Fool and Her Honey (9781622860791) (8 page)

Bertrand had been crazy upset the day before, when I'd texted him from the restaurant to let him know I was having lunch with Candis and Celeste, instead of spending the afternoon with him. I couldn't even half get into the conversation about Candis and this new cross-country boyfriend due to him blowing my phone up with a thousand questions and complaints. At one point I had to get up and leave the table to call him.

“So why didn't I get invited to lunch?” he'd grumbled into the phone.

“Because it's our girls' luncheon, babe,” I'd said calmly, standing in front of the restaurant.

“So you're out, going to places where your man can't come.”

“Bertrand, it's me, Candis, and Celeste. It's not that you
can't
come. It's just our girlfriend time together. You are not one of our girlfriends. Why would you
want
to come?” He hated for me to spend time with other people, and I hated that he hated that.

“To be with you,” he stated in a tone that suggested I should have been able to draw that conclusion on my own.

“To be with me or to keep tabs on me?” I challenged, becoming angry.

“Well, how do I know that you are where you say you are?”

“Why would you think I was lying?” I practically screamed.

“I just ain't never seen someone having a problem with their man wanting to spend time with them. Most women gotta beg for time from their man. Something just don't sound right. That's all I'm saying.”

“Well, you're just going to have to learn to trust me, Bertrand. I'm going back to lunch.”

I didn't mention it to Dina and Celeste, but I'd actually seen Bertrand drive through the restaurant's parking lot yesterday, while we ate and talked. It made my stomach turn. I couldn't help but keep looking around to see if he was going to pop up at our table. He never did. I guess seeing my car in the lot was proof enough. Or maybe he peeked around the corner to see who I was with, and I just didn't see him. When I got home, I was still steamed, but he seemed to be content, like nothing had ever happened.

 

 

I'd just pulled some grilled teriyaki wings from the oven, whipped up some homemade mashed potatoes, and made bacon-wrapped asparagus when Bertrand walked in the door from work.

“Look at you! You got it smelling all good in here!” he commented, walking over to the stove and pulling me into his arms as he grinned at the cooked food. “You gonna mess around and make me marry you.” Our lips met in a standard kiss, but it evolved into one that promised that after dinner, there'd be flesh-flavored dessert. He tightened his arms around me in a hug that emanated love. “I'm so glad you're here,” he whispered. “This feels good.”

“What does?”

“Coming home to someone waiting for me. Coming home to a beautiful”—he stopped to peck my lips between each of his next words—“gorgeous, sexy, smart, incredible, amazing future wife.” With one arm wrapped around my waist, he took my right hand into his left and started swaying to some inaudible music. “I can't wait to marry you,” he whispered.

We hadn't talked any more about moving forward with the wedding in the past two months, even though I'd comfortably moved into his home. It was our very own elephant that lurked around, peeking around corners when it felt like it, like it had just done. I hadn't changed my mind about wanting that extra line added to the so-called prenup, and he wasn't acting like he planned to add it, so it looked like, for all intents and purposes, the wedding was on hold.

Ignoring the elephant, like we'd done for eight straight weeks now, I returned his sentiment with, “I can't wait to marry you, either, babe.” In some place in my heart, I meant it. Bertrand was good to me. We didn't always agree on everything, but he loved me and I knew that. “So what's taking you so long?” I added.

“I'm waiting on you,” he mumbled. By that, he probably meant he was waiting on me to sign my name on that paper.

“I'm ready right now,” I teased.

“Let's go then.”

We kissed and broke our embrace, both knowing we weren't going to go anywhere but to bed and our conversation on tying the knot would be put on the shelf until next time.

“Sit down and let me serve you.” I pushed Bertrand toward the table.

“Let me just wash my hands first.”

I piled food on our plates, sat them on the table, then poured two glasses of sparkling lemonade, took a seat, and waited for Bertrand to return. It seemed to be taking him forever.

“Babe!” I yelled from the kitchen.

“Yeah?” he called back.

“What are you doing? Your food is getting cold.” And I was ready to eat.

“I'm coming. Wait a minute.”

Curious, I got up from the table and trekked toward the bedroom but found him sitting at his desk in his home office. “What are you doing?” I asked a second time, wondering what had his attention.

“Just balancing my checkbook.”

“You have to do that now? I thought we were going to have dinner.”

“We are, babe. Just give me a few minutes to get this done,” he said, keeping his focus on his physical checkbook and his computer monitor, which displayed his online checking account.

“All right.” I turned and went back to the table, but when Bertrand still hadn't made it back after ten minutes, I started getting frustrated. “Babe, come eat!” I yelled down the hallway.

“I'm coming!” he called, his voice echoing.

