"Brice, are you almost ready?" Latrice asked, "Your dad and I are ready to go."
"Yes, I'm ready." Brice walked down the stairs.
The doorbell unexpectedly rang and she answered it. She froze when she saw who was at the door. Brent's oldest daughter, Kayla.
Kayla gave LaTrice a blank look.
"Kayla? What are you doing here?" LaTrice asked, nervously.
"I know my dad is here."
"Mama," Brice ran up to LaTrice, then he noticed Kayla at the door. "Kayla!"
Kayla gave Brice a smile that she didn't have when she saw LaTrice. "Hey, Brice." He hugged her and she hugged him back. "Where's daddy?" She asked him.
"He's in the living room."
LaTrice walked away from the door, not inviting Kayla in. "Brent?" she said his name to get his attention and he looked at her. "Someone's at the door for you." She said, walking away.
Before Brent could make it to the front door, Kayla was already walking in with Brice. "Kayla? What are you doing here?" He asked.
"Daddy, can you come home please?" she asked.
Brent sighed.
"Mama misses you and so does Briana and Brandon." She referred to her two teen siblings. Kayla was Brent's oldest daughter with his soon to be ex-wife, Kendra. She is a twenty-year-old college student.
Brent looked around to see if LaTrice was around. "Let's step outside and talk. Brice, stay in here while your sister and I go talk." He said, guiding her out the front door.
They walked to the driveway and he leaned on his car. "Listen, there are just a lot of things going on between your mother and I that you don't know about." He began.
"I know you cheated on mom with Brice's mom. I know you got her pregnant." She said. "When I was twelve, I remember hearing the altercation between you and Uncle Drew when they came to see us."
"How'd you know all of this?" he asked.
"I heard it all." She admitted. "I didn't care what was going on, I just didn't want you two to break up. It just seems like after all of that, all you guys did was fight and argue. All the time. Even after I went to school, Briana and Brandon wanted to come see me all the time because they didn't like how you guys treated each other." She confessed.
"Listen, Kay, I'm sorry you guys have to deal with this, but your mom and I made that decision to be apart. It's not working out between us."
Tears filled Kayla's eyes. "Why do you want to be with her?"
"Because I love this woman."
"You don't love mom?" she asked.
"I love your mom, but I'm just no in love with her. She's given me many years of her life, so of course I love her, but Trice is the woman that I should have been with all this time and I finally have that chance."
Kayla shook her head. "I don't like that at all."
"Listen, there's one thing that you'll learn as an adult and that is for you to do things that makes you happy." He said. "Your mom is a great woman, however, there wasn't much happiness between us, especially over the last several years." He said.
"What about us?"
"She and I had planned to talk this over with you guys some time when I get back." He said. "You may know some of is, but you don't know all of it and there are things that you shouldn't know as our child."
"When are you coming home?" She asked.
"I'm coming home soon, but I won't be there for long. I'm gonna move back here in New Orleans."
Brent hated how he and Kendra's separation effect Kayla and hope it's not any worse for Briana and Brandon when he talk to them. He stared at Kayla's car for a moment, "Did you drive all the way here?" he asked.
She looked at her car and then she looked at her dad and nodded.
"Kayla, you don't need to be driving this far by yourself, sweetheart."
"I just had to come find you." she said.
"how'd you even find where this house is?" he questioned.
She was silent.
"Have you been snooping around?" He asked.
"I had to find you, daddy." She cried.
He embraced her in his arms. "Sweetheart, listen, this is something that we're all gonna have to get through. You may not agree with it now, but you'll see that it's what's best for your mom and I."
"How could you let her break our family up?"
"Kayla, this isn't her fault. This is between your mother and I. We've been trying to work things out for years, but it hasn't been working. How about you just let us deal with that? Okay? You know that no matter what you're still my daughter. My firstborn. I love you and your brother and sister, along with your mother."
Kayla sighed, not moved by what he said.
"How about you come in for a while." He suggested.
"No, thank you." She rejected.
"Where are you going to go?" He asked.
"I don't know." She shrugged.
"I'll just get you a hotel then." He said. "I don't need you wandering around here."
"I guess." Her mood wasn't anything positive.
He went in the house to put his shoes on.
"Where are you going?" LaTrice asked.
"Take Kayla to a hotel." He said.
"She can stay here."
"She doesn't want to, hun." He said, approaching her, kissing her forehead.
She sighed. "Okay."
"I'll be back." He said as he went to the front door. Walking out, Kayla was already in her car. She put her window down once she saw her dad.
"I'm going to just go back home." SHe said.
"Kayla, you just drove out here. You need to rest." He said, sternly.
"I'm fine daddy." She said with a blank face.
"Kayla..."
"I'm okay. I'll stop to see some friends and maybe stay with them. I'll call you later." She said as she put her car in reverse, letting her window back up.
Brent sighed. He pulled his cell phone out to call her, but she rejected his calls twice. He then called her mother.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Kendra." He said, lowly.
"Hey."
"Did you know that Kayla drove to New Orleans?" he asked.
