Tell Me No Secrets Read online

  Aric

  “Wow! So she’s pregnant?” Gabriel asked me, shock written across his face.

  It was Monday afternoon and we were in my entertainment room that had come custom built with the house. Three forty-two-inch flat screen TVs lined the wall as well as a movie theater style screen on the back wall. The left side of the room housed a bar that made the room appear more like a sports bar with a theater-style setting. The stained concrete floors and stoned wall gave it a masculine feel and the red and black leather sofas and chairs gave off a laid-back mood.

  I nodded and took another swig of my Corona before racking the balls up for another round of pool. I’d won the last one. “Yes sir! Asked her for a DNA test though because like I told you, I saw the pictures of her and ole boy.”

  Gabriel chuckled and sat down on the stool behind him. “Okay, this is what I don’t get. You usually do your thing with these women and then you leave them alone. You treat Chy differently, like you want to be with her. Do you want to be with her? If not, I don’t understand the possessive nature you have toward her. Doesn’t make sense . . .”

  It wasn’t lost on me that he called her Chy, like they had gotten close enough to have pet names for one another. I still hadn’t let him know that I knew he’d taken her to lunch. I made my first shot before answering him and besides, I needed time to contemplate my answer.

  “Has nothing to do with that. Chyanne is different. You know what I mean? She’s a different breed. I know she’s young, but she’s got her shit together. She knows what she wants in life. She’s a hell of a worker and she’s got pussy that Jesus would have sinned for.”

  Thinking about being inside of her caused my manhood to stir around in my jeans.

  Gabriel laughed out loud and the sound resounded in the closed off area. “Wow, Aric. You’re a fool, man.”

  I laughed with him. “For real though, Chyanne is different for me. I mean . . . let me put it to you like this,” I said to him talking with my hands standing my pool cue up in front of me. “Stephanie has a dominant personality. Chyanne is submissive. Stephanie will tell me to cook for my damn self. Chyanne cooks for me. Stephanie only asks me how my day is going when she wants to talk about something. Chyanne asks me how my day is going because she genuinely cares. Stephanie likes to take control when we’re having sex or likes to tell me what she wants. Chyanne gives me her body like it’s an empty canvas and I’m an artist free to do with it as I please. . . . See where I’m going with this?”

  He nodded emphatically before speaking. “So Chy’s giving you something completely opposite of what you have at home?”

  I nodded. “Right and I kid you not being inside of Chyanne will have you caught up. I’m not even in my right mind when we’re having sex. All I can think about is how much I don’t want to come out! Shit, sometimes I don’t think. I just feel.”

  “Well you did say she was a virgin, right? I would think it would have that affect if you know what I mean.” he said, after I missed my last shot. He picked up his stick and started looking for a shot after he sat his beer down.

  I nodded and picked up my beer again. “Yeah, but got damn. Like I said,” I continued after chuckling a bit. “I don’t know, man. Something about Chyanne just feels different.”

  “So, you’re saying that you may want to be with her like that, then?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. I still feel she is a little too young for me to ever really consider being with her. You know? I’m thirty-nine. She’s twenty-five. Big difference. I don’t think she’s ready. I was the first man she had been with, sexually I mean.”

  I watched Gabriel take an angle shot and miss. “Damn. I can’t believe I missed that,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it either. That was his best shot, but it opened up a way for me to beat him at the game his father had taught us.

  “So, what are you going to do about Stephanie? You know she called me cursing me out. I don’t think I have ever been called so many sons of bitches in my life.”

  Mentioning Stephanie brought my mood down as I positioned myself for a bank shot.

  “I didn’t even mean to put you in the middle of that,” I said to him.

  “Hey, it is what it is right? All I’m asking is that you do the right thing by both her and Chy. You and Steph have history and Chy is a good girl.”

  “How do you know she’s a good girl?”

