Page 32 of Only You

Fuck these niggas we shouldn’t have to do all this.

JoJo

That would be how we got here, use your brain, Tay.

LMAO I’ll text you an address when I leave here.

JoJo

See you then.

I walked around, practically working for an hour, before Bryson and I decided to head out. I didn’t know who Ms. Denise thought she was fooling, but I didn’t mind because I was ready to return. I discreetly scanned around the parking lot and as far as the eye could see in every direction.

There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary until I spotted him while I placed Breezy back in his car seat. As Devin had promised, Stephon was sitting in a car I’d never seen before, a block away. To the untrained eye, you would never know that he was there, but spying was my specialty, and I would have chosen a similar spot. I smiled at the fact that we were so much alike. Jourdan hated recon and stakeouts, but I enjoyed the solitude of it all. While she was on my mind, I took out my phone and texted her a meeting location. Hopefully Stephon stayed his ass on this side of the city.

I pulled into the lot of the small sandwich bar, Panini Grille, that I’d found online. It was Italian. I hadn’t explored much of Cypress, but I was a sucker for good food, and I hope this one delivered, because I was starving. I searched around the lot until I spotted Jourdan’s car, which was parked beside it. Before I could cut the engine, she and Angel were already hopping out.

Damn! Is Stephon really that bad?

“Tay, please hurry up and get your ass out of that car,” I laughed because she was serious.

“Ok, damn,” I said. We both hurriedly gathered the kids and our bags and headed inside. The bar was quaint and was reminiscent of a traditional diner. Dark wooden booths lined with black leather lined the edge of the room’s windows and exposed brick walls. Small matching wooden tables sat in the interior and surrounded the order counter in the center.

Jourdan and I headed to place our orders. We briefly reviewed the menu, made our selections, and were informed that our sandwiches and drinks would be brought to the table we had chosen. We chose a booth near the front window and door, sliding the car seats in before we did. We wanted to see the parking lot in case Stephon decided to make an appearance.

“What did you find out? Did you check that ho?”

“Damn, jump right in, then,” I said as I pulled my laptop from my bag. Jourdan sat on the other side, her attitude very much unamused. I unlocked and began typing as I continued the conversation.

“As soon as I walked into the hospital, I was politely told that Brice was with a patient, and that I would need to be escorted back by him once he was available. I mean it’s a hospital and I wasn’t expecting to be granted access anyway but the moment I told them I was Brice’s wife it was like a damn switch flipped.”

“Hold up, wife, did I miss something?”

“Girl, no, we are not married, but Brice has told everyone we meet that I’m his wife, including the ho I went to check. So I just ran with it. Anyways they were all acting like they’d fucked him at some point with the microaggression they were dishing out before a doctor named Derek Clinton came and started flirting. Of course, he hadn’t heard that I was Brice’s wife, or maybe he did, but he didn’t give a damn. Nonetheless, he called himself taking me to find him. I was playing along, you know how we do. Then Brice pops up out of nowhere, and Derek has his hand on my elbow. I thought Brice would lose it.”

“Yeah, that checks out he acted an ass about you before you two got together,” Jourdan said and laughed.

“Mind you, while all this was happening, I hadn’t seen Ivy; that’s her name. Brice takes me to the locker room and locks the door.”

“Locks the door? Tay, y’all were getting busy in them people’s hospital?”

“Damn it JoJo stay focused!” I said and laughed.

“Apparently, if the door is locked, no one is supposed to enter; however, someone uses a key, and guess who it was. Ivy’s ass. Before she could come in, she was stopped by Dr. Clinton. It pissed meoff because she didn’t even know I was there but somehow knew Brice was in there with the door locked and she was going to go in behind him and do what?” The server brought our sandwiches and drinks in the middle of my spiel. We both said grace and took several bites.

“Damn, this is good,” I said, inspecting the sandwich like it would magically tell me why it tasted like Italian chef Mario Batali had made it himself.

“Right! But we’re getting off task,” Jourdan said as she took several more bites. I did the same before I continued.

“Then I remembered that someone had drugged me and started to put two and two together, and so did Brice. So, now we’re turned up. We had to calm down because there were just too many eyes. I was introduced to one last person before I decided to leave. There was nothing I could do there anyway,” I said, taking a deep breath. Then I turned my laptop around and showed her a picture and an address.

“Now this is the fun I like to have. When can we make a move?” she asked.

“I don’t know, because you know they aren’t going to let us go without them, and there are the kids.”

“Well, Stephon’s mother is holding dinner tomorrow night. Let’s see if she will keep them. We can say that we want some alone time or something like that. Then once we put their ass to bed we can sneak out,” she said with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and shimming from side to side.

“Sounds like I plan,” I said jovially and shimmied with her. Then I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I nodded to Jourdan, letting her know to turn around and look. It was Ivy. She was having a heated conversation with a man whose voice I would never forget. I couldn’t see him, but I knew it was Costa. Luckily, she hadn’t looked this way when she stormed out.

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