My Man's Best Friend II

Book 2: My Man's Best Friend

by Tresser Henderson

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

Synopsis

Dark secrets and hot passion abound in this dramatic new novel in a sizzling series that will keep readers begging for more.

Love happens when you least expect it. Derrick knows this all too well after falling for Kea, his best friend’s girlfriend. But as fate would have it, he has just found out the love of his life is also his sister. Derrick is devastated by the news, but the beautiful and alluring Trinity is more than eager to help him forget about the turmoil he’s going through. Little does Derrick know that Trinity has her own secrets, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep them buried.

Kea understands the emotional rollercoaster Derrick is on, because she’s on her own downward spiral. Kicking her boyfriend Jaquon out of her life is a start, but it won’t solve everything, because in spite of it all, she’s still in love with him.

Jaquon knows Kea means it this time, and he’s determined to change for the better to get his baby back. He’s slowly working his way back into Kea’s good graces, but he’s not alone in his quest for her heart. Derrick, who believes the DNA test is not true, convinces Kea to have another test done to prove they are not related. Trinity, Jaquon, and even Zacariah are against this test happening, afraid it will change the dynamics of their relationships.

Not every story has a happy ending. Will anyone succeed in getting the love they are so eagerly seeking? And who will be left mourning the loss of a loved one? Tresser Henderson continues to deliver the drama in My Man’s Best Friend II.

Release date: April 30, 2013

Publisher: Urban Renaissance

Print pages: 304

Sample

My world came crumbling down in front of a yard full of people when I got flashbacks of Zacariah’s descent down the road of destroying as many lives as she could. She annihilated everybody tonight and stepped beyond the line of tampering with my life. Not only my life, but she destroyed Kea’s, Derrick’s, and, possibly, their families’ lives. All because she wanted revenge. All because her world wasn’t going according to the way she wanted it to go. Selfish bitch.

I knew when I saw Zacariah it was going to be a problem. There was never a time when she was around that there wasn’t a problem, and this was why I knew I had to do everything in my power to stay as far away from her as possible. The woman came stepping up in the cookout with a grey tank top, black skinny jeans, and grey stilettos. Who comes to a cookout in stilettos? Regardless, she looked nice. I might not have liked her but Zacariah always had swag. And she wanted that swag to aid in her getting Derrick back. Funny thing was, he hardly noticed her. Why would he when he had his eyes on my woman, Kea?

When I was sitting at the game table, pulling my money, with Essence by my side, seeing Kea walk my way, I knew then things were about to be on and poppin’. I wanted to snap my fingers and be somewhere else in that moment. I wanted Essence to disappear into another realm while my life with Kea remained intact. But, that was all wishful thinking as Kea approached me and the woman I had been sleeping with for weeks. Kea didn’t know this but she knew my past indiscretions with other women. I wasn’t the most trustworthy companion to her. Kea finding out through others about my adulterous behavior was one thing, but to see me chilling with the woman I had been sleeping with behind her back was another.

So like I expected, Kea went the hell off. One was for disrespecting her. Then, two, for having the audacity to have my fling there to flaunt in her face. Of course I denied it but, after Kea kept pushing the issue, I had no choice but to confess my involvement with Essence. I wished she would have seen this was innocent. Essence and I were basically done at that point. I was ready to try to make it work with her, especially since it seemed like I was losing her to my best friend. But, as fate would have it, as soon as I was ready to turn my life around I got hit with a cataclysm that ended everything for me.

The expression on Kea’s face was seared into my heart forever. The anger and hurt that consumed her delicate features stared back at me with a vengeance I knew was getting ready to be rectified. So her smacking the hell out of me was only the beginning of what I knew was the end of our relationship.

I was busted plain and simple. There was nothing I could do at this point but deal with the repercussions. You would think I would have learned my lesson when she threw that brick through the window of the other woman she caught me with but the dog in me kept humpin’ around.

“Would you like another drink?” the redheaded, freckle-faced bartender asked.

I nodded. I was so consumed in my own thoughts I forgot I was in a bar. I didn’t even realize a DJ was playing music. That’s just how stressed out I was right now.

“Rough day?” he asked.

“Rough can’t even describe how bad a day I’ve had,” I said, throwing back the last of the liquid in my glass.

“I take it a woman’s behind this?” Freckles asked, setting another rum and Coke before me.

“You can say that, but the troubles I’m going through are my entire fault.”

The bartender nodded and went to serve other people surrounding the bar waiting to drink down the hassles of today. For me, this was my sixth drink and I still didn’t have a buzz. I guessed sadness fought against intoxication.

