Believe in Me (Strickland Sisters Book 2) Read online

  “So he’s rich?” Nicky asked. It wasn’t surprising that she’d home in on that part.

  “And fine? Are you sure?” Angie asked.

  “Am I sure about what?” I questioned, confusion evident in my voice.

  “About him being fine,” Angie clarified.

  “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Um, well…I’ve seen Robert.”

  “Robert is ugly, but you have to admit he has a decent body.”

  “Uh, no, because unlike our baby sister, I don’t ogle other people’s men’s bodies.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry! It ain’t like I’ma try to screw the man or something!” Nicky shouted.

  “I ain’t worried about that. Your ass just needs to show some respect,” Angie countered.

  “Are we ever gonna be able to have a sisters’ night without one of y’all acting a fool?” I asked.

  They both fell silent and dropped their eyes.

  Mama peeked her head in the open bedroom door, and said, “I’m heading out for a bit. Don’t wait up.” Before either of us could say a word in response, she’d disappeared.

  “She got a new man?” Angie asked.

  I shrugged. “Who knows? I don’t even know who that woman is half the time. I miss my original mother.”

  “Daddy destroyed that one. She’s long gone,” Nicky said.

  “Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “I don’t understand either of them. I mean, what are they doing? Neither of them has filed for divorce.”

  “Wait a minute, it took you more than a year to file. They’ve got forty years of marriage together. That’s got to be hard to let go of,” Angie pointed out.

  “But they’re not together. Just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Look, you know I be playing with you about Ryan, right, Ang?” Nicky asked, shifting the conversation.

  “Of course. Same here. I enjoy our little arguments,” Angie admitted.

  “But he is fine,” Nicky muttered.

  Angie threw a package of cotton balls at Nicky, and they both fell out laughing.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  “Anyway,” Angie said, “so this guy is fine and rich. And you say he’s nice, and it was pretty clever of him to trick you into that date. He must’ve been able to tell you wouldn’t have agreed otherwise.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “How do you know I wouldn’t have?”

  “Because I know you, Renee Elise Strickland-Mattison. You may be over Robert, but you’re not one to jump from one man to another. Plus, you’re technically still married, and you take your vows as seriously as I do. So I’m actually surprised your ass didn’t leave when you realized it was a date.”

  “I started to…”

  “But?”

  “But you like him, don’t you?” Nicky asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Are you going to see him again?” Angie asked.

  “He seems to think so.”

  “Dang, why can’t I find a fine, rich man who’ll jump through hoops to get my attention?” Nicky whined.

  “Because you’re a ho’,” Angie reminded her.

  Nicky nodded slowly. “Oh, yeah…”

  7

  Around five the next morning, I was forced to climb out of bed because of a patient who was in active labor. I dragged myself into my bathroom for a quick shower, pulled on some scrubs, and was heading out when I ran into my mother in the hallway carrying a tray of food to her bedroom with a huge grin on her face. I eyed the tray—two plates of food, two coffee mugs. Someone had spent the night in my mother’s room.

  “Hey, sweetie. Heading out early?” she chirped.

  I nodded. “Uh, yeah. See you later, Mama.”

  “Okay!”

  She ducked into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, the fact that she was sleeping with whoever while still married to my father and in his house, or the fact that she was having more sex than I was. Well, that was an understatement. I hadn’t had any sex since leaving Robert, and to be honest, I couldn’t remember the last time we did it before I left. It had reached the point where he barely touched me near the end. I suppose he was getting it somewhere else.

  I was thirty-six, in good health, and well…horny. But there was absolutely nothing I could do about that. So I climbed in my car and tried my best to erase any thoughts of my mom’s active sex life and my lack thereof from my brain.

  The patient, a forty-year-old mother of four, was already at the birthing center when I arrived. The nurse beat me there and already had her set up in a room. Since they weren’t strangers to the birthing process, she and her husband were laughing and joking with each other when I entered the room. The birth of their fifth child, a boy, was a pleasant event, but I found myself a little depressed afterwards because I wanted what they had, had held onto my marriage with my fingernails trying to achieve it. But in the end, I came to realize there would be no forever with Robert Mattison no matter how hard I wished for it.

  I had Janine reschedule my appointments for the day, told her I wasn’t feeling well, and was opening my car door when I heard his voice.

  “Early lunch or late breakfast?”

  I had been fighting my tears for most of the morning, but for some reason, as I turned to face Lorenzo Higgs, I let them fall.

  The smile he wore dissipated, as a look of concern took its place. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked softly.

  I wiped my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. I could’ve screamed for crying over a marriage that ended long before I left. I needed to get myself together. “I was just heading home for the day,” I said, ignoring his question.

  He stood there for a moment, his eyes trained on me, then stepped closer to me, and said, “That’s not what I asked you. Are you okay, Ms. Strickland?”

