On the way to Shareese’s house, I made a couple of calls to professionals who could clean my mattress and set up an appointment for the next day. When I pulled into her driveway, she was there unloading the groceries.
I parked the car and stepped out.
“Sha, where the hell is your son?” I asked. Cause I know it was no way he was going to make her tote anything in the house.
“Pretending that two cases of water weigh a ton, he just went inside.” She informed me.
“Give me that,” I said, trying to take the bags from her.
“I don’t want your help, Quentin. You’re Tre’s daddy, not mine,” she snapped.
“But you called me daddy when I was—”
“Say it. Say it, and I promise I’ll get in my truck and put it in reverse,” she dared me. I shook my head at her crazy ass and then went back to my own truck. I watched as Tre went back and forth between her truck and the house, taking in the things she had brought.
Things between Sha and me hadn’t changed. I was grateful that the situation didn’t make shit complicated between us. She still gave me hell, every chance she got, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I went to call my mother and let her know that we were on the way. But I realized that I had never saved the girl from last night’s number. Mercedes. I stored her number and then sent her a text message.
As I waited for my son, my mind drifted off to B and the way her body reacted to me last night. Opening my phone again, I laughed as I typed her an email from Long Term Therapy. She said that it was over, and I let her know I supported her decision to focus on her husband. After all, that was my job as her marriage therapist.
Hitting send on the message, I put the phone down as Tre opened the door. The chapter with me and B was officially behind us now.
Breeze
2years later
“Happy Birthday Breeeeeeezeeeee!” Cassie sang as she brought out the heart cake with pictures of me surrounding it. I fought back tears because, although Tim always made it a priority to do things for me on my birthday, I don’t think I've had an actual party in a long time. It was hard scaling a business, and nobody talks about how much you lose yourself when you go from a 9-5 to 24/7. But I was thankful that the people around me always see my need to reset and act on it, even when I insist I don’t.
We were huddled around the fire pit of the cabin. In real life, I’m a dolphin at heart. Especially living in a city without a beach, I would always travel near and far to be by one. But now, it was the dead of winter, and my husband and Cassie decided to go to the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to celebrate my birthday.
The room was full of love. There was Tim, Cass, Dex, Lisa, Mel, Baja, and ironically, Shareese. She and I had kept in contact since Turks two and a half years ago, and we became fast friends.She was my “let’s go in a store and run up a check,” friend. Whenever either of us was in the mood to go shopping or even get our nails done, we called each other.
Hardly, if ever, did we mention what had happened in that villa. Our relationship was just a genuine friendship without the benefits, and I appreciated that. She had become such a staple in my life that Cassie reached out to invite her to celebrate with us. I was happy when I pulled up and saw her standing outside with them.
Cass set the cake on the table in front of me as I blew out the candle and wished to have moments like this more often.
“Alright, this would not be a Cass production if we didn’t play a gameeeee!” Cassie yelled. All of us groaned at once, and she hollered out in laughter. Shareese looked around in confusion.
“No ma’am, not one of your games,” I protested in light fun.
I was teasing her. Cassie came to me a couple of months after the game night and apologized. She thought that my sudden hiatus from our weekly dates was because she had made me uncomfortable. I told her that our dealerships had gotten hectic, but assured her that I had the time of my life at game night, and I appreciated her apology, though it wasn’t necessary. If anything, I owed her, that game night led me to some of the best moments of my life.
“No, no, I’ve learned my lesson about those games. I swear. This one is just something fun,” she said as she held her hands up in mock surrender.
Neither of us protested as we waited for the game she suggested.
“We’re going to play a game similar to charades. One person will wear a card on their forehead with a word, and the team will give them hints to help them guess it. If they don’t guess the word correctly in one minute, the whole team takes a shot,” shesaid as she explained the rules of the game, and we broke into teams.
On my team, I had my husband, Baja, and Shareese. It probably wasn’t the best idea to elect the person who had been downing drinks all evening to be the one wearing the words. But Shareese kept insisting that she was the best one for the job and had us all cracking up from the first word.
The word on her forehead was, “Titanic.”
Baja screamed, “JACK AND ROSE!”
Shareese then yells with a straight face, “Masturbation! Foreplay!” The whole room erupted. We laughed so hard that we cried.
Needless to say, by the time that we got done with that game, our team was damn near blacked out drunk.