  “I mean, come on Aric. I used to call your office almost every day to speak with you about something or the other. Chy answered the phone enough for me to have established that she is a good woman with a good heart. Not to mention the few times you’ve brought her out to business socials. She’s a good girl,” he said talking with his hands.

  “A good girl, with some great pussy.”

  He laughed again although I knew he was trying to be serious. In college he was the only man on campus who could get a woman to fuck just by laughing. He and I continued to play pool and joke around. He lost the last game and called it quits. A few hours had passed and we were busy watching Sports Center and talking trash about who was going to the Super Bowl and I couldn’t help but to mention how good Chyanne’s sex was again when Stephanie walked in. I turned to look at her quickly before turning back to the TV.

  “What’s up Steph?” Gabe spoke to her.

  She didn’t respond. For them to be brother and sister, their relationship was a funny one. They both had different mothers and the same father. Gabriel’s mother was their father’s mistress back in the day. Stephanie never let Gabe live that down, but he didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

  “Aric, may I speak to you for a minute?” she asked.

  I turned to look at her as she stood with her hands on her hip. I could tell she had been to the salon because of the way her hair cascaded around her shoulders.

  “I’m busy,” I answered and turned back to watch the TV.

  “You weren’t too busy to be talking about how good some pussy was and you’re only watching TV. This will only take a minute.”

  “Can’t you see I have company?” I answered her without even turning around to look at her.

  “You call this bastard company?”

  It seemed as if she lived to throw snide remarks at Gabriel. He was a good one because I would have told her a thing or two about herself a long time ago, sister or no sister. Some of the things she’d said to him had made even my ass itch so I knew he had wanted to say something a time or two, but Gabe was a southern gentlemen and he didn’t believe in disrespecting women.

  “That’s okay Aric. I was leaving anyway,” he said as he tossed the empty beer bottle in his hand in the trashcan beside him.

  I stood with him. We gave each other dap and the handshake to let others know we had pledged the purple and gold.

  “I’ll catch up with you later and don’t forget about the meeting tomorrow. This will be big if we can get that merger deal on the table,” I said to him.

  “I’ll be there. Talk to you then.”

  “Alright, man.”

  “Have a good day Stephanie,” he said to her on his way out.

  “Fuck off,” was her response.

  I turned the flat screens off and walked past her out of the room.

  “Damn, Aric. Can’t we at least have a civilized conversation ?” she yelled at my back following me to the kitchen.

  “You have to be talking to have a conversation Stephanie. You haven’t said anything yet.”

  She threw her purse on the counter and swept her hair up into a ponytail before folding her arms across her chest. I started putting dishes into the dish washer and wiping down the counters. I didn’t want to give her anything to start griping about. She was a neat freak and I really didn’t feel like arguing with her about anything. I had too much on my mind. I had to deal with Chyanne later because she wanted to talk and I also had to get some proposals done for tomorrow. Too many other things were going on for me to get into a petty argument with her.
/>   “How was your day?” she asked in a huff.

  “Same ole, same ole,” I answered.

  I could tell she was trying her hardest to try and make conversation with me. She had been trying all weekend and I wouldn’t say we talked like we used to do, but we talked.

  “Would you like for me to cook dinner for you?”

  I moved past her and threw the trash away. I shook my head. “No, I’ll pick up something while I’m out.”

  “Oh you’re going out tonight? On a Monday?”

  In typical Stephanie fashion, she was trying to get me to give up information on my own instead of coming right out and asking. That was her thing.

  “I have some business that I need to take care of. I’ll be back when I’m done.”

  “What kind of business do you have to handle at—” she looked at her watch—“seven at night?”

  “I have to go and talk to Chyanne about the baby,” I told her, deciding to be as honest as I could in the situation.

  She fidgeted around with the buttons on her shirt and I could tell by how her face had hardened that she was trying to choose her next words carefully.

  “So, you’re really going to let her keep this baby then?”

  “Yes, Stephanie, I am.”

