AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At least ten minutes went by and Brenda started to ask her about flowers and she was happy for the change in topics and gladly filled the quiet in with her knowledge.
The bill came thirty minutes later and Wesley grabbed it. “Brenda, why don’t you go to the bathroom now like you always do,” Henry said.
Jasmine lifted an eyebrow at that and wondered if Henry talked to Mona like this how she stayed married as long as she had.
“Jasmine, would you like to go with me?” Brenda asked her. “You know what they say about going to the restroom in pairs.”
She was going to say no, that she was fine, but after looking at Wesley and seeing him nod his head, she got up and left.
They came back out five minutes later and Henry was gone. “Brenda,” Wesley said, “my father is in the car. He said to meet him there.”
Brenda leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, Wesley. Jasmine, it was great to meet you and I hope to see you again. I’m glad things are working out for you so well, Wesley. I really am.”
“Thank you, Brenda. It was good to see you too.”
Wesley let out a breath and sat back, his shoulders relaxing.
“What happened?” Jasmine asked.
“He asked me for fifty thousand dollars.”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “That’s a lot of money.”
He laughed at her. “Not for me and he knew it.”
“I get it,” she said. “But I can’t imagine asking someone for fifty dollars.”
He threaded their fingers together. “I know. I think that is what I love so much about you,” he said.
Her heart was pounding in her chest. He said he loved that about her, not that he loved her. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him no. We had a few choice words and he got up and left. I probably won’t see him again for a few years and it was worth it. I had hoped I was wrong, the reason he was here, but I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing his fingers.
“Don’t be. Nothing you can do or change about it. I’m used to it.”
But she wasn’t so sure he was.
27
In This Together
“How did it go last night?” his mother asked him the next morning.
Wesley looked up from his computer at the little clock in the corner to see it was much earlier than normal that his mother was here.
“What I expected.”
“How much did he want?”
“Fifty thousand,” he said. “The comments on college being expensive gave me a clue as to what was going on.”
“He wanted it for that? That’s a lot for a semester.”
“He thought I was going to pretty much pay the debt he had left for my half siblings. Or what it would cost for them to finish. I told him no. They weren’t my responsibility.”
“Sorry he seems to feel the need to ask others to do things for him rather than him doing it himself.”
