“That was mean,” Pam complained.
“Can you say you didn’t plan to gang up on him and lure him to bed?” Brook asked.
“He can do what he wants,” Peggy shot back.
They all looked at me. How did I get in the middle of all this?
“Why do I have to choose?” I whined like my niece.
They all rolled their eyes at my antics. At least they weren’t about to yell at each other now.
“Get out,” Brook ordered. “I have to make up with my boyfriend.”
“We could do a fivesome,” Peggy suggested.
Brook appeared confused.
“Tracy offered to come over,” I explained.
“Of course she did,” Brook said and shook her head. “I’ll be watching you two.”
Peggy and Pam saw that they weren’t going to have any fun, so they left. I doubted my girlfriend scared them, though.
“Halle was right,” Brook said once we were alone, and she’d joined me on the couch.
“How’s that?”
“If I broke up with you, I would be the stupid one in this relationship. You would have me replaced as soon as the door hit my butt,” Brook complained.
“Like you couldn’t do the same?” I asked.
“Probably not. I don’t have a list of ex-lovers that I would want to spend time with,” she admitted.
“How did dinner go?” I asked to change the subject.
Brook gave me a half frown.
“I still don’t trust her, but we did have a nice dinner. We didn’t exactly agree to be friends; I can’t imagine that’ll ever happen. But I do think that we can work together now. I’ve been resistant to most of Destiny’s ideas because of my feelings towards her. But going forward, I agreed to at least listen. In turn, she said that she’ll quit making my life miserable.”
I just nodded. It was between Brook and Destiny, and the less I said about it, the better.
“How was your night?”
“Yo, you missed trick-or-treating, that shit was litty!”
“You’re a rich white boy. You sound ridiculous when you say stuff like that.”
“I’m down with it,” I said confidently.
“Did you watch some ’90s rap video?”
She just didn’t appreciate how gangsta I was.
“We need to talk,” I said.
The smile left her face.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “What I did should never have happened. Please don’t hold it against Cassidy. If we break up, I’ll understand. She’s a mess, believing she may have damaged her friendship with you.”
“I’m sure she’s just upset that I got the better of her.”
“I would probably not repeat that anymore. Cassidy might decide to hell with friendship and kick your butt,” Brook warned.
“Did her dad talk to her?”
“Yeah. Cassidy plans to apologize to you tomorrow. She was going to today, but I asked her to wait until I worked everything out with you and Destiny,” Brook reasoned.
“I have to wonder why you would assume I slept with Destiny. I don’t think I’ve given you any reason to doubt my commitment to you,” I said to get to the heart of the matter.
“It wasn’t you; it was me,” she began.
“This sounds like a breakup.”
“No. At least, I hope not. I’m not trying to be cliché or anything. You have to admit that finding out you’d fathered three more children was a shock.”
“Tell me about it. That didn’t change anything for us, though.”
“No. It made me nervous that we would change, and I’m sure that we will because of it. You have responsibilities that you didn’t have before this all came to light. I guess when I heard that Destiny had needed the morning-after pill, I reacted before I thought about it. Unfortunately, all the drama from Alabama came rushing back.
“Before you react, let me explain,” Brook continued. “I’d spent almost a year sharing you. I knew where we stood and agreed I wasn’t ready for more than we had. Of all of us, I think Zoe was the one who was most bothered by it. She associates sex with marriage. Not that I don’t agree with that a bit.”
“Are you saying we should get married?” I asked.
“God, no! I want to graduate from college before that happens.”
“Just checking,” I said, and let a little smile touch my lips. “I agree with you on that.”
“Good. I don’t even know how I started talking about Zoe to begin with.”
“You were talking about how things were before we became a couple.”
“Oh, right,” Brook said, then collected her thoughts. “I had this whole speech planned out in my head as I came over here. Let’s boil it down to what it is. I’ve had some insecurities about dating you. Apparently, Destiny picked up on them and used them against me. She figured I would lose my cool when she spread the rumor and that I would jump to the wrong conclusion. Destiny was careful not to say you were the cause of her needing the pill. If I’d thought about it, it would have made more sense that some college guy slept with her.”
Brook reached over and grabbed my hand.
“I love you, David Dawson. With all my heart. It would kill me if you didn’t feel the same way,” she shared as tears formed in her eyes.
“I love you too. Just promise me that next time you get mad at me that you don’t try to take it out on the family jewels.”
“I noticed that you’ll actually hit a girl if she tries that.”
