Page 36 of Drunk In Love
“Um, ah, you’re welcome. Take it easy, miss,” the older man says before moving towards his own vehicle.
My date with Zach was making me paranoid, and I desperately wanted out of this constricting dress and heels and back into the safety of my apartment.
I decide to call Maxwell on my way back to my studio. On the short drive, I keep my eyes trained for any vehicles potentially tailing me, but the coast seemed clear.
“Hey, it’s Max. Why aren’t you texting me?” comes the sound of his voice before the beep, and I hang up. I can wait to discuss what happened with Zach at a later time. Hopefully Max will call or text me back soon.
Once I arrive home, I carefully observe the area outside my apartment building. I see my neighbor Ms. Dean out walking her yapping Yorkie while smoking a cigarette. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, but I walk with my taser and move quickly, locking my door and slipping the deadbolt once I’m safely back in the confines of my apartment.
“So, what do you have for me?”
“Not much, unfortunately,” he answers. The person he was hired by smacks the back of the driver’s seat before them.
“What do I pay you for exactly?”
“I got the information you asked for, and I haven’t been able to uncover anything else.”
They lean back against the seat and clasp their hands together. “It’s just these pictures you have with them and some waiter? Very grainy, by the way.”
“I did my best. It was hard having to hide the phone behind a menu and snap as quickly as I could.”
They shake their head and swipe through the photos. “They’re getting closer. Time to up the stakes.”
CHAPTER 12
Maxwell
For once, I dreaded Friday.
I knew this was the day Kamaya and Zach were supposed to go out on their date. I should have been happy for my friend to get what she wanted, but the thought of her and Zach together only pissed me off more. Was it just jealousy? It was a combination of thinking my friend could do so much better than that creep but also realizing maybe that could have been us had I not been so vocally anti-relationships.
In all, I couldn’t be bitter because I’d done this to myself.
The workday dragged more than normal. I was relieved when I could finally escape the office. Seeing Kamaya and Bree mooning over texts from Zach, discussing what she would wear and what they were going to do, only made my day worse.
Eight hours was too much of the insidious reminders of Kamaya’s infatuation with Zach.
Kamaya spent most of the day going over the info Franco had given us. Since he could no longer access the email he was sent, she began tracking the IP address from the emails that Harry received, hoping it could somehow be connected. I could see the toll this assignment was beginning to take on her. Kamaya’s normally sunny disposition grew quieter the longer this took.
I was used to protection details lasting a long time, months even, but this was a first for her and me.
Glancing at the time on the laptop screen before me, I breathe a sigh of relief when I realize I’ve put in enough of an appearance at work. I was ready for the day to end. No point in staying late because I wasn’t going to get much work done with Kamaya gone. She’d promptly left at five to get ready for her date with Zach.
Earlier in the week, I received a call from my father saying he would be in town for the Harlem Summer Jazz Festival and how he hoped he’d be able to see me. Seeing my father was always a good time since he was always the carefree, fun parent. Summers spent in Harlem with him, hundreds of miles away from my mom in DC, were some of my best memories. Staying up as late as I wanted and eating whatever junk food I wanted was the height of fun as a kid.
Then I remembered the times he didn’t show up or call when he said he would because band rehearsals ran late, or because he was getting on a flight to the next gig. Plenty of excuses for important absences like little league games and birthdays.
Still, he was my dad, and as a grown man, I had to learn to accept him as who he was and not who my mom and I wanted him to be. Though throughout my life, that sentiment was easier said than done.
The bar we discussed meeting at wasn’t too far from his old neighborhood. Smokey’s Bar was a neighborhood legend. One of many historical sites still remaining from the rich history of Harlem. When I was technically too young to be in a bar, the manager turned a blind eye due to my dad playing in the band for many nights. I wasn’t trying to sneak any drinks yet; I was fascinated by the bandmates and people in the bar who I thought were so cool. Then I got older and realized a lot of those bandmates were either alone or neglecting a family in order to pursue their art.
My parents’ contentious relationship and lack of commitment always reiterated to me how hard relationships were to maintain, and it felt like a family curse since none of us could get it right.
Then, of course, there were all my missteps in my own relationships. I couldn’t solely put all the blame on them.
All of these thoughts weighed heavily on me on my way to the bar located farther uptown. I sat down at Smokey’s and ordered my go-to—an old-fashioned—and glanced at the time on my phone. My father should be arriving in twenty minutes, though I couldn’t remember an occurrence in my life when he’d been on time. If he said twenty, it was more like half an hour.
A half hour was too much time to sit and think about Kamaya getting ready to see Zach, and I wallowed in my feelings. What would happen if this date went really well? They could potentially become a couple, and I’d be forced to hang out with him if I wanted to see her. Inevitably, couples often became a package deal, and Zach was the last person I wanted to spend time with.