I'm so so so so sorry that it has taken me forever to upload this chapter. I have just been really busy lately and haven't had much time to write this story.
Please forgive me! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Be sure to comment and vote
Jealous - Beyonce
Brielle
I sat in the passenger’s alongside Rickey whom was driving. He had finally got up the nerve to go meet his Dad. He had informed that his Dad lived in a city about an hour and half away from Lindsey that I had never heard of. We had only left about five minutes ago and it was early morning. I had already informed Terry that I was going on this trip with Ricky. It would be stupid of me not to. I knew that no matter what Terry would find out and it would only make him distrust me when there was absolutely nothing going on between Rickey and I. Of course he didn’t want me to go but I had already told Rickey that I would accompany him on this trip whenever he decided to take it. I wasn’t just going to bail on him, I couldn’t bail.
I turned towards Rickey and examined him. He was worried about meeting his Dad. It was written all over him. He had been tense ever sense he picked me up.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Yea, why?”
“You just seem really tense. Are you sure you want to do this today?” I questioned.
“I think if it’s better if I go ahead and get it over with.”
“Maybe,”
“Can we not talk about this? It’s going to cause me to lose my nerve.”
“No problem. So you told Terry that I threw myself at you and that it wouldn’t be long before you were back in between my legs?”
“Brielle I was drunk! I’m sorry.” He replied immediately apologizing. I knew that he was probably drunk when he said it but I still felt like he could refrained from going at Terry with those words.
“Don’t say it again. Terry wanted me to stop talking to you and cut our friendship off.”
“So he tells you who to hang out with?” He questioned curiously making Terry out to be controlling
“I’m here with you aint I? He has a right to though after what you said. Anybody else I probably would have considered.”
“But you didn’t consider it for me?” He asked glancing at me with an eyebrow raised. “Why?”
“You’re my friend despite the fucked up shit you did and my friend needs me. I know what you are going through and I’m not going to abandon you.” He smiled.
“You’re a great chick Brielle.”
“I know. You definitely missed out.” I said jokingly.
“Yea I did.” He replied seriously making me a bit uncomfortable.
“Do you know if your Dad has any more kids?” I asked changing the topic.
“No, he doesn’t even know that I’m coming.”
“What? Rickey why didn’t you call him?” Was he freaking kidding me? You can’t just show up as someone’s door and be like ‘Hey I’m the son you never met’
“I was afraid that he wouldn’t want to meet him and I wanted to see him face to face.”
“Rickey I’m sure he wants to meet you.” I said softer feeling bad for him.
“I don’t know. I guess we will see.” I leaned back in my seat and stared out the window. What if Rickey’s dad didn’t want to see him? I didn’t want there to be any conflict. Everything should go smoothly. I was hoping to God that everything would go peachy. I didn’t want any fights and I didn’t want Rickey to be shattered after realizing for sure that his Dad wasn’t in his life and never intended on being in his life. Lets hope that everything would be okay.
I woke up to Rickey shaking my shoulder. “Wake up,” He said to me. I sat up looking around.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”
“It’s okay. We’re here.”
“Is this his house?” I asked pointing to the house we resided in front of.
“No it’s the one across the street.” He answered. I got out of the car and stretched. I looked around. We were in a suburb neighborhood. One of those Pleasantville type neighborhoods that people from the middle class approaching upper class lived in. It was a neighborhood where it looked like families resided in. Rickey’s dad had to be married with kids. We definitely should have called. It wasn’t a good idea to come to his residence without calling. I walked over to Rickey’s side where he was leaned against the car. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it assuring him that everything would be okay.
“Come on,” I said tugging on him. He inhaled a deep breath and let it out before walking along with me. We got to the door and I knocked.
“What’s his name?” I asked him.
“Reggie,”
“Reggie what?”
“Reggie Palmer.” I heard the lock twist and then the door opened revealing an older guy who I knew immediately was Rickey’s father. Their similarities were almost identical. They had the same hazel almond eyes. High cheekbones and square jaws. The man looked from me to Rickey and his eyes rested on Rickey. He had to know that this was his son. He was the spitting image of him. The man stepped outside and closed the door behind. He definitely knew whom we were.
“Rickey?”
“Yea,” Rickey replied.
