As I’m walking to English, I catch sight of Reagan pulling Jaheim aside in the hallway, he stops a moment and then tells her he’s not talking to her anymore. She rolls her eyes and acts as if she’s waving him off.
A loud laugh escapes as I walk past her. My eyes scan her entire frame making it very clear that I’m feeling myself a little bit.
“Yeah, I’m sorry babes. Even though we ain’t back together- like, together-together, I’m sure he still wouldn’t want to fuck on a bitch caught sucking dick on camera.” I put my hand over my mouth as if appalled.
Her pupils damn near grow to the size of marbles.
“Awe, seems like you have other shit to worry about baby girl. Fall back.” I warn her and step off genuinely overjoyed.
“A sex tape? Reagan for real?” Amarine gasps and runs closer to her. I genuinely had no idea I said that aloud like that. Oh well, she’s never had any qualms about humiliating me in front of others.
Jaheim just knows to reach for my hand the moment I get a few feet behind him.
“Where you been at baby?” He squeezes playfully.
“Standing on business, as the kids say today right?”
He shakes his head as if ashamed of me. I love him, I think. I certainly like holding his hand and having him near… But I feel like I need Desmond for some strange reason.
The two of us didn’t get to talk yesterday. His wife is gone, I think we’ll be alone tonight, what better time is there to tell him?
“I forgot to tell you that I’m babysitting tonight for Desmond and his wife. So we have to push our massages back til tomorrow?”
He frowns. I can tell he wants to ask me why, but that would be a crazy question. My brother may be rich, but I’m not. Any opportunity to make money, I’m making it.
A message comes in around 3 pm. It contains the address to his house along with instructions to bring my present from the last time we got together. The night dress? I hold off on asking any questions, simply complying with I am told.
My vehicle pulls into the driveway at exactly 4:45. Inconveniencing him by being late, was the last thing I wanted to do tonight.
Just as I’m pulling up in the driveway, he opens the garage and begins walking in the direction of my car. A smile runs across his face, his hands rub together as he wears the fact that he’s impressed by what he sees. He opens my car door as I turn the engine off and offers his hand to help me out.
“So this is the birthday car huh? Your brother was talking non stop about it. How you like it?” He closes the door behind me.
“It rides nice, I suppose. I don’t really know too much about cars to know a difference.” I speak softly, staring into his beautiful eyes.
His lips poke outward, is he asking for a kiss like we are in some kind of relationship? Like, this is to be normal? I give in and peck him. He smiles and points toward the garage with his head. I walk ahead of him to make my way into the house.
“You’re here a bit early. The girls get dropped off at 5, sometimes 5:15 depending on traffic. I have my driver take them to gymnastics after school and bring them home where either myself or my wife will be here to get them settled in. On game nights, their nanny comes in, but she’s been sick the past few days. Something must be going around.” He just speaks freely.
“Must be.”
“You know how to cook right? Pasta at least? They’ll both eat any sort of noodle, I have chicken, shrimp, and honey ham currently thawed in the fridge. There are also a bunch of fresh vegetables for you to pick from. I personally like Broccoli.” He winks.
I fold my arms looking at him quizzically. “I’m not a housekeeper or personal chef, you asked me to watch the kids. I agreed to that. But I don’t even cook at home like that. We can order some shit.”
“Or you can learn how to create some sort of sustenance for yourself. You’re a grown ass woman right?” He clenches his jaw as he rubs his thumb along mine.
I roll my eyes and growl a bit.
“Yeah, I guess I am now. Cause I’m pregnant.” Since he wants to push all this motherly shit on me, and make me feel bad about not wanting to do any of it.
He remains still.
“That’s why you wanted to know if I was on birth control right? Cause you knew you fucked up? You expected me to come in here and tell you this shit huh?” I grow upset feeling like this was somehow done on purpose.
“Hey, chill out. You think I wanted to leave evidence of the fact that I slept with child? You think I’m that fucking stupid? Clearly I was drunk and made a fucked up decision. What the hell was I supposed to do huh? Since you know every goddamn thing Amanda?”
He grabs his keys off the counter.
“Last I checked you opened your legs for me. You should’ve known better than to not tell a nigga you was hot.”
