Flirt (27 page)

While Marley looked through magazines for the perfect inspiration for the new property, Jay excused himself. Soon after he disappeared into the bathroom, a man walked into the office.

“Hi, Marley.”

“Hi,” she said, wondering how this man knew her name. She looked him over and immediately recognized his face.

“Ch-Charles?”

“It’s me. I didn’t think that you would recognize me—I’ve put on a lot of weight since you saw me last.”

Marley halfheartedly wrapped her arms around Charles’s neck. “I almost didn’t, it’s been a long time. How are you? What are you doing
here
?” she asked.

“Jay called me. He told me that he had some work for me today.”

“Oh . . .”

“Where’s Chris?” Charles asked.

“He’s out looking at a property. Come in and sit down, Charles. Jay should be out of the bathroom soon.” Marley looked around the room and hoped that Jay
would
appear soon. Even though Charles was her father, she really didn’t know him or care to. His actions had turned her world upside down before; that was something she would never get over.

“So, how do you like working with my boys?” Charles asked.

“It’s fine,” Marley said without looking up from her magazine. “They are good guys.”

“Jay is like a son to me, too. As long as I can remember, he’s been hanging out with Chris. I’m just glad they left all that street business alone and got into this. I was worried about my son out there in them streets like that.”

“Your son who?”

“Chris.”

“Chris who?”

“Chris, the one that works in this office with—” Charles paused in midsentence and watched Marley replay his words in her mind. “Wait a minute. . . . Don’t tell me that you didn’t know about Chris being my son.”

Marley covered her mouth with her hand. The room was becoming a blur. She tried to inhale through her nose, but it wasn’t working. She uncovered her mouth and regrouped.

“He didn’t tell me. Are you sure he knows?” she whispered.

“He knows. He was the only one of my kids I was able to have a relationship with. He’s known almost all of his life.”

“What!” Marley jumped out of her seat as tears ran down her cheeks. She’d been throwing up all morning, but she obviously wasn’t finished. She covered her mouth again and ran toward the bathroom. She ran right into Jay as he was rounding the corner of the hallway. She pushed past him with her body and nearly collapsed in front of the commode. She vomited over and over until her insides were empty. She rested her head against the edge of the seat and cried hysterically until Jay knocked on the door.

“You okay, baby girl?”

“Leave me alone! Leave me alone, Jay! Get away from me!” she screamed.

Jay returned to his desk, and Charles went to check on Marley. He knocked on the door, but Marley didn’t say a word.

“Marley, I’m sorry. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know. I just don’t understand why Chris didn’t tell you. I don’t know how this could have happened to you twice in a lifetime,” he said, and she could hear the pleading tone in his voice through the door.

After she was sure that Charles was no longer standing in front of the door, Marley regained her composure and moved to the sink to wash her face. When she inhaled the scent of the hand soap, she felt nauseated. She turned back to the commode and assumed the position.

Marley returned to her desk, grabbed her purse and keys, and walked out the door. Jay and Charles watched silently as she stepped into her car and sped away.

Marley arrived at home still feeling nauseated. She changed into a free-flowing dress and lay across the bed. When she thought about the mess that she was involved in, she screamed into the pillow. She cried hysterically for hours until Chris finally came rushing into the bedroom.

“Marley,” he said while he stroked her hair.

“Don’t fucking touch me, liar!” She sat up in bed and slapped Chris across the face with everything she had. “You
knew
, and you didn’t tell me shit. What kind of sick shit is that, Chris? How could you do this?”

Chris lowered his head. He’d prayed that this day would never come. He and Marley were supposed to be able to live happily ever after. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You don’t know? What the fuck do you mean you don’t know? All of these years, you
knew
, Chris—you knew that I was your fucking sister, and you didn’t say shit! You fucked me like it was cool! You are a sick son of a bitch, Chris!” Marley said, slapping him across the face.

This time, the slap stung Chris’s face and he reacted by grabbing Marley by the wrists to keep it from happening again.