I was trying not to be petty, but I went through the effort of trying to have a hot meal on the table for him, and now it was stone cold. The food being cold didn't bother me as much as the fact that he seemed not to care about it. I didn't know a man that didn't make his way to the table to eat once the dinner bell was rung. After another ten minutes went by, I was done waiting. Shoving my plate in the microwave, I brought my food back up to an acceptable temperature, then took it in the den, plopped on the couch, and ate in front of the TV, just like I would have done if I were still in my apartment. I was halfway done eating when Bertrand finally came back.

“You couldn't wait for me?” he asked, his tone suggesting surprise and annoyance.

“Tried to,” I answered without looking up.

“I told you I was coming.”

“You were taking too long.” I shrugged. “Your food's been on the table for thirty, thirty-five minutes now.”

“I thought we were going to eat together,” he stated, sounding a bit irritated.

“So did I. You refused to come to the table.” I was just as irritated as he was.

He stood silent, watching me as I forked more food in my mouth, then shook his head and walked out. I thought he was headed to the kitchen to warm his plate and join me in the den, but instead he walked out the front door.

I sat my almost finished plate on the coffee table, quickly washed my hands, and rushed to the door to see where he was headed. Surprisingly, he hadn't gone far. He was sitting on the front porch, looking pensive and upset.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he uttered.

“Why are you sitting outside?”

“Just needed some air.”

I stared at him the same way he'd been staring at me just a few minutes before. He couldn't be trippin' because I ate without him.

“Your food is on the table,” I reminded him. “It's good too!”

“I'll get it later.”

“You're mad at me?”

He shook his head. “I don't think
mad
is the word.”

“You're upset?”

“I guess I'm just a little disappointed,” he answered, turning his head toward me.

“Disappointed in what?”

“I just thought that you would wait for me.”

“How long was I supposed to wait, Bertrand? Until you felt like coming?”

He didn't answer.

“And I thought that you would appreciate me cooking so much that you would sit down and eat, so I guess I'm disappointed too, but it's no big deal.” This was silly. “Your food is still in there, and I'm still here”—I shrugged—“so what's the problem?”

Bertrand remained silent and looked out into the yard. After a few seconds, he shook his head. “There's no problem.”

Rolling my eyes and turning on my heels, I bounced back in the house, finished my food, and washed the dishes. I was cleaning off the stove and countertops when Bertrand came back inside. Without saying a word, he grabbed some plastic wrap from the pantry closet, covered his plate with the clear film, sat it in the refrigerator, and headed to the bedroom. By the time I finished the kitchen and did some general straightening up in the other rooms, Bertrand had showered and turned in for bed, and when I tried to nestle up to him, naked and ready, he stiff-armed me.

All I was doing was putting away the laundry. I'd not had any appointments for the past three days, and I couldn't just sit around the house, doing nothing. Since I was all set up to be Bertrand's wife, it wasn't crazy that I'd be doing stuff that a housewife would do . . . like cooking meals and washing clothes. So honestly, that was what I was doing. Okay. I was snooping. Well, I was doing a little bit of both. But Bertrand didn't have to know that.

I opened his drawer to put away a stack of T-shirts. Usually, I just folded the laundry and let Bertrand put his own things away, but not this day. I called it doing a little extra, which included looking through the entire drawer. And that was when I found them. A pair of baby blue French-cut panties that didn't belong to me, nicely folded and wedged between two T-shirts. I stared at them for two minutes, wondering what the hell they were doing there. Who did these panties belong to? How long had they been there? Was this man cheating on me? And now what was I going to do? If I asked him about it and he was seeing someone else, he would only lie about it. And if he wasn't seeing anyone, I didn't know that I would believe him.

I did go through every single drawer, looking for whatever else was there. I didn't find anything else that looked suspicious, but that one pair of panties was enough. But what was it enough for? Enough to make me leave him? Enough to ruin our relationship? That all depended on how he reacted when I confronted him.

It was only four in the morning when my body decided I'd had enough sleep. Although I tried to go back to sleep so I wouldn't be bombarded with my thoughts, the sandman had apparently finished his rounds and wasn't working a second shift. Although fully awake, I tossed and turned, and Bertrand began to stir.

“What's wrong, babe?” he mumbled.

“I can't sleep.” I guess his interpretation of that was I was horny, because he grabbed my hand and placed it on his groin. I hid my sigh, and I was really going to try to get my mind together to have sex, but I couldn't do it, knowing what I knew. I withdrew my hand after only a few seconds of fondling.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“We need to talk,” I began. That was the only thing I could come up with.

Bertrand sighed a sleepy sigh first, then replied, “About what?”

Without notice, I reached for the lamp on the nightstand and clicked the light on, blinding both of us momentarily.