Opened my legs? Wow. I can’t believe he’d say some shit like this to me.
“My kids are outside. I have stuff to do right now. We’ll talk about this later.” He looks pissed off.
But how could he be? This isn’t entirely my fault.
The girls get home and I immediately check Sasha’s homework while letting the little one color. And then they start to show me a few of the tricks they learned in gymnastics as I prepare some creamy chicken pasta for their dinner.
“Amanda, look.” Sasha tells me as she spins around a few times while holding Shakira on her back.
“Very nice Sasha. But do me a favor, take your sister upstairs and you guys go get washed up. You know how to shower?” I ask hoping I don’t have to go in there and get wet up due to splashing children.
She nods.
“I can wash her too. I know how to do it. Mommy makes me help her out a lot when she’s sleepy from her medicine.” She straight up divulges this very confidential information.
“Oh my. Uh- don’t tell anybody else that Sash, you wouldn’t want your mom to get in trouble for popping pills.”
She gasps and I laugh at her reaction. Kids are so funny. I can’t believe I’m carrying their sibling in my womb right now.
“Okay run along.” I playfully wave her off with the big spoon.
Without issue, they both get showered and dressed, leaving me a bit of energy left to do Sasha’s hair for school tomorrow. She has pretty puffy curls so I gave her two, two-strand twists that I criss-crossed on each side of her head. I pinned the twists back against two puffy ponytails.
“Look in the mirror, Sash, see if you like it. I tell her as Shakira cleans her plate full of pasta.”
Sasha puts her bowl down and grabs the small mirror I found in her bathroom.
She shrieks and nods.
“I love it! It’s like a princess hair style, but my hair is puffy.”
“Your hair is beautiful. Go put your bonnet on so we can watch a little bit of tv. You can pick something on Disney plus.” I tell her smiling.
She runs off just as I hear the front door open. My stomach lowers as Desmond walks into the kitchen after two minutes of my anticipating him has passed. His shoes are off, but his designer slides seem to instantly taken their place.
I can feel him close in on me as I stand at the stove packing the rest of the pasta away. I’m sure the girls would love to eat the rest tomorrow.
My eyes refuse to meet his. I only speak as his arms try themselves around my frame.
“You ate already?” My tone seeks his forgiveness for the attitude I exhibited earlier.
“Nah, but I’d like to.” He pauses a moment. “Where are the kids?”
“Upstairs. Getting their hair covered. I styled Sasha up really nice for school tomorrow.” He’s made aware.
Given her mom is away, I’m sure that’s something he hoped I would’ve taken the initiative to do as well.
“Look at you.” He grabs my face to place a few tiny kisses along my jaw. My face is turned toward his smile. “Thank you baby.” He takes my lips, then quickly pulls away at the sound of his little ones running down the stairs.
After dressing his plate, the food is set down in front of him on the dining room table.
“Do you want me to take them up to bed now?” I seek instruction, willing to do whatever needs to be done in order for us to get this conversation over with.
He quietly tells me to stay where I am. “They can watch TV down here for now. Sit with me, let’s talk.” He stands back up to pull out the chair next to him.
Nervous about the way in which this conversation could possibly end, I sit down at a pace confusingly slow.
He snickers, shaking his head.
“So, what is it you want to do Amanda? I can’t tell you what to do with your body, but I don’t believe in killing no babies. I don’t have an answer as to how we’d make it work. But if you can wait on me to figure some shit out, I’d want you to keep it.”
I don’t know what the hell I want to do. Or what I’m even supposed to do.
“Does your brother know?” He takes on a more serious expression, sitting up to silently demand an answer.
I tap the table with my fingers directly in front of my chest.
“He only knows I’m pregnant. But that’s not by my own volition. The girl that’s been fucking with me at school took a picture of Jaheim grabbing me the tests. She posted it and caused a damn stir, but we cleaned it up as best we could for now. Said it was for someone else he slept with. As for Tommy though, he thinks I slept with a random guy in Texas to get back at Jaheim for cheating. I told him it was a one night stand and that I don’t have the guy’s contact info.”
He takes a sip of his wine, sitting back in his chair.
