and then back to Rodney’s face only to see that he hadn’t stopped looking at mine as if he was searching for something, an emotion, thought, something.
That’s when I suddenly realized my hands were no longer in a state of shock from him holding them. I quickly snatched them back into my personal space, letting them both find refuge in my pockets.
“Thank you for the apology,” I found it in myself to mutter. “But I am truly over that Rodney. Not so much how you treated our kids, but I’m over the way you stepped out on me with Melody and how nasty you treated me as if you had never promised to love me for the rest of our lives. I’m over the nights I tried my hardest not to cry in front of the kids while I cooked dinner for my family, although you never made it home to eat it. Sometimes, you didn’t get home until 3 AM, and I had to get up the next morning and put on a face for the kids so they wouldn’t know I was miserable,” I said. “But what’s done is done. We both have moved on.”
Rodney hadn’t stopped glaring into my eyes. He looked like he wanted to say more but couldn’t locate the words. I stared back into his eyes sternly so that he understood his apology was accepted but also that the Tameka standing in front of him was not the same woman he married.
“I’ve healed from it, Rodney, but I appreciate your sincerity,” I said and didn’t wait for him to reply because Rodney was not about to pull me into his amnesia madness. Besides, we had to get to Eva’s parent-teacher conference next.
I walked ahead while Rodney tried to keep up with me. As soon as I made that turn into Eva’s teacher’s classroom, I felt his fingers graze against mine from behind. I ignored his advancement and engrossed myself in conversation with Eva’s teacher. I took the lead this time, and it was a lot quicker and more efficient.
As soon as I walked out into the hall, Eva ran straight into me, nearly knocking me down. Her torso expanded and contracted as she tried to catch her breath.
“Stop running, girl!” I warned her. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask
ed.
“Mom, can we go now? I already spend enough of my time here.” Eva panted as she continued to catch her breath. I snickered at my firstborn as she took a peek into her classroom to see her father in conversation with her teacher. “Oh, he’s still here??” she asked.
“Hey, hey, now. Yes, he’s your father. Of course, he would still be here for you and your brother’s conferences. So quit the lip. I don’t wanna hear it.”
She got one more huff in and hit me with an insincere, “Alright, mom.”
“Go get your brother, and we can ride out.” I kissed her forehead, and before I knew it, she was off.
Eva and her father had been getting along a lot better lately, so I knew she was only being protective of me. She was still pretty jaded about him though. She wasn’t as easily persuaded as her brother was and was a lot less optimistic about his new wave of behavior lasting for the long haul. She did like spending time with him a lot more now that Melody wasn’t around, but it hurt my heart to see this distrust in her at such an early age. That distrust triggered memories of the old Rodney.
I marched out into the lobby, hoping the kids would hurry up before he had a chance to spot me again. Thankfully, when we reached the car, he was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 6
Jeb
I hopped in my freshly cleaned whip and sped over to the club. I was excited about this meeting with Trey Cox, the investor I had been getting my entire staff ready to entertain for the last few weeks. When Trey first approached me about expanding, I was skeptical, but I did a little research on him, and he seemed legit.
This investor meeting was going to set the stage for me to really dominate the Eastern Alabama area from an entertainment standpoint, as well as the downtown area of Atlanta with a new location for the twenty-five and over nightlife scene. This could be a game-changer for Club Elite.
I pulled into the club’s parking lot to see it jumping already. It was flooded with tons of people outside parking lot pimpin’, pregaming as others lined up to get inside and experience the good time we had to offer them.
Good, I thought. I landed right into my reserved parking spot and sat idle for a little while, not rushing to get out. I was super early, but I had to hype myself up a little and get my blood going. I finished my ritual with a puff of my vape pen and hit the streets.
As soon as I walked into the club, crew member after crew member had questions out the ass for me that each one of them just so happened to deem as “urgent and pressing.” I put out as many fires as possible, and everyone slowly began to breathe again. We got into our flow, and soon, everything was like butter. I was in my groove, doing what I did best, and soon enough, I was in my office going over some last-minute numbers before Trey hit my door.
