Inside Out (22 page)

A few months after the house sold, Nathalie was finally sleeping through the night for the most part and though Tracey loved being a mother, she felt a constant pressure and strain. The girls had noticed and had orchestrated a girls' night out. Garrett was going to take Nathalie for the night.

She glanced at her reflection again. She wore a casual white button-down over a safari-style skirt that fell just above mid-thigh, showing lots of leg. Probably too much leg for a woman who was still five pounds away from pre-pregnancy weight. Probably too much leg for a mommy, period. But Nathalie's daddy did love her legs. And Tracey wanted to unnerve him. She really did. All this cold distance between them was also a drain on her. She thought that maybe a good fight would help her get the tension out of her system. No matter what had happened between them in the past, flashing that much leg was
bound
to get something started.

“Do you think Daddy will like this, Nathalie?” she asked when she realized the baby was awake and trying to roll herself over on the bed. Tracey scooped her up before she could and put her in the pack and play with her teething ring.

Tracey expected Garrett any minute to pick her up for the weekend. Though he saw her nearly every day, Garrett attempted to take Nathalie every weekend. Attempted because sometimes Tracey just didn't feel she could let her go. Sometimes the baby was colicky or running a fever or just cranky, and she didn't want to let her out of her sight.

Garrett fought Tracey every time. It amazed Tracey that two people with law backgrounds never once thought to go to court over the baby. Tracey's parents tried to force her daily. They just
fought.
Usually he gave in after twelve rounds, but about two months before, he'd just threatened to stay over for the weekend if she wouldn't let him have the baby. And he'd done so. He'd done it a couple of weekends in a row, and even though the tension was still there between them, Tracey started to believe that there was more. God help her, she started to want more. But then, for the last couple of weeks, he hadn't tried to stay. He'd even relented when she told him that Nathalie had a bit of a temperature and she didn't want her out in the air. He'd held her, kissed her, played with her, then gone.

Tracey didn't know what to expect this evening, but Nathalie was up and playful, and Tracey was prepared to let her go when Garrett asked, especially since the girls were coming over.

The doorbell rang. She grinned at the baby and opened the door. In walked both Monica and Angie. Angie was
twitching,
and Moni looked as if her patience had run completely out.

“Oh, God, what is it?”

“Is your computer booted up? Oh, my God, is it booted up?” Angie asked.

“Yeah.” Tracey questioned Moni with a glance. She shrugged.

“Look at it. He
just
put these pics up on his profile.” Angie pointed to the screen.

Tracey leaned down to see. Breathing just stopped happening. Garrett Nathaniel Hinson Atkins was laughing with his arm around someone. Then he was holding
someone's
hand. Tracey gaped at them. Her bottom lip started to quiver and she clamped down on it with her teeth.

“According to
her
profile, she's a divorce attorney,” Angie announced.

Tracey couldn't take her eyes off the woman in the photo. She was taller than Tracey, slimmer than her, with bigger breasts than hers, even with the breast feeding. And, oh, most importantly, she was darker than Tracey. She wore a hot pink, baby doll dress that fell to just above her knees. She wore high, skinny-heeled stilettos. A long ponytail fell over her shoulder. She looked like an underwear model, and not the classy kind.

And Garrett looked different. Gone were his golf shirt and khakis. He was wearing a designer t-shirt, stylish jeans and sneakers. He looked a bit more
urban
than Tracey had ever seen him, and she was at a loss as to what to say.

Angie turned around and looked at her friend and saw something in Tracey's expression that made her say, “It's not as serious as it looks. They've only been on like
two
dates. I don't think anything has happened.”

“Her picture is next to my
daughter's
,” Tracey growled.

“That's just because they're in chronological order and…” Angie trailed off before she chirped, “Legs much? Damn, Tracey. You're a hot mama!”

Monica still didn't say anything.

Tracey wasn't paying attention. The caption beneath Nathalie's picture read, “This is the real lady in my life right here.”

