Drunk In Love: An Original Love Story (12 page)

 “Yeah, because the tickets are so hard to come by,” Dillon said. “That’s why I hurried up and jumped on them. We may never get a chance to hit a party like this again.”

“You ain’t lying.” Zay said with a smile on his face that wouldn’t go away.

“I think we need to get out so I can find a good mask to wear.” Zay said, already scheming. Going to this party would be a big distraction from Olivia and he needed a serious distraction from her. It was crazy, because he’d been dreaming about her sexy body before his brother woke him up. He wasn’t lying about him fucking up a wet dream. “

I’m just gonna find a black mask and put on something simple, but dressed for the occasion. You definitely can’t go up in there in no sneakers and white tees.”

“I kinda figured that,” Zay responded. He got out of bed. “I need to get my shit together. Are we going to find something to wear? I just need me a fresh mask that hides who I am, but still add to my swag.” He said as Dillon jumped on his laptop. He figured his brother was going to be awhile, so he may as well pull up his Twitter account and make himself useful.  

“You talk to your girl?” Dillon asked, as he began to surf the web first.  

Zay stepped inside his big closet, looking for some clothes he could put on. “Yeah, I hit her up last night. I just wanted to check on her.”

“And how’d that make you feel?”

“I don’t even know. I can’t lie, I’m drunk over her ass.” He admitted.

“Hell, I know that.” Dillon said. “This party may be just the thing to help you get your mind right. I think you’ve been missing out these past couple of months.”

“I don’t call it missing out, because she makes up for four or five women by herself.  I just can’t be this drunk over her knowing that she has a husband.”

“Hell, I feel you,” Dillon said, scrolling through his newsfeed on Twitter. “Well, it seems that she’s up and about to meet with her bestie for an early morning breakfast at IHop.”

“How you know that?” “Twitter,” he answered. “It tells you everything you need to know. It’s like a free GPS on everybody you fuck with. You’ll always know their whereabouts.” They laughed.

“You right about that,” Zay responded. He’d hated hearing about her, because now he wanted to hear her voice. “I need to do better,” he whispered while searching through his things. He found a casual pair of Rocawear khakis and a Pipe 2 Rocawear t-shirt. He pulled out a new pair of khakis Roc Moc’s that he’d bought six months earlier, but didn’t have anything to wear with them.

Dillon glanced up from the laptop as he checked out Zay’s gear. “Aye I got the black ones just like those.”

“Yeah, I do too.” Zay grinned, and then stepped inside his master bathroom to clean up. Twenty minutes later, he walked out and looked over at Dillon. “You ready boy?”

“There are only two types of boys in this world; a white boy and a cowboy. Don’t ever forget that.” Dillon joked as he logged out of his Twitter account and closed the top on the laptop. He got up to walk out of Zay’s room then looked back as he made it to the door. “And clean up this damn place. That woman got you gone.”

****

Olivia sat inside the IHOP at a booth seat, waiting for Felisha to show up. She couldn’t believe that they’d had such a fucked up falling out. Felisha was saying some really low shit and she didn’t appreciate it. However, she was grown enough to overlook it and she was hoping that Felisha would feel the same.

Felisha walked up and gave Olivia a somewhat salty hug.

 “Hey,” she dryly spoke. “Hey,” Olivia said, still trying to be the bigger person since it didn’t look like Felisha wanted to take a try at it. “You okay?”

“Yeah I’m good,” she coolly responded.

“About yesterday,” Olivia started. “I think we both said some pretty hurtful things, but I’d like to apologize. I don’t know where that came from or why it started, but I’m sorry.” She sincerely said then she tried to spice up the conversation so that Felisha wouldn’t even have to apologize. “Girl, Mark fucked me from the back this morning. It was so good.” She bragged.

Felisha frowned as she sat across from her best friend still feeling some type of way. “I don’t want to hear about your sex life this morning.” She bluntly stated then carried on. “I honestly didn’t like the way you spoke of me fucking around with Tom, Dick, and Harry on yesterday.”

“I didn’t say that. You just did.” Olivia cut in.

