A Weekend Affair

by Noelle Vella

Genres: African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction; African American Romance

Synopsis

Gabby and Mischelle are two friends hoping to escape the chaos in their lives. Shell's husband cheated on her with a younger woman, and Gabby's ex-boyfriend is stalking her. To get away from it all, the women head to Tybee Island, Georgia, looking for a weekend of fun in the sun.  Once they get there, they encounter two charismatic yet mysterious men who have the power to inexplicably change their lives forever . . . or at least for the weekend.

Release date: July 26, 2016

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

It was late at night and that text message would have awakened me except for the fact I wasn’t asleep. I hadn’t slept in almost a week. A week ago my life came unglued. A week ago, I kept telling myself that everything was all right, my family was okay. My best friend, Gabby, hadn’t heard from me since then, and like any good friend, she’d started to get worried. Her texts had gone from Hey, girl, what are you up to? to Okay, Shell, something’s going on. I know it. Call me, ASAP.

I wanted to call her the moment my world had come unhinged, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her that she’d been right all along. I couldn’t tell her that I should have listened to her a long time ago. No. No woman wanted to have to eat crow and admit that everyone else had seen the bad moon rising before she had. No woman wanted to admit that she couldn’t see the forest for looking at the trees. But Gabby was a good friend and had been since the day I’d met her back in ’07.

So I dried my tears and picked up my cell. Pressed the call button on the touchscreen and waited for her to pick up. I looked around my house—because it was no longer a home—and sighed as tears rolled down my face. The place was spotless. I’d cleaned until I couldn’t clean anymore. I found I did a lot of that as of late, doing things by rote to take my mind off the shambles that had become my life. I cleaned and scrubbed away any dirt and debris just as I wished I could do my life.

“Shell?” Gabby answered on the third ring.

“Yeah,” I mumbled out.

“What in God’s name is going on? Where have you been?” she blurted out.

I wanted to pretend, like I’d done so many times before. Wanted to fake the funk and say everything was okay, that I’d just needed some me time. But Gabby was smarter than that. She would know I was lying before I even finished telling the lie. And to be honest, I was tired of trying to hold it all together. After all that had happened, I didn’t talk to anybody because I was too ashamed. I couldn’t tell my mother because, in her eyes, my husband, Malik, could do no wrong. I didn’t have many friends to begin with. So through this whole ordeal, I’d had only me and my children.

I started sobbing loudly.

“Shell, what on earth . . .?” Gabby inquired.

I could hear the angst in her voice. For as long as we’d been friends she’d never heard me bawl like this.

“I caught Malik cheating on me,” I confessed.

I knew that cheating was so normal these days that it felt like no one even batted a lash at it anymore. People actually found it more shocking to be faithful. That was how common cheating had become. But for me . . . for me, my tears were for so much more than the fact that my husband had cheated on me. My tears were for my children who’d become statistics by default. They were now a part of a single-mother household because my husband had decided to walk out on us. I was hurt, distraught, and scared shitless.

“What?” Gabby yelled so loudly that it scared me.

I jumped—startled—and almost dropped the phone. Tears drowned my face and blended with the mucus running from my nose. My throat felt swollen. My lips were dry, minus the tears and the snot. My tongue was heavy, and my mouth felt like cotton.

“Malik was cheating on me,” I repeated, knowing Gabby had heard me the first time, then got up to pace the front room.

“I knew it,” she yelled. “I knew that SOB was up to something. When you told me about—”

“He left me and the kids,” I cut her off. “Took the car and now he’s at the girl’s house.”

“Oh my God! What?”

She too had been so stunned all she could do was call on the Most High. While she screamed to the heavens and asked what, when, where, why, and how, I kept talking. I stopped myself from rambling and started from the beginning . . .

I knew something was wrong as soon as I pulled into the parking space in front of my apartment. It had been a long day, and my day had started out shitty while at school. My Introduction to Criminal Law professor had taken me through the wringer. Professor Hall was a great instructor, but he could be an asshole at times. He’d always been hard on us, but that day, he thought it pertinent to call me out on my APA citations in front of the whole class. I was pissed, embarrassed, and a little humiliated. However, those emotions had to be set to the side for the moment.

As I pulled my metallic blue 2002 PT Cruiser into the normal parking spot in front of my two-bedroom townhome, I could hear the TV blasting and my children screaming at the top of their lungs. Normally, they were quiet when my husband or I were home and watching them. They didn’t carry on that way. I immediately thought something was wrong. My husband and I had been married for eight years. It hadn’t always been the best, but it wasn’t the worst. We’d had our ups and downs, but what relationship hadn’t?

