Read the Warning Label First Read online

  It wasn’t until we’d kissed that it really, really sunk in.

  I was married now!

  Wow, I couldn’t believe it!

  “Congratulations!” My sister Cheyanne squealed as she hugged me.

  “I’m sorry for last night but we were getting the last few details together and we wanted it to be a surprise. I had to come up with something. I’m sorry if I was rude,” she said apologetic and kissed my cheek.

  I forgave her instantly and hugged her as tight as I could.

  Who knew that they’d had something as wonderful as this up their sleeves!

  “Well, how do you feel?” Mama asked me as she hugged me and kissed my cheek.

  “I feel great! I’m so glad that you were here to share this day with me,” I said to her sincerely.

  “We’d tried to get your father here. I’d found him and left him a message on his voicemail hoping that he would’ve been here to walk you down the aisle, but he didn’t show. I wanted this day to be perfect. Sorry,” Tristan said, joining in on the conversation.

  I smiled at him.

  He definitely deserved an A for all of his effort.

  Was I disappointed that my father hadn’t showed up?

  Nope, not at all.

  He hadn’t been at any of the others weddings either. Nor had he ever been around for any major occasions or events.

  We’d all learned to accept that a long time ago.

  “Today was perfect,” I said to my husband.

  I had a husband!

  And I couldn’t believe it!

  ***

  I requested another two weeks off from work the day after the wedding.

  I hadn’t told Hunter my big news yet, only that I wasn’t feeling well and that I needed to cash in on a few more sick days.

  Though he wasn’t the happiest about it, he agreed to more time off stating that I’d given them more than enough of my time and that overworking may have been the cause of me passing out and not feeling well.

  So with the agreement that I’d check my emails, and tend to urgent matters, I was now free to spend the next two weeks with my brand new husband.

  After a brief nap, I woke up to the smell of bacon.

  It was half past noon, but breakfast was good for me anytime of the day.

  “Good afternoon Mrs. Hall,” Tristan smiled.

  The word Mrs was like music to my ears!

  I still couldn’t believe that I’d actually gone through with it, but what was life if you didn’t take chances?

  I’d played the game, safely, for way too long.

  And after almost thirty years of life, I was finally about to start enjoying the simple things.

  The things that I’d always wanted, but always pretended that it was okay not to have them.

  I was newly pregnant and newly married.

  Life was good.

  After eating, our breakfast for lunch, I didn’t hesitate to bring up the conversation about employment.

  The old me would have never married a man in this situation, but I was trying to see past the surface and there was no denying that I was head over heels in love with him.

  But this brother needed a steady paycheck or something.

  Point. Blank. Period.

  “So, have you thought anything more about the laundromat idea? Or are you just going to go back to work?”

  Tristan took some time to answer me.

  As though he was thinking about which direction would be the better road to travel with a new baby and new wife and all.

  “Well, I’d looked at some numbers and properties. And I’ve found two locations already. It’s just---,”

  “Just what?”

  “I don’t have enough in my savings to cover it all,” Tristan finally let me in a little concerning his funds.

  But this was only the beginning.

  We were husband and wife now so money was a discussion that we needed to have.

  Well, his money was a discussion that we needed to have.

  He didn’t need to know anything about mine.

  “Well, how much?”

  He looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

  I figured that I may as well invest in his dream since it was going to be a part of my future and with me on his team, there was nothing that he couldn’t accomplish.

  “$60,000,” he stated timidly.

  I got up from the chair and headed to my purse.

  I wrote him a check for the amount and turned to face him.

  “As long as I’m a partner in this and I want half the rights to the business and everything. Do we have a deal?”

  Tristan smiled and stood to his feet.

  He kissed me before taking the check from my hand.

  “Deal.”

  So let’s get this show on the road!

  **********

  Chapter Seven

  Tristan’s snoring was making it impossible for me to sleep, so I got out of bed and headed for the living room to watch a little TV.

  I glanced briefly at his paperwork on the coffee table and then I noticed that his phone was sitting beside it.

  Don’t do it Tori.

  Here lately, I’d been trying my best not go looking for trouble.

  I had been trying to change my ways and the way that I thought about things.

  I didn’t want to live my life always looking for the worst, and waiting for the right sign to end a relationship.

  I just wanted to be happy and I was tired of letting my ways get in the way of that.

  But…

  To hell with that nonsense!

  I picked up his phone.

  Surprisingly, there was now a lock on it.

  I wondered when he’d decided that he needed a little extra privacy.

  I tried to guess the pin number to the lock, but my attempt failed.

  What could it be?

  At this point, I knew that maybe I should have just placed the phone back down, and just leave well enough alone.

  All I had to do was mind my business and everything would be okay.