“Thomas knows you’re lying about that. He was asking around all this morning at scrimmage if anyone saw who you left with on the night of the party. He said to me himself that you’re lying to him about something important, what else could it be?”
Fuck. What is his problem? Why can’t he just let me handle this the way I said I would? He’s asking around and shit? How could he know I was lying about it? I’ve been watched this whole time haven’t I?
Reagan must’ve said or sent something to make him question my story. This won’t do, time to let her know I’m not playing with her ass.
She’s taking pictures of shit and posting things, or she’s recruiting the people around her to do so. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I can’t risk her messing my situation up even more than it already is.
“Well, you could get in trouble if people were to find out we have been sleeping together. I can’t admit to that right now. You could lose everything. Right?” I look to him for confirmation.
He nods. “Mhmm.”
I walk up to him and kiss his forehead. I scratch at his scalp gently hoping to put him at ease about the situation with my brother.
“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” I whisper encouraging him to eat his food. “Enjoy your dinner, I’m going to go home now and get ready for school.”
“Uhn uh- where you going? You still gotta piss on a stick so I know you aren’t making some shit up. How I know you not just saying this shit to play games? How am I supposed to know you not going come right behind me, and let your little boyfriend knock you up so you could lie and squeeze some shit out of me?” He points to the counter on which there are a few different boxes of pregnancy tests.
I laugh in disbelief.
“Do you know who my brother is? Last I checked his contract was only a couple million less than yours. Why would I need you for anything?”
“Last I checked, you’re always in trouble for doing stupid shit. You could’ve done something to get yourself cut off that I don’t know about?” He shrugs.
I definitely did by laying down with him. My brother just doesn’t know it yet.
“You kind of did.” He puts the nail in the coffin before I can.
I sigh and groan.
“Can I do this shit tomorrow? I’m tired as fuck. Your kids have a lot of energy you know? That $500 didn’t even cover the hairdresser service I had to pull out of my ass.”
He pulls out his wallet and drops three more hundreds on the table.
“Goodness gracious. Go pee. I’m going to get the girls to bed and then finish this food. It’s good by the way.” He waves me off as he stands up.
I roll my eyes and open the cabinet that I recall the glasses being in. A glass is grabbed and I’m once again confessing my sin to a plastic stick.
While I’m on the toilet, a text notification from a random number plagues my phone. There’s a picture of me and Desmond looking a little to comfortable leaned up against my car.
Yeah, you might want to meet me in the gym before homeroom tomorrow to talk about this picture before it gets sent out to every media outlet I can possibly think of. Bring that video with you bitch.
Oh shit. Knowing I need to come up with an immediate plan, I call Daphne. If there’s anyone I could trust regarding this, it’s her. I’m not going to tell her everything though, she’ll know just enough.
“What’s up Manda?” I can tell she’s eating something. Of course she is. Her high ass is always hungry.
What do I need her to do though? I should’ve come up with some sort of idea first.
“Uh, where are you?” I ask not knowing what else to say.
I can hear a lot of noise around her.
“Eating pizza and wings with Matt and Jen. You okay?” She sounds concerned.
“No, this bitch has officially pushed me too far, I need you to find a way to steal Matthew’s phone for me… I know you can.” There needs to be a good reason for her to help me though, damn.
I can’t exactly tell her it’s for the purposes of sending a sex tape of Reagan out, now can I?
“Reagan told me that he has some compromising photos of me on his phone that I need to get rid of, then he can have his device back.”
She gasps.
“He can track his phone though mama.” She whispers.
“Shit.” I whisper trying to figure out how we’ll pull this off. I need that phone.
She texts me while still on the phone with me.
I know his password. He’s coming to the house once we leave since we rode together. I’ll let you know when to meet us there and I’ll suggest we watch a movie or smoke to buy you a bit of time. And then I’ll keep him distracted while you do what you need to do with the phone.
She’s so smart. That will work. And then once I have the phone, I can do whatever I want with it. The same way she’s publicly humiliated me multiple times, is the same way I’m going to humiliate her. She won’t even see it coming.
