Fall In Love Again (Serendipitous Love Book 3) Read online

  I snorted, then stuffed my mouth full of bacon.

  Every year, on her birthday, I made the two hour drive to the coast, where my mother lived, to take her to brunch. She often told me it was her favorite part of the day, even though I’m sure whatever lavish thing her husband had planned for her easily topped it.

  That was my favorite part of her birthday, knowing that even though my own father had been a shitty husband, she was being pampered by someone who appreciated her.

  As a kid, and even into adulthood, my view of my parent’s marriage was skewed by the way my dad was quick to blame the problems of their relationship on the fact that they’d taken vows. It wasn’t until my mom smacked me upside the head after she learned the details of my breakup with Charlie, and sat me down to tell me the real deal that I understood what was really happening.

  My dad was a damned drunk.

  It started shortly after their wedding, when he was hurt in an accident on his job. He didn’t believe in taking prescription pain management, so he drank his way into numbness instead. He was what they call a “functioning” alcoholic, but of course his personality, priorities, and whole demeanor changed. He would pick fights with my mother as an excuse to hit the bar, wouldn’t keep a job, wouldn’t help at home. If they hadn’t gotten married the weekend they did, he wouldn’t have been working overtime to catch up, and therefore wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

  I don’t think I closed my mouth for a full minute after my mother revealed that as his twisted ass logic. Marriage made him a trash-ass husband and provider.

  Right.

  It was hard not to resent him for that, especially when he was a large part of why I had the views I did on marriage. If I hadn’t been listening to him, I would have married Charlie probably a year in, fancy ring be damned, and could be happily wed right now. But… that was twisted logic too. I was a grown assed man, and when it came down to it, I was the one who had to be accountable for my own decisions.

  “I wish you hadn’t let that crazy daddy of yours mess up your head. I could have had two or three little pretty grandbabies by now. She told me she’s back in town… back at the restaurant with you. You weren’t gonna say anything about that?”

  I shrugged. “What is there to say? Charlie is back, and she’s not trying to have anything to do with me.”

  “Oh, baby,” my mother waved her hand in the air, brushing away my words. “The girl just needs time.”

  “It’s been five years.”

  “Has she even been back in the city five weeks, Nixon?!”

  “She’s dating somebody.”

  “Rebound guy.”

  “She married somebody.”

  My mother laughed. “That was a rebound guy too, just lasted a little bit longer. Listen to me, son. I heard the hitch in her voice when I asked her about you. I’ve been hearing it once a year, every year, for five long years. Give the girl some time.”

  I sighed, draining my orange juice before I sat back. “How much time?”

  Her expression shifted into the “look” only my momma — and Charlie— could give me, that would make me immediately sit up in my seat. She looked me over, then raised an eyebrow.

  “You made the girl wait for six years, son. You give my sweet Charlie as much time as she needs.”

  “…. Yes ma’am.”

  thirteen.

  charlie.

  Adrian was calling.

  It was only a little after ten in the morning, and already the third time my cell phone had lit up, flashing the number he usually called from across my screen. I didn’t know what he was doing, whose palm he was greasing to get these kinds of phone privileges, but I really wished he would find somebody else to call. His momma, his sister, his little piece-on-the-side that he didn’t think I knew about, anybody. Just leave me the hell alone.

  Damn.

  Maybe he heard my thoughts, because the phone stopped ringing, and I turned over again in the bed, burying my face in my pillow. Two days had passed since the thing with Nix, and things were still..., weird. Yesterday, I’d spent the whole day at Pot Liquor, filling in for him while he celebrated with his mom for her birthday. Today, the responsibilities of the restaurant fell to him.

  Because I was busy, I’d been mostly able to avoid talking with Trent, and hadn’t yet apologized for ignoring him. Or leaving the coffee shop that night without telling him. Or having sex with my ex-fiancé while he and I were dating. Not intimate, but still dating.