“You need to turn on the light?” he asked, wincing.

“Yeah, because I need to see your face, and I'm going to need your full attention.”

I waited for him to pull his hand away from his eyes, and though he had them scrunched into narrow slits, he looked at me. “What is it?”

A sigh preceded my next actions, which were pulling myself out of bed, walking over to the chest of drawers that held his clothes, opening the third one from the top, and pulling out the pair of panties that were not mine.

“Why are these in your drawer?” I asked, holding them up with just a pinch of my nails.

“What is it?” he huffed, his voice still heavy with sleep.

I flung the panties at him, and they landed on his chest. Bertrand glanced down at them, then casually picked them up.

“They yours, babe,” he said with crinkled brows.

“If they were mine, I wouldn't be asking you about them.” I paused, studying his face. He looked both confused and upset. “So whose are they?”

“What do you mean? You're the only woman that lives here. They gotta be yours.”

“But they are not, and they are in your drawer. So whose are they?” I asked again.

“Babe, you waking me up in the middle of the night to ask me about some underwear?” He sighed and let his eyes scan the ceiling, as if the answer would be found imprinted above his head. “I don't know.”

“Yes, you do,” I insisted. “They didn't just appear there by themselves.”

“They probably been there for I don't know how long,” he said. “I haven't been through those drawers to clean stuff out of them.”

“So you're trying to tell me these are Miranda's stank drawers,” I said, referencing the woman he'd dated before we started dating. I instantly regretted giving him a possible answer. “What are you doing? Holding on to them for old times' sake?”

“No, I'm not holding on to them,” he said, defending himself.

“So what are they doing here? Still. We've been together for a whole year now, and you mean to tell me that you at no point in time saw those nasty panties in your drawer, in the bedroom where you and your future wife sleep, and you haven't thought enough to throw them out?”

“I just told you, I haven't been through those drawers. I don't know all of what is in there.”

“So you didn't think enough of me to clean up your old mess before I moved in here with you?”

“Not really. I had no idea they were there,” he said.

I wasn't appeased.

“Those things are as old as dirt.”

This felt like some cheating Cameron garbage all over again. But suppose he was telling the truth? Maybe they were old and were just some leftovers, but still I shouldn't have found them. I didn't know what to say at that point, not knowing if I should accept his story or not.

“Babe. I promise you, it's nothing.” He threw the covers off his body while grabbing the underwear and put them in a small wastebasket across the room.

“Don't you think you need to be taking that mess outside?” My hands were on my hips as I shot invisible daggers from my eyes.

Bertrand sighed loudly but didn't say a word. He pulled on a pair of shorts that were draped across the chaise, grabbed the panties from the trash, and left the bedroom, me trailing just a few feet behind him. I followed him to the back door, and seconds after he stepped outside, I heard the rumbling of the trash receptacle. When Bertrand came back in, I was still standing there with my arms folded across my chest. He walked past me, back into our bedroom, removed his shorts, and got back in bed without saying a single word.

I stood just inside our bedroom with my arms still folded, but with nothing to say, staring at him. After a full minute went by, he rolled to my side of the bed and turned out the light, leaving me standing in the dark.

“You coming back to bed?” he asked, as if nothing had happened.

That made me angry. He acted like it should have been over, but I wasn't ready for it to be over.

“How do you expect me just to jump right back in the bed with you when you've been saving some woman's drawers for a souvenir!” I blurted.

“I wasn't saving them, Dina,” he said calmly as he rolled over and punched his pillow for comfort. “I told you, I didn't realize they were there. They are outside in the trash now. That's it. It's over. It's done.”

“How do you think it's done? I find some wench's underwear in your drawer, and just because you put them outside, it's over? All she's gonna do is give you another pair.”

“Dina, you're being ridiculous.”

“Oh, so if you find some boxers over in my drawers that don't belong to you, you're going to be okay with that?” I argued. “That's not going to be an issue for you?”

“Babe, what's really wrong?”

“What do you mean, what's wrong?” I fired back. “You don't see nothing wrong with you having them here in the first place?”

“Of course I do,” he responded. “But they are gone now, and that's the most I can do about it. If I had known they were in there earlier, I would have thrown them out. I didn't know. Now they're gone. Can we go back to sleep now? Because I have to be up for work in just a couple of hours.”

I wanted to say something more, but what could be said? He was right. The issue was resolved for the most part. But only if I chose to believe what he'd just told me, as I had no way of knowing how long those panties had been there, since I'd never actually gone through his drawers before. I couldn't even say what prompted me to go through his drawers this time. Just curiosity, I guess. Now that I seemed to have found and opened Pandora's box, I didn't know what to do.