two
The drive was tedious, but necessary.
Maybe I’d grown too used to walking, to car services, whatever. Ways to get around where I could distract myself with whatever was happening on my phone. The drive from New York City to Bridgeport provided no such thing.
With my own hands on the wheel, for that hour and a half, I was forced to… think. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with thinking, of course, but thinking led to memories, and memories led… to a place I wasn’t really ready to be.
Not now.
Not… yet.
For now, distraction was much easier.
I was passing New Rochelle when blessedly the phone rang. My left thumb tapped the button on the steering wheel that would pick the call up through the car’s Bluetooth, not even bothering to glance at the display to see who it was. I’d take a call from pretty much anybody to get myself out of my head.
“Bishop,” I answered, and was immediately met with a familiar laugh that made me shake my head.
“Whaddup bwoi?” Jordan asked, in a fake accent so terrible I wasn’t even sure what he was trying to emulate.
“Not shit. Headed up to kick it with the fam.”
“On a Monday?”
There was obvious surprise in his tone, and I got it. I lived in New York, worked in New York. Even though the trip was short, it was still out of state, and something normally reserved for the weekends I was otherwise unoccupied. A late trip on a Monday just to turn around and be back early Tuesday wasn’t exactly the most sensible thing.
But…
“Yeah,” I told him, easily maneuvering my truck around the slow-moving car in front of me. “My aunt, Phylicia… my mom’s sister. She called and asked me to come up. Insisted, actually, so… you know what it is.”
Jordan chuckled. “Yeah, I do. Gotta keep the women happy. You good with all of that though? I know I would still be fucked if—”
“I’m good bruh, yeah,” I said, cutting him off. “What’s up with you, did you need something?”
“Not really. Just hitting you up to let you know I talked to Nicki about the special you wanted to do for your show, showed her the film you sent from Trent’s minicamp. She’s into it, but you know what she wanted to know, right?”
“Why was I pitching it to the Kings.”
“Smart man,” Jordan answered, and I nodded.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question, since the entirety of my career in the NFL had been spent with the team I was drafted into. I’d spent some of the best years of my life there, remaining until personal circumstances forced my hand.
But it wasn’t home.
Connecticut was.
The Kings had always been my hometown team, and as such, even after particularly ugly games against each other, I consistently got nothing but love. When they lost, I felt that shit, even when my team was the one delivering defeat. That Super Bowl last year?
Whew.
I’d been so fucking proud.
I wanted to do a special about the Kings for the simplest of reasons – I was a die-hard fan.
“I already explained it all to her though,” Jordan continued. “She’s going to put a bug in Eli’s ear about it. I’ll let you know when I have anything else.”
“Appreciate it man.”
“No problem – aye, you’ll be at the wedding, right?”
“TB and his girl? Yeah, I’ll be there. Gotta find a plus-one.”
On the other end of the line, Jordan made a disbelieving sound. “Nigga please, go on and pull out that pussy rolodex and pick one out, stop playing.”
“Relax,” I chuckled. “You know that’s not even my style… anymore.”
“Yeah, I’m fucking around,” he conceded. “You bringing Lena though, right? Nicki was telling me something a few months ago about y’all being out together, so I figured…”
I pushed out a sigh through my nose, and shook my head. “Nah. That’s done.”
“Oh. Well… anyway, I asked because Eli will be there himself, and I can make an introduction for you.”
“That’s what’s up. I would appreciate that man.”
We spent a few more minutes on the phone before we hung up, and silence blanketed the car again. Common sense provided that I could’ve turned my music back on, but for some reason I couldn’t make myself do it.
My mind was too focused on the mention of Lena.
Dodged a goddamn bullet with that.
There had been a moment, a few months back, when I thought things could maybe be… different. Thought she could be different.
I was wrong – very wrong.
