Loving Montie (Breathless 4)

“Well, first, she hooked up with you on a humbug. Then, she made it a point that you knew she'd slept with Jacob. If she wanted, she could have already blown up the city with her secret, but instead she coincidentally ends up in your sack and tells it to you. I call foul. I just don’t know on who.”

“Justine’s foul and Jacob is too.”

“Yeah, but Justine is up to something else with all of this sneaking around and passive-aggressiveness. I’ve had my share of unstable women. It just doesn’t seem like it’s her MO to be subtle. She’s already physically attacked Destiny.”

“I can’t even start to think about the hidden agenda, Mario. I’m still decoding the obvious.”

“Yeah, well, women can be catty but very meticulous too. Her mess may take months to decode."

"You might be right about that. She wouldn’t let us walk into the building until she got her story out about sleeping with her ex. Then, I get in there and find out its Jacob.”

“Maybe he slept with her in retaliation for you and Destiny sleeping together. We men don’t get over cheating easily. A man that’s used to having his way like Jacob is probably worse,” Mario threw in.

“He’d better not be fucking around with my family because of his ego. The only reason I gave my blessings for her to move my kids to Miami because she convinced me of how good he was to her. I didn’t want to get in the way of her happiness, since she was hell bent that it couldn’t happen with me.”

"Well, that's really all you can do at this point."

"What’s that?"

"Stay out the way."

"That’s what I should do, but after Destiny kissed me tonight, and I found out about—”

“Wait a minute. She kissed you?”

“Yeah, but it was more of a ‘thanks for letting me go,’ goodbye kiss.”

“Uh huh.”

“It shook me up and finding out this mess makes me want to tell her to save her from marrying the jerk. I just don’t want to look like a troublemaker and it backfire on me.”

“And a troublemaker is exactly what you will look like." We both pause on the line, thinking. "Man look, it’s not your place to reveal her fiancé’s unfaithfulness. Y’all already been through this anyway. It’s a replay in reverse. You slept with Destiny, Jacob forgave her. He slept with Justine. What you think she’s gonna do for him?” he asked but didn’t give me a chance to formulate an answer. “She’ll forgive him like he did for her, and you will be stuck looking like the bad guy for trying to break them up.”

“But don’t you think she deserves to know? Jacob knows about what we did, but he gets to walk around like his hands are clean,” I argue.

“What’s done in the dark will come to light. You don’t even have to worry about it.”

“You’re right about that,” I said sounding half persuaded.

“In the end, you’re gonna do what you wanna do about it, but my two cents is that you leave it alone. Just let everybody ride their own waves and come to their own destination. They are not married yet, so just let them be and move on. You know what I always say; every dog has his day."

“True, and that’s the same advice I would give you. But the way I feel about her is nagging at my heart. This bit of info could be a game changer if that dog's day was today.”

“It could change everything in a negative way too. On the upside, she might leave him. Downside, they grow even closer and she pulls away from you for causing her pain. The messenger almost always gets shot. With your kids in her custody, you don’t need that. Think about all of it and I’m with you, whichever way you roll,” Mario said before adding in a Chris Tucker voice, “Damn, this situation is messed up.”

“Now you got Friday jokes? That's how you do me?”

“Nah, we good. Stay up Mont.”

“Thanks bro. Talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone with my thoughts no clearer than they were when I called my boy. I still had my finger hovering over Destiny's name on my phone ready to expose Jacob’s secret. She was always mine. Why should I give up at a time when I had such explosive ammo at my disposal?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Montie

Justine, Justine