“You know what I’m talking about.” Felisha said with a slight roll of the neck. “And to mention my son’s father and what he doesn’t do for him in front of my son was definitely not called for.”

“Are you still serious right now? You joked off of me being a virgin and being left at the altar. You said some pretty hurtful shit to me, too and you’re just gonna sit here in my face and make me feel like the bad guy? That’s fucked up.”

“You’re right, it is fucked up. I hate we’re sitting here arguing over something so stupid, but it was some things said that I took straight to the heart. I’m sitting here feeling like you’ve been feeling that way about me forever.” Felisha said, looking pitiful with a pissed off attitude.

Olivia disappointedly shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion.”

“Yesterday showed me another side of you, a side that I don’t like.”

“Girl, you are really tripping right now. We’ve been best friends since we were around four years old. You’re like my sister.”

Felisha sat there looking like she didn’t even care. “I just have some things to think about.”

“Things like what?”

“I just need to figure some things out in my life.”

Olivia looked confused. “Like what?”

“You said something yesterday that really got to me. You said that I’ve never been married or engaged and that shit hurt because I could’ve been.”

“Why do you keep saying that shit?” Olivia asked with frustration in her tone. “Are you referring to the guy that you wanted to introduce to me after I told you that I wanted you to meet Mark?”

“Yep,” Felisha said.

“But--” Olivia said then was cut off.

“But, my so called man decided at the last minute to take a different route.”

Olivia nodded her head. “Right, he didn’t show up. You said at the last minute, he got cold feet about just being in a relationship. So, how did that ever lead up to you marrying him?” Olivia curiously asked.

“Because after the fact, he did come back and he told me that he wanted to be with me.” Felisha said. “He even told me that he’d marry me.”

“Oh and you turned that down?” Olivia smugly asked.

“I did, for my own personal reasons. I deserve more than a man that just walks out on me like that, but it’s been plenty of times I should’ve just gone with the flow. If I had gone with the flow then we would be married and my son would have a father around twenty-four, seven.”

“If you think it’s that easy then kid yourself, because it’s not. And I guarantee you that if he couldn’t show up just so your best friend could meet him, talking about not wanting a commitment then he wasn’t trying to marry you.”

Felisha stood up from the table. “I’m about to go,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“What is wrong with you?” Olivia asked.

“Nothing that I can’t handle,” Felisha responded. “Are you still going to be able to take lil Romeo to the dentist tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’ll be by to get him in the morning. Are you going to be alright?” Olivia asked out of concern. “I worry about you, sometimes.”

“That’s good to know,” Felisha said with a slight smile. “We’ll catch up later.” She said, giving Olivia a slight hug, and with that, she left. 

****

Later that night, Olivia and Mark lay in bed having pillow talk. It was a part of her that wanted to work on her marriage. The only problem was shaking Zay. As she lay there having this sweet conversation with her husband, her thoughts were still on another man. She quickly tried to talk about something different to clear her mind of Zay.

“I met with Felisha today,” she said.

“How’d that go?” Mark asked, already hearing about their earlier fallout.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She is acting all strange and shit.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked with a slight frown on his face.

“She’s acting jealous or something. She even brought up that time when that dude she was screwing around with was supposed to meet with us.”

“Huh,” Mark said like he unaware of what time she was talking about.  

“Remember when I first introduced you to Felisha?”

Mark nodded. “Oh yeah, I remember that, but her man didn’t show up.”

“Right,” Olivia said. “He didn’t even have the courtesy to show up, but she telling me that he wanted to marry her.”

“Well, what happened? Why didn’t they get married?”

Olivia shook her head. “Baby, that’s the same thing I was thinking, but she claimed that after he didn’t show up, he came back to her house wanting to be with her. I guess that’s when he said that he’d marry her.”

“What stopped it then?”

“She said that she didn’t take him back for her own personal reasons.”

Mark sat silent for a moment. “That sounds crazy.”

“It does,” Olivia agreed. “Maybe you should talk to her for me. She might feel more comfortable talking to you now since she and I have this elephant in the room anytime we’re around each other.”

