Up to No Good (31 page)

I bent over and picked up the box that contained the Coach bag.

“How hungry are you?” I asked.

“Pretty hungry. Why?”

“‘Cause I was thinking that maybe we could stop at the mall on the way to the restaurant and exchange this bag for a Gucci. What do you think?”

“I think you’re the most wonderful man in the world,” she said, giving me a squeeze that let me know I had a great night to look forward to after dinner.

It was the worst one week, three days, seven hours, and six minutes of my life. I felt like crap, I looked like crap, and all I could do was think about the crap going on between me and Louis. I missed him so much—de-spite the fact that he was a no-good, cheating son of a bitch. I ’d shed more tears in these past two weeks than I had in my entire life. Throw in the fact that Sandra was over every single day playing house with Daddy, and I was a basket case. I ’d been spending as much time as possible locked in my room, just to avoid looking at my father and that gold digger. And because I was in my room alone, there wasn’t much to do but nap all the time. I was falling into a serious depression.

As I started drifting off to sleep once again, I heard my phone vibrating on the nightstand next to the bed. The only person calling me at this hour of the night would be Louis. He’d been blowing up my phone every night, but I ’d been ignoring him. It would have been too easy for him to talk me into coming back home, as lonely as I was feeling. But now that he was calling for the hundredth time tonight, I was pissed off enough to answer just to curse him out.

“What!” I yelled into the phone.

“Jamie?” He sounded relieved to hear my voice, but I would make sure that didn’t last for long.

“What?” I asked again.

“Sweetheart, please, let me explain.”

“Explain what, that you’re cheating on me?”

“I’m not cheating on you.” He actually sounded sincere, but then so does every man who gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar and tries to talk his way out of it. I wasn’t about to fall for his act.

“What about the white woman?”

Silence, then, “What white woman?”

I laughed. “The white woman my brother saw you with in Manhattan.”

“Jamie, I told you Darnel was mistaken.”

“So, was my dad mistaken when he caught you with a blonde at that restaurant you took me to? Can you explain that?”

From the way he hesitated, I could tell he was caught off guard. What, did he think my father wouldn’t tell me about it? I did wonder why Daddy waited as long as he had to say anything, though. He didn’t actually tell me until after I ’d moved back home. But either way, my father let me know what he saw, so Louis was busted.

“Jamie, it’s not what you think. That woman, we’re not involved. I swear to God.”

“I thought you didn’t know that woman. I thought Darnel was mistaken.” Of course, I was making the assumption that Daddy and Darnel had both seen him with the same woman, but it wasn’t that far-fetched. They’d both described the same type, and I had found that light-colored hair on him a while back, so I thought it was pretty safe to say we’d all seen evidence of the same skinny white blonde.

“I … uh—”

“You know what, Louis?” I stopped him before he tried to come up with some lame-ass explanation. “You are full of crap.”

“Jamie, I am not lying. You have to believe me.”

“No, I don’t. You might think I’m gonna stand by and watch you lie to me, but I’ve been a witness to this type of mess too many times. You’re gonna have to make do with another woman, ’cause, baby, ain’t nothing happening here.”

“Jamie, please—”

“Bye, Louis.”

“Don’t hang up,” I heard him pleading as I hit the END button. Just to prove that I meant business, I turned off my phone. Let him call my father’s number, I thought, because Daddy would lay him out. He messed with the wrong man’s daughter this time.

I felt like waking Daddy up to tell him what was going on, but I hadn’t heard Sandra leave, and the last thing I wanted was to see her ass laid up in Daddy’s bed. Dammit! I tossed my cell phone on the floor next to the bed, threw the covers over my head, and tried to fall asleep.

The next morning, like every morning, I still couldn’t get Louis out of my mind. I turned on the television, then flipped through the channels to find something to distract me. Daddy had already left for work. I ’d stayed in my room, thumbing through the latest copy of
Essence
until I heard his car pull off. On every page there was either an article about getting over a man, keeping a man, or finding a man. I was still so confused that I didn’t know which of those things I wanted to do.

