Man Enough For Me (23 page)

“It’s okay, Max,” Jules said, hugging her friend as she began to cry. Jules knew Maxine was thinking that Truuth could have been hurt too, and that was what was probably upsetting her most. “The report on the news said nobody got hurt, so there’s nothing to be upset about. Truuth’s fine; I’m fine; we’re all okay, thank God.”

Maxine sniffled and wiped her eyes as she nodded in agreement. “I wish the guys would just get back so we can get out of here. I just want all of this to be over.”

Jules watched Maxine wring her hands over and over and then nervously rub her stomach.

“Have you told him yet?” Jules asked.

Maxine looked up at Jules and then down at her stomach and sighed. “No.”

“Maxine, you’re more than a month along!”

“I know! But …” She sighed and looked helpless. “I haven’t found the right time yet.”

“Have you at least told your parents?”

Being the youngest, Maxine was the only one of them who still lived at home. And unlike most of them, she had both of her parents still around.

Instead of answering Jules, Maxine looked off in the direction of the station and said nothing, her hand still rubbing her tummy absently.

Jules sighed. “Oh, Max.”

She put her arm around her friend’s shoulder but said nothing more. She couldn’t make Maxine do anything she didn’t want to do. She would tell Truuth and her parents whenever she thought the time was right and not a moment before. And even though Jules might disagree with her timing, she would support her friend nonetheless.

It was more than half an hour later before Truuth and ‘Dre came walking out the doors of the police station. Right behind them was Germaine, with what looked like a senior policeman. While Truuth and ‘Dre continued toward the parking lot, Germaine remained near the doors talking to the officer.

“Boo, I was so worried about you,” Maxine said, wrapping her arms around Truuth as soon as he got near enough. You would never believe she had just seen him an hour before.

“I’m fine,” Truuth said. Even though he was talking to Maxine, his eyes were staring coldly at Jules. Jules braced herself.

“What’s she doing here?”

Even though several weeks had passed since the blowup at
the office, and since Truuth’s launch, Truuth still refused to talk to Jules. It wasn’t really difficult, because Jules was doing her best to avoid him as well.

“She was with me,” ‘Dre said. “Go easy, Truuth.”

But Truuth ignored him.

“So you thought my cuz was mixed up in some drug mess, didn’t you,” he said accusingly. “Why he got to be dirty? Just because we from the ghetto? And we didn’t grow up in some high society neighborhood like you?”

Jules narrowed her eyes and glared at him “You need to check yourself, Truuth,” she said coldly. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“You didn’t know nothing about G either, but you were ready to call him a criminal.”

“Well, judging from everything that just went down, looks like I was right.”

“No, you ain’t right,” Truuth said angrily. “You ain’t never been right.”

“Jules, Germaine was working with the police to bust those dealers,” ‘Dre said quietly from beside her. “That’s why they were always at his store. It was a setup.”

Jules’s mouth fell open. “That’s not what he told me,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I guess he figured out early who he could and couldn’t trust,” Truuth said.

She looked from Truuth to ‘Dre back to Truuth, who Maxine was trying to calm down. Then she looked up at the steps where Germaine was laughing with the officer. They shook hands. Then the officer went inside, and Germaine came down the steps toward them. Toward her.

Jules’s head began to spin with all the new information. She was trying to figure out everything, but it was too much for her. As soon as she came to some sort of decision about Germaine, the ground would shift under her, and she’d find herself looking at a totally different person. Her mind couldn’t take it.

“Yo, man, I had no idea. Sorry about everything, bro,” ‘Dre said to Germaine apologetically.

“It’s no big deal,” Germaine said, brushing it off. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t have told you guys. I just realized today how much danger you could have been in. But I was under orders.”

“We understand,” ‘Dre said.

Jules watched the three of them fuss over Germaine, but she didn’t move. He looked tired. Really tired, but relieved.