I take all of the tests back into the dining room and wait for Desmond to come back down from putting the girls to bed. My arms rest folded against my still small stomach. I’ll be huge in a while, solely existing for the nourishment of my child. His child.
It would be a complete lie for me to say I don’t feel so out of place right now. It feels like I’m trespassing or something. In this woman’s house catering to her husband like he’s my own.
Desmond comes back downstairs, walking over to me with a look of determination.
“Hey, I have to get going. I left the tests on the counter for you to look at.” I point to them.
“You don’t have a curfew tonight do you?” He wraps his arms around me from behind, placing a few kisses on my neck.
“I don’t, but I’m not staying out ’til w.e. hours of the night just to “open my legs” for you again. Get away from me. I’m not putting that night slip on for your disrespectful ass no way.” I pull myself away and straighten up.
He sighs.
“Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that shit, I’m sorry.”
I shrug not caring to hear his apology.
“Mhmm.”
On the table where I left my keys, sits a Laderach bag just next to them.
“Desmond?” I call loud enough for him to hear. He rushes over, smiling as he leans against the wall.
“Yes, that’s for you. I know it’s your favorite, I went to get some shoes and walked past it. Never paid attention to the place, but I’ve heard your brother mention it before on one of your little “attitude” days.”
Okay, why does Tommy talk to these niggas about me so damn much? This man literally knows my favorite color, chocolate, and God knows what else. What’s next? Take your child to work day?
“What else do you know about me Desmond? Color, chocolate? Go ahead. Enlighten me because at this point, I’m trying to figure out what it is you’re doing… like, what the hell do you want from me? I already told you, if it’s just for me to keep fucking you, you don’t have to worry about the gifts and shit. I don’t need presents from you. Not that I don’t appreciate the thought or the fact that you have an astounding memory it seems. I just feel confused. Like what is going on right now?” I laugh, scratching at the back of my neck slightly uncomfortable.
His eyes hold onto mine a while. He grips his bottom lip with his teeth, it looks as though he’s wondering whether or not he should say anything.
“Nothing. I don’t want anything from you Amanda. I just thought it would be a nice gesture to get you some damn chocolate. You’re right, I didn’t have to do anything. But I just wanted to. I can’t tell you why or give you reasons for any of this shit, I just wanted to make you smile is all. My girls can be a handful and this was a last minute favor, but you came through and went above and beyond. I appreciate you, and I wanted you to see that. Just enjoy the chocolate, don’t stress yourself out about it, or me for the matter. Don’t make me feel bad for being nice to you. I just want to be nice to you.”
I sigh and grab the bag.
“Thank you. I will enjoy the chocolate. I’ll talk to you later Des.” I walk up to him a wrap my arms around him. “Goodnight.”
He kisses my temple. “Goodnight. Text me when you make it home please? Don’t worry, I’ll have “your” phone on me. You will get a text back this time beautiful.” His smile moves whatever irritation housed itself inside of me.
I want him. It’s like, I just have to have him.
“I can stay for 15 minutes.” My tip of my nose flirts with his.
“Only 15 baby?” He grins and places his teeth between my jaw and shoulder.
“Mhmm.” I pull my shirt up and his fingers crawl up to lift it over my head.
“Come here.” He leads the way over to one of the downstairs guest rooms. I wrap my legs around his waist staring up in his honey colored orbs, they just shine so bewitchingly in the moonlight.
“Please don’t leave me to do this alone Desmond.” He lays down on top of me, holding onto the sliver of innocence I have left.
“Amanda, I promise you I won’t.”
Last night, I was able to get ahold of Matthew’s phone the way Daphne planned. And when I did, I had a field day.
All the shit he has on the girls he’s been with is mind-boggling. And some of them are going to be collateral damage in this war I’m in with Reagan. Matthew took a pill and was out of his mind last night, he probably won’t know whether or not he did what I’m going to make it look like he did, or not.
I sent Raegan’s video to my dummy email so that I have proof to show her when I meet with her in about 10 minutes in order to get a hold of the pictures she may have of Desmond and I. But I also found a group email chain that Matthew was apart of for a class project last week, and scheduled the video, along with three others to be sent out to the group during 1st lunch.
