Thanks to having two streams of income while living with my parents, I had enough money saved to pay the deposit and cover at least five months’ rent without having to worry. That was almost half the lease term. My makeup jobs had been going crazy over the past three weeks, and I’d literally earned more than $4,000 during that time doing makeup. A lot of the WAGS that London was around wanted to do everything she did, so a lot of the ladies had reached out to me even after filming stopped. When they had events to go to or just wanted to hang out with friends, they would book me to beat their faces. I had also done makeup for quite a few women getting various photoshoots done whether it was for business shoots, maternity, engagement photos, family portraits, etc.
Alisa had done a photoshoot to update her website and business cards, and even though I told her numerous times I wasn’t charging her, she not only paid me, but she overpaid me. I had a pretty good cushion, so I was going to believe that I could get my own place and not have to struggle every month. I also didn’t want to start my new journey in a ton of debt, but my home would be furnished with a credit card. If the makeup jobs continued to roll in, I’d pay it off.
“What do you think?” the realtor asked with a warm smile when the tour was over.
“I love it. I’d definitely like to move forward with the application.”
“Wonderful. I will send you the link as soon as I get back in my car. Once it’s complete, it usually takes about a day for the credit report and criminal background check to get back to me.”
“Sounds good,” I nodded. I wasn’t worried about either one.
In the car, I checked my phone for missed calls and text messages because it had been six days since I spoke to Hymn, and my ass was sick. To be fair, he had called me the day before, but I was busy. Once I had free time, I didn’t call him back because I was in my feelings, and I hated it. While Hymn was out with an ankle injury, we spoke every single day and saw each other numerous times a week. I was trying so hard not to fall. I didn’t want to fall but by the time he was cleared to play again, I had become hooked.
I knew he would be busy but foolishly, I still expected us to communicate fairly regularly. When it took him five days to reach out to me, my chest was tight. It was like he went from being borderline clingy to saying fuck me. And I knew that he had missed quite a few games, and he needed to get his head back in the game and focus, but my main issue was the fact that I did what I wasn’t supposed to do. I caught feelings for him and so soon after leaving Corey, that shit was absurd.
So, when he did call, it was less about being angry and more about trying to fall back from him to let any feelings that I had die down before I played the hell out of myself. Any time I thought about where he was and what he might be doing, Corey’s words played in my mind like a broken record making my gut twist. I knew before he said it that it would be stupid for me to take a pro athlete serious. It wasn’t anything that I planned, but it was easy to do. Especially when he was out with his injury, and Hymn acted like he couldn’t get enough of me. The attention stroked my ego, and it got me used to being around and talking to him.
I still had goals to cross off my list, and the last thing I had time to do was be stressing Hymn. When my music stopped playing, I looked at the screen to see who was calling. Hymn. Maybe my thoughts had conjured him up, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him. It was very possible that I was being childish and petty, but I would call him back the next day. Maybe.
The music stopped again, and I saw that Corey’s mother was calling. I hadn’t spoken to her too many times since I left her son. It wasn’t her fault that her son cheated, and she’d never done anything to me. I wasn’t mad at her nor did I have any desire to keep the girls from her. But when she asked me what happened and she started making excuses for her son, that was where she lost me. Now, I only talked to her when it was necessary.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Brion, how are you doing?”
“Hey, Ms. Gerri. I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m good. I was calling to see if I could get the girls tomorrow. I’ll pick them up around noon and keep them until Sunday evening.”
“Sure, I don’t have an issue with that. They’ll be ready.”
“Okay, baby. Thank you.”
Since I had to meet with the realtor, my dad picked the girls up from school. When I got home, his truck wasn’t in the yard, but Josie was there. She was getting ready to leave on a five-day solo birthday trip to Madagascar, and I wished like hell I could go with her. When I entered the house, I smelled the aroma of food and knew I’d miss my mother’s cooking for sure when I moved out. I never had to worry about coming home and cooking dinner. Sometimes, my dad pulled out the grill and cooked and sometimes, my mom ordered takeout when she didn’t feel like cooking.
Josie walked from the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand. The moment I saw her face, I knew something was up. She looked annoyed but kind of apologetic at the same time. All I could do was shake my head.
“What is it now?” I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know.
“Here, you take my wine, and I’ll pour myself some more.”
“It’s that bad?” I hiked a brow.
“Sip,” she instructed before pivoting and walking back to the kitchen.
“Here we go,” I mumbled before taking a sip. I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with bullshit, but I was going to find out what it was whether I wanted to or not.
If Josie was practically acting like the world was over, I could only imagine that the news was about Corey or maybe even Hymn. My heartrate increased at the thought of the news being about Hymn. What if he’d been posted in the blogs with a wife and two kids? What if he’d been living a double life? Or what if the reason he went ghost was because he met someone else.
I was no expert, but I was pretty sure that wine was meant to be sipped and not gulped, but I took three large swallows, and the glass was empty. Walking into the kitchen, I found Joise leaning up against the counter sipping wine while our mother sat at the kitchen table placing icing on a freshly baked cake.
“Stop acting like somebody died, Josie. What is it?” I grabbed the bottle of wine to refill my glass.
“I know you don’t care. I hope you don’t care, but this is just a head’s up. The homewrecking whore is posting again. Supposedly, she’s pregnant, and Corey proposed to her.”
With an angry chuckle I sipped my wine. The fact that I wanted to slice that man’s throat from ear to ear was deeply disturbing. The lengths he was going to in order to make me suffer? Hurt my feelings? Make me jealous? Was absurd. He acted as if I was the one that wronged him, and it was now his life’s mission to make me miserable. I could have married him if I wanted to. So, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was tired of him. Sick and tired.
“I mean what can I say?” I answered in a flat tone. “I know he’s wack. He’s proven it to me every single day since I left him, so I don’t know why I’m shocked. It’s also clear that marriage doesn’t mean anything to him.” I finished off my reply with a passive shrug.
