Indebted: Part Three (Series Finale): The Virgin & The Bad-Boy Billionaire (A BWWM Billionaire Romance) (4 page)

I giggle, knowing what's coming. "Then this one just yells out 'FUCK' at the top of her lungs. I mean, the little old ladies making tea out in the lobby probably even heard her. Our folks were horrified. The room just broke out into laughter, I’ve never heard people laugh so loud. Even Pastor George was chuckling at it. I thought Dad wasn't going to make it home in one piece by the time Mama was done with him." We laugh.

“Well, I should get a start on these dishes,” Paula stands up from the table and begins clearing the empty plates. I pop up from my seat, ready to lend a hand, but she pulls the cups I’m collecting from my hand. "Now you just sit back down and enjoy your time with your brothers, Kendra. It's not often that you all get the chance to get together. Tania, you stay put too. I remember how exhausting it is to be in your shoes,” Tania smiles wearily and rubs her hand over her baby belly.

“I’ll help you out,” Winnie offers, picking up where I left off. We all sit at the table awkwardly watching Paula and Winnie clear away the supper dishes. I feel like a bad guest to just be watching them clean up after they served me such a nice meal. This silence doesn’t lift when they disappear into the house with armfuls of dirty plates and cutlery. Everyone seems to be lost in thought, everyone except for Tania. She looks like she may soon fall asleep.

I debate my question back and forth in my mind. Part of me wants to just close the book on Matthew and move on, but a larger part, a stronger part, wants answers. "Guys,” my brothers abandon their inner monologues and turn their attention to me. “I was just wondering, uh, do you know anything about the guy that hit Dad in the accident?" I try to ask casually, but my mouth dries up, and my forehead has telltale beads of sweat forming on my brow as I wait to find out what happened.

“Yeah, I know a little bit about it.” Reginal looks at me out of the corner of his eye, “why are you asking about this now? You’ve never wanted to know about the accident before.”

I shrug off the silent stares of my brothers, “I guess I’m an adult now and feel like it’s time for me to know a bit more.”

“I don’t know much about it either, to be honest,” Blake pipes in, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. Regional stares at the beads sliding down his beer and his eyes cloud over.

“You two were pretty young when he passed away. It was important to Mama to keep the details to a minimum.” Reginal starts picking the label off his beer bottle as he disappears into a different time. A time when our family had a simpler, happier life. As the oldest, he has the most vivid memories of our father. Of all the children, I think he was actually affected the most by his death at the time. As he said, Blake and I were too young to fully grasp what was going on and Issaiah put up a tough facade, never letting anyone know how he was dealing with the loss.

“He was working double shifts at the factory.” He pulls himself back to the present to answer my question but still looks off into the distance as he talks. “We didn’t have a reliable car back then, the stupid thing was always busting down. It was one of those times when the car was on the fritz, so Dad missed the last bus and was walking down the side of the street sometime after midnight. Anyway, a drunk driver swerved right into him.”

That’s the same story I’ve heard a million times. Normally, it’s all I’ve ever felt I wanted to know about it. My father was a good man, killed by a drunk driver. Case closed. However, with Marjorie’s recent bombshell, I need to know more. “I know that, but what happened? Why weren’t there any charges laid against the guy?” I pretend to be ignorant.

Reginal sniffs, and clears his throat. “The driver? Well, he died too. Not on the scene, but a few days later in the hospital. He had a kid in the car with him too, not like the boys.” He nods over at Bailey and Jonah, sitting over in the grass together looking at a caterpillar with the dedicated fascination that only four-year-olds can. “He was older. Probably in his early teens. Anyway, he walked away from it, but he had some broken bones and got cut up pretty good. He was pretty banged up.”

“Matthew Blackwell?” The question hangs over the picnic table like a rain cloud over a wedding.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Why do you want to know about the kid?” Issaiah interrupts us, twisting his mouth to the side.

“I’ve been dating him.” I breathe the confession into my hands, hanging my head over the table. I can feel their eyes on me, making me smaller with each second ticking by.

“You’re what?” Regional looks concerned. “How does that happen, exactly?” His fidgety hands abandon their work peeling the paper off his beer as he crosses his arms across his chest. Blake and Issaiah don’t say a word, just waiting for me to explain myself as I coax my tongue to speak. A light snore spreads across the table from Tania, breaking some of the tension. Blake puts his arm around his fiance, pulling her head onto his shoulder.

“He came to the diner one day. Not too long ago, maybe a month. I was on shift so I brought him a menu, and we went on a date.” I breeze over the details of the day. They don’t need to know about how I yelled at him for calling me sweetheart or that he called me at home after I threw away his number. Reginal and Issaiah exchange a glance but remain silent. “What? Tell me,” I prod them, knowing they’re holding back.

“So,” Issaiah rolls the word over his tongue like an expensive wine, “he was looking for you?” It’s impossible not to hear the alarm in his voice. “Did he offer you money?”

“What? What the hell are you asking me?” My shoulders stiffen with the implication. Is he asking me if I’ve been acting as some kind of call-girl for Matthew? Blake and I exchange our own glance, but it’s one of shared confusion. Apparently he’s been living in the dark right along with me.

Reginal raises his hand up, shushing us up. He closes his eyes like he’s trying to remember the details of what he’s about to tell me, “when you first went to university, Matthew Blackwell tracked down Mama. He told her that he wanted to make things right with her. His heart seemed to be in the right place, I guess, but he tried to give her some money.”

“Some money!” Isaiah snorts. “She never would’ve worked again!”