She was sure there was something she should say, but she was too busy trying to figure out how she should feel. Should she apologize? But why? He was the one who lied to her. But he lied to protect her. How much of it was a lie?

“Anyway, we’re gonna jet,” Truuth said, reaching for the car door.

“It’s about time,” Maxine said. “This place makes my skin crawl.”

“We’ll catch up with you guys later,” Truuth said. He shot Jules one last nasty look before getting into the car, with Maxine and Germaine in tow.

Jules was about to turn to leave when Germaine’s eyes caught hers. His expression was unreadable, and that alone sent a cold chill through her. Without a word, he stepped into the car, closing the door behind him.

Jules watched the car disappear out of the parking lot. Then she turned around to look at ‘Dre. “What the hell just happened?”

B
am, bam, bam.

Jules’s knuckles hurt from the force she used to knock on the door. When it finally flew open, she didn’t wait for a greeting. “So I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that I have a right to be mad as hell right now.”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to show up,” Germaine said. “Two days? Not bad.”

“You lied to me.”

Instead of answering, Germaine walked away from the open door into the living room. Jules shoved the door closed before following him.

She had never been in his apartment before. And if she had been in a better mood, she would have appreciated the masculine feel of it, from the tan walls, to the hardwood floors, to the chocolate-colored sofa. Everything was all shades of brown, with subtle hints of yellow and gold. It was all Germaine, and on another day she would have noticed it. But today, she didn’t even see the thick area rug until she almost tripped over it in her stilettos. She hadn’t had time to change after church.

“Okay, Jules,” he said when she finally rounded the corner. He was sitting back in the armchair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. “I know you like to talk, so let’s have it.”

“Don’t mock me,” Jules snapped from the middle of the living room. “You had me looking like an idiot.”

“You wouldn’t have looked like an idiot if you had done the one thing I asked you to,” Germaine said. “But I’m glad to see that the way you looked is actually what’s upsetting you the most. I guess I am the only one concerned about the lack of trust in our relationship.”

“What relationship?” Jules asked with a cynical laugh. “You can’t build a relationship on lies, and you were lying to me the whole time!”

“I never lied about how I felt.”

“No, just everything else,” Jules said. “But I guess because you were honest about your
feelings,
that makes it all okay.”

“Now who’s mocking who?”

“Don’t make this about me, Germaine. You could have told me what was going on from the get-go, when I first suspected something was off. But you didn’t. You kept the game going till the end. You even let me …”

Jules’s voice caught in her throat, and she chided herself for crying even though she had promised herself she wouldn’t. “You let me walk away.”

She impatiently swatted away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks and looked away at the wall, unable to meet Germaine’s eyes, unwilling to let him see just how much he had hurt her.

“I never wanted that to happen,” Germaine said quietly, after a long moment. “I just wish you could have trusted me from the beginning when I told you I was straight.”

“I wanted to trust you,” Jules said. “But I was just scared, for me, for Truuth, for you.”

“Truuth was never in danger. Neither were you, Jules.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because I was taking care of it,” he said. “I told you that I was handling it.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

“Geez, Jules, what is it with you?” Germaine asked, raking his hand through his hair.

“I was just trying to help!”

“No, you were trying to fix, like you always do. Like you always have to.”

“So what’s so wrong with that?”

“Everything, Jules,” he said, getting up and walking across the room. “Not everyone needs you to solve his or her problems. Can’t you see that?”

“I thought you were in trouble, Germaine. What was I supposed to do?”

“Exactly what I asked you to.”

Jules said, folding her arms stubbornly. “Why is it such a big deal anyway? If you were working with the police, wouldn’t they already know what you were up to?”

Germaine shook his head. “Some of the guys we were trying to bust were in the force.”

“Oh,” Jules said, her hands falling from their folded position.

“We wanted to take down everyone, the dirty cops, the guys in Montreal, and everyone else who was working with them. Everything would have wrapped up in a couple days.”

“Which is why you asked me to give you a couple weeks,” Jules said, sinking into the couch.

