Alayziah: When Loving Him is Complicated Read online

  Alexander

  I found myself sitting outside the precinct again. I already had felonies and was on probation. The last thing I needed was for my probation officer to know that I’d been arrested for driving with a suspended license. I wasn’t trying to go to jail for three to twelve. As usual, Carmen’s dad was giving me a hard time. When the nigga found out about my past, he started tripping. Yeah, I was trying to live right and my parents were Preachers, but that didn’t mean I had it all together. Back in my younger days, I was a gang banger high up in rank. I fought, I robbed, I sold drugs, never killed, but I helped dispose of plenty bodies. Now that I was trying to leave the game alone, I only sold drugs when I absolutely had to. I was done with all of the rest of that shit.

  I didn’t even know my license was suspended. Now, I had to figure out what the hell to do to get that shit taken care of before my court date. After all I’d gotten away with, I wasn’t about to have my freedom taken away for some bogus ass charge like driving with a suspended license especially since I wasn’t even driving when the cops checked me. I’d just pulled up at Carmen’s house and they were already there waiting for me. Her pops and I had gotten into it the night before. I guess when he found out who I was in the streets, he feared for his life. So, he had them there just in case I clowned. I wasn’t about to do no shit like that, though. Her kids were there and like I said, I was already on probation, so when they came at me sideways, I talked crazy to them and they looked my shit up. Now, here I was sitting outside the precinct, waiting for my brother to get off so he could come and pick me up.

  I loved Carmen. She started out as my best friend and things just grew from there, but she was such a liar and I was too. I didn’t know how I thought that shit was gone work. On top of having to deal with her crazy daddy and her baby daddies, there were times like these when I wished I’d never proposed to her ass. Everybody thought we were this perfect couple, but we were having our fair share of issues, and on top of that, she was still married to her last baby daddy, a marriage that most of her family didn’t even know about. I’d been with her for ten months. With two divorces of my own under my belt, a nigga really wasn’t trying to end this and start over. I just wanted to get it over with and be in it for the long haul, but the more I talked to Alayziah, the less I wanted Carmen.

  Alayziah was mad cool. Her energy was laid back and nonchalant, but at the same time, she was so corny and goofy. We’d talk about anything under the sun. We had so much in common. She genuinely cared for a nigga. We prayed for each other. She prayed for my union with Carmen. I ain’t wanna let her know that her prayers weren’t working and I didn’t want to burden her with my troubles especially since I knew she was at work, but I pulled my phone out and texted her. I asked her to let me know when I could call her because I was going through. Shortly after, she called me. I tried to hide my smile so she wouldn’t hear it when I spoke.

  “Hey…” I managed to get out.

  “What’s wrong, Alex?” she asked immediately and as mad as I was at Carmen and her pops when I heard her voice, all of that began to fade away.

  “You got a minute?”

  “I called, didn’t I?”

  I smiled harder. She had a smart-ass mouth. I loved it, though.

  “Mane, I’m so mad right now, I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know who else to call…”

  “Talk to me. Let me ease your mind.”

  “Okay… I feel like I can be honest with you and you won’t judge me, am I right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well… I never told you this but I used to be a street nigga, chief of my set too, getting into all kinds of trouble. Carmen’s dad was cool with me until he found out about my past. Then, he started tripping. We’ve been having some issues, too much to even get into. She’s still married and for a good little minute, she lied to me about it. I guess she was trying to please me and her father. It’s just a lot of shit going on. Excuse my language.”

  “It’s cool. Continue.”

  “So, I went to pick her and her kids up this morning and her pops had the cops there. We’d gotten into a lil’ argument last night and let him tell it, he feared for his life, so they ran my license through the system. Turns out, it’s suspended. I was arrested. I bailed myself out. Now, I’m sitting outside waiting for my brother to come get me. It wouldn’t bother me as much, but I’m already on probation. If she finds out about this, I’m getting locked up again. I can’t believe Carmen would let him call the police knowing I’m on probation.”

  She was quiet for a minute, but then she said, “Text me the address to where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

  “Alayziah, you don’t have to do that. I didn’t call you for that. I just called you to vent.”

  “You can vent when I get there.”

  Before I could protest, she hung up. I wanted to be mad at her little feisty ass, but I found myself smiling twice as hard as I texted her the address.

  Alayziah

  I brought Alex back to the restaurant I worked at. I was working double shifts today so I welcomed the opportunity to leave and get some fresh air. I hated the idea of a 9 to 5. That just wasn’t me. I wanted to live out my dreams as a writer and a poet, but I wasn’t the college type, so here I was, a college dropout, working as a waitress to pay my bills until my gift was recognized and made money for me. I promised my grandmother that if that didn’t happen by the time I turned twenty-five, I’d either get a real job or go back to school. Since I’d just turned twenty-four, I had a year to pull this shit off.

