Authors: Monique Miller
Redemption Lake (11 page)
“In the event of a tie, there will be a bonus question asked as the tie breaker. Any questions?” Shelby asked. Hearing none, she continued. “Travis you first. This first question is worth five points. What sport or sports did you play in high school?”
“I played football,” Travis answered with ease.
Beryl flipped her card over which read: FOOTBALL.
Travis and Beryl both clapped their hands.
“All right, good going,” Shelby said. “George?”
“I didn't play any sports in high school. I was all into the books,” George said.
Nina flipped her card over and it read: NONE. And with an air of boredom she placed it back down.
“Good for you both also.” Shelby jotted the points down. “Okay, Xavier. What about you?”
“Oh, let's see. I played football, basketball, and baseball.” Xavier said this as though it were a matter of fact everyone should know. “I helped my high school football team go to State all four years I was there.”
Travis wanted to gag. He was surprised the Pretty Boy had played any kind of sports. Surely he had to have been scared someone might scratch his pretty face with a foul or a fly ball.
Shelby smiled, looking to Charlotte for her answer, “Charlotte?”
Charlotte flipped her card over and it read: BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL.
“Yeah, boy,” Xavier said, acting like his team was going to State again on his account.
“Looks like everyone's tied. Maybe these questions are a little to easy for you all.” Shelby shook her head. “Next question. Men, we asked your wives how old you were when you got your first kiss.”
In the same order in which they had gone before, the men gave their answers. By the end of question number two, only Beryl and Travis had scored. And by the end of question three, only Charlotte and Xavier had scored.
“We're now at the end of round two. Beryl and Travis, you have fifteen points. Charlotte and Xavier, you have twenty points, and Nina and George, you have five points,” Shelby said.
Travis saw the fight in Beryl's eyes. She wasn't happy about the fact that they were losing, and Travis knew they'd have to get all the answers right in the next round. He didn't even want to think about how tense things would be back in their room that night with an angry Beryl on his hands if they lost.
The women moved out of the way, trading seats with their husbands. Likewise, Phillip switched places with Shelby.
“Okay, ladies, we asked your husbands three questions,” Phillip said. “First question. Where did the two of you meet?”
Travis and Xavier got their answers right, but George did not. George said that he and Nina met at a church conference in Greenville, but Nina was adamant about the fact that they'd first met at a church conference in Atlanta.
Question two asked what the womens' favorite movies were. Travis and George got the answer wrong, and Xavier got it right. For the final question Phillip asked where the couples went on their first dates. Travis was the only one who answered correctly, saying he'd taken Beryl to the Olive Garden for dinner.
“It looks like we have a tie between Travis and Xavier. So we'll have to go with the bonus question,” Phillip said.
Shelby stood back up. “Gentlemen, we asked your wives who your favorite superhero was as a child.”
Travis answered the Super Friends and Xavier said he didn't really have a favorite superhero, but if he had to choose one, it would be Superman since he was so much like him.
Beryl turned her card over with a smile and Charlotte frowned when she turned hers over. Beryl's card said: THE SUPER FRIENDS and Charlotte's said: UNDERDOG.
Travis jumped up shouting, “Yes, yes, yes,” then stepped over to Beryl, giving her a victory hug.
“Underdog, Charlotte?” Xavier asked.
“Don't act like you don't know why I wrote it, Xavier,” Charlotte said.
“I mean, come on. You could have written something a little better than that.” Xavier looked around at the others in the room as he spoke. His ego had taken a major hit.
Travis smiled inwardly. He guessed like, Superman, Pretty Boy must have had his own type of Kryptonite.
Chapter 11
Xavier Knight
Tuesday: 6:17
A.M
.
Tuesday: 6:17
A.M
.
Xavier strained as he counted. “Four hundred ninety-eight, Four hundred ninety-nine, five hundred.” Reaching five hundred, he finally allowed his body to relax from all the crunches he'd done. He'd been up since five o'clock that morning doing as much of the daily workout he normally did in his home gym.
As he lay catching his breath, Charlotte rolled out of her bed, and without saying a word, she stepped over him. After picking up her toiletry bag, she headed into the bathroom.
Xavier shook his head. He wondered how long it was going to take his wife to cool off enough to talk to him. He sat up and pulled his BlackBerry off of the dresser. Turning it on he saw there still wasn't a signal. He desperately needed to check his e-mails and wanted to see how sales were going at the dealership.
In one way, he was actually glad there wasn't a signal. That way he wouldn't have to worry about what had happened. A few miles before they had reached the cabin, one of his former clients had called. A female client named Yasmine. The same Yasmine who had been the main reason he and Charlotte were at the retreat. He hadn't spoken to Yasmine in almost a month, and though he wondered why she was calling, in his gut he knew. The woman only wanted to cause him more trouble.
But he hadn't had a chance to find out what she wanted because as soon as he'd said hello and spoke Yasmine's name, he'd lost the signal. Simultaneously, Charlotte turned her head with neck breaking speed, looking at him with questioning eyes.
