“I love you, too, and I won’t lose you over this.”
Geren closed his eyes, trying to fight back tears. Tempest kissed him gently on each eyelid and then on the mouth. Their lips parted, and a passionate kiss ensued.
Geren ended the kiss suddenly and started for his car, parked a few spaces down from the building entrance. “Go back inside. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of something,” was his only reply.
Tempest watched him pull off, knowing exactly where he was going and hoping his mission turned out a success.
CHAPTER 23
them there are fightin’ words
dvontè knew it had to be Geren the second he heard the banging on his door. He came out of the bedroom and took a deep breath before unlatching the dead bolt, hoping they wouldn’t end up having a full-blown altercation.
“Geren, what’s up, man?” Dvontè asked cautiously, as if he didn’t already know.
Geren stormed into his apartment. “Don’t even pretend you don’t know why I’m here! I just left Tempest’s, and Janessa’s an emotional wreck!”
They stood in the foyer for a few seconds, shooting daggers at each other with their eyes.
Dvontè kicked the door shut with his left foot and headed into the living room. “Janessa knew what this shit was about from jump! I never promised to love or respect any damn body! She just needs to forget about me and move on!”
“Forget about you?” Geren barked, walking right on his tail. “How in the world can she forget about you when she’s carrying your child inside of her?”
“Not for long,” Dvontè stated confidently. “I’m hoping she takes my suggestion and gets rid of it. I made myself perfectly clear. I have no intention of becoming a daddy.” He sat on the couch and picked up the opened beer off his coffee table. He’d been drinking heavily for the last couple of days, trying to make the whole nightmare go away. “Not now, anyway,” he added. “Maybe further on down the road, when I find the right woman.”
Geren sat on the coffee table, facing him. “Do you even hear yourself? First of all, we’re not discussing an it. We’re talking about a human being. Secondly, you should’ve never made love to her if she wasn’t right for you.”
“Made love?” Dvontè smirked, raising an eyebrow in disgust. “Hmph, we never ‘made love.’ We fucked. Pure and simple.”
“I can’t believe you,” Geren said, equally disgusted. “I knew you were a serious poon hound, but I never thought you’d turn your back on a baby.”
“Well, I guess you don’t know me half as much as you think you do.”
Geren folded his arms across his chest, trying to hide the fists his hands had involuntarily become. “I guess not,” he agreed. “All of this time, you sure had me fooled.”
Dvontè didn’t want to lose their lifelong friendship over what he felt amounted to a bunch of bullshit and drama. He took another swig of the beer, trying to calm his own flared temper. “Look, Geren, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ve been through this drama before. I’m more than willing to shell out the cash to get this over and done with.”
The word before hit Geren like a ton of bricks. “What do you mean, you’ve been through this before?”
Dvontè sighed, realizing his slip. He mistakenly dug up a past he intended to leave buried. “You remember that fine girl Yvonnè from high school?”
“Yeah, I remember her. What about Yvonnè?”
“She and I used to kick it every now and then.”
“I never knew that,” Geren said, recalling Yvonnè Lewis, a timid bookworm who seemed scared of her own shadow most of the time. He couldn’t imagine her hooking up with Dvontè. He was nothing but a pussy bandit, even back then. “You never mentioned it. How come?”
“There was nothing to mention. It was strictly a sex thing. That’s when I first figured out that most of the shy-acting sistahs are really kinky in the bedroom.” Geren rolled his eyes and sighed. Dvontè could tell he didn’t want the long, drawn-out version, so he got to the point. “Anyway, she lied about being on the pill and got knocked up. I pawned a couple pieces of my stereo equipment and took care of my business.”
Geren thought back to the day Dvontè went into hysterics after they went into his garage after school and some of the equipment he used for mixing rap albums had disappeared. “You said your stuff was stolen. You called the police, filled out a report, and everything.”
Dvontè threw his hands up in the air, spilling a little of the beer on his red Fubu tee. “I had to make up something to tell my moms. She would’ve strung my ass up if she knew the real deal. She always told me to keep my dick in my pants before I got someone pregnant. You remember all those lectures she used to give both of us around the kitchen table?” he asked rhetorically, knowing there was no way either he or Geren could ever forget them. She used to practically go ballistic on them.
“I can understand about your mother, but why’d you lie to me?”