“Your mom told you about me?”
“Yea,”
“How long have you known where I was?”
“Not long,”
“Why now?”
“She died,” Rickey replied. The guy gasped and seemed to be hurt but quickly composed himself.
“What happened?”
“She had a rare form of cancer.” He held his head low looking at the ground and then he brought his eyes to me.
“This is Brielle.” Rickey said introducing me.
“Hi,” I greeted awkwardly.
“Your girlfriend?”
“No, just good friends.” Rickey answered.
“You guys want to go grab some breakfast so we can talk?”
“Your family doesn’t know about me.” Rickey said not bothering to answer the question.
“My wife does, my kids don’t.”
“Yea breakfast sounds fine.” Rickey replied. He nodded before going back into the house. We stood their and waited. I turned to face Rickey.
“You good?” I asked him.
“Yea, I’m fine. Going a lot better than I expected I guess.”
“I told you that he would want to see you.”
“Yea, I guess.” He said being short. We continued to wait for his Dad to come back out. I couldn’t read Rickey right now. He was being very quiet which was weird for him and he just seemed a little distant. His body language was telling me that he didn’t even want me to be here right now. Usually he would expand and tell me exactly what he was thinking but now he was being short and quiet. The door reopened and Rickey’s Dad stepped back out.
“I’ll drive, if that’s okay.”
“Yea, cool.” We followed him to the car and I got in the backseat whilst Rickey got in the front passenger seat.
The drive was silent. I just sat and looked out the window at all of the unfamiliar landmarks that we were passing by. I didn’t even know this town existed. We pulled up to a small diner and we all exited the car. I followed the both of them into a diner and took my seat next to Rickey across from his Dad. A waitress immediately came up to us taking my drink order. I picked up the menu scanning it for possible options.
“So you just found out who I was when your Mom was dying?” He asked.
“Yea,” Rickey replied.
“Have you ever wanted to meet me before?”
“I mean yea. She would never tell me who you were. Did you never want to meet the son you created?” His Dad lowered his head and chuckled.
“Rickey of course I did. Your mom didn’t want to be the white woman with the black husband.”
“So you never even make the attempt to see me?”
“Of course I did at first. Your mom didn’t want it. She was too worried about what her family and other people thought. I saw your first basketball game. You were a miniature cougar. You were so happy to be playing. I was at your elementary school graduation and laughed at the speech you gave about wanting to be a pimp when you grew up.” I chuckled remembering that. All of us laughed. Of course Rickey didn’t know what a pimp was back then. Rickey chuckled along with me and it was the first time I had seen him genuinely smile in a while.
“Your mom hated that I came to these events especially when the rest of your family showed up. She threatened to move away and not tell me where you guys were. I just wanted to know that you were safe and doing well. So I agreed not to see you as long as she let me help her out with things and kept me up to date with you.”
“I know what you are thinking and I know that you are not going to understand because you’re right. I could have tried harder to get her to let me see you, but I didn’t want to fight with your mom.” I looked at Rickey and he just stared back at this Dad. He wasn’t a bad person. I think he was just caught in a bad situation. I grabbed Rickey’s hand from under the table and squeezed it to reassure him. He looked at me and then back to his Dad.
“I wanted to hate you. I thought I would hate you, but you aren’t a bad guy.”
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t in your life Rickey. I wanted to be so bad. I know it’s not the same thing but I hope we can have a relationship from here on out. I’ll introduce you to my wife and kids. Maybe you could come up for dinner one day.”
“Sounds good,” I said in agreement.
“Maybe you can bring the beautiful girl who you say is not your girlfriend.”
“She’s really not my girlfriend.”
“Well she’s a good friend if she came all the way with you to help you with your broken father son relationship.”
“Yea she’s great.” He said eyeing me. I laughed.
“Brielle right?” He questioned
“Yea,”
“So tell me Brielle are you and Rickey dating?”
“I just told you that we aren’t” Rickey cut in.
“I was talking to Brielle.” His Dad said. I laughed. They were playing their roles perfectly. You could not tell that this father and son had just met.
“No we aren’t. We are really just friends.”
“Okay,” He said holding up his hands. “I’ll believe you for now.” I laughed. We finished eating and then we proceeded to leave.