The doorbell rang, but I didn’t feel like getting out of bed to answer it. I picked up another magazine, but then the knocking started. Whoever was at the door was not going away. At this point, I figured it was Louis, and he was getting on my damn nerves. I ripped off the covers and hurried down stairs, prepared to give him a piece of my mind.

I was startled when I opened the door, because while I ’d been expecting to see my tall, handsome ex standing there, I was greeted by the pale face of a petite blonde. This wench was standing at my door looking like a damn schoolteacher, and it took only a few seconds for me to realize who this chick was. My only question was, did she come on her own, or did Louis send her? If he did, then she was one dumb bimbo for doing whatever he said.

“Can I help you?” I placed a hand on my hip and looked her up and down.

“Are you Jamie?”

“Who wants to know?” I answered like I didn’t have a clue who she was. Let her do all the work of explaining why she was at my door at nine-fifteen in the morning.

“My name is Ashley Ford. I’m a friend of Louis.”

“A friend of Louis.” I laughed. “I’m sure you are. You know, you have some nerve coming over here.”

“Look, Jamie, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m not involved with Louis.”

“Is that right?” These two must have really thought I was a fool. But she was an even bigger fool than me if she was willing to come over here and deny their relationship. What kind of weak-ass woman allows herself to be kept in the second slot—or even worse, allows herself to be used as bait to get the other woman to
come back? If she wasn’t screwing my man, I might have felt sorry for this wench.

“He really loves you, you know.”

I shifted my body, aggravated. Louis must have really put it on her, ’cause she was dumb as rocks. Ain’t no way in hell I ’d go to the other woman and tell her how much my man loved her.

“So I guess you two just work together, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, that makes sense. I’m sure he takes all his clients out to romantic restaurants.”

“Look, Jamie, you really don’t understand.”

I stepped forward and got in her face, thinking that if my name came out her mouth one more time, I was gonna have to slap the shit outta her. But I had to give her credit; she didn’t back down. It actually looked like she might do something if I took a swing at her.

“No,
you
don’t understand,” I snapped in her face, still trying to intimidate her. “Where I come from, you don’t go to the other woman’s house if you ain’t ready to whip her ass. Now, I don’t know how or why Louis talked you into coming here, but it’s best you leave, or I can’t be responsible for my actions.”

She didn’t say anything, but she smirked at me like she knew some secret I didn’t. As far as I was concerned, that was as good as fighting words. I took a swing, but somehow I missed and landed on the ground. When I looked up at her, she was panting a little, standing in some weird karate-looking stance. For a second, I thought maybe she had put me on the ground.

“I wouldn’t do that again. You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said, as calm as can be. This skinny white girl didn’t seem the least bit scared of me, and it was really starting to piss me off.

I got up and lunged at her. She barely touched me, but I landed on the ground again, this time harder. How the fuck did she do that?

“Jamie, you need to listen to me,” she said as I lay on the ground, looking up at her. “Louis is a good guy. He really loves you.”

I struggled up from the ground, but this time I kept my distance. My ass was hurting from falling so hard, but she barely looked winded. I knew she’d put me down a third time if I tried anything.

“Yeah, well, he loves three of us—me, you, and the other woman in Detroit.” If I couldn’t hit her, maybe I could hurt her with my words. I thought maybe I had succeeded, because when I mentioned Detroit, this funny look passed over her face.

“Oh, so you didn’t know about Detroit?” I asked to make it sting a little more.

“I know all about Detroit. But I’m not Louis’s woman, and he doesn’t have a woman in Detroit.”

“You know, you must really think I’m stupid. If you ain’t his woman, then what the hell are you doing here?” I asked, getting ready to slam the door in her face.

“I’m a U.S. federal marshal assigned to protect Louis.” She pulled out a badge and ID and gave it to me. The name on the badge read AGENT ASHLEY FORD. I wanted to dismiss it as a fake, but it looked real enough, and together with her surprising martial-arts skills, I was starting to wonder if she was telling the truth.