"Yea, she told me she was going to find you. I knew where you were, but I didn't tell her."
"Why would you let her come here?" He asked.
"Kayla is grown, Brent. Who am I to tell a twenty-year-old woman that she can't drive to another state to see her father?"
Brent sighed. "I'm saying, she shouldn't make that drive by herself. Did she tell you what she came here for?" He asked.
"Yes, I did." She answered. "I wasn't all for it, however, I figured it wouldn't hurt you to hear the opinion from one of your children. I know one thing, that woman better not have said anything to my daughter." She referred to LaTrice.
"Let's just leave her out of this right now. Trice actually wanted her to stay here to rest, but Kayla just left. She didn't want to stay."
"I don't blame her."
"I tried to call her after she pulled off, but she's not speaking with me, so can you do me a favor?" he asked.
"What is it, Brent?" she asked, annoyed.
"Can you call her for me?"
"I will call her. Okay?" She assured.
"Thank you. I'll let you go now." he said, ending the call.
"Where's Kayla?" Brice asked.
Brent didn't realize his son walked outside. "She has to leave?"
"Awe man." He was disappointed.
Brent looked at the time on his watch. They were supposed to be going to the movies, but they weren't going to make the showing that they planned for. "How about me, you, and mommy go catch the next playing movie?" he asked.
"Okay!" Brice dashed back into the house and Brent walked in.
"Mama! Daddy's ready to go!" He pulled on LaTrice's arm as she sat on the couch.
"Okay, boy. Calm down." She fussed.
They all got ready to go and were on their way to the movies. After the movies, they went to dinner and came home. Brice had fallen asleep on the ride home and once they were home, Brent put him in his bed.
When he and LaTrice were in bed, they were talking.
"What did Kayla come here for?" she asked.
Brent had an instant thought to check his cell phone. "She came looking for me." he answered. "She's not taking the separation too well." He said. "She wants Kendra and I to stay together, but I was trying to explain to her that she doesn't understand what's going on."
"She's twenty. She knows what's going on." LaTrice informed.
"I'm sure she knows, but what I mean is that she doesn't know the root to all of our problems. She doesn't know where all of this begun."
"I see what you're saying."
"All of that isn't for her to know. I plan to keep it that way. I just hope that Kendra isn't filling her in with all of that. She doesn't need to know of any of that because at the end of the day, she's still a child."
"Sometimes, the truth will clear the air though, so maybe she needs to know so that she could get a better understanding." LaTrice commented.
"Remember when we told the truth about us?" He reminded her. "The air hasn't been cleared since then." he said.
"Are you saying that you wished it never happened?" She asked.
"No, I just wished we would have gotten together before we got ourselves into unhappy marriages."
"I got out of mine, so I'm good. No one told you to stay with Kendra for that long."
"I couldn't just up and leave her and the kids like that."
"But it took you this long to make up your mind and be with me?"
"Are we really gonna go there?" He asked, sitting up.
"I guess we are." She sat up too, facing him, folding her arms across her chest.
"Let's start with how you chose Drew over me."
"But he and I are divorced now." She defended.
"I'm not talking about now, I'm talking about back then. I gave you the choice to make and you chose him."
She sat silent.
"Oh, you don't want to talk about this now." He said.
"Does all of that even matter anymore?" she asked.
"Yes, it matter. It matters because that's where all of this could have been avoided had you chose me then."
"I couldn't just let you leave Kayla and Kendra like that. Kayla was barely just born."
"But you didn't have a problem bringing Drew to our house and confessing everything? I left my wife and three kids for you then. How can you not see how much I love you, woman?" He questioned. "I've been showing you that I'll give up anything to get you and you know I will. I stayed away for all of those years because I thought you were happy, but for you to come to me and basically tell me that you weren't happy, disappointed me."
"I came back for you. I had to see you." She said. "And when I did see you, that's when I realized I wanted you. I didn't go to stir up the peace in your household, I promise. Once I had finally made up my mind, then you started acting like you didn't know what you wanted."
"That's because I wasn't sure of how sure you were about me! You were iffy about it then, what makes me so sure that you're not iffy about it now?"
"So you think I'm not sure about wanting you now? You're in my damn house, wouldn't that be a reason."
"This isn't your house. I know this is Drew's house." He said. "You still want him and I know you do."
She gasped.
"Trice, I know about what happened at the wedding. I know you proudly say your last name as if you just adore it and that ring," he got out the bed and went to the dresser, opening her drawer, pulling out a tiny velvet bag and held it up, "you still got the ring."
"How'd you know that was in there?" she asked.
"Don't worry about how I know, just tell me why do you still have this ring? It shouldn't mean anything to you."
"It doesn't." She said.
"Really? How about first thing in the morning, we sell it."
"No!" She protested as she got out the bed and paced to where he was standing. She snatched the bag from him.
"Then you just proved me right." He said. "You're still not sure about this." He said. He shook his head and walked to the bedroom door. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight. I guess we both have some things to think about." He walked out.