Page 22 of F*ckin’ With Me

The day was a whole muthafucka. Nothing that had happened so far that day was what I expected.

From when my beautiful ass woman walked her ass out of the room with a dress that looked painted on, to the bombs at the wedding.

Rissa knew exactly what she was doing with how she styled Simonette.

My sister successfully found a way to bring Simonette out of her shell.

I’d seen my baby in her shell umpteen times.

I wanted to get to know the Simonette out of the shell.

When we got to the wedding venue, which was extremely nice, I saw the hurt on Simonette’s face when the hostess bitch told us to sit in the back row. Her mama and sister were bogus as hell for that shit. It could only be them who were petty enough to sit their immediate family in the last row.

I was big on fighting battles that were worth the fight.

A seating assignment at someone else’s shit was not worth it.

Mr. Brand felt otherwise because his ass went all the way the hell in on that Doris bitch.

It was crazy, in what seemed to be a tight group of friends, one was fucking the other’s husband.

A part of me thought that Mr. or Mrs. Brand was having an affair.

Hell, it could have been both. They more than disliked each other. There was hate there.

Something dawned on me. “Bro, remember we saw that nigga arguing with ole girl the other night? How much you want to bet that it was his baby mama and not Sim’s sister?”

“Shit! You probably right,” Rashad agreed.

“That’s probably who was texting him at dinner and shit.

I told you I slid through his bullshit bachelor party, and his ass was distracted as fuck.

He kept leaving and shit. Bro, I’on know where they found the strippers, but they were nasty as fuck.

Ole girl I’m fuckin’ husband was on some porno shit. Two hos married to each other.”

I burst into laughter because there was no way he just said that shit. “Nigga, I know you’re not serious right now. Aren’t you fuckin’ that man’s wife? Ain’t that some ho shit too?”

“Duh! I know I’m a ho, and I lean into that shit with NDAs by my side,” Rashad said with all seriousness. “My heart, soul, or dick isn’t beholden to anyone out here. Until I am, I’m going to responsibly ho.”

I couldn’t be mad at his ass. Over the years, we’d had deep conversations about what we wanted.

We both wanted the wife, children, dog, and white picket fence type shit.

We both also knew that we wanted to have our fun before we made commitments to the woman we wanted to make our forever.

I thought about Simonette and whether she was my forever.

She was the girl that my youth overlooked, to an extent, but maturity saw her for the fullness of who she was and would continue to grow to be.

“Robert! Why would you tell the guests to still come to the reception? Our daughter just had her heart ripped out of her by the man she was supposed to marry. He left her at the fucking altar for one of her bridesmaids that he got pregnant!” Mrs. Brand was on one.

We had to pass the parents’ villa on our way to the restaurant we were going to.

I wondered if Justin’s parents had already left.

It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since the debacle occurred.

Mr. Brand walked out of the open patio door with a glass of what I assumed was alcohol in it.

Mrs. Brand was on his heels. Rashad and I had the perfect view from where we stopped walking.

“Simone, get the hell away from me. I am sympathetic to the fact that our daughter’s heart was broken; however, some of the accountability of these cascading events falls on her.” He took a sip of his drink before his chin turned in her direction. “Oh, and you too, might I add.”

Sim’s mother was dramatic as hell. When Mr. Brand said that shit, his wife grabbed her chest and stumbled back like he struck her. “Robert! Nothing about this falls on me. Jessica and Justin are just horrible people.”

“Dude, I need a better damn seat,” Rashad complained. There were seats along the pathway to the villas. I could only imagine it was for people who were drunk and needed a minute.

We walked to the seats to be spectators like we were invited. I pulled out my phone to call our butler to bring us some drinks to where we were. Fuck that shit. I wasn’t normally that nosy, but this shit was too good.

Mr. Brand confirmed we were in eyesight when his eyes fell on us. I thought he would say something, but he didn’t. He faced his wife. “What does that make you and our daughter, Simone? Two women who schemed to trap a man with a fictitious child.”

“That bitch and her husband are fucking liars! Our baby was pregnant with our grandchild, and she had a miscarriage.” Mrs. Brand wrapped her arms around herself. “What kind of husband and father are you . . .”