We lived in a sketchy neighborhood. No, it wasn’t the hood of hoods, but it could be the hood that Boyz in the Hood warned us about, depending on the time of day and mood of things. Spanish and English seemed to coincide as different ethnicities clashed. Highland Manor on Upper Riverdale Road didn’t give you a welcome home feeling, but it was my home. The bricked buildings looked as if they needed to be pressure washed. The landscaping could stand some upkeep. Mexican music and hip-hop collided, while the smell of fried chicken and a Hispanic dish fought for dominance over the air. I looked around the apartment complex to make sure nothing looked out of the ordinary. It was about four in the afternoon. January seemed as if it was on a marathon sprint as it was going by fast. It was unusually warm for the season. That should have been my first sign that something was wrong. No way it should have been that warm in winter. The sun was beaming down. Kids were outside playing, some on skates, and others on skateboards. No big coats that would have told of winter, only sweaters and sweatpants to stave off the light chill of the wind.

After hopping from the car, I rushed up the stairs leading to my door, wondering just what the hell was going on in my home. As soon as I pushed the door open, my eyes widened. My three-year-old daughter Leianni was chasing my four-year-old son Hassan around the front room. He had a cake frosting container in his hands holding it up so she couldn’t reach it. They were both covered in chocolate from head to toe. The theme song to Doc McStuffins was playing so loud I could barely hear myself think. For a minute I just shook my head. Words stuck in my throat as I looked at the frosting that covered my furniture and walls.

Where in God’s name was my husband? I thought as I closed the door behind me.

“Hassan, what are you two doing?” I asked as I stopped my son midrun.

“Mommy, he won’t let me have none,” Leianni whined.

“He won’t let me have any,” I corrected her.

“She keeps trying to eat it all,” Hassan chimed in. “Daddy said we had to share.”

I sighed heavily. Leianni’s big Afro puffs were chocolate infused. Angry tears rolled down her golden-brown cheeks. Hassan had a smirk on his face redolent of the one his father would carry.

I snatched the cake frosting from him, then fussed, “You two know better than this.”

“But Daddy—but Daddy said we could have it,” he whined.

I had to calm down. Had to get my wits about me. My annoyance was about to make me lash out at my children when it was their father who I wanted to cuss. I dropped my purse and my keys on the end table by the couch, the table the only thing not covered in chocolate.

“Sit down,” I sternly told the two. “And neither of you had better move until I get back.”

My children plopped down where they stood, both with pouts on their faces. I figured Malik had wanted to get some sleep as he’d been working a lot lately and had probably told the kids they could have the cake frosting so he could close his eyes for a bit. I knew he had to be tired, but the least he could have done was stay downstairs with them. I balled my lips and rushed up the stairs. The heels on my feet needed to come off because my ankles were screaming, but I ignored the pain for the moment.

I probably looked like Miss Sophia as I barged up the carpeted stairs, but it was very irresponsible on my husband’s part to leave the kids unattended. I could hear Miguel’s “Quickie” playing. So not only was he asleep, he had music on so he couldn’t hear what was going on with our children downstairs too? I tried to open the door to find it locked so I entered the bathroom through the hall since our room was connected to the bathroom. I took a quick glance at the mess of Malik’s clothes littering the bathroom floor and shook my head. No matter how much I cleaned, he would still be a messy man.

He wasn’t the cleanest man in the world, but I’d dealt with worse from him and survived it. I could have sworn I heard Malik talking to someone. If he was on the phone and not sleeping, then why would he leave the kids downstairs like that, I wondered. It may have sounded crazy, but as soon as my hand touched the doorknob, a chill settled in my spine.

I twisted the knob to my bedroom and got the shock of my life.

“Ah, yeah, girl. Take this dick,” Malik grunted out.

His head was thrown back, the ends of his braids hanging down his back as the muscles in his ass strained with each pump. In front of him was a dark brown—hairy—ass that didn’t belong to me. Her long weave fanned across her toes as it swooshed and swayed.

“Damn,” she breathed out. “Shit, that’s the spot, nigga,” she crooned.

In that moment, it was like the world stood still. Things that didn’t even matter stood out to me. My bed was in disarray. Red down comforter had been thrown to the floor. Pillows were scattered about. A woman’s black panties with white crust in the seat were atop of one of them. Malik’s drawers were hanging around his left ankle. The cream blackout panels were blowing in the wind of the ceiling fan. My closet door was open. Malik’s shoes tumbled out like he had been searching for something.

His dick was glazed with her satisfaction, and her vagina was making a weird noise. It sounded like he was stirring macaroni. I didn’t even notice the smell. He wasn’t wearing a condom. I noticed that. My husband’s dick was pushing in and out of another woman, and there was no condom separating them. I didn’t know what came over me, didn’t know if it was anger or rage. Couldn’t tell if I had snapped or if I was floating outside my body. What I did know? I knew I picked up the lamp sitting on the dresser by the door, and I cracked it right upside my husband’s face.