  When we made it to the restaurant, I fixed Alex a plate and sat in front of him. At first, he didn’t want to eat, but when he couldn’t take the scent of the Asian wings in front of him, he dug in. I smiled. We both loved hot wings and catfish. I watched him eat and wondered what made people lie so much. I never would have guessed that he and Carmen were having issues because according to their social media pages, they were happy and in love. The more we talked, the more he opened up to me and the more I realized that their happiness wasn’t true. I truly cared for him and wanted what was best for him even if it wasn’t her. So, that was what I prayed for. I didn’t want to take her place. I’d never even considered being with him. I just wanted him to be at peace and if I could bring him that peace… so be it.

  After eating a couple wings, he leaned back in the chair and stared at me.

  “I appreciate you,” he mumbled before sliding the plate to the side and resting his elbows and forearms on the table in front of him. I leaned in closer, as well, out of habit.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re a true friend. You really mean me well, huh?”

  I nodded a little as he sat back in his chair and stared at me.

  “What Alex?”

  He shook his head nothing before starting to eat again. I saw my coworker, Pam, coming to the table out of the corner of my eye and I sighed. Ever since I told her about Drew, she’d been trying to hook me up with random people that I didn’t want to hook up with.

  “Well, hello, Al. Who is this nice looking young man you have here?”

  I shook my head as Alex blushed.

  “This is my friend, Alex. Alex, this is Pam. She’s taken it upon herself to marry me off. So, before you waste your time, he’s engaged,” I spit out before she had a chance to say anything else.

  “Fine. Fine. I’m just looking out for you, boo. You’re a good girl. You’re like a daughter to me,” she said before massaging my shoulders, kissing my cheek, and walking away.

  I hated when she did shit like that to get me in my feelings. Pam was a well-off retiree. She only worked here because she was bored at home. I, on the other hand, needed this job and any other I could get. My mom died when I was fifteen and my dad struggled to keep a job to provide for us. By sixteen, I was working at McDonald’s to help pay the bills, but we still ended up losing the house. I guess that was too much for his pride to handle because he left town and shipped me to my
grandmother’s house. Since then, he returned to Memphis to visit on a regular basis and we strengthened our relationship, but it was rough there for a minute.

  “She seems cool,” Alex said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

  I cracked a tiny smile.

  “Yeah, she means well.”

  “So, why are you single?”

  I shrugged. “Just haven’t found the right one. I keep giving myself to the wrong one and it just ends horribly.”

  “That’s messed up, baby. I’d love to have you. I honestly believe if I’d met you a year ago, we’d be together. You’re so loving and supportive. Who wouldn’t want to do right by you?”

  I couldn’t help but blush as his phone rang.

  “Yeah… What’s up? Oh, you outside? Here I come.” He stood and I pouted. I was disappointed. He walked over to me and placed his hand under my chin. “Walk me out. I texted my brother and told him to pick me up from here.”

  I walked behind him slowly and unwillingly.

  He looked back at me and smiled. “You know I’m gone text you the whole time you’re at work, Alayziah, so stop pouting.”

  Scrunching my face up, I mugged him before smiling. “Fine.”

  When we made it to his brother’s car, he introduced us to each other. He leaned against the passenger door, looking down at me.

  “Thanks again, baby… for everything.”

  “You don’t have to thank me for that. What are friends for?”

  His hands found their way to my waist and he pulled me into him. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he kissed me on my forehead. Damn, my panties got wet.

  “Call me on your break,” he instructed still holding onto me.

  A second passed and I looked into his eyes. His pants were growing under me. I guess he was turned on too. He smiled.

  I smiled and removed myself from his arms. “I’ll call you when I get off,” I said over my shoulder.

  “That’s fine, but still call me on your break.”

  I shook my head and chuckled as I made my way back into the restaurant. After I closed the door behind me, he opened the passenger door and got inside the car.

  Alexander

  I kind of felt bad. I’d been texting Alayziah all day every day for the past few weeks. Hell, I was talking to her more than I talked to Carmen. We just had so much shit going on that I welcomed the distraction. Alayziah was so loving, sweet, and good to look at. A nigga didn’t mind just sitting in silence staring at her or just sitting next to her and just being. No conversation, no sex, no kids running around… just being. I hadn’t spent any time alone with her, though. After I gave her a kiss on the forehead, hugged her, and my dick got hard, I knew that some alone time probably wouldn’t the best thing.

  I kind of felt like I was using her. I’d dump all my problems on her and she’d just take it in, let me vent, say nothing, or she would pray or offer me some advice. She knew just what to do when I needed her to. I told her that I was seriously considering ending things with Carmen and she wasn’t even on no shady shit. She told me that I needed to do what was best for me to give me peace and what would help me to become a better man. I was constantly arguing with Carmen and her father. Felt like she wasn’t respecting me, submitting to me, and like she was putting her pops above me. It was like she was more concerned with pleasing him than me and I wasn’t about to have that in my marriage. It was making me question whether or not she was the one for me, especially after talking with Alayziah.

  Alayziah never talked against my marriage or Carmen for that matter. She just always was concerned with what was best for me and I’d never had a woman do that before. She had a nigga wide open, so much that I was at Carmen’s youngest baby’s birthday party texting her. I wanted to see her again, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea.