Lena was the same damn girl she’d always been, but our story wasn’t meant to be a Jordan Johnson – Nicole Richardson fairy-tale rekindling. Lena McBride thought she was doing the hood a favor by dating me back in college, and my dumb ass had believed it too.
I didn’t suffer from that same delusion now.
Shaking my head, I went ahead and turned my sound up in the car, blasting mind-numbing music mind-numbingly loud until I pulled into Bridgeport.
Home.
This was where I was born and bred, in a part of the city that was often named as an area to avoid. I’d learned to navigate though. Kept my head down, stayed away from the gangs, focusing on what would keep me from being absorbed by my surroundings – school.
That other shit? My mother wasn’t playing that.
Call it a cliché, but I was determined to pull myself out of the hood. I did okay in school, but there were never delusions about me becoming an engineer, or a doctor. That just wasn’t my lot in life. I was good at basketball, but I wasn’t tall, and my solid frame was better suited to something else - Football.
I gave my high school the best running back they’d ever seen. That paved the way for being scouted onto a college team that had power and money behind it. And it didn’t hurt that Blakewood State University was historically Black. That meant something to my mother, and her influence taught it to mean something to me.
Her influence taught me… everything.
People called both of us stupid for not going into the draft as soon as I could. What if you get hurt? What if a better player comes along? Blah, blah, blah.
I wanted my damn degree.
So I got it.
And still went first in the draft.
Running backs weren’t getting twenty-million dollar contracts left and right like wide receivers or quarterbacks – especially not on the first contract. But it was enough to do what I’d set out to do – get my mother someplace safe, where she didn’t have to worry about getting her windows shot out, and I made that same thing happen for a few other select relatives too.
The flipside of that was the misconception that I was BOR – Bank of Ramsey. All of a sudden, my father’s side of the family wanted to pop up with their sudden pride and regret that they hadn’t done a goddamn thing to assist my mother in the conspicuous absence of my father.
I shut that down.
For better or worse, even though I lived in New York now, Bridgeport was home. Driving through the familiar intersections, passing familiar sites – I used to live for the moments when I had the time and energy to make this trip.
Now, it was all bittersweet.
I pulled up at my aunt’s house and climbed out of the car, tossing a hand up at her neighbor across the street. The sun was setting, and taking the last of the light with it, but the woman was apparently determined to finish working on the yard before it was completely gone.
The door swung open as I was raising my hand to knock, revealing my Aunt Phylicia on the other side. She propped a fist on her hip, and her lips twisted into a frown that she wouldn’t have been able to hold if she tried.
“Took you long enough boy,” she scolded, then reached her arms out to me. “Come here.”
“How you doin’ P-Diddy?” I teased her as I came in for my hug. She squeezed me as I rocked her back and forth for a second, then pulled away to close the door.
“I’m tired is how I’m doing,” she answered, motioning for me to follow her into the kitchen. “Got me up all late, waiting on you. Don’t you know it’s past bedtime around here?”
I laughed as I sat down at the large island that anchored her kitchen. I still remembered her crying her eyes out the day I brought her into the house and told her it was hers, if she wanted it. “If I want it? If? Are you crazy lil’ boy? Don’t be talking crazy in my new house!”
“Stop acting like an old lady,” I told her, earning myself a raised eyebrow as she put a steaming mug of tea in front of me, then went back to the counter to retrieve one for herself.
“Acting like what I am, baby. Sometimes you have to recognize your limitations, take care of your body. It’s the only one we get, you know?”
I answered her with a deep nod. “Yeah, Auntie. I know.”
My eyes fell to the mug she’d handed me, zeroing in on the “FCK CANCER” printed on the inside, designed to be seen when the mug was empty. Maybe something was wrong with me though, cause it shone right through the dark color of that tea like a beacon.
I pushed the cup away.
“So if you know,” she said, too preoccupied with a frantic search for something on her tablet to notice my revulsion for the tea. “Then you wouldn’t be acting like you don’t know why I go to bed early. And why you should have come sooner.”
