Respect Me, Part 1 by Nia Arthurs
Jerrison
“Did she grab your hair too?”
I glare at Patrick Riche. “You don’t have to sound so excited.”
My best friend and business partner flashes a grin. The gold watch on his hand glints just as brightly as his wolfish smile.
He slips broad fingers around a shot glass. “I don’t see any bruises on that pretty face of yours, Jer.”
“Screw you.” I flip him off.
“Come on. Don’t act like you’re not scared of her.” He pauses. Leans forward. “Doesn’t your wife box?”
“She enjoys the sport, but she’s never competed.”
Scrubbing his thick, black beard, Patrick muses, “I’m sure I saw her at competitions before you two got together.”
“Her dad’s a trainer. It’s how we met.” I remember that moment with startling clarity. Harriet stood outside the ring, wearing sexy shorts, heels and a bulky red jacket. Her dark fingers curled around the ropes and she was shouting at her boxer to get up.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Couldn’t stop thinking. Scheming. Dreaming up ways to approach the spitfire with the long hair, dark skin, and red jacket.
“Harriet’s tough as nails.” Patrick grabs my shot glass and knocks it back like medicine. His face crumples as the bitterness hits his tongue.
“You’re acting like I don’t know that.” I scoff.
“So why didn’t she beat you up after ruining Cindy’s car?” He gives me a once-over. “You should be in the ICU right now.”
“I told her we’d talk later and then I drove off.”
“She hasn’t called you?”
“Harriet?”
“The other girl.” Patrick arches an eyebrow. “To warn you she’s suing your wife for damages. Sounds like she could even press charges for assault.”
“I think she’s too scared to do anything.” My shoulders lift in a half-hearted shrug.
Knowing Cindy, she doesn’t have the guts to go toe-to-toe against my wife. She’s the type with a million shallow causes, but there’s nothing that she would die for.
“Poor thing,” Patrick murmurs.
“You feel sorry for her?”
“For you. She was hot and now you’ll have to break up with her.”
“No need for a breakup. We didn’t have that kind of understanding anyway, so it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. For her or for me.”
“You heartless bastard.” Patrick gestures to the bartender.
“Nah. She’ll be fine. She’s young.” Besides, I don’t really care about Cindy right now.
“Sounds like she wasn’t all that.” Patrick slides a refilled shot glass at me, amusement clear in his expression.
“She was fun.” Cindy’s stamina was something to behold. She could bounce on top of me, doing all kinds of amazing things with her tongue… “She was great in bed. Loud. Flexible.” My heart jumps just thinking about the positions I twisted that girl into. “But her conversations were getting absolutely painful.”
Patrick burst out laughing.
“I’m serious!” Talking to Cindy was like listening to nails on a chalkboard. It wasn’t just her voice, although that was so high-pitched, it often felt like I was pounding into a cartoon rather than a real-live woman, but her interests were so far removed from mine we were the walking example of an age gap.
I’m too old to care about the latest social media trends and celebrity gossip. Her immaturity made me lose brain cells. After a while, I told her not to talk around me. She thought it was some kind of kink, but I needed to stay geared up to bed her and hearing her prattling on was the equivalent of a cold shower.
“I suggest you rethink that strategy and talk to her.” Patrick waves a hand. “Women are emotional nutcases, man. If you don’t go after her now, she’ll think you didn’t ‘choose her’ or whatever.”
“Nah, I’m cutting my losses.”
“You mean that?”
I stare forlornly at the counter. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about than Cindy. Harriet’s pissed off. I’m not sure what she’s thinking and I need to focus on this storm before I go chasing new ones.”
“So…”
“So what?”
“So what happens next, homey?” Patrick nudges me with his elbow. “What you gon’ do with your wife?”
“I’ll go back home and talk to her. When she’s no longer the She-Hulk.”
Patrick bursts out laughing. “She-Hulk. That’s rich.”
“Pat, it was like a horror movie.” My eyes narrow. “I’ve never seen her lose it like that. She was crying and smashing rear view mirrors…” I exhale loudly. “That woman is nuts.”
Patrick fixes his gaze on me. “You almost sound worried.”
“I am worried.”
“For more than your life,” he amends. Lifting a hand, he inspects the wedding ring on his finger. “It sounds like you care about her.”
“The hell does that mean?” I straighten in my chair and stare him down in challenge. “If I didn’t care about my wife, I would have divorced her long ago.”
He presses a fist to his thick lips and studies me. Patrick’s a tall, intimidating man with skin so black it’s almost blue. He wears his hair cropped close to his head and meticulously forms every wave with gel and a wooden brush.