The doorbell rang again. Then the door opened, and Rett came through it. Immediately, he lifted Nathalie from the pack-and-play. He hugged her too tight, as usual, but she only giggled and sucked on his chin—the traitor. She gurgled and got a grip on his hair. All Tracey could think was that if he were to take her baby around that woman, they would look like a family. Nathalie looked like she could be theirs. Behind Tracey, she heard Angie click off the monitor.

“Do you have her things together?” His eyes flicked down to her legs for only a fraction of a second. If she'd blinked, she would have missed it. But his reaction no longer seemed to matter.

“I'll get them,” Tracey said and moved into the bedroom. Her mind worked at a fevered pace as she tried to figure out what was going on. Garrett and a black woman that wasn't Tracey. Did they sleep together? Where did they go together? Garrett and Tracey never went anywhere. What did they
do
?

She finished packing Nathalie's bag and found that she couldn't bring herself to go back into that room just yet. She didn't understand it, she honestly didn't. If the woman had been white, maybe she could have understood it, but not this. Her stomach churned. She went into her bathroom and closed the door. She leaned against it and tried to come to her senses. Why did it matter that she was black?

Tracey heard a knock.

“Tracey, what are you doing in here?” Moni.

“Getting the baby's things together.” Tracey opened the door.

“So he's seeing someone. So it's a black someone.” As usual, she got to the heart of things. Tracey nodded and closed her eyes as she leaned against the doorjamb. “He wasn't going to stay single for the rest of his life, Tracey. And for that matter, neither should you.”

“I didn't expect him to.”

“Or is this about the fact that you're not the only fly in the milk anymore?”

“Moni,” Tracey gritted through her teeth.

“That girl is just as black as you are, and it seems to me like you have a problem with that.” Tracey squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, to the brink of giving herself a headache. “I'm just stating facts.”

“What's goin' on in here?” Angie asked, coming up behind Moni.

“I hear, ‘once you go black, you don't ever go back.' ” Angie's eyes crinkled at the sides as she giggled.

Monica burst out laughing; Tracey did not. She stepped out of the bathroom.

“I don't think she's his girlfriend,” Angie said.

A thought occurred to Tracey. “He better not be bringing her around my daughter. He can't just bring women in and out of Nathalie's life.”

“Has he ever brought another woman around her before that you know of?” Moni asked.

She wasn't even asking Tracey. She was asking Angie, who thankfully said no.

“Okay then. Trace, this is a girls' night. Let's just get out of here and have some drinks and not think about it.”

“Yeah, girl, and can I tell you, you look hot? legs.” Then Angie added, “Rett's always going to do what's best for Nathalie, so don't worry about it,” Angie added.

She knew it was true. There was obviously no point in waiting around for him anymore. But until that point, no one could have told Tracey that she
was
waiting around for him.

She realized then what was at the heart of her problem with this new chick being black. Tracey knew for a fact that he had never felt about any of the white girls he'd dated as he did about her—that is, when he felt that way about her. Tracey figured that being who she was, she had something they never could, something special that made Garrett want only her. She didn't put herself and those girls in the same category at all, even though she knew in her head she should have. Then here came this veritable black siren, and she felt that any grip she might have had on him was loosening. Garrett was slipping through her fingers.

How stupid was that?

Speak of the devil. He darkened the doorway. “Is Nathalie's stuff ready?” He looked over at Tracey as if
she
had done something.

None of them looked at him.

He gritted his teeth.

“Is this it?” he asked, pointing at the bag on the bed. She nodded. He took the bag and inspected its contents. “Where's her bobo?”

“She had it in the living room. It's probably in the pack-and-play.”

He gave a curt nod, then surveyed all three friends with a glare and went back into the living room. They all automatically moved to the door and watched him buckle Nathalie into her car seat.

Then they all went into the living room. And Angie, well, she pulled an Angie.

“I saw you updated your online profile with new pics this afternoon,” she said.

Garrett looked up, not at her, at Tracey. His lion eyes skewered her where she stood and she could have sworn he could read her mind.