  I finished wiping down the counters, crossed one leg over the other at the ankles and waited for her response with my hands resting on the counter behind me.

  “So what does that mean? For us, I mean?”

  “Nothing’s changed for us. I still want a divorce.”

  “Does that mean you are going to be with her? I mean, I know we’ve been having this fight about the divorce for almost two years now, but you have never been this adamant before. Do you love her?”

  “No, I don’t and this, the divorce, has nothing to do with her so stop trying to make it about her. This is our problem.”

  I watched what seemed like a wave of relief wash over her when hearing that I didn’t love Chyanne. Guess that made her feel better.

  “So there is no way for us to work this out? Twenty years gone just like that,” she stated as she snapped her fingers to get her point across. “I love you Aric and I know that we have both done some fucked up things to one another, but please just think about this some more before you go through with this? You can’t throw all we have away. We’ve built so much together.”

  By now she had walked closer to me and we were body to body as she looked up at me. Her hands were lightly gripping my shirt on each side and she was searching my eyes for some semblance of hope.

  “Can we talk about this when I get back? Let me handle this thing with Chyanne tonight and when I get back, we can talk,” I said to her.

  Looking down at her, at that moment, I remembered a time when I was in love with her. There was a time when I would try to move heaven and earth to try and impress her, give her anything she wanted. There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought of hurting her, had loved her too damn much to hurt her. Now, it was like she was an afterthought. I would do my dirt first and think about her later. So much had happened. I didn’t know what we could do to fix a marriage that we both had done so much to destroy. At first Stephanie wanted a divorce as much as I, then all of a sudden, she changed her mind. I didn’t know what had given her a change of heart, but it would take me some time to think about staying in a marriage that I felt was over.

  Walking into T.G.I. Fridays made me realize I was hungry. I hadn’t really had any real food all day and for some reason, Chyanne didn’t want to meet at her house. I didn’t argue with her. All I wanted her to do was agree to have the DNA test so I would know how I needed to proceed. The hostess led me to a section that had a mixture of chairs and a booth together that sat on the right hand side of the bar.

  “Hello sir. My name is Rachel and I will be your server for the day. May I get you started with something to drink or an appetizer?” the waitress greeted, once she’d gotten to me.

  I looked up at the waitress. “I’ll take a Guinness, Foreign Extra Stout and the Jack Daniel burger with fries.”

  “Okay. No appetizers for you today?”

  “No, and a glass of water please.”

  She nodded, took the menu, and walked off. My phone vibrated and I knew it was Chyanne before I even looked at the phone.

  “Where are you?” I asked her.

  “I’m coming in. Where are you sitting?”

  “On the side of the bar in the booth nearest the kitchen.”

  “Okay.” I could hear horns in the background and the wind blowing through her phone.

  After she hung up the waitress came back with my beer. I only drank import beer. It was some of the purest and it fit my taste buds. Chyanne breezed in like a breath of fresh air and I would be lying if I said an easy smile didn’t creep along my face. She did that for me. Chyanne relaxed me. Her hair was slicked back into a sleek ponytail and her skin glowed. She looked a whole lot better than she did last I left her. Now that I knew she was pregnant, I could tell. She sat in the chair and I stayed quiet until she finished with her order of a pecan crusted chicken salad and glass of water.

  “Shouldn’t you be eating more than that?” I asked her.

  “If I could hold down more than that, I would. I can’t hold any real food down. I’m sick all day and all I want to do is lay in bed and sleep. I throw up everything I eat, even crackers. So, I may not even eat the salad.”

  She said all of that while wiggling around in her chair trying to get comfortable.

  “Why don’t you move to the booth and let me take the chair?”

  She stared at my wedding band before taking my outstretched hand and hopped down from the chair making her way to the booth. She seemed to be much more comfortable there. The waitress came back with her water right as I caught Chyanne staring at my wedding band again.

  “Do you guys have Sprite or Ginger Ale?” she asked.