  I’d always heard that a nosey person always seemed to get their feelings hurt.

  Hell I’d even known this to be true first hand.

  There was a time, years ago, when I’d dated a guy that I thought could have been someone special.

  Our relationship was fresh, but it had started off with a bang and I was interested in seeing where we would end up.

  Except one night, much like tonight, I decided to take a peek in his phone while he was passed out, counting sheep.

  Boy did I regret that decision.

  I’d never seen so many big, black cocks in one place, at one time, in my entire life!

  And half of the photos had him in them…with the penises in places that I’d rather not force myself to remember.

  I was his cover up or at least he was attempting to make me as such, because he was as down low, in the closet, as they came.

  But I wouldn’t have known that…if I hadn’t gone through his phone.

  So, with that in mind, snooping was no longer a bad thing.

  It was a blessing.

  I guessed Tristan’s pin again but it was wrong, so I put my thinking cap on.

  He was in Accounting, so his thinking strategy with things like this had to be similar to mine.

  We were very good with numbers, but secretly, we would have loved it if it was as simple as 1-2-3.

  That’s it.

  I typed in 1-2-3-4 and what do you know…it was correct!

  I didn’t know where to begin, so I headed to the texts messages.

  There wasn’t a single message there, not even from me.

  The old me would have saw it as a small sign.

  Why is he erasing his messages?

  But the new me attempted to see it as no big deal.

  The only calls in his call log were from that day, and the day before which was a total of five.

  All from me and two
outgoing to 1800 numbers.

  I’d been around him and heard his phone ring several times, just that day, so I knew that there should have been way more than five calls in his call history; which meant, that Tristan had erased those too.

  I was definitely starting to feel some kind of way on the inside.

  Something just wasn’t right.

  I headed to check his pictures, but of course there was nothing there to see.

  Tori, you are overreacting.

  Maybe I was thinking too much about it and making it something that it wasn’t.

  I guess I was just looking for something that wasn’t there.

  I took a deep breath and dropped the phone on top of the stack of papers.

  I headed to the kitchen for a snack.

  When I returned, the phone was lit so of course, I looked to see what was going on with it.

  It was an email notification at the top of the phone.

  I hadn’t bothered to check his email.

  Looking at the new email, it seemed to be something that could have been marked as spam.

  I did him a favor by going ahead and deleting the email but I didn’t stop there.

  Cautiously, I continued to scroll down the list of emails that had already been read.

  For a while, I saw nothing and then I saw something that caught my eye.

  It was from my job.

  It was an email from the Accounting firm and from Richard’s old assistant.

  The email said:

  Tristan,

  We’ve contacted you numerous of times for an interview for an open position. You come highly recommended by one of our top executives, and we would love the opportunity to sit down with you and see if the current opening is a good fit for you. We’ve contacted you via phone but have been unsuccessful with reaching you. If we do not hear back from you, soon, we will assume that you are no longer interested in working for our company and will pursue other candidates. Please get back to us as soon as possible. Thank you.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  The email had come weeks ago and it showed that he’d read it, but hadn’t bothered to respond to it.

  So, if he got the email that also meant that he more than likely received the phone calls too.

  Something just didn’t make sense.

  I was so confused.

  Why had he lied?

  Why hadn’t he taken the calls or responded to the email?

  He’d wanted that job so badly, so I just didn’t understand what was going on with him or why he’d basically rejected the opportunity.

  I wasn’t sure what was going on with him or what the truth was behind his actions, but I was surely going to find out.

  I exited out of his email and placed the phone in the exact place that I’d found it.

  I sat the potato chips down on the coffee table as well.

  I no longer had an appetite.

  I simply sat in silence for the next hour or so, trying to get my thoughts together.

  Just to be clear, the new Tori, happy about life, eager to take chances…was dead.

  She had been hit by an invisible bus, carried to the morgue and currently awaiting to be thrown under six feet of dirt.

  But now the old Tori, the one that was fierce, strong-willed, and always on top of everything and everybody…was back!

  It was time to get my head back into the game and start paying more attention.

  And if I had to guess, I would say that only a few days ago, I’d made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

  Damn.

  ***

  “You have a fever of 104. I’m taking you to the hospital Tori.”

  “No, I’m not going to the hospital. I’ll be fine,” I’d been declining to go to the hospital for the last few hours and I was starting to sound like a broken record.

  Tristan continued to dress me as though I hadn’t said a word.

  I swatted him away but he diligently continued to put my clothes on.

  I’d woken up the next morning feeling terrible.

  At first, I thought that my mind and my body were simply in a slump as a result of the bull crap that I’d seen the night before but when I got a fever, I knew that that wasn’t it.

  And once the fever came, things just seemed to get worse from there.