Reginal nods at Issaiah and continues, “it’s true, he offered her enough to retire comfortably. Mama wouldn’t have any of it though. She told him that she’d never taken a handout in her life, and she wasn’t going to start with him. The kid, I mean, your boyfriend kept persisting though. He wasn’t taking no for an answer, but he didn’t know what he was up against with her stubborn streak. She ripped a strip off him, yelling at him about how his cash wouldn’t fix the damage done. About how rich people are all the same, they think money can smooth everything over.”

In my mind, I watch Matthew bearing the brunt of my mother’s anger over his father’s mistake. My heart hurts when I picture him reaching out to her, trying to help her in the only way he was taught how to. With money.

“She should’ve taken that check, if you ask me,” Issaiah speaks up. “They say pride goeth before the fall, don’t they? If she just wasn’t so damned proud, then she wouldn’t have worked herself to death. Her heart was already weak, and she knew it. Taking it easy back then would’ve kept her around to meet all her grandchildren today.”

“Why would anyone turn down a chance like that?” Blake blinks, trying to understand her decision. I already understand as clearly as if I had slammed the door in his face instead of Mama. Lord knows, I’ve had plenty of experience turning him away myself.

“Because she didn’t want to be pitied. She didn’t want to be his charity case.” I echo the words I’ve repeated to Brianna numerously since I learned about the accident.

“Exactly,” Reginal agrees, “and look where that got her. Mama made a mule look like a push-over. In the end, I’d say you’re right Issaiah, her pride is what killed her just as much as that heart attack.

My ears are ringing like someone cuffed them. Now I’ve been walking step-for-step in my Mama’s footprints, shutting him out for fear of being weak or pitied. This whole time Matthew has just been trying to make things right with my family, and he’s just dealt with pride and anger.

“So, is he some kind of stalker or something?” Blake asks me. “It seems weird that he found you on purpose and now you two are dating.

“He’s not a stalker!” My voice is louder than I wanted, but hearing someone else talk about Matthew like that shreds my insides. Especially since I was just saying the same things about him just a couple of days ago. “He did originally find me to talk to me about his father, but things got serious between us pretty quick. And he never offered me any money at all,” I say pointedly to Reginal. “It doesn’t matter now anyway,” remorse fills my sigh, “I fucked it up. We’re done now anyway.”

“It sounds like that’s probably for the best anyway,” Reginal breezes over my heavy heart. “You’ve got enough going on right now; there’ll be other guys.”
Not like him
. I bite my tongue, not wanting to put argue with my brother. Maybe he’s right, it could be for the best.

“Who wants another beer?” Regional interrupts my thoughts, rolling his naked bottle in his hand. The fragments of the beer label are stripped off and strewn over the table.

“Nah, we should probably head out here soon.” Blake smooths his hand over Tania’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s getting late.”Isaiah agrees. The sky is turning the deep hues of blue that you only see just before the first stars shimmer. As soon as Reginal is out of earshot, Issaiah leans into me. “Hey, I can see that this wasn’t just some fling was it? You really care about this guy, huh?”

I nod, not trusting my voice as my eyes start to water.

“Listen, Mama was a great woman. I’m not taking anything away from her, ok? You’re so much like her Kendra, I can see the best of Mama in you.”

“Thank you, I try.”

“I know you do. But here’s the thing, don’t follow that path too close, ok? I mean, Mama didn’t die a happy woman, you know? She could’ve let someone help her and had a longer and more fulfilling life. She could’ve still been with us right now, holding Marie or playing with Bailey and Jonah, but she let her pride break her. I just don’t want to see you do the same. If you have something real, don’t let your stubborn streak destroy it.”

“I think I already did,” I mumble to my iced tea.

“It’s only too late if you say it is,” Blake adds.

Is he right? Can I still fix this? I’m not sure. My head is swimming in thorns as my temples start throbbing after such an emotional day. There’s one thing that I’m certain of right now; that I need to get home and get some rest.

As Issaiah and Winnie pack up the car, I drift over to the side of the house and pull out my phone. Matthew’s number stares me in the face as I weigh out the consequences of calling him.
What if he tells me to stay out of his life? What if he hates me?
I throw back my shoulders and stick out my jaw.
There’s only one way to find out.
The phone rings, once…twice…three times.

“Hello, You’ve reached Matthew Blackwell on my private line. Please leave a message and I’ll return your call shortly.”
BLEEP
, the voice mail deafens me with it’s prompt to leave a message.

“Um, yeah. Hi, Matthew. This is, uh, Kendra. And, well, I was hoping we could talk maybe? I know that you might not want to speak with me, but I thought I’d try to get a hold of you. Anyway, if you want to call me back? That’d be really great and….
BLEEP!
His messaging service just cut me off. I hang up and throw my phone into my purse, my mouth twisting in disgust. The thought of him listening to that rambling nonsense makes my brain feel like it’s being hammered with hot nails.
Great.
And now, all I can do is sit back and wait.

Chapter Three

Swishing back and forth, I admire the way my floor length graduation gown hangs from my shoulders. “You look gorgeous, Kendra! Aren’t you glad you started wearing make-up? You look like a model, seriously.” Brianna beams over my shoulder. The tension that was swirling around us at the diner seems to have evaporated. It reminds me of when we were teenagers, and we would have epic blow-outs over something as stupid as who should win America’s Top Model that season. Then, less than a day later we would check our egos and move on as though we’d never spoken a bad word to each other in our entire lives.