Page 11 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings
“She’s got until question five, Ivo.”
Yvette was a bit of an airhead. Baby was cute as hell, all bubbly and bright, but a complete ignoramus. Jordan was immediately turned off of her when she started going on about meaningless bullshit like celebrity gossip. She didn’t even make it to the second page of questions before my wife was dismissing her. Grabbing her purse off the table, Jordan shuffled some things around inside it until she came across the prescription pill bottle she was looking for.
I don’t know everything she was taking, but I knew her therapist had prescribed some meds for when her anxiety or depression hit. I never questioned it because I assumed she needed it, and I wanted her to do whatever it took for her to be alright. Guilt often hit me because I knew I wasn’t as present as I should be. Jordan never let me feel like a failure or that I was doing something wrong. She was the complete opposite, in fact. Sometimes I wished that she would challenge me, but I know she genuinely just wanted to please me, and that was rare to find in a woman.
“You really want to sit here for this last one?” Jordan queried, lifting her wrist and checking the time on the ladies Patek I bought her recently. “I mean, it’s been two hours. If she’s not here by now?—”
“Sorry about that! It’s been a day! I had to catch a bus and shuttle over here from my apartment. Then there was this accident.” A perky, familiar singsong voice disrupted us.
She burst through the door like the wind. A long, white, floral, bohemian-style dress covered in pink roses hugged her slim frame, and she had thrown a jean jacket over it for a casual, modest effect. Long, blonde faux locs hung past her shoulders and down to her ass, and she sported a crocheted and beaded bag across her chest as she settled in the chair on the opposite side of the table. The minute she had the time to collect herself, she froze, her soft sienna-brown orbs bouncing from me to Jordan as her mouth hung open.
“Oh my God.”
“Emerald?” Jordan gasped. “Girl, what are you doing here?” Immediately, that girl off the block shit came out of her, and Emerald’s shoulders grew with tension.
Clearly, the situation had unnerved her as much as it had thrown me off my fucking square. I couldn’t ignore the fact that I’d been thinking about her heavy earlier. While my stomach clenched anxiously, my heart also ran a marathon.
“I, uh… I’m listed as a surrogate candidate,” she answered, quickly collecting herself and sitting up straight.
I’m glad she was able to do so because my heart was doing the fool. She was as captivating as I remembered; in that natural, homegrown, country girl way. It was a switch from all the designer shit I remember she used to be dipped in every day. Even then she kept it hood. She didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t. Her father made sure to keep her in all the latest, and Emerald rocked that shit like a bitch right off the catwalk.
“Why?” Jordan’s expression balled into sheer confusion.
“Because I need the money.” Emerald crossed one leg over the other and rested both hands on top of her knees before her eyes drifted to the ground.
“I didn’t even know you were back in Oak Bluffs. Your family was one of the wealthiest in this town, so why would you possibly need money?”
“Because my father lost everything, which means so did I. So here I am.”
“Oh my God. I had no idea,” Jordan empathized.
“Can we skip past all this? Maybe get to the reason we’re all gathered here. How do you feel about that, Ivo?” Emerald’s attention landed on me, but I was too busy processing her presence.
“Well, we kind of already know you. The files Dr. Steinholt gave us didn’t provide names, just analytics. I see that you are in good health, you don’t smoke, rarely drink, all of your preliminary bloodwork and other panels came back great. It also says you have a child?” Jordan peered up expectantly.
“Yeah. Jury lives in Oregon with her father though. He has custody of her. I’m back here in Oak Bluffs. It’s just me and Sapphire.”
“Your little brother?” I asked, finally able to find my voice while my brows dipped in a frown.
“That’s right. My parents are gone. My father committed suicide a few weeks after we lost everything, and my mother decided she deserved better in life and ran off chasing her next meal ticket. I was granted custody of Sapphire.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that,” Jordan countered.
Emerald was holding it together, but even after all this time, I knew her. There was something broken behind her stare, and she was pushing through the best way she could. The urge to be the one to help her hit me like a load of bricks. Underneaththe self-assured shield, there was the same sixteen-year-old girl I used to kick it with. Most people assumed she was fake and superficial, but I knew better. I bonded with the girl who loved poetry and reading. She was always thinking about the world and asking questions. Who Emerald was with me was someone she didn’t share with the rest of the world.
“Hey, you know me, I’m taking it day by day and trying not to let it completely cripple me. Sapphire’s good. He’s smart, and he’s very athletic. He’s the star point guard on his basketball team at school. I have high hopes and big dreams for him. We make it work. He’s determined to get drafted so he can take care of me. In the meantime, I can sacrifice myself for nine months to do that for him. For us… and give you two a baby.” She paused and laughed a little before shaking her head. “I guess I lost touch over the years when I went off to college. I started a whole new life and left a lot of people behind. This is probably my karma for that.”
“Listen, I never held that against you,” Jordan chimed in.
Emerald’s sharp, slanted orbs shifted to me like she was waiting for me to cosign that statement, but I couldn’t. I didn’t share the same sentiment. I, in fact, did hold it against her. A nigga might have been in the friend zone, but I thought we were better than a few scattered post cards over the years. Now hearing she also had a child with another man, shit had me tight, and I didn’t want that exposed to her or Jordan.
“I think this is great what you’re doing. You are actually perfect for this if you think about it.” Jordan smiled and turned to me. “Right, babe?”
Before I could answer, I got a notification on my phone and went to pull it out. Checking the screen, I saw that it was Brick hitting me up again. He wanted to make sure I was showing up to the meeting in the next hour or so. Since we were wrapping uphere, I decided I would stick to lunch with Jordan and then head right over.
“Who is it now?” Jordan rolled her eyes and turned to Emerald to complain. “Him and this phone. I swear. He’s a workaholic.”
“It’s Brick. Just making sure I’m available for this meeting.”
