Page 72 of Devanté
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Hey, Devanté, I’m so glad I caught you. I know I invited you to come to the party for Blake but…” There was hesitation in Noa’s voice over the phone. “I’m gonna have to rescind that invite.”
I held my finger up at my realtor and stepped outside onto the patio to have my conversation in private. “What’s up, Noa? Is the party still happening?” I quizzed, my brows low and furled.
“It’s still happening but you’re not invited.”
“What the hell?” Blake had been ignoring the fuck out of my phone calls and texts for the past few days. I had no idea what went wrong after the amazing time we had when I was in town. I chalked it up to her being busy but I wasn’t going to keep chalking it up. Her boss was having a party in her honor tonight at the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey and I was going to catch her in person to ask what the problem was. My heart was in suspended animation wondering if somehow, I’d fucked up.
Now, I didn’t want to wait until tonight. I wanted to show up at her house and talk things out.
“I’m sorry, Devanté.” I heard sincerity in Noa’s voice so I probed.
“Did I do something?” I asked, rubbing the back of my neck. The sun beamed down on my back adding it’s scorching drumbeat to my thumping heart.
“I can’t talk about it. I will say this though,” she said inhaling. “You should have been upfront about everything in your life. Things…andbabieshave a way of leaking. You have a good day, Mr. Morgan.” She ended the call and I wanted to ball my phone up like a piece of paper and toss it into the glittering pool in front of me.
Her words rang in my ears.
Things and babies.
Babies.
She must have seen the pictures of me handing Renee’s baby over the day she showed up with a small camera crew and ambushed me.
Fuck.
I stormed back into the house and looked at my realtor with a glare that wasn’t meant for him. “Everything cool, Mr. Morgan?” He quizzed.
“Fine,” I said, my voice tight. “And please, call me Devanté.”
“How about I call you Devin? Like a nickname.” He flashed me a smile. I silently cursed my usual realtor out for having another client to show around today. I was stuck with one of those men who had a normal name and pretended like mine was too much to say.
“No. My name is Devanté.” My eyes were hard and unyielding. Devin was the worst thing he could fucking call me. “So, call me what my parents named me, please.” It was the lastpleasehe’d get from me.
“Right,” he nodded. His face was mottled with pink as he showed me to the great room. As much as I loved the house, I couldn’t focus on anything the realtor was saying.
I kept thinking about Blake.
It was happening all over again. She thought I did something I didn’t fucking do. What reason would she have to think the pictures were lies? I knew better than anyone that a well-timed picture with a caption underneath was a powerful tool in making people believe things. It didn’t have to be true but if it looked true enough then it didn’t matter what the reality was.
I had to go talk to her. If I could show her I wasn’t lying about something that happened eight years ago then surely, I could get her to listen now.
“The ceilings in this place are…”
“Listen, Brad. I’m gonna get the house. Send the paperwork to Shantel though. I’m not working with you anymore.”
“Okay…great. But um, sir, my name is Aiden.”
“I know.” I grabbed my keys and walked out of the house leaving Brad scratching his head.
I had to get to Blake’s house. It was a Saturday so she should have been at home. The only person she hung out with was Noa and I just got off the phone with her.
When I got into my car, I took out my phone and Facetimed Noa instead of calling her back. When her face popped up, she was frowning. “Is everything okay, Devanté?” She asked, her eyes darted to the left briefly before settling on the screen again.
“I was wondering if you could tell me where Blake is. I need to talk to her and she won’t answer my calls.” Her eyes darted to the left again then she shifted around a little before finding her poker face.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You didn’t have to Facetime me for that.”
