It's Only Love (The Matthews Family)

“You can either walk over there right now and apologize for disrespecting her, or one of us is going to jail and the other one will be in the hospital,” I said to him, and the woman behind the bars eye’s got big. “Choose quickly.”

He looked at me, nodded his head a few times, and then he laughed. After that I stood at the bar and watched as big man walked over to Natasha. I knew that he had apologized to her when her beautiful smile returned to her beautiful face.

“Thank you,” I said when he came back to the bar.

“No problem. And I want to apologize to you for disrespecting your woman.”

“She’s not mine,” I said sadly, and hoped he didn’t notice. “We’re just friends.”

Now I know what you’re thinking: I do.

You wanna know how I know?

Because I

’m thinking the same thing. And trust me, I have had this conversation with myself ever since I bumped into Natasha that night after Carmen Jones.

“You feeling all this for a woman that is not even yours?”

Stupid, right?

You don’t have to answer, I already know.

I’ve told myself that this is going somewhere, but to this point, Natasha hasn’t given me any indication that she has any intention of leaving Lloyd. We talk to each other throughout the day. Then we go out, we do things together; we have the best time. And then we say good night, she goes home, we reset and do it all again the next day.

We’re friends. And you know what? This is exactly what I asked for.

So even if I can’t have you, I would at least like to be a friend . . . for now.

But here’s the thing, I know there’s something there. Whether she says it aloud or not, I know that she is feeling me the way I’m feeling her.

Anyway, we were having our annual family cookout at Amelia Island State Park tomorrow and Rhonda had made her famous linguine salad. She wasn’t going to make it this year because she had to go out of town on business, so she told me to come and pick up the food and keep it at my house, which wouldn’t have been a problem, except she also made a “big-ass fruit salad”—her words. I told her that I didn’t have room for it.

“No problem,” Rhonda said. “I’ll call Paul and tell him to come get the fruit salad.” Because Rhonda generally doesn’t ask.

When I got off work and got in my car, I called Paul to see if he was going to meet me at Rhonda’s house. We had been talking for a while, when I noticed something funny about the way he sounded.

“You’re kinda touchy today, Paul. Something bothering you?”

“Nothing really, Vic. I’ve just been having a rush of conscience lately, that’s all.”

“What about?”

“About a lot of things;, but mostly about me and Bria.”

“You still messing with Bria?”

“No. Not since the last time.”

“Oh, I was about to say.”

“No, man, I haven’t seen or talked to her since the wedding.”

“So why are you tripping about it?” I asked, not believing we were having this conversation, because I thought he put this behind him. I had hoped marriage would end his thing with Bria and that he would concentrate on the good thing he had.

“I just feel bad about it, that’s all. I’ve never cheated on Vanessa before.”

“Really, Paul, never?”