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“You have to think about it?” Felicity stared at Chess in absolute incredulity. “You think he and I are at the same level?”
Derrick also pushed, “Who do you trust more, Chess? Me or her?”
“You know what? Forget this!” Felicity picked up her tablet from the coffee-table. “I don’t have to stick around for this crap. I’m too good for it. If you want to ditch me for him, be my guest. Let’s see how that works out for you.”
And with that, Felicity stormed out of the office.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish!” Derrick tossed after her loudly while smiling victoriously. He turned to Chess. “Don’t worry will be fine without her.”
But Chess couldn’t bring herself to respond with anything other than a frown. This did not feel like a victory. It felt like a loss.
20
A
N HOUR OR SO AFTER the ‘incident’, Tazeem found himself receiving profuse apologies from the police department.
“We’re really, really sorry for the misunderstanding.” A uniformed female officer apologized. “Our officers were simply acting on an urgent nine-one-one call and got a bit carried away.”
“No harm, no foul!” Tazeem forced a smile even though he was still quite angry.
Being wrongfully arrested once was bad enough, but twice? He was sorely tempted to sue the cops, especially because they’d been so violent with him. His clothes were still dusty from being forced to lie on the ground, and he couldn’t even wear his suit jacket anymore because it’d gotten torn when the cops were manhandling him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tazeem continued. “It was his.”
Both he and the officer turned to glance at the writer, producer, and director of this horrific tour de force… Jay.
The child was seated on one of the benches in the waiting room, looking fearfully at the cops who walked by. His face was tear-streaked, his bottom lip was pushed out in a pout, and he kept rubbing his hands fretfully. When he saw his father and the officer looking in his direction, panic filled his expression, and he looked down.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to scare him a little bit?” The officer offered, “I could walk him by the cells, let him see the guys in there, and put a little fear of God into him.”
“Hmm.” Tazeem’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Jay’s bent head.
Tazeem wasn’t sure whether to be angry at his son, impressed with him, or afraid of him. Apparently, the devious little scamp had called the police just before they’d left Chess’s house in the morning and claimed to have been kidnapped by a child predator.
Tazeem had heard the nine-one-one call and to say it was realistic would be an understatement. Even the cops agreed that Jay had a future either as a conman or an actor. There was panic in his voice as he spoke to the dispatcher. He trembled and stuttered as he spoke; even throwing in a few sniffles for effect. After giving the dispatcher Tazeem’s plate number, he’d abruptly hang up as if someone had caught him calling.
It was no wonder that the police had moved so fast and violently to capture Tazeem.
Tazeem had no idea what result Jay had been expecting from his little stunt, but having Tazeem beaten around wasn’t it. As soon as he saw what they were doing to Tazeem, he burst into wails telling them to stop and that Tazeem was his dad.
At first, the cops didn’t believe Jay and thought he had some version of Stockholm syndrome, hence why Tazeem had been hauled to the station anyway. Fortunately, Tazeem had just recently picked up Jay’s revised birth certificate, and it was in his car. After both he and Jay explained that this was just a silly prank, the police changed their tune.
“Nah!” Tazeem reluctantly turned down the officer’s offer. “I think he’s been scared enough for today.”
After several more apologies from the officer, Tazeem took Jay by the shoulder and led him out of the precinct. Jay didn’t move away as he usually would if Tazeem so much as thought of touching him.
“I’m sorry,” Jay said in a small voice once they were out of the building. He was still looking at his feet as if he was too scared to look Tazeem in the eye.
“You should be.” Tazeem scolded, “What were you thinking?”
“It was just a pra-” Jay suddenly burst into tears.
Tazeem had never seen Jay crying so of course he was bewildered. Worse, there were several people around, and their looks made it clear that they thought he was the one who’d made the child cry. Given that they were in front of the police station where he’d just been hauled into for kidnapping, no one would’ve blamed him for immediately panicking.
“Okay, okay, stop crying,” Tazeem desperately coaxed even as he hauled Jay into his arms. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Speedily, he made his way to the streets with his son in his arms. Unfortunately, his car had been impounded during his arrest so they had to wait for a cab. Tazeem used that time to soothe the sobbing Jay. By the time the cab arrived, Jay’s sobs had turned to sniffles.