“I loved you. I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know how to handle it. We have something, Marley. Do you see how we click? Do you see how our love kept leading us back to each other? I couldn’t let that slip away. As sick as it sounds—I didn’t tell you, because I loved you and I wanted to be with you.”

Marley struggled to get free from Chris’s grasp, but he had a tight grip on her small wrists. The way Chris held Marley forced her to look into his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Chris said.

“Let me go.”

As soon as the words escaped Marley’s lips, they were followed by another round of vomit. Chris immediately released her wrists, and Marley ran to the bathroom.

Chris wanted to take her in his arms and hold her forever. He wanted to comfort her, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. Chris was in shock. In an instant, his
entire future was destroyed. Beads of sweat glided across his forehead and down the sides of his face. He listened to Marley sobbing hysterically in the bathroom for two minutes before he decided to console her. When he walked into the bathroom, he pulled her close and stroked her hair softly.

“How could this happen?” she cried. Marley’s entire body quaked when she sobbed. Chris wrapped his arms around her tightly and allowed her to empty the pain in her heart onto his shoulder.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Chris whispered.

Chris walked Marley into the bedroom and stroked her hair until she stopped shaking and crying. He kissed her forehead when she’d finally cried herself to sleep. He positioned her body comfortably on the bed, covered her with the comforter, and slowly walked into the guest bedroom.

“So, what are you going to do now, Marley? Are you going to go back to your rules and all of that madness?” Marley’s friend Nina asked while they enjoyed lunch on the strip.

“I think I’m going to take a long break from dating. I don’t have the strength to go through something like this again, and with my luck . . . I will,” she said.

Nina nodded in agreement. She looked up from her salad and momentarily locked eyes with Marley.

“Marley, you look like you are getting kind of thick in the waist. You aren’t trying to get fat so that the dudes won’t approach you, are you?”

“Nina! How could you say that? Am I really getting fat?”

“Yes. I’m your girl—I’m supposed to tell you things like that,” Nina said.

Marley smiled and shook her head. “I guess, but damn.”

After the fiasco, Marley stayed away from all men. She didn’t want to risk the chance of falling into another situation like the one she’d endured twice in a lifetime. She poured herself into her career and focused on keeping her clients satisfied.

Once she was inside her car, she checked her calendar and reached for the mail that was thrown across the front seat from the night before. She searched through her purse and pulled out her Sidekick. She searched through her messages and noticed that Jay had called. She hated Jay’s not telling her sooner, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from finding out just what he wanted.

Marley returned the call while she sat in the parking lot of her client’s apartment complex. When Jay picked up on the other end, his voice was low and he spoke slowly.

“Charles died last night,” he said.

“Oh my God!”

“He told me if something were to ever happen to him, he wanted me to make sure that all of his children laid him to rest,” Jay said.

“I’ll be there. I’m so sorry, Jay. Please call me if you need
anything
,” she said. Tears fell from Marley’s eyes as she backed out of the parking lot. She couldn’t believe that Charles was actually gone.

She suddenly wished that she’d taken the months that had passed to get to know Charles instead of isolating herself from him. She wondered if he’d ever thought about her when she was younger, if he had wondered what she looked like. She wondered why Tara had kept him away. Maybe it was the drugs, but what about when he cleaned up? Why didn’t she let them know and love one another? Suddenly Marley’s emotions turned to anger. She was angry at Tara for keeping her father away from her. She was angry at her for allowing this facade for so long and not allowing her to experience the other side of her ethnicity.

Marley pressed the gas pedal even closer to the floor and sped ninety miles per hour down I-95 toward her condo. She was angry at DeJuan for leaving her to deal with the situation alone. She was angry at Chris for taking advantage of her vulnerability at a time when she needed comfort. She was angry at Jay for pursuing her nonstop. She was angry at Charles for not wearing a condom.

Marley couldn’t think, and when her eyes filled with tears, she couldn’t see. The white lines on the highway became a blur as Marley applied more pressure to the gas pedal. Maybe all of this was karma, she thought. Maybe this entire drama was caused because of the many times she’d broken some poor conquest’s heart or maybe it was because of the many times she’d slipped out of someone’s bed never to be seen again, with no explanation. Marley had done her share of dirt in her past. When DeJuan had died, she couldn’t seem to get her life together. She was barely hanging on.