This way, Reagan will be so pre-occupied with her own leak that she won’t have time to fuck with me. I’ve been dealing with her shit long enough and I’m over it. To cover my ass knowing that Daphne will suspect I sent that email, I sent an argument starting text to Reagan last night from his phone and deleted the message.
So you going around taking pictures and videos of people I see. Let’s not forget, you have a few of your own out here.
I smile to myself as I think back on how vague I made that message. If the leak of the videos gets traced back to him, there’s some sort of proof that he “intended” to send them out to teach her, and her friends, a lesson.
The other videos I chose to send out were of Matthew and two other girls Reagan associates closely with. All of them are bully-type bitches who deserve every bit of what’s coming their way.
“Well, shit. Look at the girl who’s fucking her brother’s teammate. What a shame huh? You grew up with a baller for a dad and brother, yet you couldn’t keep yourself from becoming a groupie hoe for one?” She starts this meeting off with the shit talking.
I just stare at her with such disdain. If I could rip her head clean off with one tug, I would.
“Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up. Do you have them pictures you took of me or not? I trust that when I delete this video from my phone and email, you’ll do the same for them pictures you took? And I want to see every group chat for proof. Phone for phone.” I offer her a false truce.
She looks amused by my offer.
“Phone for phone.” She shrugs having no qualms about taking my phone.
I go through her camera to find that she pretty much has a whole album worth of pictures and videos related to me. What the hell is her problem?
“Reagan, why do you have all these photos of me? What the fuck is up with you? For real? This shit is kind of creepy.”
“Delete what you’re going to delete and move the fuck on Amanda.” The number she texted from is a different number than the one connected to this device.
“I’m not stupid, you sent that text message from another phone. The picture exists elsewhere. Where’s your other phone? You’re not getting this one back until you hand over the other one.”
“Then I’ll keep yours.”
I shrug.
“I’ll have another one by end of day.” Can you really afford to get a new one on such short notice? Who’s phone was it?” I ask with no amount of kindness in my voice.
She rolls her eyes.
“I sent the message from my dad’s other phone. The one he uses to talk to his second family over seas.” I can detect a bit of sadness in her voice as she says that.
That sucks. Her dad has another her, no wonder she’s so bitchy toward me. I have the family she thinks she wants. I think. Maybe she just really doesn’t fuck with me. But from the outside looking in, I come from a great home with loving parents who love each other. And they really do, despite not necessarily loving me.
“Sorry about that.” I extend an apology for her hardship knowing the sorry really counts for the fact that I’ve done something I can’t undo by sending that video of her out.
“Whatever. Don’t tell anyone that shit and I won’t tell anyone about your little boy toy? Why you riding so hard for Jaheim when you clearly don’t care about him like that?” She starts to pry.
“Do you?” I answer her question with a question. Why does she want him so bad when he continually embarrasses her?
She nods.
“I love him. You know he was talking to me for weeks before you got with him. Look at the messages. We used to text, talk, all that shit. Stay up late on the phone and everything. Next thing I know, we aren’t anymore, and he’s parading around the school with you. I had him first and then I lost him to you. And he doesn’t fucking want me for real, all he ever thinks about is you.” I didn’t expect to have this heart to heart, to be quite honest.
This whole conversation is making me feel more like shit the further it goes on.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.” Is all I can say as she hands over the other phone. I quickly delete the picture from the camera roll and the message she sent to my number. I’m not entirely too sure how she got that, but I’ll let the situation be for now.
We hand over each other’s belongings and part ways saying nothing further. I have a bad feeling about the shit I did last night.
My trek into the lunch, is momentarily halted by my nervous. I most do my best to avoid any sort of contact with anyone, knowing that three people’s worlds are about to be in shambles.
I take a seat alone in the back of the cafeteria and far away from Jaheim for him to not notice that I actually came to lunch. He’s too busy talking to his cousin, one of the football players, to even notice I’m here.
My phone becomes my new focus when I opt to scroll mindlessly on social media. My face logs me onto X, and the first thing on my feed is a clip of Sydney’s video that I sent in that email. The caption on the video is “ #MissionValleyGirls do it the best.”
What the hell have I done?
Engagement