  I dragged myself from the bed and took a shower, then dressed in jeans, a fitted tee shirt, and a cute blazer — perfect “sorry I told you I was going to the bathroom when really what had happened was, I was somewhere getting my back blown out” attire. Trent had asked me to meet for lunch, so I was prepared for some heavy explaining. No lies, just… explaining.

  When I was ready, I caught a cab, and twenty minutes later, I was sitting down across from Trent at one of the high-end restaurants he favored. As usual, he looked incredibly handsome, but something in his expression was a little different than normal. He looked so… happy. Not that he usually seemed sad, just laid back. Today, the man was damn near glowing.

  “You look good,” he said, smiling at me across the table. “But then again, you always do.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled up at the server as she delivered our waters, then turned back to Trent. “You’re looking a little different yourself. What’s going on, you get your name on the wall at the firm or something?”

  Trent grinned a little, then shrugged, licking his lips as he leaned back in his seat. “Um… that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “You did get your name on wall!?”

  “No,” he laughed, holding up a hand. “I wish, but no. Something else happened.”

  “Oh. Okay. What’s going on?” I took a sip from my glass, then sat back, something about his expression making me suddenly feel a little uneasy about this conversation.

  “You know the other night, when you left me waiting on you at the coffee shop, then ignored all of my calls and texts looking for you?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, then nodded.

  “Well, aside from the fact that leaving without telling me was wildly disrespectful, it really just confirmed something that I was ignoring — you’re just not that into me. And that’s okay. Because if I’m completely honest with myself, I was forcing it with you too.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, then looked around to motion for the server. This shit was going to require something a little stronger than water with lemon. “Is that right?”

  “That’s right. You’re a beautiful woman Charlie. Funny, interesting, sexy, but truth is… I’m still in love with my wife.”

  Where the hell is that server?

  “The wife you’ve characterized as not that nice? Does she still want you?”

  Trent let out a sigh. “That was… childish of me. I was angry, and we let things get a little too far. But then I went with her to the first prenatal appointment yesterday, and—“

  “Whoa whoa whoa… prenatal appointment?”

  I fixed my shocked expression as the server approached with a smile plastered on her face. I ordered a glass of wine, then turned back to Trent.

  “What the hell do you mean, prenatal appointment?”

  Trent licked his lips, then shifted back to a serious expression. “I mean that my ex-wife is pregnant.”

  “How pregnant?” I picked up my water to take a big gulp.

  “Two months.”

  I nearly choked on my water as I pulled the water from my lips. “Two months? So… you were still sleeping with her right before you started dating me? And I thought you told me you two have been divorced for like six months?”

  “We have, but… stuff happens. Dating you was my attempt to go ahead and get over her, move forward with something new, but… Charlie… seeing the way you and Nixon interact with each other just highlights a chemistry that you and I don’t share. But I have i
t with Dionne. You have it with Nixon. You and he are still as in love as my wife and I are, and it’s obvious. So why are we doing this?”

  The server came to deliver my glass of wine and left, but I didn’t pick it up. I just stared at it as I searched my mind for an answer. Why was I doing this?

  “Listen… Charlie,” Trent said, reaching forward to place his hand over mine. “No hard feelings, okay? This brief time we’ve had together was nice, but that mess the other night made me take a hard look at what I was missing with my wife. We talked about it yesterday, and we’re going to give it another shot. Hell, when you disappeared the other, my first thought was that you’d gone back to Nix. Ole boy has been in love with you since high school, so it made perfect sense when you guys got together.”

  I scoffed. “Boy, what? Nixon wasn’t thinking about me like that back then.”

  “Yeah, Okay.” Trent chuckled, then sat back in his chair again. “In any case, I wish you the best of luck. I really do think you’re a great girl, Charlie. What you pulled the other night was messed up, but still… I get it. I think you deserve to be with someone who makes you happy.”

  Finally I picked up that glass of wine, knocking most of it back in one gulp. “So… can I ask you a question?”

  “Go for it,” Trent said, taking a drink.

  Leaning forward, I propped my arms on the table. “If you two can get back together, just like that… what the hell did you get divorced for?”

