Adore You (5 page)

“It’s not wholly your fault, but—”

“I’m gonna pull an Ellis and end this here. I can’t do this right now. I’ll call you later.”

I pressed the end call button and turned up the radio. The playlist I was listening to on my way to Ellis’ automatically piped into the car. Ugh, the last song I wanted to hear right now was Beyoncé’s “Love on Top”. I pressed the voice-activated button to change the playlist.

“Play I Can’t Stand Your Ass playlist.”

Playing I Can’t Stand Your Ass.

The first song on the playlist was Chanté Moore’s “Bitter”. I drove and sang my heart out all the way home.

“You put her out?” Cadence’s laughter rang through my car loudly.

She called while I was on my way back to the office from a client lunch. I was pretty sure Bee wasted no time calling her yesterday and was surprised Cadence held off on calling me this long. I was sure that I would get read the riot act by her immediately for putting Devorah out yesterday, justified or not. I was mostly over it, but still giving myself some time before I talked about it with Bee. I didn’t want our phone conversation to become an extension of what could have been a huge blow up yesterday.

“Your girl is out of her mind, CadyMac. I might not be cut out for this shit.”

Cadence’s laughter went up in pitch, now resembling a scream. I waited for her to get her composure. After a few moments, her giggles subsided into silence.

“You done?”

She released a breath, “Yeah, I think I am. You really told her to get out of your house though? El, I told you…kid gloves!”

“Nope, I’m not with the kid gloves bullshit any longer. Be clear, I care about her a lot. Probably more than I should be admitting to you before admitting to her, but I won’t be made to seem like a stalker or something. I don’t have to convince women to be with me. I don’t have to work this hard for a piece of…”

“Hold up, playa. You told me this was some real shit. That’s the
onnnnnnly
reason I agreed to help you out. If you’re playing me Ellis Stacey Taylor, I swear to God I’ll cut your ass off right now.”

“Chill out. I just told you I care about her…”

“Nah, nah. I don’t want to hear that
I care about her
shit, El. Because if you cared about the girl, you would stop being so cloak and dagger with her. Stringing her along for all this time.”

“What are you talking about, Cade? I’ve been nothing but upfront for these last few months.”

“This shit goes back further than that and you know it, El. Cut the shit. This goes back to that summer Uncle James & Auntie Im divorced.”

“What the hell are you talking about, CadyMac? Nothing happened with us that summer. I mean, Bee and I talked…a lot, but it never went beyond talking.”

“You’re being super obtuse right now, my G. Cut it out. You know that damn girl was halfway in love with you already. That summer sealed the damn deal.”

“Cadence, that was over ten years ago, though. She’s moved on for sure. For damn sure because I can barely get her to give me play now.”

“I said what I said. You know her, Ellis. You know this is a front.”

“Do I know her though? As far as I can tell it’s a damn good front. She got me thinking that she just wants my dick on demand and that’s it.”

“Because as far as she knows that’s all you’re offering, Sir Hoes A Lot.”

“Tales of my manwhoring have been greatly exaggerated,” I deadpanned.

“Yeah, yeah whatever. So you know you just made this shit worse right? She’s Fat Joe and Remy Ma right now.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“She’s leaning back.”

“I hate this reference. Hate even more that I asked you to explain it. But how bad is it?”

“So bad that she put me out of her car phone once I tried to tell her both of y’all were at fault.”

“Wait a minute how were we—“

“You don’t think putting her out and telling her you’d call her tomorrow was overreacting, El?”

I quietly pondered the question. Devorah insulted me and my subsequent reaction wasn’t over the top
to me
. However, I knew that if we had continued talking, I would have gotten even more upset and possibly caused irreparable damage. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I needed to create some space so I could calmly tell her why her comment set me off. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the most mature move.

“Aight. I’ll accept my part in this. I probably shouldn’t have put her out. But you do get
why
I put her out right?”

“I definitely do. Which is what I was trying to explain to her before she hung up on me. Both of y’all are getting on my nerves to be quite honest.”

“I hate to keep putting you in the middle of this.”

“Then stop.”

