Once I got them settled, I headed to my place to pack my bags for my two-day trip. My sister and I had a decent agreement. Even though I had full custody of the twins, there was no way I could take care of them because of how busy I was. I was either on site or traveling to oversee someone else's project. Because I was so busy, I had no time to date or settle down. My family took up a lot of time when I wasn’t working. If I ever had the urge, itwas nothing to fuck with my secretary. She wanted nothing from me and I loved it that way.
FOUR
TATIYONNA
It was four in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. The empty side of the bed for three weeks now was dragging me down. Although I got rid of his stuff, his LV cologne still lingered in our room. I was still ignoring every call, every bouquet of roses, and every text. He was making it so hard to move on with him, constantly contacting me. I grabbed my phone and decided to scroll on social media until I was able to go back to sleep. Before I could open my phone, I saw several notifications from Kileen.
Kil: Baby, can you please talk to me? It’s been three weeks. This is the longest I’ve been away from you. I can’t even focus on work.
I started texting him back, but put the phone down, pulled the cover over my head, and cried myself to sleep. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, it was almost one in the afternoon, and my daddy was blowing my phone up.
“Baby girl, what the hell do you got going on? I’ve been calling you since eight this morning. I called Kileen to wake you up, but he said he wasn’t home. Do I need to come over there?”
“No! I’m up.” I threw the cover off me.
I had avoided him long enough, and I didn’t want him popping up over here and noticing Kileen was gone. My dad was a retired detective and would be able to pick me apart. I had promised to have breakfast with him and forgot.
“Can we have dinner instead? I was up all night working and forgot to set my alarm.”
“Six sharp, Tat. You know I don’t like tardiness.”
“I promise, dad.”
After hanging up with him, I got up, showered, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. Before I could make my cup of iced coffee, my doorbell was ringing. Kileen was standing there looking like a sick puppy in the face.
“What is it?”
“You won’t talk to me, so I needed to see that you were okay. Your dad called, and it worried me.”
“I’m good.”
“You sure? Your eyes are puffy.” He reached to touch me, but I slapped his hand away.
“Tati, I haven’t been back over there. I made arrangements with her to pay her child support, and we have to meet in a public place to get my baby.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“I’m trying to show you that I’m trying to fix this. I want to come home.”
“You can’t come home, Kil. You have a family and I’m not in the mood to be anyone’s step mama.”
What I said hit him hard because he hung his head. I hoped he didn’t think I was going to be a stepmom to a kid that was made during our marriage. Now if he came in the marriage with the baby, then cool.
“My bad for even taking you through this shit, man. It was just… we were so busy and things were getting vanilla between us-”
“Step back.” I waved my hand at him.
“Wait…”
I slammed the door in his face. A non-communicating ass man was not something I needed in my life. If things were getting vanilla, why not tell me? No, he decided to take that time and stick his dick somewhere else. Then come home and look me in my face and tell me he loved me, knowing he was getting bored with me. I was starting to really become disgusted with men.
I satacross the table from my daddy. We would usually meet up weekly to eat and catch up. Unfortunately, my situation made me avoid him for weeks. I made sure to wear my ring and act as normal as possible. That didn’t stop him from staring me up and down.
“You need to get some sleep. The bags under your eyes make you look older. Now, if I had known the career was going to have you skipping out on me, I would’ve told you to stay at a nine-to-five.”
“No, I took on a few new clients, and it’s been crazy trying to get the schedule together. Wesley and I have been doing the best we can.”
“Do you need more help? We can do a hiring event.”