  “Oh man.” Trent ran a hand over his hair, shaking his head. “She gave me an ultimatum.”

  I drained the rest of my wine, then motioned for a refill. “Oh no.”

  “Yeah. It was wild. One minute we’re on the same page about not having kids, then it was like somebody flipped a switch, and all of a sudden she was worried about biological clocks and birth defects. We just had to have a baby right then. But I wasn’t down with it. We said 35, so I was hell-bent on sticking to 35. We had money to do what we wanted, freedom to come and go as we pleased, a quiet house. I wasn’t ready to let go of that childfree lifestyle, you know? She told me, we can have this baby now, or we could move on. I could be childless, and she could be free to have her baby. So I called her bluff.”

  The waitress came by to refill my glass, and I had it up to my lips again before she’d completely pulled the bottle away. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow. We both just got mad after that, and things snowballed, and it all got bigger and bigger, until… we ended up divorced. It really took me losing her, and being without her for this time to realize what I was missing. We couldn’t even stay away from each other, which is how she ended up pregnant. Man… hearing the baby’s heartbeat… I went from wanting nothing to do with a baby, to wanting nothing more in the world than my wife and child.

  I finished the rest of my wine, then nodded. “I’m happy for you, Trent. That’s… really nice.”

  He shrugged. “It’s just… real. Sometimes you have to fuck it all up first to see the beauty in what you had.”

  — & —

  “Hmmm, so now you see your man isn’t the only one to have a bad reaction to an ultimatum. You women are gonna listen to that shit one day.”

  I threw a grape at Eddie, who caught it and threw it back, then took a seat across from me on the loveseat. He and I, along with Viv and Simone, were seated around my apartment, in what was, starting to seem like an intervention for me.

  “Are you trying to say women don’t listen?” Simone asked, eyeing Eddie over the rim of her margarita glass.

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Hell yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Every one of you has gone left after I’ve tried to steer you right. Except Miss Charlie. Shame I couldn’t have attempted an intervention back then, so we wouldn’t have to do it now.”

  “So this is an intervention?” I asked, picking up another handful of grapes.

  “Yes.”

  Viv shook her head, tossing Eddie a frown. “No.”

  “Well why the hell not?” Eddie looked between us three women, then took a long drag from his beer. “You’re around here looking sad and lonely, that fool has been over there looking sick and sad, and the food hasn’t been right at Pot Liquor since y’all bumped uglies. Your emotional bullshit is fucking with the sweet potato pie, I’ve had better mac and cheese from a box, and I don’t appreciate it. So when are you and Nixon gonna stop acting stupid and get it together?”

  I sucked my teeth. “My macaroni has not been bad, don’t compare it to that boxed crap. The better question is why you’re hanging with us if you think women don’t listen.”

  “It ain’t been perfect lately, and I hang around beautiful women because it helps me understand beautiful women, which helps me get beautiful women.”

  “The macaroni has been fine.”

  “Has not.”

  “Ya mama.”

  “Makes a better macaroni and cheese than you? Oh I know.”

  “Okay children,” Viv interjected, waving her napkin in the air like a white flag. I rolled my eyes at Eddie, scrunching up my nose as I hit him with another grape. “Charlie… my darling cousin, I am so sorry to tell you that Eddie is right. It has been two weeks now since your little… incident with Nixon, and unfortunately, it is coming through in the food. That banana pudding you served yesterday was slimy, blech.”

  “Shut up.” I threw a grape at Viv, and it bounced off her forehead. “I tasted that, and it was perfectly fine.”

  “Like those nasty ass sour grapes you’re eating like they haven’t been in that refrigerator since you moved in?” Eddie looked pointedly at the bag of grapes in my lap, and when I glanced down, they were looking a little… wrinkled.

  “Whatever,” I scoffed. “I will… look into what’s going on with the food, but other than that, I’ll have you know, ain’t nobody around here looking sad and lonely, especially over cheating ass Nixon.”

  A collective hush went around the room, as everybody looked at each other, then back at me. Finally, Simone put her glass down on her coaster and sat up.