“Karen is just a friend from the firm, Angie,” he said, but he was
looking
at Tracey.

“She doesn't
look
like a lawyer.” Angie raised one eyebrow.

“She's not a lawyer. She's studying to be a divorce attorney. Currently, she's the office manager, as if that makes a difference.”

Then he left.

And then the three girlfriends left.

* * *

When the ladies got back to the house, they were all finally relaxed and feeling no pain. But when Tracey saw Rett's car outside, she panicked. She rushed into the house ahead of the girls in search of her baby… who turned out to be sleeping like an angel in her crib in her room. After checking her over to make sure she was okay, Tracey went in search of Rett.

He was in her bedroom, in her bed.

“What's going on? Is the baby okay?” Monica asked as she came to stand beside her.

“My darling baby has a sniffle, but she is perfect,” Rett responded with a lazy smile.

Angie came in behind Monica. “Are you nekkid?”

Showing his maturity, Garrett stuck his tongue out at her.

“I was waiting for Tracey,” Rett slurred as he struggled to sit up in Tracey's bed.

“Are you drunk, Rett?” Monica asked the question that was on all their minds.

“Yes, yes, I am,” he replied as he gave up the struggle to sit up and lay back on the pillows. Monica rolled her eyes and Angie expelled a labored expletive.

Garrett's eyes snapped to her, then to Tracey as a twisted—but sexy as hell—smile lit his face and he said, “Precisely.”

Tracey's eyes bucked when she heard that.

“Would you like to, Tracey? I know you would. So call off the attack dogs and we'll get down to it.” Tracey bit down harshly on her bottom lip, feeling the pain shoot clear through her chin. Monica was about to say something in her defense but Tracey couldn't let her. Shamefully, she already felt moisture starting between her thighs. Mortification for the guilty was only worse when he or she was being championed.

“He's drunk,” Tracey said steadily, even though inside she wasn't anywhere near steady. “You guys go ahead. Petey got the guest room ready earlier, so go on up to the house. I'll make sure Rett gets home okay.”

“You have got to be out your mind.” That from Monica.

“If you're worried about him driving, I can take him home,” Angie offered.

“You've been drinking, too.”

“No,” Garrett drawled. “Y'all run along now, me and Tracey got something to do.”

If she were white, Tracey's hot face would have surpassed red. Instead, she—hopefully—maintained her deceptive calm.

“Tracey, we can kick him out,” Monica said. She still had never seen Garrett at his best.

“You are more than welcome to try,” he warned. “But Tracey and I are going to have consenting sexual intercourse before I leave this house no matter what you do. Remember exit 89, baby?”

Oh, dear God, help me!
Tracey thought. He said it, and she did remember, and she wanted it so bad, so
suddenly
, her body started to throb.

“Go ahead, guys,” she urged them again. “Don't aggravate him anymore. You see he's itching for a fight.”

“Are you sure?” both Angie and Monica asked.

“Yeah.”

“Can I take the baby up to the house with me at least?” Angie asked. Angie had stayed over a few times by then. Tracey was amazed it had worked out so well. Never once had she heard her friend curse in her parents' presence, and she had even started attending church with her mother and aunts, even without Tracey.

Tracey shook her head. “I've hardly had anything to drink and she's sleeping. She'll be fine in her room.”
Besides, he won't do anything crazy with her here.

Reluctantly, they left her standing in the doorway of her bedroom wondering what she was going to do with him. “Garrett…” she started tentatively.

“Tracey,” he answered with a half-smile.

“What do you want? It's obvious you don't want anything to do with me anymore, so what's this?”

“Tracey,” he replied tiredly. “If you remember, I told you once that I would always want you, that I loved your body. That hasn't changed.”

“Not like this. You're drunk.”

“Tracey, please don't fight me.” His expression changed and something about it let her know, maybe because she knew him so well by then, that he wasn't nearly as drunk as he would have her believe. He was serious. “You need this, and God knows I need this.”