Marley’s small SUV reached speeds of over ninety miles per
hour. She turned up the music full blast and screamed the words to Beyoncé’s “Me, Myself and I.” When Marley approached her exit, she finally slowed down. She pulled into the parking lot and opened her door. Marley leaned her head outside and vomited. Her head was spinning, and she felt hot. She slowly stepped out of the car and walked uneasily to her door.

Once Marley was inside, she threw down her purse and ran into the bathroom. She knelt in front of the toilet and lifted the lid. Marley vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach; she rested her head against the cool toilet until she felt the urge again.

The doctor walked in, holding Marley’s medical chart. She sat on the stool and opened it. She flipped through the pages and looked up at Marley.

“Well, Ms. Lucas, your suspicions were correct. You are pregnant,” she said.

Marley quickly covered her mouth to prevent screams from escaping. Her eyes filled with tears, and she couldn’t breathe.

“According to the dates that you have given us, it looks like you are about eight weeks along, if not more. Congratulations,” she said.

“Thank you,” Marley whispered. She looked at the tiled floor.
The designer could have picked a better color,
she thought to herself. She looked up at the doctor. “Is it too late for me to . . . consider other options? I don’t think I am ready for a child,” she said.

“Marley, you still have some time, but not much. If you decide that you want to terminate this pregnancy, then you need to do it soon, but there are other alternatives to consider. Adoption is always a good option. Ultimately it will be up to you, but just remember that time is of the utmost importance in this situation.”

“I understand,” Marley said.

She left the doctor’s office feeling as if the weight of the world had just been placed upon her shoulders. There was no way that she could have a child knowing that she and Chris shared the same blood. The risk of complications was high. At that very moment, standing in the doorway of Dr. Hines’s office, she decided she would have an abortion.

Nearly two weeks passed and Marley still hadn’t made a final decision about her pregnancy. She’d attended Charles’s funeral and reluctantly told Chris her news. He begged her not to have an abortion. He told Marley he wanted the child and he didn’t care about the risks.

Marley argued that she wasn’t ready for a child, and she would handle everything on her own, but she didn’t handle anything. She lay in bed and prayed all day and night.

Marley was tired of being alone. She wanted to be loved with every ounce of her soul. As her body changed with her pregnancy, she thought about the baby growing inside her and slowly began to change her perspective. No matter how high the risk, this child was a part of her. She could already feel the love.
There was no way she could get rid of the one person who would love her forever, unconditionally. She was willing to take her chance.

“Okay, Marley, are you ready to hear the heartbeat?” Dr. Hines asked as she applied gel to Marley’s growing belly. She applied the fetal Doppler to Marley’s stomach and moved it around in a circular motion. Marley stared at the ceiling and listened carefully.

“Oh, there it is,” Dr. Hines said. “Hold on.” Dr. Hines moved the instrument around a few more times and smiled. “Oh my, it sounds like two of them in there,” she said. “Congratulations, Marley—it looks like you are having twins.”

You never know what will happen. So dream big! I want to thank God for giving me the opportunity to share my love of writing with the world. I want to thank my mother and my family for all of their support as I take this journey. Thank you to all of my friends for believing in my dream and being such major players in achieving my dream. I love you all with every ounce of me. A special thank-you goes to Shannon Holmes for offering me an opportunity that I will never forget. Your advice and belief in me has meant a lot to me. Monique Patterson, words cannot express how thankful I am to you for allowing me to work on this project with some major players. I hope we will
have the opportunity to work together in the future. It has meant the world to me. Last but not least, I have to acknowledge my children, Jordynn and Jalen. I love you both more than words can ever say, thank you for coming into my life and showing me what real love is. I love you both. As high as the sky, as wide as the sea, all the days of my life. If I missed anyone, please charge it to my head and not my heart. I love you all! Thank you.