Seeing the signal had been lost, Xavier flipped the phone shut only to have Charlotte cross her arms and roll her head in a why-is-Yasmine-calling-you motion. He tried to explain that he didn't know why the woman was calling and told her the signal was dropped before he could find out.
Charlotte rolled her eyes. She didn't believe him. Xavier couldn't blame her for her distrust. But he
was
telling the truth.
was
telling the truth.
The problems first started when the dealership began running a new series of commercials that starred him and featured women often wearing little of nothing. The commercials were already starting to draw people in droves. Charlotte started developing insecurities one day during one of the commercial shoots after seeing some women groping on him like he was an R&B star.
The womenâactressesâhad been wearing bikinis while he wore his swim trunks. He played the part of a lifeguard and they were damsels in distress, drowning from the high car prices of the competitors. At the end of the commercial, the women gathered around Xavier, thanking him with hugs for his rescue abilities. Xavier hadn't touched any of them as he held a lifesaving device.
Charlotte was so livid about the display from the commercial shoot that it had taken him two weeks to finally get her to calm down about it. Two weeks of assuring her there was nothing going on with any of the women and that all they were doing was acting. Also during that time, she'd become paranoid about his every move. So to appease her, he'd started updating her on his whereabouts, and that seemed to diminish her paranoia.
Xavier knew Charlotte's suspicions weren't totally unfounded because of the history of extracurricular activities he'd had during his first marriage. Activities he'd vowed to not bring into his current marriage.
When he and Charlotte had started dating and he saw that things were getting serious, he sat down with her and had a long talk about the reasons his previous marriage had come to an end. He'd been sorry for what he'd done and apologized to his first wife, but she'd sought divorce on grounds of adultery instead. He'd learned his lesson. He assured Charlotte that his old ways were behind him, and the slate was clean.
But ultimately, he hadn't kept that promise to Charlotte. It ended up being harder than he thought it would be. He loved his wife. She was everything he could ever want in a woman. She was intelligent, caring, and beautiful. At home he hadn't lacked for anything from Charlotte. She was attentive to his every need. But for some reason, Xavier had a strong proclivity for women.
When he wasn't around his wife, the women were luring eye candy. He couldn't avoid them. There were so many of them around, especially at his job. Since the dealership had started the commercials, the influx of women had gotten even worse. They seemed to come in multitudes. He'd tried his best to ignore them.
And if that weren't enough, the Internet complicated things even more. One afternoon while he was sitting at home checking his e-mails, a window popped up on the screen, showing women in suggestive poses. He clicked on it and the screen opened with an array of beautiful eye candy from which he couldn't avert his eyes. These women weren't real. It wouldn't hurt to look at them. It wasn't like anyone could see him, and it wasn't like these women could make any advances toward him. It was totally innocent, and it gave him a rush of a lifetime.
In the weeks that followed, he'd returned to the Web site, whenever he needed a fix. When he got bored with that website, he'd found others with more pictures and varieties of things to behold. Xavier found that surfing the websites helped him keep a better focus at work, especially after he found a site in which he could chat with the women.
Charlotte emerged from the bathroom, covered in her terrycloth robe. She'd forgotten to take her clothes into the bathroom with her. Again doing her best to ignore her husband, she pulled a pair of pants and a top out of the bag, already ironed and ready, then she returned to the bathroom. Minutes later, Xavier heard the shower turn on.
He finally sat up and shook his head, wondering when Charlotte was finally going to stop her nonsense and talk to him. They didn't need to waste precious days during the retreat for her to come around. They needed to use the time wisely.
Looking back at his phone, his thoughts trailed back to Yasmine. He shook his head again, wondering why the heck the woman had picked that exact moment to call. This was the time in which he and Charlotte were finally on a course to getting their relationship back on track.
Yasmine had been his nightmare for months, and then the nightmare turned into reality. Xavier tried to use the alluring images from the websites to control his need for being with other women, but the Internet had only been a temporary solution.
Slowly some of his old ways returned as he made small talk with the female clients during test drives. It wasn't hard since so many women flirted with him on a daily basis. He didn't see a problem with taking their phone numbers to continue talking to them over the phone.
Remembering how his last marriage ended, he didn't want the same results. He was going to have to be more careful this time and let the new women friends he was talking to know that he was not looking for a long-term relationship, making sure there weren't any misunderstanding on the womens' parts. He also told them to only call his cell phone during working hours. He figured the women should be able to deduce that he was a married man by those instructions and the ring he wore on his left hand. It was all innocent enough. He hadn't done anything with the women, he just liked to talk and flirt.
For months his personal life was on top of the world. He had his beautiful trophy wife at home, newly found friends on the side, and handy websites at the touch of his fingers when he needed an extra fix. On the business side, he was the top-selling salesman in the dealership and across the state of North Carolina.