  There he was again, a man I didn’t really know, standing before me when I was in the midst of needing something, someone. So I shook my head and let my tears flow. Bleary-eyed, I felt his hand clutch mine and followed him as he led me from my vehicle to his, I presumed. It wasn’t the SUV but a car he stopped at. I looked up and managed to smile at Rell, who held the door open for me. He gave me a small smile and a tiny nod in return. I climbed inside with Lorenzo scooting in beside me.

  “Where-where are you taking me?” I finally thought to ask, as the car coasted out of Genesis’ parking lot.

  “Have you eaten?” Lorenzo asked. He wasn’t touching me, but as he sat there beside me, something about his presence comforted me. And he smelled absolutely heavenly.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Rell, take us to the house,” he said, his voice louder and more authoritative than it was when he addressed me. Then he lowered it again, “I’m gonna get you something to eat.”

  “At your house?”

  “Yes, is that okay?”

  I should’ve said no. Should’ve been leery of this man and whatever his intentions were. But I wasn’t, so I said, “It’s okay.”

  *****

  I sat at his rustic kitchen table watching his back as he stood at the stove cooking something that made my empty stomach roil with anticipation. I eyed my surroundings, noted the expensive-looking stainless steel appliances including two stoves, the gorgeous stone countertops, the massive rack of pots and pans hanging over the island that still held a knife, cutting board, and the remnants of onions and bell peppers he’d chopped up for my omelet. He worked in silence save the music streaming from speakers that hung high on the walls in the corners of the room. I tried unsuccessfully not to look at him, at his strong arms and long legs and amazing ass in slacks. An apron covered his dress shirt.

  I sat back and closed my eyes as the soothing jazz continued to fill the room, mingling with the aromas saturating the air. Something about him and being there felt right. I wasn’t sure why, but it just did, and the thought of how right it felt brought a tiny smile to my face that widened when he approached me, plate in hand, and
said, “Bon Apétit.”

  “Thank you.” I appraised my food and added, “This looks incredible!”

  He grinned, revealing white teeth. “Thanks. You have a veggie omelet, some maple sausage, toast, and oh, what kind of juice would you like? I have cranberry, orange, apple, grape, grapefruit—”

  “Water is fine. Thank you. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me.”

  “No trouble at all. I like to cook.”

  I smiled and dug in as he began cleaning the kitchen. “Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked.

  “Already did,” he said, his back to me.

  “Don’t you have someone who cleans for you?”

  He nodded. “Three times a week. She’s off today.”

  I had basically inhaled my food and was done by the time he sat across from me. “You enjoyed it?” he asked.

  “Yes, it was delicious. Thank you again, Lorenzo.”

  “Zo.”

  “Baby steps.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  “Lorenzo, what do you do for a living? I mean, how can you afford…all of this?”

  “Hmm, if I answer that, you have to answer a question for me.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “A writer? What do you write? I mean, I love reading when I have the time, but I don’t recall ever hearing your name before, and to be able to afford this place and a driver, you’d have to be very successful.”

  With raised eyebrows, he said, “I am.”

  “Well, what have you written?”

  “Uh-uh. I answered yours. My turn. Why were you crying?”

  I was actually a little blindsided by that question, though I shouldn’t have been. “Um, there’s a lot going on in my life right now. I guess I just felt…overwhelmed.”

  “With your divorce?”

  “My turn again. What have you written?”

  He smiled. “You catch on fast, Ms. Strickland. Give me a second. I’ll be right back.”

  “All right…”

  He left the table, returning a minute or so later with a book in one hand and a Sharpie in the other. Reclaiming his seat at the table, he opened the book, wrote something in it, and then slid it across the table to me. “My first book. A gift from me to you.”

  I stared down at the cover image of a spent bullet lying on the pavement with smoke rising from it. Next to the bullet was someone’s booted foot splattered with bright red blood. The title read: Bulletproof. The author’s name splashed across the front in big, bold white letters was simply Street. I’d heard of Street, had seen many of my patients reading his books in the waiting area of Genesis, though I’d never read any of his work myself. My reading life ebbed and flowed in phases, and I had abandoned my street lit phase years ago. Back then, I was a good teenage girl living a boring life who found excitement within gritty tales spun by Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim. In college, I discovered Omar Tyree and Eric Jerome Dickey, eventually shifting to romances penned by the likes of Brenda Jackson and Francis Ray. Life interrupted my reading up until recently, when I began delving into Iyanla Vanzant’s catalog in search of some peace and clarity.

  “You’re Street?” I finally asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, and that’s two questions, which means I get to ask two.”

  I gave him half of a smile as I slid a finger under the cover of the thick paperback book.

  “Is your divorce overwhelming you?” he asked.

  “You could say that. My husband doesn’t want one.”

  “But you do?”

  “I need one. My turn. How long have you been writing?”

  “Five years. Why do you need a divorce?”

  “Because.”

  He smiled. “Guess it’s not my business yet.”

  “It’ll never be your business, Lorenzo.”

  He reclined in his chair. “And why is that?”

  “Because this, whatever you’re trying to make happen? It can’t go any further.”

  “Further than you eating my food, or further than us being friends?”

  “Are we friends? I thought you were just some strange man who keeps showing up at my place of business.”