  I could tell she’d copped an attitude and my guess is because she finally saw some semblance of me acknowledging that I was indeed married.

  “Yes. Be right back,” the waitress replied.

  “What’s with the papers?” Chyanne asked me, nodding toward my black leather carrying case.

  “It’s the information on prenatal DNA testing—”

  Before I could finish she let out a sigh and shook her head. “You know I’m a high risk pregnancy Aric. Why can’t this wait until after the baby is born?”

  “Because, if this is my child, I want to know now. I don’t want to play the waiting game.”

  “Well, isn’t my word good enough for now? I wouldn’t lie to you about this Aric. I know this baby is yours—”

  “I don’t know that Chyanne. Look, are you going to meet me halfway on this, or not? I have no problem doing what I’m supposed to do as a man for my child, if it’s my child. However; my hands are tied until I know for sure if this baby is mine.”

  She rolled her eyes and snatched the papers. “I’ll look over it. If this is going to cause too much stress to my body or the baby, you can forget about it until the baby is born.”

  I know many would think that I was being a selfish asshole by asking her to do the DNA test, but four of my children had been taken away from me. Two were of my own doing, I knew that, but the last child of mine that Stephanie killed was the one that had really gotten to me. That’s the baby that I’d really wanted. When Stephanie had told me she was pregnant it was the greatest feeling in the world. Then to have her come home a week later and tell me she’d aborted it simply to hurt me was the worst fucking feeling a man could ever experience. So if Chyanne was carrying my child, I wanted to know for sure before I got excited about the notion of being a father again. Once I knew for sure, I could move forward.

  By now the waitress had come back and was setting our food out before us. After all of that was settled and I had eaten the first bite of my burger, I looked up at her. She was slowly chewing on a piece of lettuce looking like she was about to be sick.
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  “Are you going to be okay over there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just feeling sick. Don’t know why they call it morning sickness when it lasts all day long,” she said as she turned the glass of water up and took a big swallow.

  “Why don’t we get this to go and get you home?”

  I signaled for our waitress and asked her for the check and to go boxes. As I helped her to stand she looked like she was about to let up all she had swallowed. I quickly gave the waitress my card before looking back at Chyanne. She had a napkin over her mouth and before I could react she bolted toward the bathroom, but people were in her way so she turned and ran full throttle out of the front doors. Forgetting I had given the waitress my credit card, I ran after her. Once I got to her she was on the side of the building throwing up the little she had eaten. I walked up behind her and handed her the napkins I had picked up.

  “Damn, why the hell do you keep trying to hold stuff down if you can’t? They don’t have any pills they can give you for that shit?” I asked her.

  She snatched the napkins away from me and shook her head. “Not now Aric please.”

  “What? I’m just asking. There has to be something they can give you for that.”

  People were looking at us, more so because we both went running from the restaurant. I walked with Chyanne to her car, but quickly decided I would be driving her home when she stopped and had to regain her balance.

  “Come on,” I said to her as I took her keys from her hand.

  “I’m fine Aric. I can drive myself home.”

  “Yeah, sure you can,” I sarcastically replied as I opened the passenger side door and helped her into the car.

  Making sure she was secure inside, I rushed back in to where we had been sitting, signed the receipt, left the waitress a tip, and retrieved our to-go bags. I made sure to ask the manager if I could leave my truck there until I could come back for it in a couple of hours. Adjusting Chyanne’s driver seat to fit me comfortably, I drove her home. On the drive over we talked some more about the prenatal DNA test after I’d called Gabe and asked him if he would be able to pick me up and take me back to my car. She pretty much brushed me off, telling me she didn’t feel like talking about it at that moment so I let it be. Once I helped her inside she wanted to shower so I waited around until she was out. There was a lot running through my mind at that moment. Part of me wanted to be excited at the notion that it was a possibility that I could be a father. The other part of me didn’t want to get too excited about it and then be brought down when it was said not to be mine.