“I came as soon as I left work. It took time to get out of the city, and then get here.”
“Mmhmm. Speaking of work, how is Wil holding up? Is she okay?”
No.
And how could she be, really? The dude she was supposed to marry had never struck me as a particularly good guy – not good enough for her, not to me – but she’d loved him, and she seemed happy. But it was Wil – she was damn near always happy, that was just who she was.
Those tears earlier… that had burned me up.
Of course she was heartbroken, and angry, and embarrassed. He’d hurt her in the worst kind of way, and it made sense completely for her to not be her bubbly self. But tears? I’d known Wil for almost three years now, and never seen her cry.
“She’s… making it the best way she can. Probably still hasn’t really processed it,” I said, propping my elbows on the counter.
My aunt shook her head. “I can’t believe that boy did her like that. She was such a sweet girl. I’ll never forget when me and your mama came up to the television studio to visit you, and she took us out to lunch cause you were stuck in an interview. You remember that?”
“I do,” I chuckled. My mother had already been a fan, but that simple act of grace had landed Wil permanently on her “Ramsey, why don’t you marry that girl?” list. Nevermind that Wil had been in a long-term relationship since we met, and then engaged.
“Mmmhmm. I promise you this – he’ll live to regret it. I swear these young men don’t know a good thing when they have it. Your uncle Reginald? Would have never done me like that, no sir. And that man was handsome as they come, and you know those are the worst ones. I used to tell your mama all the time – I’m so glad Ramsey had him to look up to, put some sense in his head before he became a teenager. Because with that face and those wide shoulders, you would’ve been worse than the devil boy. And then with one of those football paychecks? Whew! You know I’ve got friends that don’t know or care not a lick about sports, but they’ve got their TVs set to make sure they see you every day? I can’t even watch TV with those horny old broads, got me sitting up somewhere ready to fight about you.”
“Your whole generation is wild, Auntie,” I laughed. “But hey… what was it you needed to show me? I know you didn’t have me drive up here to hear about your friends wanting to live out their cougar fantasies with me.”
“Are you rushing me?”
I grinned. “No ma’am. Just trying to keep you on task.”
“Why do I need to be on task? You’re not going back home until in the morning, right? Your niece and nephews are downstairs on that damn video game, they probably want to see you.”
“What are they doing out here on a Monday? They have a long weekend from school or something?”
“Mmmhmm. I’ve gotta get them back to Stamford in time for school in the morning,” she mused as she slid the tablet across the counter to me.
I drummed my fingers on the counter. “I would say I could take them for you, but I’m heading back so early that it—”
“Did I ask you to do anything for me boy?” she scolded. “Get the tablet. Look at the video. That’s all I need you to do.”
I chuckled a bit as I slid the tablet in front of me, and hit the “play” button in the middle of the screen. The first thing I saw was my mother, seated in a chaise on her back patio. There was no sound playing, but the scene was loud. Our family was all over the place, mouths open to talk or laugh, plastic cups in hand. My nephews were in front of my mother, doing some silly dance to music I couldn’t hear, and she loved it. She loved those kids so much, and it was all in her eyes, in her smile. They ran off – presumably driven by the end of the song – and a moment later, I saw myself on screen.
I was handing her a glass – one of the thick, heavy ones only she drank out of, one of the few things she’d brought along from the house I grew up in. I knelt in front of her, running a hand over the patterned scarf that covered her head, tied in an intricate knot Wil had taught her on a completely random, impromptu segment of the show.
She brought up the fact that she’d been on national TV at least once a week after that.
Her expression changed for me. Watching the video reminded me of the moment, but I don’t think I could see it then like I saw it now. I was too busy wondering if she was too hot, if she was comfortable, if the music was too loud. I doubted that then I could see the pride in her eyes.
“Will you get on somewhere and let me be?”