He used to work as a bouncer at a popular club in the city. He did such a good job keeping the riff-raff out, they promoted him to manager. Patrick is scary good at taking one look at a person and predicting whether they’re trouble or not.
I meet his sharp perusal with a glower of my own. “You got something to say?”
“Why’d you get caught?”
The sigh that rushes out of me is loud enough to get the entire bar’s attention. Heads whip around to observe the idiot who couldn’t keep an eye on his wife.
Patrick slaps me on the back. “If you care that damn much about Harriet, then you need to stay one-step ahead so drama like this doesn’t happen.” He waves his hand wildly as he lectures me. “My old man always told me ‘learn to control your women’.”
“I don’t need your lessons.”
“Clearly you do,” he says with a cocky toss of his head.
“No one can control Harriet,” I mumble, running a hand through my hair. “Trust me.”
“Not your wife, homey.” He smacks my chest with the underside of his hand. “Your women. The ones who need to stay out of sight so you can have a happy life.”
My voice climbs. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Harriet set a damn trap for me. I didn’t plan to expose anything.”
“Nah, that’s not on your wife. That’s on you.” Patrick sticks a finger out in my direction. “You were obviously sloppy about your movements and that’s what led to today’s events. In the future, you’ve gotta be more subtle. Take me for example.” He stabs a finger on his chest, rustling one of his five gold chains. “I don’t play those ‘lock my cell’ games. I’ve got two phones. One for my girl. One for my wife. She can check that number anytime. It builds trust.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s it?”
“I wasn’t done.” He lifts his index finger and thumb. “I’ve got two different credit cards—one my wife knows about and one she doesn’t.”
“Some of us don’t want a complex system just to talk to a woman, Patrick. You’re living a double life like that’s freaking normal.”
“All men are living a double life, J. You think anybody’s sticking with their wives anymore? Nah. Even if it’s just porn, they’re thinking of other women.” He chuckles and twirls his shot glass around. The clear liquor sloshes through the cup. “Politicians. Movie stars. Deacons. Hell, pastors have a long, holy history of bending their secretaries over the desk.” The bar’s overhead lights glitter in his black eyes. “It’s not that complicated unless you make it so.” He taps his finger on the counter. “Our job is to give our wives the illusion of being the only one and, in exchange, they take care of our homes, help run our businesses, and have our children.”
Something about his words leave a film of mud on my skin. “I don’t know, Pat.”
“Trust me. It’s foolproof.” His lips quirk up as he pops his collar. “I make sure I shower real good, change my clothes, and have a smoke so my wife can’t smell nothing on me.” Leaning back, Patrick hoists his chin in the air. “Wifey don’t have to know, man. But it’s your fault if she finds out.”
His words rattle around in my head when I catch a cab back to the house.
The lights are on and my throat immediately tightens with nerves.
Harriet’s home.
I step inside and listen to the quiet. My eyes sweep the foyer and land on a pile of suitcases sitting primly at the door like trash waiting to be taken curbside.
Tension locks my shoulders until their stiff. “Harriet, what the hell is this?”
“What the hell does it look like, Jerrison?” My wife storms out of the kitchen, her sharp eyes looking just as dangerous as the knife in her hands. She smiles cruelly. “Did you think I’d take that sitting down?”
“Harriet, put the knife down and stop acting crazy.”
“You bring a woman into my home.” Her voice drops to a threatening whisper. “You put your hands around her. Drank wine with her. And who knows what you would have done to her if I hadn’t come home?”
“Listen to me.” I raise both hands. “You totally misunderstood.”
The lies pour out of me almost as easily as breathing. I’ve defaulted to repair mode and all I can focus on, in this moment, is putting this marriage back together with tape.
Harriet takes a step toward me. She’s wearing a long, white dress with flowers all over it. The fabric flows gracefully down her curves.
She’s gained a little weight since we got married. Gotten pudgy around her arms and shoulders. Even her cheeks have a little more on them than the woman I married.
But she’s still sexy as hell. Those light brown eyes are the color of honey in the morning. Dark hair frames her heart-shaped face. Most of her lipstick smeared off, revealing her plump brown lips.
Hell no. I don’t want to trade my gorgeous wife in for a Cindy and that truth hammers into my heart with the force of a hurricane.
Harriet stops right in front of me and I stare into her eyes, not flinching or backing away.
Her chest rises and falls with every breath. “Those suitcases are empty.”
My body tightens even as relief flows through me. I got tricked. Again.
“But,” Harriet lifts the knife, “if you continue on like this, I’m leaving. Do you understand, Jer?”
I grab the hand holding the knife and caress it lightly, ignoring the way my body hardens at the touch of her skin. Turning swiftly before she sees how turned on I am, I pick up her suitcase and, wordlessly, take them up the stairs.
