Don't Tell Daddy (9 page)

Lila was a pretty shade of brown with skin the color and just as smooth as peanut butter. She had naturally long hair, but she got relaxers every two weeks to maintain it. She had brown, almond-shaped eyes with thick lips and pretty teeth. She was thin, but she had ass for days with mosquito bite breasts.

“I have been eating like a mad woman. Everything in sight girl.”

“I know somebody is gon have a happy man.”

Pamela smiled, thinking of Bryan, although Lila meant Elijah. “There’s always a man happy to see me,” she said, singing as they headed inside to their yoga class.

“Girl, you’re crazy.”

                                         
Date Night

Pamela checked herself out in the mirror, making sure her hair and makeup were perfect as she heard Elijah knocking at the door. She went to let him in, smiling as she put her arms around him and he leaned down and kissed her.

He looked around the front room, the space small but cozy. The apartment matched Pamela’s personality in every corner of the apartment in mild hues of blue, gray, and brown.

Pamela pulled him into the apartment, showing him around. If she had to share Bryan, he was damn sure going to share her and respect it when she was entertaining her main boyfriend. She had told him she was having Elijah over tonight and whether he liked it or not, he better not have showed up.

Before inviting Elijah over, Pamela had made sure to clean up any evidence of a male visitor and put all of Bryan’s left clothes in a small hamper in the back of her closet. She had opened windows and turned on fans in case the scent of Bryan’s aftershave or cologne was lingering and she just couldn’t smell it anymore. She hoped for the sake of Elijah’s feelings that she wouldn’t be caught slipping.

“This is my very own bedroom,” she told him, pulling him in and to sit on the bed.

“Why you get such a big bed, baby?” he wondered, lying back.

Pamela straddled him, looking down at him. “More room for us to roll around in,” she joked, leaning down to kiss him.

Elijah put his arms around her waist, returning her kisses as he slid his hands down to cup her ass.

“I like that idea, baby.”

“Mm hmm, I know you do.”

Elijah switched their positions, putting Pamela on her back, looking down at her. She looked up at him, just watching her.

Pamela was sure she loved Elijah and she knew he would never cheat on her. For the past four years, he had been all about her. They had lost their virginities together in his dorm room when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. He wanted to be with her all the time, had given her grand visions of marriage and children, and let her know his future plans all included her. It would serve her right if he got up right now and just decided that he had changed his mind.

What Pamela felt for Elijah should have been enough to keep her from cheating on him. She had a good boyfriend and he was perfect on paper. He was tall, handsome, intelligent, and sweet. Before she knew better, the sex had been good. She had no real reason to be doing what she was doing.

She felt horrible for the dirt she was doing behind his back. Not only was she having a steady affair, but she’d even gone and had a threesome. She was falling in love with someone who wasn’t him. She was giving all of herself to someone who would not and could not give her all of himself.

Poor Elijah didn’t even realize that he was getting leftovers of his own woman whom he had had first. He’d have never imagined that Pamela would be out giving to others what she had given to him. His trust was so deep in her that he never had thoughts that she would do anything but love him and give him the affection he was giving her.

Some other woman deserved this man’s time and attention. She knew she didn’t. She just couldn’t find it in herself to do what she knew was fair and let him go. They no longer deserved each other. 

Pamela was starry eyed about Elijah forever until the past few weeks when her attention shifted to a man she knew damn well that she couldn’t have. As great as this man was, she should still have stars in her eyes for him. 

“You’re so beautiful, Pamela,” he told her, pecking her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, averting her gaze to the window.

Although it was a statement she believed, it just felt wrong to tell him knowing what she had been out doing. The amount of deception in her heart wouldn’t allow her to look at him and say that.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, baby. I’m ready.”

He got up and helped her out of the bed, watching her straighten up her hair and clothes before he took her hand and led her out to his mother’s Charger.

“What do you think about being a Military wife?” he asked, glancing over at her and starting the engine.

She shrugged. “I don’t feel strongly about it one way or the other. You’re thinking of enlisting?”

“Thinking about going into the Air Force after I graduate. I think it would be nice if we could get married after my basic training and start a family.”

He smiled over at her when he said the last part and she released a short breath, managing a smile back. She would need to find a way to get from up under Bryan before she could give a real commitment to Elijah.

Pamela knew that Elijah wanted them to have children but would never try to impregnate her before he had it financially together. His talk of a family never made her feel nervous that he would do anything to jeopardize her schooling.

“I say yes to the military wife after you graduate and wait for the family until I graduate. Fair?”

“Fair,” he agreed.

Elijah took Pamela to Starters and held her securely against his side, his arm around her shoulder. She rested her head against his chest, inhaling the scent of her favorite cologne. He wore it every time they had a date because he knew how much she loved it.

Inside, he pulled out a chair for her and took her hands across the table, smiling. “What?” she wondered, unable to resist smiling back.

“I’m just happy to be here with a pretty girl like you.”

Shit like that, regardless of how corny it was, always gave her butterflies and put a smile on her face. She loved hearing him say sappy stuff like that and now was no different. Knowing she was adored was a feeling she wasn’t ready to relinquish. Maybe that was the real reason she couldn’t break up with Elijah. Not for his benefit, but because she was selfish.

“Spend the night with me, Elijah,” she requested.

He agreed just as their waiter came over. They ordered their drinks and were left alone again.