I didn’t know what I was thinking when I invited Essence to that cookout. Was I smoking something that clouded my judgment? I mean, I had dabbled with weed in the past but this time I hated to say this decision was done with a sober mind. How did I think it would be okay to have my girlfriend and the girl I was sleeping with in the same vicinity? Essence not being there would not only have eliminated my own breakup but it would have also eliminated Zacariah from coming, and eradicated all the mayhem she brought with her.

I wanted so much to blame that selfish, conniving tramp Zacariah for everything that happened tonight but I knew she couldn’t take all the blame. Yes, she put everybody’s business on Front Street but I played a part in this debacle too. If I would have stayed faithful, this incident never would have happened. I would have Kea by my side and my best friend sitting at the bar having drinks with me now.

Hell, I hadn’t even thought about Derrick. He and I went way back. I’m talking about riding bikes and playing basketball at eight years old. I couldn’t imagine my life going forward without him. When it came to friends, he was the best one to have in your corner. He was my friend despite my arrogance and my conniving ways, especially when it came to women. He had never betrayed me, not until he slept with Kea. Up until then, I was the one who demonstrated distrustful behavior. I had stepped beyond the best friend code and slept with Zacariah, which was the biggest mistake of my life. The sad part about it was Zacariah was the only woman Derrick found out about.

This was not my first time sleeping with one of Derrick’s women. I hate to admit that but it’s true. There were Tamra, Kelly, Monique, Sasha, and Page. I know that’s a lot but this goes back over a twenty-year period. Still, I did it. I wouldn’t admit it to him, not unless he asked. And even if he did, I thought I would lie and say Zacariah was the only one who I took to bed. Does that make me the bad guy in this? Hell yeah. I’m deserving of what I’m getting right now. I never thought about any consequences. Who does when they are doing something they want to do? Still, here I sat, consuming another rum and Coke, wishing I could turn back the hands of time. These were my transgressions coming full circle and I was sitting in the middle of this chaos.

Sipping on my drink, I watched the bartender mix a blue liquid into two tall glasses. He then put a slice of orange on the rim and set the glasses in front of two attractive women at the other end of the bar. One was a redbone with long, curly, auburn hair and the other was a deep mocha chick with a short cut. The mocha chick was more attractive than her acquaintance. She must’ve felt me staring because she made eye contact with me immediately. A smile crept across her face but I just looked with not so much as a smirk on mine. Women and cheating were what had me sitting here, drinking alone, with my girlfriend ready to leave me. Yeah, I could accept Kea and I were over and go holla at Mocha but I really wasn’t in the mood. It was time to go pay the piper and face Kea like a man. I needed to go home, but I thought I needed another drink just to deal with what was to come.

Gulping down the last of my drink, I gestured for the redheaded bartender to bring me one more. Scanning the room, my eyes fell upon someone I was not expecting to see. It didn’t take her long to jump back into another man’s arms. It was Essence. She was just with me hours ago and now she was sitting with some punk grinning all up in her face. Seeing this guy with her actually ticked me off. I stood to my feet to go over and ask her what the hell she was doing. I was going to snatch her up and try my best not to shake the hell out of her. Then I halted. She was not my woman. How could I flip out when she was not the one I had a commitment with? Kea was my main priority.

Essence looked my way. The look she gave me wounded my already sunken spirit. She gritted hard on me but why? What did I do to her? Our little fling was just that, a fling. She knew my situation going in and didn’t care. Now she was looking at me like I better leave her alone. I guessed she knew what she wanted and I was not it. I was not about to stand in the way of her getting her game on. So I bucked the fresh drink the bartender set before me, tossed four twenty dollar bills on the bar, and left.

Driving around for a while, I finally decided to go home and face my demons. I didn’t know what I was going to hear once I got there and I guessed driving around was helping me avoid the inevitable. I considered buying flowers, candy, and even a diamond ring at this point but I knew none of those things would work right now. It was sort of like buying my way back into her heart instead of being a man and facing my mistakes. But, still, anything to make Kea forgive me I was willing to do.

When I pulled up into a parking space in front of our apartment building, Kea’s madness was evident. I pulled up to find all my items scattered about. I got out of my car looking at how Kea made it rain with my clothes, shoes, CDs, and my game systems. She flung all of it over the balcony. To make matters worse, Kea had sliced and bleached some of my clothes. When I saw the new Jordans I had just purchased days ago soaked in the destructive liquid with slashes all over them I really became angry. I knew I had broken Kea’s heart and, yes, tonight was the straw that broke the camel’s back but come on. She didn’t have to stoop to the level of destroying my property. I’d have expected something like this from Zacariah. She played down and dirty. When she came swinging, her blows felt like gut-wrenching punches being thrown by cement-filled gloves, knocking everybody out. Now Kea had adapted to this same method of revenge. I guessed constantly being betrayed changed the sweet woman I knew her to be.

