Page 11 of Rules Of Engagement: St. Louis (In The Heart of A Valentine #17)
He was quiet for a long moment, staring out the window at the morning foot traffic. When he finally spoke, his voice was bitter.
“I had a disagreement with Martinez about payment schedules. Some clients were slow to pay, and I thought I deserved my cut upfront instead of waiting for them to collect.”
“You were stealing.”
“I was taking what I was owed!”
“From client payments that hadn’t been collected yet.”
Gerald’s face flushed. “It’s not like that, Naomi. You don’t understand the pressures of that job. Martinez treated us like shit.”
“Stop.” I held up my hand. “Just stop. You got fired for stealing, and now you want me to feel sorry for you because you can’t afford your medication.”
“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me. I’m asking you to help me not die.”
And there it was. The emotional manipulation that Gerald wielded like a weapon, finding the exact words that would make me feel guilty for protecting myself.
“And what if I don’t give a damn?”
His eyes widened and as much as I wanted to hold steady in what I’d said, I sighed, immediately hit with a headache.
“How much?” I asked.
He looked relived that I didn’t stick with my not giving a damn rhetoric and I could kick myself for giving in so easily. “The medication is eight hundred a month, but if I could just get the first few months covered, maybe I could find another job with better insurance.”
“How much, Gerald?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Three thousand would cover the first three months and give me some breathing room to get back on my feet.”
Three thousand dollars. It wasn’t an insignificant amount, but it wasn’t enough to cause me real financial hardship either. Which Gerald undoubtedly knew. He’d always been good at calculating how much he could ask for without pushing me to say no outright.
“And then what? In three months, you’ll need more money for more medication. Or you’ll have a different crisis that requires my help.”
“This is different, Naomi. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“Your life has been in crisis for fifteen years. When we were together, it was always something. Always some emergency that required me to swoop in and save you.”
Gerald’s expression hardened. “I never asked you to save me.”
“You didn’t have to ask. You just made sure I knew that if I didn’t help, something terrible would happen. And I was stupid enough to believe that it was my responsibility to prevent that.”
“So you’re just going to let me die?”
A knot of guilt and anger tightening in my chest.
“You’re not going to die, Gerald. You’re going to figure out another way to get your medication, just like you’ve figured out every other problem in your life.”
“There is no other way!”
“There’s always another way. You just don’t want to do the work to find it.”
Gerald leaned back in the booth, studying me. Those eyes had once made me weak in the knees. Now they just made me tired.
“You’ve gotten hard, Naomi. Cold. Marriage to me really fucked you up, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, it did. Marriage to you taught me that men will say whatever they need to say to get what they want. And that loving someone who can’t love you back will destroy you if you let it.”
“I loved you.”
“You loved what I could do for you. You loved having someone to clean up your messes and pay your debts and make you feel like your poor choices were someone else’s fault.”
Gerald’s coffee cup rattled against the saucer as he set it down hard. “That’s a really harsh analysis.”
“Harsh?” I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“You want to talk about harsh? Harsh would have been me telling you to go fuck yourself when I had to bail you out for your reckless behavior. Harsh would have been me cheating back with your friend, a cousin, your daddy to get back at you. But instead, harsh was you cheating on me with three different women while I was working two jobs to pay your legal fees. Harsh was you dragging the divorce out for two years because you thought you could wear me down.”
“I was trying to save our marriage.”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Gerald.” His eyes widened. “Save that shit for someone who wants to hear it because that is no longer me.”
Silence covered our table. Around us, the coffee shop hummed with morning conversation from people making plans, sharing gossip, and living their uncomplicated lives.
When Gerald spoke, his voice was quiet. “So that’s it?”
I reached into my purse and pulled out my checkbook, writing quickly before I could change my mind. Three thousand dollars. Enough to cover his medication for three months, just like he’d asked.
“This is the last time I bail you out, Gerald.”
I tore out the check and slid it across the table. Gerald’s hand closed over it immediately, like he was afraid I might change my mind.
“Thank you, baby. I mean, Naomi. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. This isn’t kindness. This is me buying my peace of mind, so I never have to see you again.”
Gerald pocketed the check, then looked at me with his brows dipped. “You really hate me, don’t you?”
As much as I wanted to say yes, that was clearly a lie or I’d just let natural selection run its course. “Get yourself together. Don’t fuck this up because the next time I see you I’m filing charges for harassment.”
I stood up, pushed the chair against the table and sighed. “Find a way to take care of yourself that doesn’t involve me.”
“Naomi, wait.”
I walked away, pushing through the coffee shop door and out into the crisp September air. My hands were shaking, and I realized I was angrier than I’d thought. Not just at Gerald, but at myself for giving in to his manipulation one more time.
I stood on the sidewalk, breathing deeply, trying to calm my nerves. This was why I had rules. This was why I kept things simple and uncomplicated. Because the moment you let someone matter, they started making their problems your problems.
I left on my bike and rode hard, letting the wind fly by me at top speed. My thoughts tried to wrestle me down about my encounter with Gerald, but I let those thoughts fly away in the wind as I pedaled.
I rotated the wheels home so I could shower and get ready for lunch with Journey.