“While you were at training camp, True called us all into the office and told us that Phoenix Avondale was arrested. He had ordered a male escort . . . him and his mistress?—”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to tell you, Jay. You keep?—”
“Why? You’re trying to bullshit me, saying something about Phoenix Avondale. The fuck Phoenix Avondale got to do with our”—I gestured between the two of us—“relationship? Tell me why, Skyy. Why would your response to anything about Phoenix Avondale be to go behind my back and get on birth control?And you wonder why people say Scorpios are sneaky. They say it because y’all do sneaky shit. This is sneaky as hell.”
“I wasn’t being sneaky.”
“The fuck do you call it? Did you call or text me and talk to me about it? Did you mention that you had a doctor’s appointment? Nah. You did the shit you always do, Skyy. You decided arbitrarily, in your mind, that keeping this information to yourself was best for you.”
“I didn’t decide arbitrarily, Jay.”
“Then how did you decide? Did you make a chart? Did you lay out all of the pros and cons? Did you do a list of ‘best- and worst-case scenarios’? Did you ask for input from others? Kelcie? Your mother? Anybody?” I sucked my teeth. “And you look in my face and tell me how communicative Scorpios are. How they always want to talk things out. Yeah, they do, right up until something real is on the line. Right up until their feelings or their emotions are on the line. Then they lock everything in a vault of fucking secrecy.”
“This is not about me being a Scorpio!”
“Nah, you don’t get to get in your bag. I’m the one who’s pissed off right now. But you’re right. This isn’t about you being a Scorpio. It’s about you being my wife.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Skyy wasn’t a crybaby. “I am your wife, and I apologize for fucking up, Jay. I’m learning on the fly here. I’ve never even seen a marriage in action. I’m not gonna always know what to do.”
“What would a friend have done, Skyy? What would a friend have done? Because even if you don’t know shit about being a wife, you know about being a friend, right? You are my friend, right?”
“I’m your best friend.”
I stood up from the bed. I could take it when I thought she was just pulling back out of fear. But to find out that she actuallymade an appointment to get birth control, without even talking to me, . . . that was something different. “Ay, I’ve always been a proponent of you having your secrets. I’ve always tried to respect the fact that there were some things you felt compelled to guard. You being private has never been an issue for me, because I always knew that you would tell me the important things. I always believed that even if you were picking and choosing what to share, you would share the important shit. Well, the fucking joke is on me, Skyy. Congratulations. I’m up. I need to get out of here for a minute.”
“What?” The distress was evident on her face. “What? We need to talk about this.”
“Oh. Now we need to talk about it? I’m making an arbitrary decision about my life and my level of comfort in this relationship, and now we need to talk about it? People always say that nobody likes it when you pull a ‘them on them.’ So, I’m pulling a Skyy on Skyy, and Skyy is having a shit fit.” I made my way into the walk-in closet and pulled out a random duffel bag. “Learn how to take what you give out, shorty.”
I awoketo an empty bed and a full bladder. While I sat on the toilet and relieved myself, I considered my options. Because the bottom line was that I was getting my man back. I didn’t really care what it took—begging, stealing, crawling—I was getting him back.
Tears pooled in my eyes at the thought of him walking away from me. I prided myself on being tough. I could handle a lot of shit. I was built to bend and not break. But one thing I couldn’t handle was losing Jaxxon. I mean, I wouldn’t let him love me for years, because the thought of us falling out was too much for me to bear. One week into our marriage, and I’d already driven him away.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I considered getting on birth control to prevent my heart from being broken, and then I went and broke my own heart with my need for secrecy.
I wanted advice so badly, but to get advice, you actually had to tell people your business. And I really, really didn’t want to tell anybody that Jaxxon left me because I was keeping secrets. I really wanted to call my mother, but she’d raised us by herself, so I didn’t know that she was the right person to go to. With a heavy sigh, I dialed Kelcie.
“Hey, Pretty Mama.” She answered the phone with a smile in her voice that I could not match.
“Kelcie, I think Jaxxon left me,” I said, point blank period. No ripping the Band-Aid off slowly.
“What? Why?”
I told her everything that had happened since the day I was called into the office for the meeting about Phoenix.
“Aww, mami. I wish you would’ve told me that you were thinking about doing that. Phoenix’s behavior is the league’s worst-kept secret. Everybody knows he’s a pill-popping, orgy-throwing, serial cheater, . . . even Sage. Phoenix reaches out to Travis almost once a month, asking for prayers of deliverance from infidelity—especially when the groupie of the week think she’s pregnant.”
“Oh no,” I muttered to myself.
“He’s been blackmailed countless times. Every groupie he gets with threatens to ‘out’ him to the public. Travis told me that their accountant made them establish a fund for the extortion money so it doesn’t get mixed up with their personal funds.”
She was saying everything so matter-of-factly that it was like she was talking about a character in a book or something.
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. Girl, the Avondales literally keep money on deck to pay groupies who think they’re pregnant by Phoenix.”
