Cutting Loose (19 page)

But that was it; she hated dwelling on
the past and wondering about what things would be like if she had a real
father, if he hadn’t walked out her and her mother. She hated to think that
maybe she resented her mother for never wanting to disclose any information
about her father and tell her the real reason her father left and never came
back. There was definitely a missing link. She knew it.

From what she could remember hearing
from other family members besides the he say/she say, Sabrina’s father was
named Erik Evans and he was a handsome guy, who was known mostly for being a
ladies’ man and was always caught up in some sort of drama. When he married
Dorothy it seemed as if his days of sleeping around came to an end and their
early years together were good, almost perfect looking from the outside. But
nobody really knew what was going on behind closed doors. They were always
arguing about money and little things. But of course, those were just rumors
and no one knew the real reason.

Sabrina brought herself to the present,
where Brett was walking from the kitchen.

He sat next to her and said, “The food
is almost done, shouldn’t be no more than five minutes.”

“Great.” Sabrina closed the photo album
and placed it in the coffee table. “I’m getting anxious to eat.”

“I see.” He gently took the ice from
Sabrina’s face and examined her jaw. “Looks like the swelling has gone down
some.”

Sabrina touched her jaw delicately.
“That’s good. I cannot go to work looking like this.”

 “Don’t worry, you’ll be good as new by
morning. It’s not that bad.”

Sabrina glared at him.

“Okay, maybe not that bad.”

She put the placed the ice back on her
face and said, “So, what’s for dinner?”

Brett stood up. “Have a seat at the dining
table and I’ll serve it to you.”

A smile crept across Sabrina’s face as
she rose to her feet. “Despite the disastrous day, thanks for making me feel,
well, special.”

Brett smiled as he took her by the wrist
and said, “You don’t have to thank me. And besides, the day isn’t over with
yet.”

Sabrina laughed. “This should be
interesting.”

Just as Sabrina had said, dinner was
very interesting. From the elaborate spread Brett created with fried Tilapia
fish, mashed potatoes and asparagus. And just as Brett said before, he could
cook his ass off like a professional chef. The main course was nothing compared
to the marble cheesecake brownies and ice cream he made for dessert.

Afterwards they lay in Brett’s king-size
bed and let the food settle. It was perfect.

“Maybe I should hire you to be my
professional chef,” Sabrina said jokingly.

Brett chuckled. “That doesn’t sound like
a bad idea.”

“Yeah, not until I move you in and my
mother drops by unannounced and all hell breaks loose.”

Brett looked at her. “Your mother sounds
like she has a lot of influence on your life. That must suck a lot.”

“Well, she doesn’t…not really.”

“Does she know you have a boyfriend?”

Sabrina laughed. “Oh God. You make it
sound like I’m back in high school—and even then I wasn’t allowed to have a
boyfriend. And no, she doesn’t know.”

He turned to face her completely. “Why
not? Are you scared of what mommy might think of me?”

“Honestly, Brett, I am scared, but not
of what she might think, more of what she might do to you.”

“Well, you know what I stay to that?”

“No…what?”

“I think you should tell her and face
your fears. We’ve been dating for how long now?”

“Uh, we’re coming up on almost two
months.”

“My point exactly. I think it’s time to
meet each other’s family.”

“I don’t know, Brett. Maybe we should
hold off for a while, until you know, more time has passed.”

He looked at her for a few seconds. “All
right.”

She considered his words then and she
even considered them as she tossed and turned all night thinking about it.
Would she ever be ready to tell her family about her new man? Right now was way
too soon.

Chapter Sixteen:

Scandalicious

Monday morning brought on a new and
beautiful day to start Sabrina off to what she thought would be a good week,
but she was dead wrong for thinking so soon. Over a week or so she’d been
contemplating whether or not if it was a good idea to consider Brett’s proposal
that she introduced him to her family and vice versa. It wouldn’t have been
such a bad idea, had she not been sneaking around like a school girl afraid to
get caught with a boyfriend, or the fact that she hadn’t dated in a long time
and the guy she was involved with wasn’t necessarily the ideal guy to bring
home to mom and dad.

Brett was far from her ideal guy and
Sabrina knew this for a fact. It wasn’t his skin tone that set him apart or the
way he made her feel safe when she was with him; he didn’t think or act like
the next guy or pretend to be something he wasn’t—it was his overall persona
that said it all.

She sometimes wondered what it would be
like later on down the road when she didn’t have to worry about the what-ifs:
What if Brett’s another heartbreaker just like the rest of the good for nothing
men from her past? What if her past of failed relationships came back to bite
her in the ass? She didn’t have the answer to those questions but she did know
that there was something special about her relationship with Brett that was
different from others in the past.

She pushed those negative thoughts aside
and decided to focus on the good things that were happening between herself and
Brett. Since the night he asked about meeting each other’s families, Sabrina
had been thinking about what it might be like to meet his family and see what
they were like. From the pictures that she saw, she could only imagine how such
a large family would be like in real life when they were all together.

And to contrary, her family was not so
great when they were all in one room meeting someone Sabrina was dating, which
was why she stopped bringing people to meet her family for a long time. She
didn’t feel like having her love life butchered by her know-it-all mother, who
always had the answer for everything and never knew to keep her mouth shut at
the right moment. Sean on the other hand wasn’t anything to worry about because
he always told Sabrina the flat-out truth, even if she didn’t want to hear it
and if he disapproved of someone dating Sabrina, it didn’t take long before
Sabrina sent him packing. It wasn’t because she was easily influenced by Sean’s
opinions, it was just that she knew that she could always turn to him no matter
what situation she found herself in and know that he would be there for her.