I watched her mouth form those words, and my memory filled in the sound. I was hovering – doing too much, when she was just trying to enjoy herself. I did leave her alone – long enough to go turn the music down a little bit – and by the time I made it back, her boyfriend had taken a place next to her, so I stayed back, and went and found something else to do. The camera didn’t know all of that though – it just remained focused as Desmond leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers as he spoke what context clues told me were gentle words.
The video ended there.
“Chloe said she stopped there because she didn’t want to be “creeping”,” my aunt laughed, when I still hadn’t moved after the video was done. “That was a couple months before your mama’s birthday, remember? My baby sister looked good, didn’t she? With that scarf on, looking like a queen.”
When I looked up, her eyes were glossy, which… I couldn’t handle. My gaze dropped back to the tablet, then to that goddamn mug.
Shit.
Was anywhere safe?
“Chloe was trying to clear space on her phone, she said when she dropped the kids off. She told me she had the video, but she’d moved it all to the cloud or something, and she was trying to… I didn’t really understand what she was telling me, but she remembered to email the video today. I thought you’d like to see that.”
She was wrong, but I didn’t say that.
Maybe in three months, maybe in six, but for now… nah.
“This is nice, Auntie,” I told her, because it was. Future Ramsey would find value in it, but right now, the shit felt like a blade to the chest. “You good with me kicking it here for the night?”
She frowned. “Why on earth wouldn’t I be? Don’t play with me like that,” she warned, and I laughed. “You’re laughing, but I’m serious. You are always welcome in this house. You hungry? I made you a plate cause I knew you were coming. I can heat it up for you.”
I got up, coming around the other side of the counter to wrap her in a hug that she laughed and tried to squirm out of. “You always take good care of me.”
“I promised your mama I would, and I meant it.”
“And it’s appreciated.”
A little grin climbed onto her face as she looked at me.
“I know. Now go on down there and see about those kids. Alexis has a boyfriend.”
I frowned, then shook my head.
“Nah. We’ll see about that.”
“You know it didn’t have to be like this, right?”
“Shut up.”
“You were the one who insisted on coming out here.”
“Shut up.”
“I tried to give you a little break, let you get yourself together.”
“Shut up.”
“But naaaaah. “I need my morning session” – that’s what you said, remember?”
“Shut up.”
I grinned down at where Wil was sprawled on the ground, in a pool of sweat. As athletic as she was, Wil was the girliest of girls, so I knew she had to be desperate for a break to let even a pinch of dirt touch her skin. But still.
“Come on,” I said, wiping sweat from my own eyes before I bent a little, smacking her firmly on the backside. “Get your ass up, let’s go Champ.”
“Ouccch,” she moaned. “Be careful with those heavy paws, damnit.”
I chuckled, then picked up the water bottle I’d left beside my backpack at the base of the steps. Wil had exerted just enough energy to roll from her side to her back, so she couldn’t get smacked again, and I shook my head as I raised the bottle to my mouth and squeezed. Once I had a drink, I lowered the bottled… and squeezed again, spraying her with water.
“Ramsey!” she squealed, and immediately jumped up, but I was already gone, dropping the water bottle to the ground. I took the bleachers we were supposed to be running two at a time, then waited until she was three-quarters of the way up to move to the second set.
“I’m gonna kick your ass!” she shouted after me, and I grinned.
“Gotta catch me first! Come on, I thought you were fast? Thought you were Carla Ann Cunningham’s daughter, but not with those slow ass legs!”
Behind me, she let out what I could only describe as a growl, and when I glanced back again, she was decidedly closer than she’d been before. Up, over, down. Over, up, Over. Down, over, up. One by one, we ran the line of bleachers, finishing out the round that would bring our workout to a close. Total exhaustion was the goal, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get her there.