“What the heck is going on?” There was no more toughness in my tone, just a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

She gave it to me straight: “Louis is in the Witness Protection Program, and we think you may have alerted some people to his whereabouts.”

My knees went weak as I realized she was talking about the phone call I ’d made to the mystery woman in Detroit. Had I really put Louis’s life in danger? Is that why he let me go so easily when I told him I was moving out?
Well, if you really want to leave, then maybe that’s for the best,
he’d said. I started to cry when I realized that if this woman was telling the truth, Louis might have let me go for my own safety.

“Let’s go inside so we can talk,” she said.

I was too confused to protest. I followed her into my living room and sat, numb, on the couch beside her.

“He’s a brave man. But in order to keep him safe, I need you to tell me a few things.”

I looked at her with scared eyes, afraid of hearing how I had put my man in danger.

“Is he home? Can I see him?”

“He’s not at home anymore. We had him moved when you moved out. Don’t worry. Just a security precaution. And, yes, you can see him. That’s why I’m here.”

I was sitting on a bench across from Keisha’s apartment complex, waiting to see what broke-ass nigga she would drag home tonight. Believe it or not, even after the scene at her mother’s house, she still hadn’t realized that she had no choice but to come back to me. She wouldn’t even answer my calls. So, I was gonna wait here on this bench until she came home and then get rid of whatever dude was sniffing behind her and try to talk some sense into her. It’s not that I wanted to be sitting there, but I needed to make my point—whatever she did and whoever she did it with, I was gonna be watching her ass.

I was so caught up with my thoughts that I didn’t see Keisha approach me from the side.

“You need to stop this, Darnel.” Her brown eyes were flashing. I checked out the tight jeans and the barely there top skimming her breasts. Damn, the girl had a hot body. I could feel the blood rush to my groin. No matter how mad she made me, Keisha could still turn me on.

“What?” I asked innocently, taking a page from her
playbook: unless you’re caught in the act, the smart thing to do is deny everything.

“I’m sick of this shit!”

“Sick of what? I’m just sitting here on a public bench, minding my own business. You’re the one who came over here and talked to me.”

“No, you’re sitting here on a bench across from my goddamn apartment, waiting for me. You’re stalking me! You done destroyed my life. You keyed that man’s car, sent pictures over the Internet, ruined my friendships, made me lose my job, and now my parents won’t even talk to me.”

“And you don’t think your behavior had anything to do with that?” I stood up and got in her face. “I mean, your own mother called you a whore.”

“Fuck you!”

“That would be nice, but I must insist that you have an AIDS test first. You can understand that, can’t you, with all these multiple partners you have and all.”

“You’re not going to get away with this.” She turned and started walking away.

I called after her, “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t blame a brother for your own foul-ass behavior. Now, if you want, we can go upstairs and talk like two rational adults. Maybe order some Chinese.”

My offer made Keisha stop in her tracks. She turned around to face me and screamed, “Are you crazy? I’m not letting you in my house.” She was standing there in the middle of the road, waving her arms around and screeching like a madwoman. The shit actually looked kind of funny—funny enough to be a YouTube video. I pulled out my camera phone and turned on the video function.

“This is good!” I taunted. “Keep it up and this video will go viral in no time.”

She froze for a minute as she realized what I had just said. Then she really blew her top. “Oh, so you think this is funny? You wanna put me on the Internet again? Well, go right ahead, motherfucker! As a matter of fact, here’s something else for you to put on there.” Suddenly, she pulled her top up and shook her exposed breasts wildly.

“Keisha, stop it!” I yelled, but she just kept right on going, pulling her top off totally and posing all kinda crazy ways. People passing by in their cars were twisting their heads around to make sure they didn’t miss a moment of the action.

This wasn’t fun anymore. I closed my phone and walked over to her.

“Put your shirt on.”

“Why?” she asked, still steaming mad. “You the one wanna play with pictures on the Internet. I might as well give you something to play with. You want to put the shit on MySpace or YouTube or something? Go right ahead, ’cause guess what, Darnel? I don’t give a damn anymore.”

“Why are you acting this way?” I asked.