Deceitful | Book 3

| S E V E N |

P R E S E N T

"Baby." I say to her, trying not to seem guilty of something when I was more than guilty by default. "You scared me a little bit." I tried to smile it off.

    "Tell me what?" She asked for a third time as she walked into the room. "And who are you talking about?"

    "Nothing important, bae. I swear." I say to her as I try to take her hand, but she shook herself away.

    "Tell me something, Bruce." She demanded. I shook my head and looked her straight in her eyes.

    As much as I wanted to hide the truth from her, I knew that I needed to stop while I was ahead and just admit everything. She might hate a nigga in the long run, but all of it will be off my conscious. Damn, she's beautiful. And the look on her face just made me want to breakdown for being so foul.

    "I didn't catch everything but I caught most of it and I want you to tell me who he is and why he ain't gonna tell me shit!" Tereny was now yelling and I really didn't feel like hearing her yelling, especially when things were going good just seconds ago.

    "Baby, don't be mad at me, okay?" I try to persuade her as I touched her again. This time, she allowed for me to touch her this time. "But...Martray just got out of prison. And he's out with intentions to ruin our marriage. I don't want him ruining what we've got. That's why I'm so mad." I tell her. Her face softened up just a little bit and she took a deep breath.

    "Bruce...how's he gonna mess up our marriage? What makes you think he'll just come and have the upper hand on something going on here?" She asked me, her voice was now calm and soft.

    "Cheri had to pick him up and he just told her that because I won't let him see Britney, he'll make sure our marriage suffers." I get angrier just thinking about it. Tereny shook her head.

    "I'm not gonna talk to Tray, Bruce. Don't worry about that. Just stop letting yourself get angry about something that means nothing." She says to me as she turns away and walk out of the room.

    Deep down, I wanted to tell her everything about Martray's real intentions. I wanted to let everything out. But I just couldn't, only because I didn't want to risk losing her.

    It's easy to let Martray have his way and see Britney. But why would I? He's harmful to individuals. He doesn't care about anybody else but himself. I don't trust him. I'll never let my kids be around someone I don't trust. That's a no no. I just want to find my own way of telling Tereny about what happened. And I'm going to tell her. There's no doubt about it. Just not right now. I started to feel exactly why Tereny did what she did when she kept that letter Martray wrote to her. And the shit made me feel even more guiltier to think about it.

    "Baby, I'm heading to Antoinette's. You want anything while I'm out?" Tereny asked me, breaking me out of my thoughts.

    "Oh, naw. Thanks, though." I say to her before watching her leave out of the door.

    I looked down at the tan carpet on the bedroom floor and started thinking more. This shit gotta end before it starts, I guess. I just need to find out what to do without hurting Tereny. I don't even think it's possible though.

Past-

It was late as hell and instead of worrying about my reservations, I was worried about where I was going to get something to eat from. I knew Cash was going to have an attitude with me because I arrived too late for her to spend the night with me at the hotel, but that's the least of my worries right now. I couldn't even find the hotel.