She could feel her phone vibrating in her purse and decided to let it ring. She would never answer her phone when she was on a date and ignored it most of the time when she and Elijah were just chilling. When he was with her, she let him know her time was his. Now was no different.

“Do you like working for your godfather?” he wondered.

“Some days. He starts treating me like a child when someone starts looking at me.”

Elijah frowned. Not because Bryan was treating her like a child, but because he now had to think of other men looking at her. He knew exactly what they were thinking because he was thinking it too.

“What?” she wondered.

“I don’t like thinking about other people looking at you.”

“Other girls look at you all the time, Elijah,” she pointed out. “That chick over there has been looking over at you since we walked in,” she said, nodding to a table with four women, one glancing their way every few minutes.

“I know what men think when they look at you.”

“How?” she challenged.

“What do you mean ‘how’? Because I think it too. Every man who approaches or looks at you, including me, wants to have sex with you, Pamela.”

“Then what makes you different from them?”

“The fact that I want to do other stuff with you too.”

“She’s looking at you,” Pamela said drily, opening her menu.

Elijah didn’t bother looking for who was apparently looking at him. He wasn’t going to entertain it, so there was no point in seeing what she looked like.

It had never made Pamela jealous to know other girls liked to look at Elijah. She couldn’t blame them. They weren’t going to get to him, so there was no point being upset about it. They liked what they saw, and so did she. From the very first time Elijah spoke to her, she knew other girls looked at him. She would go to the park to watch him playing basketball with his friends and girls would go straight to talk to him after he was done, cooing and smiling in his face. That never upset her because as soon as he managed to get the other girls out his face, he was in Pamela’s. There was no point in being jealous over what was yours. As far as Elijah knew, Pamela was his. There was no reason another man looking at her should upset him.

“Most of the time, it’s pretty cool, though. We got to go back to the lake with our family a few times. I found out he knows Italian, French, and Arabic.”

“You need to learn Arabic too.”

Pamela looked over her menu at her boyfriend and rolled her eyes. He had learned Arabic in high school and continued in college and could understand most of what was being said when he ran into an Arab in Dearborn, not that he let them know. He felt that it was in Pamela’s best interest to learn Arabic, being that she lived near a city with the biggest Arabic population outside the Middle East.

Pamela, however, felt that having control over English and Spanish was good. Who said she wanted to live in Detroit her whole life? What if she wanted to go West or to Miami? In that case, Spanish was much more important. She didn’t have the patience to learn a language that didn’t use the Latin alphabet.

“Don’t roll your eyes. I’m serious.”

“Baby, believe me. You’ve been serious about that the last three years. What has it gotten you?”

It was Elijah’s turn to roll his eyes. Pamela looked up at him again. “Did you learn Spanish for me, novio?”

Elijah looked at her with a grimace and she grinned. “Exactly. We both have control of English and another language. When you learn Spanish for me, I’ll take up Arabic for you.”

“I don’t need you to learn Arabic for me, Pamela. I need you to learn it for your benefit.”

“I’ll take my chances.” She looked back down at her menu, dismissing the discussion.

Shaking his head at her stubborn attitude, Elijah looked down at his menu. When the waiter brought back their drinks, they placed their orders with him.

When they were alone again, Pamela cut her eyes across the room and noticed the girl again looking at Elijah. “She must know you,” she told him.

Elijah’s brows came in, but he didn’t turn around to see. “Why you say that?”

“They usually don’t look that long. She must know you.”

Now he did turn to see what Pamela meant and noticed the girl who was looking. “I don’t know her,” he said dismissively.

Pamela shrugged. Maybe the girl just thought Elijah was that cute. He didn’t have any reason to lie to her. Besides, the girl hadn’t come over to say anything, so maybe she really was only admiring what she saw.

“My mama asked me to bring you over sometime this week. Are you going back to the lake?”

“I was going to, but I’ll stay so we can see your parents. Jada ass ain’t never there anyway.”

“Where she be?”

“Doing shit with her nerd pack. You shoulda seen her first so you could be her boyfriend and y’all could go be nerds together,” she joked.

“I did see Jada first and I would choose you every time.”

“You did?”

Elijah shook his head, realizing the whole point had completely flown over her head. He looked at his girlfriend and shook his head again.

“For real? You really saw Jae first?”

“I really saw Jae first. We had an elective class together y’all’s freshman year.”

“Which one?”

“You think I actually remember some shit from four years ago, Pamela?”

The only reason Elijah remembered that he’d seen Jada first was because she had sat directly beside him in the class and he’d showed her where her second class was when she asked in the hallway. He hadn’t seen Pamela until a month later in the cafeteria in the dessert line.

“You would remember where if you really saw her first. You just tryna be cute.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He rolled his eyes at her and she laughed. “I have to make shit up to feed your imagination.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “You better remember how you met me.”

“Nope.”

She gave him a look as their waiter brought their food and he smiled at her before he let the waiter know they were good.

“How did we meet, Pamela?” he wondered after the waiter was gone.

She picked her fork up, glaring across the table at him. Elijah couldn’t resist laughing at this.

“I met you in the dessert line, Pamela. I watched you pile up your tray with all kinds of sweet shit before I came and offered to help you walk to your table. I then proceeded to seek you out every day the rest of the semester to walk you to your table. I asked for your number before Christmas break. I remember how I met the love of my life.”