Her words trailed off when her husband reached behind his back and pulled out papers.

He handed the papers to her then took a sip from his glass.

She asked him what it was as she began to skim over it.

“Those are the text messages between your daughter and her little friend group as well as you and our daughter. Mr. Everland handed them to me when they were leaving as we came in.” Damn, I wish I could have eyes on that paper.

“Ro-Robert, I . . .” She couldn’t speak, so I knew whatever was on those damn papers told on her ass to the point she couldn’t deny it. Yeah, her ass was caught.

“It hurt the fuck out of me to read through those text messages and know that my wife was this vindictive bitch that raised my daughter to be her replica. That’s my fault, though, because instead of being home, I spent my time away so I didn’t have to be near you.

Thank God He covered one of our daughters.

” The hurt in Mr. Brand’s voice was painful.

I shook my head before I leaned toward Rashad. “Damn, I feel bad watching the demise of their marriage. This ain’t our business.”

The butler appeared next to us like a damn ghost to hand us our drinks.

Rashad waited until the butler left to speak.

“I can agree that this is not my business as well as disagree that this is not your business. I have no real connection with these people, but now you do. You want to be with Simonette for real, right?” His eyebrow hitched with his question.

My jaw tightened. “Fuck yeah, I want to be with her for real. I am with her for real, nigga.”

He threw his free hand up in surrender. “My bad, big dog. What I’m saying is that when, not if, but when, all this shit goes to hell between your woman’s parents, she’s gonna need you. You sitting here and being nosy will have you prepared to take care of her.”

“Nigga, did you just come up with an elegant way to manipulate me into thinking us sitting here being nosy was a good idea?” My head tilted to the side. “Is that really what you did?”

Rashad put the rim of his glass to his lips after he lifted his shoulders. Once he took his sip, he said, “I wouldn’t call it manipulation. One of two things can be true at the same time. You need to take care of your girl, and I want to continue to be nosy.”

The cries from Mrs. Brand zoned us back into the show.

I wasn’t sure if she could see us, but the fact that she had yet to scream at us made me think that she couldn’t.

“Robert, please don’t do this. It’s our daughter’s wedding weekend.

You invited everyone who was still here to come to the reception.

They are going to expect us to be there together. ”

I made a mental note to make sure I went to that damn reception to get my baby some food.

Simonette’s greedy ass might curse me out if I didn’t, and she heard there was food that I knew about.

I smiled at the thought of her little ass cursing me out.

When she told her mama and sister fuck you was the first time I heard her curse.

“Simone, stop the bullshit. No one is expecting shit after what happened at that damn ceremony. While you’re over here trying to save something that is unsavable, you need to be with your daughter.

Help her figure out what’s next since you’re her compass.

I’m sure you have your next candidate for her to trap lined up.

I will check on her later tonight,” Mr. Brand told her.

She stood there like she was in the middle of a mannequin challenge. The back of Rashad’s hand hit my chest a few times. “Ah, shit. You see that switch in her eyes? Her ass is about to crash out.”

You could always tell when a person was about to flip the hell out. Well, that was if you were an observant person. Some people never looked past themselves to notice other people. Something told me that Lanette and Mrs. Brand were those kinds of people, but I digressed.

“Fuck you, Robert! What? I’m wrong for wanting my daughter to be taken care of? That’s not trapping.” The papers that she had in her hands were now on the ground, and the hand that once held them was balled at her side.

Robert laughed. “Feigning a pregnancy is very much trapping. Hell, at least when you trapped me, you were actually pregnant. The bonus was that she was mine.”

I didn’t need to see Rashad’s eyes to know they were popped out like my own. “Not Mama Brand being a trapping whore,” I mumbled. It was almost too much. Where was that Perry nigga when you needed him?

“Now you’re just trying to be hurtful, and I won’t stand for it. I am going to check on my daughter, whose heart was broken today. Again, fuck you!” Her middle fingers went up in front of his face.

She pushed him before she charged off. He didn’t move, but she did push. Mr. Brand was a solid ass nigga, but his daughters took after their mother’s more petite body frame.