His mistress screamed, and then fell to the floor trying to grab something to cover her bouncing breasts. My husband yelled out as the ceramic drew blood.

“You must be out of your goddamned mind to be in my house with my children downstairs fucking another woman!”

I heard the words, but I didn’t know the woman speaking. It was like someone else had taken over me. All I could think about was all the shit Malik had taken me through. I thought about how I had to deal with his ex-girlfriend. I remembered the nights I cried as I held our three-month-old son in my arms and wondered where he was. I remembered those times he claimed to be playing ball or in the studio, only to find out he’d been with his ex. I thought back to how we had to fight to get back on solid foundation, how the pain and hurt had kept me awake at night. There was nothing that could take away the knots in my stomach because I knew he was out cheating on me.

And then there were the apologies. The times he’d cried with his head on my lap, promising me that it had all been a mistake and that he would never take us through that again. Then came the second pregnancy, followed by the marriage. Even after all of that, I’d tricked myself into thinking that he would be a man of his word. Forced myself to overlook the times when he verbally and mentally abused me. I pushed to the back of my mind the times when he’d become so angry he would punch holes in the walls, kick doors down, and get in my face like we were combatants on the street.

I remembered the fights and the yelling. Remembered the way he would tell me I was crazy because I questioned him. I questioned his whereabouts at times because I had this nagging feeling in my gut that told me Malik had been up to his old tricks. My dreams had started to haunt me. They showed me my husband’s adulterous ways, but I’d ignored them. Why? Because I didn’t want to be a single mother. For the sake of my children, I put on a façade like I had the perfect marriage.

Malik and whoever the bitch was cowering in the corner had taken all that away from me. As I launched at my husband, kicking and screaming like a wild banshee, that whore sat in the corner screaming and crying.

“Yo, Shell, chill,” Malik roared at me.

Blood was in his eyes as he tried to get ahold of me. But my anger couldn’t be contained. With ease, I kicked him in his dick, then sent a rapid succession of slaps and punches to his face and body as he fell down. My braids fell down from their neat bun as I stomped him. He kept sliding further and further underneath the bed to shield himself from my wrath. For as long as we’d been together, Malik had never seen this side of me. To him, I seemed docile, I knew it. Because I’d let him beat me into the ground with his words, he never knew that I possessed the level of anger I was bestowing on him.

I’d forgotten my children were downstairs. Had forgotten my senses as I picked up the radio and threw it at the bitch in the corner. The CD portal on top of the small radio popped open when it landed in her face. She screamed, and then tried to get up. Feet spread shoulder-length apart, I yanked her from the corner by her precious weave. The butt whupping I was laying on her no doubt looked like something from the hood in a Worldstar Hip-Hop fight video, but I didn’t care. The fact that I had two degrees and was working on a third didn’t matter. As my arms swung back, and then came forward to land my fists in her face, I cared about nothing.

Tears stung my eyes as I wailed on her, then threw her head into the opened closet door.

“Shell, chill,” Malik called out behind me.

How dare he tell me to chill! My hand was tangled in messy weave. His fuck toy had clawed my face and neck as she struggled to get footing in the one-sided brawl. Malik grabbed me from behind. Because of his intrusion, the girl got in a few hits to my face, which only pissed me off further. I pulled my hand free from its weaved entanglement, bucked and kicked my legs like a windmill, sending the end of my heels into the girl’s face.

“Let me go,” I screamed.

Malik tossed me on the bed and held me there as he yelled at Janay—I now knew her name—to leave.

“Go, just go,” he yelled at her while pinning me down on the bed.

Blood trickled down the side of his face onto my chest. Janay snatched up her clothes—bitch left her filthy panties—and hightailed from my bedroom.

I came back to the present as I told Gabby the whole sordid tale.

“Shit just got worse from there,” I said. “He and I continued to fight. My kids had to see and hear all of this. I lost it, Gabby. I just lost it. In my house, in our room, with our children downstairs. He had no regard for me, no respect for our children, or our marriage.”

“That’s a dirty—and I’m sorry, I’m just gonna say it—nigga. That’s a dirty damn nigga.”

Gabby’s words shocked me. She normally didn’t use any kind of profanity or use the N-word.

“It gets worse,” I kept going.

I looked out the blinds of my front window. Darkness engulfed my home, but it was bright and shiny on the outside world. Real life depicted my mood. I smiled and fronted on the outside for my children; on the inside, I was a mess.

“Oh God, what else happened?” Gabby wanted to know.

“After all of that, after all that shit, he left. Took the car and left. I haven’t been able to get the kids to school on time. Hassan has to be at school by seven forty-five. Malik doesn’t come to the house until about eight fifteen. He’s talking about going back to New York. And that’s not the worst part.”

“Can it get any worse, Shell? I mean, really. Girl . . .”

She. . .