  I was throwing up all over the place and I was becoming more and more concerned about my unborn child.

  I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water, so finally I stopped fighting Tristan, and let him take me to the hospital.

  After hours of testing, I was committed for a rare case of meningitis.

  The doctors said that if I hadn’t gotten there when I had, there’s no for sure way of saying what would have happened to me or the baby.

  Basically, I would have died.

  Tristan had saved my life and our child’s life.

  And for that, I was forever thankful.

  I was in and out for the rest of the evening but every time that I opened my eyes, Tristan was right there by my side.

  He held my hand, he prayed for my healing.

  His actions not only surprised me but touched the deepest part of my heart.

  I had never heard him pray before, and it shocked me that he knew how. The fact that he’d thought to pray over me, made me feel all tingly inside.

  It impressed me.

  No, I hadn’t forgotten about the job incident and I was still going to bring it up when I was feeling better, but it was things such as this that made me fall in love with him all over again.

  It made me second-guess myself and bringing up something like that, right now, wasn’t the time.

  In a way, the failure to respond to the calls and email didn’t really even matter since he was starting the laundromats.

  So, if he was no longer interested in the job, that’s all that he had to say.

  But instead, he’d said nothing. He’d just pretended as though he hadn’t heard a thing about the position.

  And with that being said, lies deserved to be confronted.

  And it was my duty to mention my concerns to him when I was feeling better.

  The next day, surprisingly, they allowed me to go home.

  I wanted to stay a while longer, just to make sure that the baby and I were going to be okay, but they assured me that I was going to survive.

  Once home, Tristan catered to my every need.

  He even gave me a little bell to ring so that I didn’t have to lift a finger.

  I’d asked him to bring me a glass of orange juice and he informed me that we were all out.

  He’d left, saying that he was going to the store and that he would be right back.

  My phone immediately began to ring once I heard the front door close, and I assumed that it was him but it wasn’t.

  It was Delilah.

  I was still ignoring her for the most part, but she was still calling.

  I concluded that either she was just stupid for not seeing that I didn’t want to talk to her or either she just didn’t care.

  But even though I wasn’t feeling well, I remembered that she’d said that she had something to tell me, so I answered instead of sending her to voicemail.

  “Hi, how are you?”

  “I’m sick. How are you and Bryson?” I asked her.

  She stated that they were doing well and then she got straight to the point.

  “I was wondering if you ever found a new assistant?” Delilah asked.

  “Of course I did.”

  “Oh, because, we are moving back so I was just wondering,” she said.

  She was moving back…why?

  “I thought you were going to stay there with your folks?”

  “I was but things aren’t working out so, I was planning to come back. I wanted to ask you if Bryson and I could stay with you until we found a place.”

  Hell no!

  I didn’t say it out loud but I wanted to.

  Not only did I not like her eno
ugh to allow her to live in my house, I now had a husband and no other woman was going to be in my house, around my man.

  That was a disaster waiting to happen.

  “Delilah, I got married, so living with me isn’t going to work for me.”

  “What? You got married? When? To who?”

  “His name is Tristan…”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, his name is Tristan---Hall. Why do you know him?”

  Delilah’s silence made me uncomfortable.

  After a while, she finally spoke.

  “You damn right I know him. He’s Bryson’s real father.”

  ***

  I was waiting for Delilah and Bryson to land.

  I was hoping that she had the wrong Tristan Hall but we were about to find out.

  The day before yesterday, Delilah explained to me that Bryson’s father wasn’t who I thought it was.

  She’d been lying the whole time.

  She’d said that the man that she initially blamed it on eventually asked for a blood test and when the results stated that baby Bryson wasn’t his, she’d known that it could only be one other man’s.

  Delilah said that she’d contacted Tristan and he agreed to a paternity test.

  He was Bryson’s father.

  Well, more like his sperm donor because she’d said that even after finding out that he was his son, he hadn’t done a thing for him and had only seen him once.

  She said he just basically disappeared.

  Delilah said she didn’t feel the need to tell me that she’d found the real father of her child simply because I was the one that helped her with him and she didn’t want anything to change.

  What was even more shocking, she told me that the sex hadn’t been consensual.

  She said that Tristan had raped her.

  Delilah said she’d met him years ago. She invited him over for conversation and a movie, but things went left.

  I knew right then and there that she couldn’t have been talking about my husband Tristan.

  Tristan was so patient and would never force himself on anyone.

  Yes, he might tease and tempt, but he definitely didn’t mind waiting.

  He had definitely waited on me.

  The things that Delilah said to me that day had my mind in overdrive.

  There was just no way that we were talking about the same Tristan.

  No, my Tristan didn’t have kids.

  My Tristan definitely wasn’t capable of raping anyone.