  “So… I’m the newcomer, so I don’t know the history, and these two,”— she pointed at Viv and Eddie — “Have been hush-hush. So that’s what happened between the two of you? He cheated?”

  “Yes,” I said, at the same time that Eddie chimed in with a direct “No”. I angled my head to the side as I scowled. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not hard of hearing. First of all, it was five years ago — let it goooo, let it go. Second… I contend that he didn’t cheat on you. You gave him an ultimatum. For a man, that’s very black and white. He chose the “end it” option after you pushed him into a corner. You handled the breakup by drowning yourself in tears. He handled the breakup by drowning himself in pussy and liquor — as his single ass was entitled to do. Then, once you realized he wasn’t gonna give in, you gave in, went back, and decided you didn’t wanna call it a breakup… even though that’s exactly what the alternative to your little scenario was.”

  I rolled my eyes, ignoring the fact that they were pricking with tears. “Screw you, Eddie. It was more than that. We’d just lost a baby, not even two months before. He sat there and claimed to love me, and then not even a few hours later, he was giving himself to some bitch whose name he probably doesn’t even remember. I waited on his ass for six years, and the minute we have a real disagreement, he runs to someone else. It’s fucked up, no matter how long ago it was.”

  “So… does that one mistake overshadow everything else, from the six years before that?” Simone asked, in an optimistic voice. “I mean… he had to have some positive, redeeming qualities, right?”

  Nodding, I reached for my own margarita. “I mean… yeah. He did. But he cheated.”

  “No he didn’t.” Eddie muttered under his breath, and I picked up the whole bag of grapes and aimed.

  “Just a moment, just a moment!” Viv said, scrambling to her feet to get between Eddie and me. “Charlie…. If you consider the situation logically… Eddie d
oes have a point. I had not considered it this way, but… you did deliver two options. Marry me, or let’s move on. So, if Nixon was very clear in his decision to not get married, the natural assumption is that you two were agreed on moving on, based on the conditions that you set.”

  I looked up at Viv with a sneer. “I thought family stuck together? You’re supposed to be on my side!”

  “I am on your side, always. What I am saying is… I know that you love Nixon. I know that Nixon loves you. And I know the kind of man Nixon is, and happen to think that he would do anything for you. Perhaps, if you can put aside your indignation of “he cheated on me”, since technically he did not, that may put you in a place where you are open to forgiveness. I am absolutely not excusing him, and not suggesting that you should either. It was not okay to brush off your desire for marriage. It was not okay to not be sensitive to the recent loss of the baby. I understand the hurt of finding out that he slept with someone else so shortly after, I would be upset too. I get all of that, and I think you are entitled to those feelings… but it is obvious, to me, at least, that some part of you still wants to be with him. So maybe it is time to address those feelings and move past them, so that you can either… go ahead and be with Nixon, or find your happiness somewhere else.”

  “So I should what, just forget what he did to me?” I rolled my eyes. “Y’all are crazy.”

  Shaking his head, Eddie came to sit on the couch beside me, wrapping an arm over my shoulders to pull me close. “Charlie… that’s just it right there. You’re looking at it as something he did to you. Believe or not, all the stupid shit that men do isn’t about hurting you. Have you ever given him a chance to explain why he did it?”

  I ran my tongue over my lips. “No.”

  “See? Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely think Nixon fucked up with you. Keeping you waiting six years, not calming your ass down instead of responding to that ultimatum, going to a bar instead of finding his homeboys, who would have made him keep his damned pants on, for giving you that ring so soon after, telling you he slept with that girl anyway… Lord, that man did some stupid shit. But, you’re not innocent baby girl. You’ve thought a lot about your own feelings…. Have you thought about his? Maybe he was hurt about the baby and needed to work through that. Maybe he was hurt about you thinking he didn’t love you, and needed to work through that too. When have you given this man a chance to work through his own shit instead of always catering to yours? When do you consider him? What would have been the problem with you saying “hey babe, I know you’re feeling antsy about marriage, what do we need to do to calm those fears for you?”