  He chuckled. “Damn, okay. I’m trying to be your friend with hopes of becoming more than a friend.”

  “All because I delivered your niece?”

  “No, because I’m very, very attracted to you. The fact that you worked your magic to bring little Loren into the world makes you even more appealing to me, but my physical attraction to you is overwhelming.”

  “Uh…” Sure, I had lost some weight, but I was still a big girl. I guessed he liked big girls.

  “Are you attracted to me, Ms. Strickland?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “But I have a husband.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  “You don’t know that. He might contest the divorce. And even if he doesn’t, it would be wrong for me to start seeing someone while I’m still his wife.”

  “Then I’ll settle for friendship…for now.”

  I sighed.

  “You got something against friendship? It’s a sacred institution, you know.”

  “I have something against what a friendship with you might look like to the outside world.”

  He gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re an attractive man, Lorenzo. If I’m seen out with you and you look at me the way you’re looking at me now, do you think anyone is going to believe we’re just friends?”

  “How am I looking at you, Ms. Strickland?”

  “Like you want to take me upstairs and strip me naked.”

  He stared at me. “That’s not at all what I want to do.”

  “Oh…” Well, now I feel stupid.

  “What I want to do is crawl under this table, take your pants off, and lick your clit until you scream my name and spill your juices all over my mouth.”

  My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I clamped my thighs together.

  “And then I want to pick you up, sit you on this table, and fuck you until you pass out. You won’t be naked, though. You can keep the shirt on and I’ll just slide your panties, which will undoubtedly be soaking wet by then, to the side.”

  My mouth dropped open as the region between my legs began to pulsate.

  “But…I guess that’ll have to wait until after you’re a free woman. Until then, anonymous, inconspicuous friendship.”

  The only thought in my head was, shit!

  He stood from the table and exited the kitchen, leaving me to sit there with a throbbing yoni.

  Minutes later, I was back in his car, a huge Mercedes of some sort, with my book in hand. We rode in silence. I suppose he’d said all he needed to say, and in turn, had rendered me speechless. Back at Genesis, I thanked both him and Rell, who followed me to my car. And in minutes, I was on my way home.

  8

  Mama and Nicky weren’t home when I made it there, and I climbed the stairs to my room and fell right into bed. Exhausted and full from the goodness Lorenzo prepared for me, I was asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

  I woke up hours later to a dark, quiet house, headed downstairs to find something to eat, and quickly realized that both Nicky and Mama were still gone. I sighed and headed to the refrigerator in hopes that at some point during the day, Mama had cooked. No such luck. So I ended up digging one of Nicky’s frozen pizzas out of the freezer and sticking it in the oven.

  I headed into the living room, turned on the TV, and sat there flipping through the channels for a minute or two before my mind shifted to Lorenzo’s book for some reason. I’d left it in my car and didn’t really want to walk outside to get it, but I did want to get it. So, barefoot and in my most comfortable, but unattractive, pair of sweats and a t-shirt, I tipped out to my car and retrieved Bulletproof.
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br />   As I waited for the last five minutes to tick off the pizza’s timer, I opened the thick book and read what he’d scrawled on the cover page:

  For Doc. -Zo

  Then I flipped to the prologue and read the opening lines:

  There’s a rhythm to every street, every hood. It is similar to a movie’s soundtrack, or the opening strains of a symphony. The rhythm and the melody set the mood for the day, week, or month ahead, often warning the habitants, both unimpeachable and unscrupulous, of what’s to come. On the morning that Monty “Money” Quarles first killed a man, the streets were playing a lullaby, an innocent refrain paced at an easy, languid tempo. The streets failed to warn Money of what was to come that day, that before the sun set, the fifteen-year-old’s innocence, the essence of which was cocooned in that lullaby, would splinter, shatter, and leave in its wake an uncontained, all-consuming monster.

  After reading that, my eyes were glued to that book to the point that I almost burned my pizza. I read at the kitchen table, in the living room, and in bed, riveted by the gritty tale of a young man seeking revenge for the murder of his drug-addicted mother, who becomes a heartless killer, and eventually, a sadistic drug kingpin.

  Lorenzo could write his ass off. The evidence of which was me reading the book in its entirety that night, finally flipping to the last page around two the next morning as if I didn’t have to be at work in a few hours. I read the last sentence and shook my head, thinking to myself, wow. That was probably one of the best books I’d read…ever. His style of writing was addictive, too, because I found myself hoping his bibliography would be somewhere on the final pages of the book. Instead, wedged between a page of acknowledgements and a picture of the handsome author, was a check made out to the Genesis Scholarship Fund in the amount of ten thousand dollars. And on the memo line was a phone number.

  *****

  At work the next morning, I found it hard to concentrate and was glad I had no patients to see. It was Wednesday, and I’d planned to spend the day tying up paperwork loose ends before taking off the next day to prepare for a weekend trip to Atlanta for an annual midwifery conference I dreaded attending. Cass felt these conferences were important for us to keep up with new trends, and since she’d attended the previous year, it was my turn to be tortured.