At the top of the last set, I waited for her to reach me before heading back down. She didn’t work out as often as I did and even my legs were burning, so I didn’t tease her about how long it took to drag herself up the last three steps. I pulled my cell out of the pouch on my arm and navigated to my camera as she approached. I tapped the button that would activate the forward-facing camera and wrapped an arm around her neck, pulling her into me. I laughed at the scowl she was giving the screen, and snapped the picture, letting her go before I posted it to my Instagram with the #FromTheSidelines hashtag.
“How you feeling?” I asked her, returning my phone to my armband. She’d dropped down into one of the seats and had her head tilted back, sucking in deep breaths of air.
“Like I’m gonna puke,” she managed, then closed her eyes.
I sat down on the steps beside her seat. “Good. Proof you worked your ass off.”
Instead of responding, she flipped me off, which was a good sign – meant she was still mobile. I took a moment of my own to rest, closing my eyes. When I opened them again, Wil had pulled out her phone. Suddenly, there was tension in her shoulders that had nothing to do with our workout.
“What’s up?” I asked, sitting up to nudge her shoulder. “Why is your face all sour?”
She shook her head, then held up her phone, showing me the screen. “This.” All I saw on her screen was the picture I’d tagged her in and shared, which confused me. Despite her scowl, she looked good. Actually… the scowl was kinda sexy.
But then my gaze traveled lower.
I hadn’t been back to the picture to look at any comments from my own phone, but from here I could see that people were already being stupid. Not that it was surprising, or new, but still… damn.
“@jamochashake43: no wonder her man went and got him a white girl, she always on Instagram hugged up with you @RB_TheSledgehammer! Gonna start calling you RB the Homewrecker!”
I shook my head. The picture already had sixty-something comments, and if I had to bet, I would say at least a third of them were along those same lines, or worse.
This was the first time I’d been called a homewrecker though.
Nothing had ever happened between me and Wil. People gossiped and made shit up, sure, but the truth was that the only romance between us existed in people’s imaginations. From the time we’d met – back when she hated my guts – Wil had been seriously involved with the clown that ended up being her fiancé.
If that wasn’t the case… maybe things would’ve been different.
But they weren’t.
Nevermind that us being “always hugged up” was a blatant exaggeration, it was pretty fucked up to imply that our platonic relationship had anything to do with the clown not choosing to keep his dick in his pants.
I hope Wil doesn’t internalize this bullshit.
“What if she’s right though?”
Shit. Too late.
She’d tossed the phone into her lap and was looking up at the sky again.
“She’s not. And neither is anybody else who lets that dumb shit come out of their mouth.”
Wil pushed out a sigh. “Seriously, though.”
“I’m being serious,” I countered.
She opened her eyes, looking right at me when she responded. “He complained once. Last year, at the Connecticut Kings benefit ball. Me and you danced together that night, just one damn song. We were having fun, and there was nothing sexual about it, but he flipped out on me. Brought up us working out together, me being on your Instagram…”
“You’ve never said anything to me about it.”
“Because it was just that once, and he never mentioned it again. I’m friends with other guys, other athletes. Y’all all do the neck hug thing, and hell – I can’t count how many times Jordan Johnson has picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, the whole nine. No complaints. But something about that night…” she trailed off with a faraway look that made me wonder if voices were the only things that got raised that night.
Nah.
Wil’s daddy was a boxer, and I knew from experience in the ring with her that Wil had inherited his hands. She would’ve set him straight with no problem.
“I wonder if she’d threatened him, you know?”
The gloss in her eyes was back, and I had to look somewhere else. If I watched her cry over that dude again, I was going to rock his skull the very next time I saw him.
“Like maybe he was on edge, looking for a reason to be upset with me, to justify what he knew he was doing. How can a friendship between coworkers be believable to you when you’re screwing your coworker?”
I scoffed. “Wil, his ass didn’t really think you were doing anything you shouldn’t. It was just like you said – him trying to pass around some blame, when it all rests with him. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to find logic where there isn’t any.”