“Yeah, I understand. I don’t mind talking to her to see if she’ll open up. I don’t need her going off the deep end. We’ve made a good investment with her.” He joked, but was very serious.

Olivia grinned. “You’re right about that.” They laughed, and then talked a little more before dozing off to sleep.

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, Olivia and Zoe sat in the massage chairs, getting a pedicure as Mrs. Jackson sat on the other end of the nail salon getting a fresh polish with French tips. Olivia looked over at Zoe and smiled. She was happy that her kid sister was home.

“So, what’s up with you?” Olivia asked with a big smile on her face. “I’ve missed you kid.”

Zoe laughed. She loved her sister and even though she was only two years younger, Olivia would call her kid from time to time.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Zoe responded, smiling back just as big. “You know mom wasn’t going to let me stay away another month longer, anyway. She would’ve either put out an APB out on me or she would’ve just showed up on my doorstep one day and ain’t nobody got time for that.” 

Olivia laughed. “You got that right.” She said, looking down at her controlling, obsessive mother and smiled with a shake of the head. “That’s mom.”

“Yep, that’s her and I don’t need her snooping around at my crib trying to regulate. I’m single and I live like a single woman. My place is colorful, with modern décor. I even have naked people hanging on the wall.”

Olivia laughed. “You have what now?”

“Yes, you heard right. I live freely now and it feels good.” She glanced down on the other end of the nail salon to make sure that Mrs. Jackson wasn’t finished yet then she kept talking. “It’s crazy when I think back at how we lived. Don’t get me wrong, because we had the best of everything, but we lived like lil rich slaves.”

Olivia wanted to laugh, but she held it in. “I guess I can agree to that.”

“You know you can.” Zoe cut in. “We grew up with white carpet that stayed white. You better not walk your ass in there with shoes on. They better come off at the door and your feet or socks better be clean.”

Olivia nodded with a smile, because she knew that her sister wasn’t lying as she continued.

“Mom doesn’t have a bright anything in that house. It’s either beige or a dull gray or something. Walking in that house every day almost felt like I was checking myself in an upscale psyche ward.”

Olivia chuckled.

“We had a big five bedroom house with four full baths and every inch of that house was immaculate.”

Olivia nodded her head, quickly agreeing with her sister. “You are absolutely right. You could eat your food off of the floor in that house.” Zoe laughed at her comment. “No, but you’re right. Mom was no joke and the sad part is that she’s still the same mom and the house is just as spotless as it was thirteen years ago when I lived there.”

“Sure is,” Zoe responded. “Mom won’t change a thing, but I’m going to get her to change the color in the kitchen eventually. She has gotta start somewhere. I’m working on her.”

“If anybody can do it you can,” Olivia said, feeling that she and their dad were always the closest, but Zoe had a special bond with their mom. It may not have looked like it, but they did.   

Zoe was the very smart and sassy one. She looked exactly like their mom with the smooth, chestnut colored skin and long hair half way down their backs. Zoe had the Asian looking, dreamy eyes too, which were the only thing that Olivia got from their mom, because everything else resembled their dad. Olivia’s big white smile and high cheek bones with the perfect pouty lips were a spitting image of Mr. Jackson, as well as, the smooth, chocolate glow of her skin tone.

Zoe was resentful for a lot of things that Mrs. Jackson made them do. She hated taking summer courses when they’d already passed their grades. She hated ten o’clock curfews still at the age of eighteen. She hated the boring, but very expensive décor in the home. But, most importantly, she hated the promise of not being able to lose her virginity until she’d gotten married. She could’ve gone against the grain and slept with a guy, but she didn’t. However, she did marry this curly head, hottie name Chico during her sophomore year in college just because she was ready to fuck. Nothing heated their mom more.

“So, does it feel good to be single again?” Olivia asked, wiggling her toes in the warm water.

“Sure does,” Zoe answered. “I just wished I would’ve waited before I jumped right into another relationship after Chico and I separated. I was married by the age of twenty-one and split up by the age of twenty-eight. Then my crazy ass goes against mom’s wishes and shacks with another man for another two years; only for that shit to crumble, too. What the hell was I thinking?”

“That’s just how it is sometimes.” Olivia said.