She wanted to spend her day hunched in
front of her computer going over layouts and pitches that her editorial staff
left her to review, but for one reason or another she wasn’t feeling up to it.
She was just having one of those days where she felt like going back home,
curling up in bed and shutting the word out for the day and focus on relaxing.

So when she left work early and raced
home, she was feeling irritated when she saw her answer machine had a few new
messages on it. She quickly went through them, most of them being from her
mother and bill collectors. It wasn’t until she got to the last message that
caught her off guard.

Beep. “Hey, Rina, it’s Cassandra.
Normally if I had some juicy news to tell you, I would just go ahead and spill
it over the phone, however, the news I have today can’t be said over the phone.
Can you call me as soon as you get this? You might want to ‘cause um, you’re in
for a surprise”. Beep.

Momentarily, Sabrina picked up the phone
and called Cassandra back.

“Ooh, girl, I’m so glad you called me
back!” Cassandra answered on the first ring. “You have to come over here
quick.”

“What is the big deal? Why can’t you
just tell me over the phone?”

“’Cause it’ll be better in person. Trust
me, you will want to see this.”

Sabrina sighed. “All right fine. I’ll be
over there in a few minutes.”

After she hung up with Cassandra she
changed clothes and made her way to Cassandra’s place.

A few traffic lights and passing a few
speed limits later, Sabrina pulled her car into Cassandra’s driveway, where she
could see Larissa’s car was parked as well. And since it had been a while since
she last spoken to Larissa, she knew things were going to be awkward with the
both of them in the same room.

Sabrina knocked on the door a couple of
times before Cassandra finally came to the door and let her in.

“Rina, I’m glad you came,” Cassandra
said as she led Sabrina into the living room. She sat down on a sofa in front
of the TV and said, “So, um, how’s everything going?”

“Good, I guess,” Sabrina said, taking a
seat opposite Cassandra on another sofa. “How are things with you going?”

Cassandra got excited and said, “Great.
I met this guy that I’m dating through this hook-up that I did a few weeks
ago.”

“Oh, really? What happened to not mixing
business with pleasure?”

“Girl, I threw that rule out the window
the minute I first met his fine ass. The woman I set him up with turned out to
be a gold digger and she was only after him for his cash after she found out he
was a fashion designer. After I saw how heartbroken he was I just had to keep
him for myself. I think he might be the one!”

“Well, congratulations. Let me guess, is
he celibate, too?”

“Yep. Girl, you have to meet him.”

“I don’t know about all that. Don’t you
think it’s kind of early for that?”

“No, not at all. Maybe we can all go on
a double date and I can finally get to meet your man, the one you’ve been
hiding from us all this time.” She grinned and added, “But not anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

Larissa came from the hallway bathroom
and sat next to Cassandra. She reached into her purse next to her and pulled
out a magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table and said, “Turn to page
eighteen.”

Sabrina looked from Larissa to
Cassandra.

“What is this about?”

 Larissa said, “Just open the damn
magazine already.”

A split second later, Sabrina picked up
the tabloid magazine with the headline, “Love is in the air this month—or something
like it.” She flipped through the magazine until she reached the page where she
saw a picture of herself holding her jaw while Carl lay on the floor with Brett
escorting her away from the scene—the scene being the disastrous wedding that
took place days ago.

Immediately, Sabrina felt her blood
began to boil under her skin and she felt like she was a teapot ready to
explode. No matter how many times she looked at the picture, she didn’t want to
believe that it was real and that her once private love life was shattered. No,
she wasn’t a celebrity with millions of dollars, but she was an editor at a
famous magazine read by millions of people across the world, which in itself,
made her somewhat notorious.

Sabrina’s mouth was agape as she looked
up from the magazine and stared at Cassandra and Larissa as they stared back at
her, probably with the same curiosity she was feeling, but with a little more
intensity written all over their faces as if they were owed some kind of
explanation.

Larissa spoke up and asked, “So, um, is
there something you want to tell us?”

“Uh…”

Before Sabrina could finish her
sentence, Cassandra cut her off and said, “Read the article.”

Sabrina looked back to the magazine and
read aloud:

“Spotted in a love triangle gone wrong,
co-Editor-in-Chief of
Fabulous
magazine, Sabrina Evans, suffered the
effects of having another man on the side—and getting caught! An eyewitness
from the event claims that Sabrina and her former boyfriend who was supposed to
get married to his former mistress, a woman whom left him for his best friend,
found out about Sabrina’s new boyfriend and got into a tussle that resulted in
Sabrina getting punched in the face and her boyfriend coming to her aid. Maybe
she should have worn a tamer dress, because form the looks of it, she was
asking for attention. In the end, she got what she asked for and then some!”

 When she was done reading she looked at
Cassandra and asked, “Is this what you called me over here for?”

“Yeah. I figured you hadn’t seen it yet
and you could explain what the hell is going on.”

Sabrina shook her head in disbelief. She
tossed the magazine back onto the coffee table. “This is ridiculous. I cannot
believe how people take shit and twist it around.”

“So, what is the truth?” asked Larissa.
“What, are you dating white guys now?”

“Larissa, chill,” Cassandra said coolly.
“His name is Brett. Stop sounding so racist.”

Larissa turned to face Cassandra. “Oh,
so you knew she was dating this
Brett
guy all along and here I was
thinking you were just as shocked as I am?”