Scooping up what wasn’t destroyed, which wasn’t much, I tossed what I could salvage into my car. I then headed upstairs, putting my key in the lock to enter. Before I could turn the key, the door behind me opened. I turned to see Sheila standing there half naked in a two-piece black lace nightie. She was always good for coming to the door in something skanky but now was not the time.

“Hey, Jaquon,” she said seductively, smiling at me, posing like she was doing a shoot for Playboy magazine. “Do you want to come over for a nightcap?”

I frowned at her, asking, “Are you serious? You do know Kea’s in here,” I said, pointing at the door I was about to walk through.

“From the way she tossed your things out, I figured you two were over,” she said.

I thought about Sheila’s attempts that did work on me in the past, which landed me in her bed. For a while I maintained thinking it wasn’t right to sleep with a woman so close to home. But the day did come where I was too weak to resist sexual attempts. I went over and did what I did best. I tore that ass up and not just one time, several different times, until my cockiness almost got me caught by Kea.

This particular day I was bangin’ Sheila down from the back when someone knocked on her door. I snatched my johnson from Sheila and went to the bathroom while she got rid of whoever it was. To my dismay it was Kea, asking Sheila to turn down the music, which was blasting to mask the moans and groans we both were making.

“I know you and your men like to have sex with the music blasting but do you think you can turn it down please? Some of us are getting ready to go to sleep.”

“Okay. My bad. I’ll turn it down,” Sheila said.

As soon as that door closed I came from the bathroom with a limp johnson, stuffing it back into my boxer briefs, knowing this could never happen again. I was playing with fire for sure, cheating so close to my home with Kea sometimes sitting in our apartment while I screwed Sheila. In the beginning it never occurred to me that the neighbors could talk if they saw me constantly coming from Sheila’s place, but the dog in me didn’t care because my johnson was overpowering common sense.

I eventually put a stop to it. I hated to because Sheila was gifted in the bedroom. Hell, she was gifted wherever we decided to do it. She was the type of chick who sucked toes and licked balls. She even did this thing with Pop Rocks one night that made me consider leaving Kea for good. But she was a straight-up whore. You couldn’t turn a whore into a housewife, and Kea was housewife material, so Shelia had to go.

Seeing Shelia standing in her doorway half naked scared the hell out of me because I was afraid Kea was looking through the peephole, watching this freak attempt to lure me back into her corrupted lair again.

“You look a little stressed,” Sheila said.

“I have some things going on right now.”

“You need some help with relieving some pressure?” she asked, sucking on her index finger.

“No. I’m good,” I said, turning the knob, opening the door to enter.

“Holla at me later, boo. I’m here if you need me.”

I turned to look at her angrily before shutting the door in her face. I hoped Kea didn’t hear what she said because she damn sure said it loud enough for the people on the basement floor to hear. If I didn’t know any better I’d think Shelia was attempting to break me and Kea up. I was surprised her trifling behind hadn’t told Kea already. Maybe I should tell her before Sheila does, but right now that will only add gasoline to this inferno.

The apartment was dark and quiet. I clicked the light on only to find it didn’t work. With the light from the moon giving me enough illumination to maneuver, I made my way to the bedroom. The carpet beneath my feet hushed my steps as I entered our bedroom. I clicked the light on in there but it too didn’t come on. Did Kea pay the electric bill? I wondered. I looked at the DVD player in our room to see the time showing 2:19, which meant we had electricity. I walked over to the television and turned it on. Finally something worked. The TV lit the room and once it did I saw Kea standing beside me. It was like she appeared out of nowhere. I jumped halfway across the room.

“Damn it, Kea,” I said with my heart beating rapidly. I wasn’t expecting Kea to be all up on me like she was. I could tell from her swollen eyes she had been crying. She looked disheveled but through her madness I couldn’t help but to bask in her beauty. I looked her up and down until my eyes fell upon what she was holding.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked cautiously.

“I’m getting ready to whoop your . . .” she said, not finishing her sentence as she swung the bat at me. “You bastard. I’m sick and tired”—she swung the bat—“of you cheating”—she swung again—“on me. I want you to pay”—the bat came at me again but missed—“for hurting me.”

I jumped back, with the bat barely missing me a few times. She swung again, hitting the lamp, smashing it into pieces.

“Put the bat down before you hurt somebody,” I said, trying to escape the path of the aluminum weapon.

She swung again but this time I didn’t get out of the way quick enough. The bat landed on my lower back, causing pain to shoot through my body. Again she swung, hitting me on my upper bicep. Her next swing was aimed for my head but I turned quick enough to put my arm up to block the bat from making contact. Pain shot through my arm but I bore it. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the bat before she could take it back to swing at me again. I made sure not to let go of it as Kea struggled to try to regain control of the weapon.