“So dinner this Saturday sound okay?” Rickey’s Dad asked.
“Yea sounds good.”
“Will you be coming Brielle?”
“I’ll try,” I said unsure.
“I hope you will be able to make it. It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” I said knowing exactly what he was trying to do. “ I’m going to go wait in the car Rickey.”
“Okay,” He replied. I grabbed Rickey’s keys and heading to the car giving them some along time like his Dad wanted. I watched from the passenger’s seat as they exchanged a few more words. I saw Reggie place his hand on Rickey’s shoulder and then Rickey laughed. I continued to look on as they both embraced each other. They were so cute. Rickey then began heading towards the car. His Dad looked at me and gave me a wave and I returned it.
He got in and looked at me before letting out a deep breath. I smiled at him. “I told you that it wouldn’t be that bad.”
“Yea, but I was still worried as hell.”
“I could tell,”
“Thanks for coming with me Brielle. I really appreciate it. I probably wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t agreed to do it with me.”
“Well I’m glad I could be of assistance.” He laughed.
“Will you be able to make it next Saturday?”
“I don’t know, I would have to let you know.”
“Okay,” He replied before starting the car and heading back home.
I had Rickey drop me off at Terry’s house. There was no need in me going home. There was nothing there for me anyway. I knocked on the door and then just walked in making my presence known. It was dark downstairs so I was guessing that Mr. C wasn’t here. I walked up the stairs and heard the TV from the movie room so I made my way into there.
Terry was sitting on the couch with Tanya watching a movie. What the hell? Was he serious right now? Their eyes both glanced in my direction.
“Hey how was the trip?” he asked. Keep calm Brielle and play it cool. Maybe there was a good reason why she was here. Terry would explain. I sighed knowing that there could be no good reason why she was here.
“It was great,” I replied still confused at how he was talking to me so nonchalantly when he was watching a movie with another girl and it was Tanya of all people.
“That’s good! Come watch the movie with us.”
“Actually I had plans with Claire,” I lied. “I was just stopping by to drag you along but you’re busy so that’s okay. I’ll just give you a call whenever me and her are done.” I still didn’t see how he thought this was okay. I hated her.
“What are you two doing?” He asked.
“Grabbing lunch, so yea I’ll hit you up later.” I said walking out before I broke. I closed the door behind me and walked out. I began walking down the stairs and I heard the door open and close. I kept walking not bothering to turn around.
“Brielle?”
“Yea?” I answered turning around and keeping my composure. I didn’t want to lash out at him and make a scene but I also didn’t want to cry.
“You okay?”
“You tell me.” He sighed.
“You’re hurt because I’m spending my time with someone you don’t like even when you trust me completely and know that I wouldn’t do anything with her. It’s hurts you because I know how you feel about her and you know that she wants to be with me.” He said. I immediately got the hint and his reasoning and it pissed me off that he was going about it in this way.
“It’s not the same thing Terry.”
“How is it not?”
“His mom just died.” I said raising my voice.
“So did mine.” He blurted. My face softened.
“What?” I asked. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine Brielle. I didn’t even like her.”
“That doesn’t make you fine Terry. She was still your mom.”
“I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had plans.” He shrugged.
“Terry I would have stayed for you.”
“Bullshit! I asked you not to go.”
“You didn’t tell me that y---“
“I shouldn’t have to give you a reason.”
“So you call Tanya? To comfort you.” He shook his head.
“So now you’re trying to say I had sex with her?” What in the hell did he expect me to think? That she was actually here just to watch some fucking movie.
“Why else is she here?” I questioned him.
“To prove a fucking point Brielle. You know how you feel when you see me with Tanya. How do you think I feel knowing you’re with him?”
“I’m not doing anything with him Terry.”
“Neither am I!”
“So what you trying to make me jealous?” He laughed.
“No Brielle, I’m trying to make you see that I don’t want you around him.” I was pissed at him and I wasn’t even listening to his points. It was making me more and more upset. I hated arguing with him and I didn’t want to deal with this.
“Whatever Terry. I’m leaving. Just so you know I’m going with Rickey again on Saturday.” I said rubbing it in. He had made me so mad and I just wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t realize what I was saying. I walked out of the house not letting him get another word in and I began my trek home.