Things were going pretty smooth until Yasmine enteredâstage left, as the thespians might say. From day one, meeting Yasmine had been like something out of a dramatic play debuting on Broadway.
There were signs of trouble from the first time Xavier had met her at the Starbucks down the street from the dealership. Starting with the low-cut red dress that looked like it had been painted on. Her cleavage hadn't been hard to miss, neither had been the devil's horns he saw extending from her head ... or at least he thought he saw a pair. He'd done a double take until she changed positions in her seat. There had actually been a mural behind her on the wall which gave the illusion that she had horns.
She'd introduced herself as Yasmine and made herself comfortable at his table without asking if he were expecting anyone else. She'd recognized him as the guy from the commercials and talked and asked questions for the better part of his thirty-minute break. When it was time to leave, she gave him one of her business cards. She was an IT specialist for a local company.
A few days later, he'd come across the card and thought about calling Yasmine to see if she might be in the market for a new car. The thought had only been on his mind for a fleeting moment before he saw Miss Yasmine strolling around the dealership looking at the cars on showcase. She was wearing another painted on dress, but this one was hot pink and was even lower cut in the front than the dress she'd worn a few days prior. Surprised, he made his way over to her and asked if he could be of any assistance. She said she'd been thinking about getting a new car and had seen some she liked. She wanted to test drive a few, but only if Xavier went along to tell her about the cars' features.
Xavier ended up going with her on three test drives until he realized the woman was only a fan trying to get as much free time alone with him as she could. Time was money, and he'd wasted enough of both on her already.
Xavier shook his head again as he remembered. He so wished he'd taken the red dress, the horns, and her pushy aggressiveness as a sign to run and hide. Instead, trying to make a buck, he pressed her about whether she wanted to buy a car or not. She said she did, but was trying to make up her mind on which to choose.
After a week of her coming to the dealership on a daily basis, supposedly making up her mind, she finally purchased a vehicle. Xavier wondered if all the time he'd spent had really been worth the commission. But he was glad the womanâcleavage or notâwas finally going to be out of his hair.
A mere week after the purchase, Yasmine again strolled into the dealership offering to buy Xavier lunch to thank him for all his help and time. Something told him to decline, but his growling stomach got the best of him. And when he really thought about it, he didn't see any real harm in grabbing a bite with the woman.
During their lunch, Yasmine made a number of suggestive overtures that could not be ignored. Xavier did his bestâin the beginningâto disregard those advances, but had ultimately been unable to. From there everything was a blur. Before he knew it, he was seeing her more often and spending time with her at her apartment at night when he couldn't be seen. Whenever he was at Yasmine's place it felt like he was in his Cyberworldâin 3D. She was everything the Web sites promised and more.
He was in a virtual heaven; at least until the pain started each time he went to the bathroom. Then after a while, in addition to the pain, he also noticed a discharge. He went to the doctor and found out he had gonorrhea. This totally freaked him out. The only other person he had been with besides his wife in the previous couple of months had been Yasmine. He hadn't seen a need to pursue any kind of relationship with the other women he'd been corresponding with, especially after seeing how easily accessible Yasmine was.
He broke contact with Yasmine as soon as he found out about the STD. He didn't answer her calls and told co-workers the woman was stalking him. His co-workers had laughed at him, but obliged with his wishes to assist in breaking any contact she had with him.
At first, the messages Yasmine left sounded urgent. Then she just sounded hurt. After that, she started leaving messages threatening him to contact her. He took the threats as idle and figured she'd get the message sooner or later and leave him alone.
Meanwhile, he'd gotten the medicine he needed to treat the STD and prayed to God he hadn't spread the disease to his wife. After he'd found out about the diagnosis, he'd even avoided sleeping with her for a few weeks, making up excusesâexcuses which sounded like the ones most women would use to get out of sleeping with their husbands. He had to buy time until he could figure out a way to tell his wife.
But he'd waited too long, and before he knew it, Charlotte had confronted him with her own test results, saying she had gonorrhea. He fessed up and told her about Yasmine. Not everything. Just enough to let her know he'd slept with another woman. But he didn't tell her about his other female friends. He wasn't trying to dig an even bigger hole for himself.
Things had been worse than tense at his house for months, and Xavier feared Charlotte would have probably left him already if he hadn't set up the marriage counseling at the retreat for them. Waiting for the date of the retreat had bought him some time, and ever since, he'd been doing his best to make amends. He felt lower than dirt for what he'd done to his wife.
So now here he was, sitting on the floor of a cabin in the middle of nowhere without contact with the outside world. But it would all be worth it if he could get his wife to forgive him and give him another chance.
If only Yasmine hadn't called. And why had she called, anyway, he wondered? How stupid could he have been? He should have known Yasmine wouldn't give up so easily. Xavier thought he was finally free of the woman. One day she was calling almost every other hour, and then it was as if she had fallen off the face of the earth. He truly wished she had.
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