Getting Even

Chapter 7: You Weren't Thinking

Joy

It was after seven in the morning when I opened my eyes. It took me a minute to come to, before a flood of emotions swept over me. Yes, I was lying next to my husband after spending the night making love to him, but our intimate reconciliation was honestly the last thing on my mind. The only emotion I felt in that moment was guilt.

Rashad's arm was sprawled across my waist and I could feel his steady breathing on the back of my neck. It was comforting to be in his arms like this again, I missed us so much. I didn't regret making love to my husband, but I wondered why I felt the need to do it last night after what happened at the concert.

Phillip's gorgeous face flashed into my mind and I closed my eyes to try and squeeze the adulterous images of him out of my head but it was difficult. It wasn't because I wanted him, but because seeing his face was a reminder of my sin- cheating on my husband. It was something that I was trying to forget altogether and something I wanted to pretend didn't happen.

I wanted my regular life back with Rashad. I wanted us to go back to being the perfect couple that I always believed we were before I found that video. I wanted to focus on our daughters and the long life that I hoped to live with him as we raised them. Our selfish indiscretions didn't fit into that family portrait.

The night before, Tanya and I had been purchasing our merch when she noticed Phillip and a woman standing nearby. They were standing so close to us that Tanya had to speak to him because the girl had been looking at us crazy as if she thought that we were disrespectfully checking him out in front of her. We had been looking, but it was because we were  more shocked about seeing him then anything else. As big as the triangle was, I had never run into Phillip before, so the last thing I expected was to run into him while I was on a date with Rashad.

The conversation between the four of us was awkward, I was thankful that Tanya did most of the talking because it felt like I had cotton stuffed in my mouth while standing in front of him. He had the nerve to look exceptionally delicious if I was being honest with myself. And the woman he introduced as Claudia, was just as beautiful as him.

Phillip barely said two words to me and not once did he look in my direction throughout the entire conversation, he focused on Tanya. When Rashad surprisingly came up behind me in the middle of our awkward conversation, I became completely paralyzed. I didn't know what was going to happen and I held my breath the entire time both men were in each other's presence. In my mind, I begged God not to blow my life up in this way. I was willing to give up an organ to escape the moment. Just recalling the flair of Rashad's nostrils from our hypothetical conversation made me believe his threat to murder whoever I slept with.

Thankfully, nothing transpired between them and Phillip dismissed himself soon after Rashad approached us. For the rest of the night, I felt light-headed with nervousness. I kept looking over in the VIP where he sat with his girl, to make sure that he stayed away from us.

By the time we reached the safety of our home and I was sure that I was in the clear, only then did I relax. It was also then that I allowed myself to really look at Rashad. To take in how beautiful of a man he was.

I had been so angry with my husband for the past month, that I had not been able to see past the unbearable pain to notice anything else. As Rashad peeled his shirt off, my eyes fell to the slopes of muscle decorating his chocolate skin. It was that same milk chocolate skin that drew me to him when we first met in Charlotte when I was only a freshman at N.C. State and he was an Army soldier. Everything about him was so different and I honestly fell for him that same night.