We were silent for a bit then both burst out laughing. Cadence knew that this was impossible given how often she talked to the both of us. She and Bee have been best friends since they were swimming in amniotic fluid, so it’s inevitable that she’d talk to her about her man troubles…or lack thereof. I will admit an uptick in the frequency of our chats since Devorah and I have gotten together, but it was her damn fault for being so accommodating. If Cadence didn’t want to be caught in the middle she could have easily told both of us to shut up. She never will though because according to her we were canon OTP. Whatever the hell that meant.

“You know a phone call isn’t gonna cut it, right?”

“Which is why I had purple and white calla lilies delivered this morning with a note,
handwritten might I add,
letting her know to expect a call from me this afternoon.”

“Oh, you’re good.” Cadence replied, a bit of awe in her voice.

“I told you I ain’t new to this, I’m true to this.”

“Well, why you wasting time on the line with me? Don’t you have a call to make?”

I glanced at the dash and saw that it was a quarter of two. The note I sent with the flowers this morning told her to expect my call by three. I’d wanted to give myself more than enough time to make it through my client lunch and get settled back in at the office.

“We’re not scheduled ‘til three, but I just pulled back into the lot at the plantation. Got a couple things I need to take care of before I make that call, so I’ll talk to you later.”

“May the odds ever be in your favor, brother.”

I’d never been nervous to call a woman. Not even back in the sixth grade when I got Heather Daniels to give me her number despite being an eighth grader whose sights were set on high school dudes. I’d just ushered the lead graphic designer out of my office and had five minutes before I was supposed to call Bee. I didn’t have a clue of what I was going to say and it had me thrown to be honest. I always had a slick mouth that was skilled at convincing the ladies to give me what I wanted. This was different, though. Heaving a sigh, I picked up the phone, dialing Devorah’s office number.

“This is Devorah.”

“Hey Bee.”

I heard a slight intake of air on the other end of the phone before she answered.

“Hi.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Nope. I blocked off three o’clock ‘til three oh seven as give Ellis time to grovel time on my calendar.”

“Seven minutes? Damn, that’s a whole lot of please baby please, Bee.”

She laughed softly. I took this as a sign that we were good.

“Thank you for the flowers, by the way. They’re beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful…nah, I can’t even finish that corny shit.”

Bee laughed loudly and said, “Thank you. Because had you done that, I’m certain I would have never let you inside me again.”

“And what a pity that would have been. Hey…you busy tonight? I don’t want to do this over the phone. I’d rather be looking you in the eyes as I apologize. Besides…we never got through the rest of the leaning in rules.”

“About that…” Devorah started.

“Nope, save it for later. Is seven cool? I’ll drop by after the gym.”

“Showered, hopefully.”

“Really, Bee? So seven…?”

“Seven is fine. I’ll have dinner waiting.”

“Aight. I’ll see you then.”

Bee paused briefly then said, “See you later, El.”

We hung up and I went back to the pile of RFPs on my desk that I needed to complete and submit before the end of the week. I’d been tasked with recruiting a few more local businesses to work with our firm for their marketing needs. We were trying to break into the small business sector, primarily targeting minority owned businesses. A larger firm whose focus was broadening the level of service that we provided to local start-ups had recently acquired my company. My team was researching businesses and crafting requests for proposals to pitch to their leadership teams. This kind of put me in direct competition with Devorah’s firm, as cross-pollination was inevitable when you have two similarly structured companies trying to acquire the same customers. Luckily, since Bee was a creative, we never went directly head to head. The rest of the workday passed fairly quickly as I delegated assignments to the sub-teams I supervised.

I pulled up to Devorah’s house slightly before seven. I could barely focus on my workout trying to parse together what the hell I was going to say in this apology. I still didn’t think I was completely in the wrong, but I was taking Cadence’s advice about handling Bee with kid gloves seriously. One thing was for sure though; I was leaving here with a better understanding of what the hell was going on in her head. I grabbed the bottle of wine I bought from the grocery store and walked up the short walkway to the front door. Just as I raised a hand to press the doorbell, the door opened and a mass of red hair came barreling toward me.