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Fuck rules. Rules are made to be broken.
How you think Persia will feel when she finds out? She’ll be pissed.
Oh, please. What’s there to be pissed about? Emerson was never her man. He was our fuck toy.
“So, what’s up?” he asks, slicing into the one-sided conversation going on in my head. “What you thinking about?”
You! “Em, I’ve heard everything you’ve said. And I’m still trying to wrap my mind around most of it. I mean, the fact that you’re sitting here telling me you have feelings for me is one thing. And the fact that you were fucking my sisters and me is another. I don’t think I can go there with you. Actually, I know I can’t.”
He glances down at his watch, then around the room. It’s slowly starting to get busy in here. I glance down at my watch and see why. It’s going on quarter to four. “Look, how about we go somewhere else to finish talking about this.”
I tilt my head, eyeing him. “Like where?”
He grins. “I got us a room.”
I’m not sure why I’m not surprised by what he’s said. Not that I expected to hear this. But now that I have, I’m of two minds. One is saying stay. The other is saying get the hell up and run.
To fuck him or not to fuck him.
That is the question.
The answer comes quick the minute he stands up. “Let’s go.”
Paris
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I feel awful about how I spoke to you at the diner,” I say to my mother, deciding it was time to make amends. It’s been three weeks since that incident and this is the first time that I’ve spoken to her. “I’m really sorry for my behavior.”
“Well, you should be,” she says. I sigh, realizing she’s not going to make this an easy process. “I’ve never tolerated disrespect from you girls. I raised you better than that. That behavior was so unlike you.”
“I know, Mother,” I say apologetically. “I feel really bad about it.”
She grunts. “Mmmph. You ought to. Then it takes you three weeks to come to your senses and realize your wrongdoing?” My wrongdoing? What about yours? I remind myself that this call isn’t about her. It’s about me. I apologize again. Tell her how bad I feel. “Well, you should. You don’t know how bad I wanted to get up and slap you into yesterday, but I wasn’t going to act a fool up in there. I figured you were doing a good job of that on your own. And don’t think I didn’t tell your father how you carried on. All we were doing was having a simple conversation and, out of nowhere, you went wild. You spoke to me like I was some bitch—excuse my French, out on the streets.”
I cringe at her using the word, bitch. That is so not like her. I’ve only heard her use that word when she was referring to one of our father’s numerous mistresses. “What you did was uncalled for,” she continues. “You were really trying to take me to the streets and have me go ghetto on you. I had to really catch myself from beating your ass.”
I roll my eyes. Once again, she takes no responsibility for her mouth. She doesn’t even realize what she says. Or maybe she does and doesn’t care. Persia’s voice creeps up in my head. I don’t know why you waste your time. I keep telling you that woman is unbearable. I take a deep breath. Decide to give her another dose of truth. Don’t even waste your breath. “Mom, do you even care that you have three daughters who practically avoid you? Don’t you want to have a better relationship with us?
She huffs. “Of course I do. What kind of damn foolish question is that?”
I shake my head, accepting that this conversation is going to go nowhere real fast. “Mom, you’re right. It was a foolish question. Whatever was I thinking? Like I said, I only called to apologize to you; that’s it. Not for you to try to make me feel worse than I’ve already been feeling for disrespecting you the way I did. You either accept it or you don’t. But I’m not going to get into it with you again.”
“The way you spoke to me hurt me deep.”
“Ohmygod, Mother. Don’t.” My sisters and I call her Mother when she’s gotten under our skin. Well, Porsha, being Porsha, calls her that whether or not she’s grated on her last nerve.
“Don’t, what?”
“Don’t play victim. We both know you’re not the victim here.”
“Paris, I don’t know what I did wrong.”
I take a deep breath. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s what you said, that was totally out of line.” I kindly replay the conversation back to her.
“Are you serious?” she asks incredulously. “I was speaking honestly. And you take offense to that.”
“Mom, you know what. I’m gonna let you go. You call me when you understand that some of what comes out of your mouth is hurtful; maybe not to Persia, or even to Porsha. But it hurts me. And you simply brush it off like it’s okay. Well, it’s not. I want nothing more than to have a better relationship with you, one where I’m not walking on eggshells wondering when you’re going to say something thoughtless or callous. But I’m not going to allow you to say disrespectful and hurtful things to me, or about me or my sisters. Mother or not, I’m not going to stand for it any longer. You’re my mother. I love you. But sometimes I don’t like you. And I don’t think you like yourself. How could you?”