  Even though I didn’t really want to be around Carmen right now, I adored her children like they were mine, so I was happy to be there for them. I paid for them to go to school. I went to every event and every game. I paid for whatever they need. I was the one that paid for this party for baby girl. I had also just spent the money I had saved up putting a new transmission into Carmen’s car. I was struggling financially because I was providing for her, her kids, and my parents. I was helping my mother pay the bills because my father had just had heart surgery so he wasn’t working.

  I had to move back in with them, I lost my car, and I was basically starting over. Now I was looking at expenses to take care of my license and hire a lawyer to get me some more time. I felt like the world was caving in on me. I had a daughter of my own that I had to pay child support for, plus probation fees and a balance for stealing out of a jewelry store that was three hundred a month. A nigga was struggling and Alayziah was definitely my peace. So, when I saw one of Carmen’s baby’s daddies walk in, I was pissed. The nigga was abusive and did nothing for his kid, but she had the nerve to invite the nigga to the party I paid for. Now, I knew for a fact that she had been lying to me because she told me that she wasn’t talking to any of them anymore. So, if she wasn’t how this nigga find out about the party? Her ass was about to get it and if he came at me wrong, he was about to too.

  Alayziah

  Even though Alex and I texted all day, we didn’t actually talk unless something was wrong and he needed to vent. What they had going on was so toxic. I didn’t want to seem jealous and tell him that I felt like they needed to slow down, but I just didn’t believe in starting a marriage with so many issues and so much fighting. That just seemed like setting yourself up for failure. Like, how can you expect a solid marriage with a rocky foundation? I tried to be there for him as much as I could, but it was starting to get to me. I was tired of being the friend, tired of being the one he went to when he needed to talk while the woman he had wasn’t taking care of business, and I was home, alone and lonely.

  He called and I didn’t even want to answer. I wanted to dead the friendship completely. It was getting closer to their wedding day and I knew I was going to have to get used to not talking to him as much, so I figured that we might as well start now, but I couldn’t even ignore him no matter how much I wanted to.

  “Hello?”

  “Why you sound so dry?” he asked and I shrugged like he could see me.

  “No reason. What’s up?”

  “I had to go ahead on and break things off with Carmen.”

  My heart dropped immediately. I’d been telling him lately that I felt bad about talking to him so much. He’d been making comments about how he wished he was the man to marry me and calling me baby, telling me that he loved and appreciated me, and I just felt so bad. I felt like I was distracting him, but every time I told him that we needed to talk less, he talked me out of it. How was I supposed to feel now?

  “Why? What happened?”

  As he told me about the fight that he had with her and one of her baby daddies, I sighed. They had way too much drama going on and she had just uploaded a picture of him and her daughter to Facebook, talking about how in love they are, how lucky she is, how he’s a great father to her children, how they call him Daddy, and here he was telling me that they were over.

  “Well, Alex, you gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta do what’s best for you. I’m behind you no matter what.”

  “I know you are. That’s why I want to do something for you to show you how much I love you and appreciate you. I know we’ve only been talking for a month, but I love you, baby. You’re the best woman I’ve ever known. You show me what a real woman is. I want to do something special for you. I want to plan a special evening for us. Can I do that?”

  I was skeptical. I didn’t want to be his rebound, but at the same time, I was a damn good woman and he had been honest with me so far, so why would he stop now?

  “You sure it’s over between you and her?”

  “Positive. I’m done with her. I’m going to still be around for the kids because they have nothing to do with this, but I’m done with her. I want you.”
r />   I couldn’t help but blush. I guess there was no point in hiding my feelings now. Alex had everything I thought I wanted and needed, and now that I had the opportunity to be with him, I was going to take full advantage of that.

  “Okay. I would love that, Alex.”

  Alexander

  Alayziah had just texted me and asked me for the room number. I looked out the window and saw her grabbing her bag and a white box. I rented us a hotel room for the night. I ain’t gone lie, I wanted to get inside her, but that wasn’t the only thing on my mind. Really, I just wanted to hold her and be in her presence. She filled me with such peace. I had so much going on and I needed that peace. I pulled my eyes away from the window and lit the candles I brought. After cutting the volume on the TV down, I turned some music on and dimmed the lights. I had a tray of fruit and a bottle of wine waiting for her as well. It wasn’t much, but I knew she was going to love it because she liked simple shit like this.

  I paced around the room, waiting for her to make her way to me. I had never been so nervous and excited in my life. Lightly, she tapped against the door and it sounded just like the beating of my heart. As bad as I wanted her up here, I found myself slowly walking to the door to let her in. When I did, she scrunched her face up immediately and I realized I didn’t have on anything but some boxers and basketball shorts. I’d just gotten out the shower and hadn’t had time to dress fully. She always told me that she didn’t want to see my body because of my color and my tattoos, said that shit turned her on, so I knew she was going crazy at the sight of me.

  “I’m sorry, baby…” I said, opening the door, laughing at her silly ass.

  “Why don’t you have on any clothes?” she asked, handing me the white box.

  “I just got out the shower, baby.”