“Let go,” she yelled.

“Not until you calm down.”

We played tug-of-war before I jerked it hard, snatching it from her grip. This made her angrier. She charged for me and began kicking and punching me. It was hard to block with one hand since I was holding the bat with the other. The beast in Kea was unleashing its rage, which had been festering for years. Finally, I threw the bat across the room. She never noticed, still trying to beat me to no end. I went low, scooping her off her feet and throwing her over my shoulders.

“Let me go,” she said, punching my back.

I took her over to the bed, slamming her on her back. Before she had a chance to get up, I straddled her, pinning her arms down, making it impossible for her to move or swing at me again.

“Calm down, Kea,” I yelled.

“Let me go. Get off me,” she screamed.

“Not until you calm down.”

“I hate you. I wish I never met you. How could you do this to me again?” she asked as she began to sob.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” I pleaded.

“I loved you, Jaquon,” she said with tears streaming down the sides of her face. “Why? Why didn’t you just love me back?”

“Baby, I do love you,” I said, feeling her pain in its intensity for the first time.

“You couldn’t have,” she said through a cracking voice.

I could feel her body lose its strength as her struggling arms became limp and her outburst turned into inconsolable sobs. I slowly let go of her arms. She didn’t swing again.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” I tried to say as sincerely as I could.

“All I ever asked was for you to love me, for you to stay true to me, Jaquon, and you couldn’t even do that,” she said.

I crawled from atop her and sat next to her on the bed, watching her anguish release itself. She placed her hands over her face and continued to cry. I placed my hand on her shoulder but she shook it off. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, letting her know it was going to be okay, but I knew she wouldn’t allow it.

“Baby, talk to me, please,” I begged, trying hard not to lose it myself.

“What is there to talk about?” she asked sadly.

“Us.”

She sat up abruptly and I leaned back a bit, thinking she was going to start swinging on me again, but she didn’t.

She said, “There is no ‘us.’ I’m not even sure if there was ever an ‘us,’” she said despondently.

“Don’t say that,” I said, looking at her.

“I mean it this time, Jaquon,” she said, sniffling. “I’m done being your doormat.”

“Baby, we have both done some wrong things here.”

Her expression spoke volumes. She didn’t have to say a word and I knew what I said never should have come out of my mouth. I knew I didn’t have the right to throw up her indiscretions when I had been doing wrong all during our relationship together. Fury invaded her and I knew my words were not sanctioned here.

“You have the nerve to bring Derrick up right now,” she said irately.

“I didn’t say his name.”

“You didn’t have to. It was insinuated.”

I couldn’t say anything because she was right.

“I had every right to cheat on you,” she said.

“But you had to do it with my best friend. Derrick and I have been boys forever,” I said.

She smirked and said, “What better way to get back at you than to screw your boy?”

“But how was that going to solve our issues?”

“Now you want us to resolve things. Now that I have slept with your best friend, that’s when you want to make things work,” she said, getting up off the bed and walking over to the closet.

“I wanted us to work before all this happened,” I countered.

“Well you had a funny way of showing it, Jaquon. I mean really. You invited one of your women to an event you knew I was going to be at. What were you thinking?” she asked.

All I could say was, “I wasn’t.”

“Do you want to know why I slept with Derrick in the first place?”

I leaned forward on the bed, shaking my head because I didn’t want to know, but Kea continued anyway.

“Jaquon, you were never here. You were always making excuses as to why you were sleeping over Derrick’s house. So when he came over here to see you because he was upset about Zacariah cheating on him and you weren’t here, our emotions got caught up. He needed somebody and I needed him.”

Her words were cutting me deep. I didn’t ask for particulars, nor did I care to know, but that didn’t stop her from spewing the gory details.

“The next morning you come up in here saying you were with him. I knew you were lying because Derrick was in bed screwing me. He lay next to me most of the night. And you know what, it felt good. He felt good,” she said with a coldness I had never seen. “Your friend worked my body like it’s never been worked before, but it could have been because he was releasing the pain he was dealing with too. Our grief integrated into a night of passion I will never regret,” she said, pointing at me.

I couldn’t say anything. All the conversations I had with myself didn’t prepare me for Kea telling me in detail how she enjoyed getting it on with Derrick.

“I wanted to see for once what it felt like to be you. I wondered what had you out in the streets all times of night. But I guess in the end the joke was still on me,” Kea said.

I lowered my head, saying the only thing I could. “Baby, I’m sorry,” I said, repeating myself.

She ignored my apology and said, “I only slept with Derrick because he was there for me. He listened to me. He gave me what I couldn’t get from you because you were too busy giving it t. . .