Germaine nodded.

Jules shifted uncomfortably as she felt his eyes on her. “Did I mess things up?”

Germaine was silent, and Jules felt her stomach drop.

“No,” he finally said. “But you made it a lot more complicated. There was never supposed to be any sort of confrontation, no risk of anyone getting hurt. Your friend, Detective Hansen, didn’t know about the operation. He talked to the wrong people about it, and one of them tipped off the guys. They knew police were coming before they even got there. Fortunately we still got them, but a couple officers were injured.”

“But the news said …”

“The news lied. That shouldn’t surprise you.”

Jules sighed. It didn’t. “I guess there’s the whole thing about
your business being burned to the ground as well,” she said quietly.

Germaine shrugged. “It’s just a building, Jules. Material things can be recovered. It’s the things that can’t be replaced that I’m more worried about.”

Jules knew where he was going with that. But she wasn’t sure she was ready for that part of the conversation yet.

She gripped the edge of the sofa tightly and tried to slow her mind, which was currently working in overdrive. She watched Germaine lean against the wall across from her, his eyes still examining her in a rather unnerving way.

“Go ahead,” he finally said.

“What?”

“I can see the questions forming in your mind,” he said. “So go ahead and ask them.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning what was going on? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

“When I met you, Jules, this was already happening,” Germaine said. “I was already in the habit of keeping it to myself.”

“So you had no problem lying to me?” Jules asked. “Even when it meant the end of us?”

“Yes,” Germaine said firmly. “Because I knew it would be safer for you that way. Besides, look how well things turned out when I finally did tell you something.”

Jules’s head snapped up.

“That’s not fair, Germaine. What would you have done if you were in my position?”

“I would have waited,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.

“It’s easy to be self-righteous when you’re on the other side, Germaine.”

“I went out on a limb for you, Jules.” He stepped toward her, his eyes burning into her. “I told my supervisors, no way will she say anything. She promised me. I trust her. But I guess that was my mistake.”

Jules shook her head. “You wanted me to trust you, Germaine
But you never gave me a reason to. You don’t just get trust like that, Germaine. You have to earn it.”

“I guess I didn’t earn yours then.”

A heavy silence fell between them as the weight of Germaine’s words hung in the air. Jules had known that coming here was going to be hard, but she had never thought it would hurt so much.

“I’m sorry, Germaine,” Jules said. There was no more anger in her, just sadness as she looked up at him.

“I know you are, Jules,” Germaine said. “But the thing that bothers me the most is that if you had it to do all over again, you’d probably do the same thing.”

She felt her body tense, and she stood up to face him.

“You’re right,” she said. “I probably would, if you lied to me then, just like you lied to me before. I’m sorry if you were expecting some ride or die chick who would watch you get into trouble and not do anything about it. That’s not me. I can’t do that with people I care about.”

“I never asked for all that,” Germaine said, matching her even tone. “I just asked you to stand by me. But you couldn’t do that either. Everything has to be Jules’s way or the highway.

“You know what my life’s been like, with my dad dying, and then my mom sending me away. I thought you understood that I needed you to have my back through everything. But with you I’ll always be wondering if you’re gonna question every move I make. I can’t live like that.”

“And I can’t be that girl who’s gonna follow you blindly.”

“Well, then I guess we know where we stand.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jules said.

This was it. It was really over.

Jules dropped her head and closed her eyes. Her chest felt heavy with the thought of never being with him again. But she couldn’t be that girl he wanted her to be. It just wasn’t in her.

Opening her eyes, she slowly turned to retrieve her purse from the sofa where she had flung it some moments before. She could feel his eyes watching her. He was so close that the
warmth of his body seemed to surround her, making it hard to breath. With just the slightest of movements, she could reach out and touch him. But she didn’t. Neither did she dare look up, for fear that those golden eyes would make her cave. No, this time she had to be strong.

She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her halfway to the door.

“Remember when you asked me why I never asked for your number that first night?”