“I just want to understand why though.” She whispered that, but I could still hear the lump building in her throat. “I tried to be a good girlfriend, a good fiancé. Show him I could be a good wife, and he—”
“Stop making his shit about you.” I pushed myself up from the steps to stand, then extended a hand to help her up too. “You can’t make a person be faithful by doing things for them, and not doing things for them isn’t gonna make them step out. There’s one reason – because they wanted to. And that’s about them. Not you.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but this is real life. You’re really going to tell me consistent sex, keeping your appearance up, being encouraging, blah blah blah, doesn’t help a man’s dick stay in his pants?”
I chuckled. “I’m saying… maybe there are things that lead people to, and away from, wanting to step outside of their relationship, sure. But ultimately… we’re adults. It’s time out for calling the shit “a mistake”, or acting like we didn’t have the option of ending shit, or talking about it with the person we committed to. He had options. He made his choice. A bad one. And now… fuck him.”
“That’s so much easier said than done. My feelings aren’t controlled by some switch I can just flip to suddenly make everything okay.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You really think you need to explain that to me, Champ? Of all people?”
Immediately, her harsh expression softened. “No. I don’t. But… you should especially know – it’s not that easy.”
“I do. That’s why you work toward that shit every day. A week from now, two weeks, a month… you feel better, handle it better, than you did today. Maybe it takes a year, or five, for the shit to be okay. I don’t know, I’m still figuring it out myself. But I know I won’t get there blaming myself for shit that wasn’t in my control – like what a grown ass adult decided to do.”
I extended my hand again, and this time she took it, using it as leverage to pull herself up.
“I don’t think I’m there yet.”
“You don’t have to be. Hasn’t even been a week.”
When she looked up, there was a little bit of a smile on her face as she looked around. “I messed this up. Letting you kick my ass this morning was supposed to be an escape. A release. But… here I am, right back where I was.”
I shrugged, then started down the steps. “I mean… we could hit these bleachers a few more times.”
“The hell we can.”
Back down at the bottom, we gathered our things, and headed to my truck. Wil had taken a car service to her parent’s house in Stamford, so she was riding with me back to New York.
“You know what I need?” she asked, as she strapped her seatbelt. “A reason to get dressed up. Like, really dressed up, you know? Go somewhere and drink champagne in a cute dress.”
I laughed. “I might have an opportunity for you, but… not sure it’s the best idea in the world.”
“Tell me,” she insisted, as I pulled out of the parking lot of the small public stadium we’d used to work out. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?”
I sighed. “It’s a wedding. Trent Bailey’s,” I told her, then glanced over to see her face. “I have a plus-one, but…”
“I want to go,” she said, her voice soft but determined. “I love weddings.”
“But—”
“When is it?”
I peeked at her again before I pulled away from a traffic light. “A few weeks from now.”
“Then I definitely want to go. A few weeks from now, I’ll be completely fine.”
I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Wil must’ve caught the change in my expression, because she shoved my arm a little and laughed.
“What kind of friend are you? This is the moment where you help me lie to myself. Of course, Champ, you’ve got this,” she said, in a deep voice that was obviously meant to mimic mine.
I chuckled. “That’s what I sound like?”
“That’s what you sound like,” she agreed, then stuck out her tongue.
“Okay then, you don’t need me to tell you shit. You’ve already got it covered.”
She laughed, and then neither of us said anything for several moments.
“You really think I’ll be okay?”
I glanced over to find her already looking at me, and held her gaze for a second before I returned my attention to the road.
“For the wedding?”
“For life. For both.”
“You’ll definitely be okay for life,” I laughed. “For the wedding… it’s debatable. Run that one by your homegirls first, then let me know.”
“They’re gonna say no.”
“Well then…”
“But I want to go. I want to be okay. I want to grab this thing by the horns.”
I blew out a sigh. “I’m not going to say no, but…”
“You reserve the right to say “I told you so”. I know.”
I grinned. “Then we’re cool.”
“Perfect. And if all else fails… alcohol.”