WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
"I'm going to be late tonight. The club owner is trippin' about how we left the place last week."
Tyrone sounded like he was in a tunnel. Natasha could tell he was sitting in his car.
She was at home, as usual, the kids at school, watching the blinking button on her computer screen in the home office that Tyrone referred to as the lab.
Thanks to the private investigator, Derek, she had hired last week, she was able to clone his laptop onto her own, and basically browse the files without feeling rushed of being caught, and Tyrone would never be the wiser. She had access to his emails, bank accounts he thought he was hiding, and even this property that he was sitting at right now.
The blinking red button meant he had stopped. The place, was the same address he went to around this time every day, and stayed for hours, and sometimes well into the early morning when he was supposed to be out venue shopping, as late as 2 days ago.
"Bogus as hell," she muttered.
"Huh?" Tyrone asked her, seemingly bored with the conversation and her already.
Natasha picked up her iPhone sitting on the desk in front of her and rolled her eyes.
"So where are you now?" she calmly inquired.
"I'm at the club, waiting on these clowns to get here. They act like they don't want to work or some shit." He tried his best to put on his tough-guy act. Little did he know, that his wife had peeped his hoe card and had been gathering receipts for a week now.
He was lying to her, dead-ass. She instantly felt her face get hot. She wanted to scream and cry and confront him with the week's worth of evidence she and her hired P.I. had gathered. It didn't help Derek was fine as hell, flirtatious and quick to give up free advice. Any excuse to text the females that hired him, and became his clients.
He was definitely bad news, but he was so gorgeous to look at. 6'5, caramel complexion and rocking the bootleg Boris Kodjoe swag on 1000. Yes, she had stalked his Facebook, Twitter and Insta for a sign of children and a wifey at least 30 times already. Why she wasn't even sure. I guess she just felt good that someone was paying her some attention.
It wasn't the person she wanted the attention from, but when a woman is pushed to a point of starvation, she'll take the first go-gurt that someone shoves in her face. Ya, dig?
She wanted to get off the phone before she couldn't hold it in any longer. Her anger was bubbling just below the surface and she wanted to tell him what a low down piece of shit he was and to come get his clothes out of the garbage can in the back.
"I need to go. I hear Yany crying."
When in doubt, play the mommy card. Nobody could argue with that. If she hadn't learned anything from a Kardashian in the 21st century, it was that.
She didn't wait for a response. She merely hung up the phone. She knew he could sense her growing agitation with him lately, and she was quite sure he wouldn't even bother to call back.
He could care less. He hadn't even bothered to touch her or look her way lately, and even more so, in the past week.
The phone still in hand, she text Derek.
"He's at the address. Can you shoot over there and get some pictures today? I know it's been hard to get some at night, but it's daylight right now."
She sent the text and noticed he read it pretty quickly, no matter what he may have been doing at the time. She never asked. She didn't have a right. But God was it such a turn on.
"On my way. I'll get a video this time too. Good call and timing. Soon."
He wasn't into cute emojis when he was on his grind, which she liked. He did the small things when they mattered, and she noticed.
She shook herself and her head, literally, out of her living daydream.
"Girl! Get a fucking grip." She stood up from the desk and walked away with her phone in her hand. She knew she had plenty of time to collect her laptop before he would be back home.
For now, she needed a glass of wine. Right on cue, there was a knock, followed by an African drum beat. Her best friend was finally getting with the program.
She answered the door cracking up.
"Only you, heffa!"
They embraced as Simone glided her way in still dancing to the imaginary drumbeat in her head.
It was contagious, and hell, it was they did. Natasha joined in. Following the rhythm of Simone and the beat, she heard as well. It looked like they were trying to have a stell-knee contest, right in the doorway, and it was a sight.
"Get your ass in here, before these white folks put me out this neighborhood, with your silly ass!"
"Let me take my shoes off in the showroom."
Simone was always joking that Natasha's home was too pretty to even get comfortable in, and she didn't understand how she managed to keep it so clean and spot free with those children.
"So what's the situation with this dirty dick mother fucker, girl?" Simone had the mouth of a 50-year-old man.
The women walked into the massive kitchen. The stainless steel was sparkling and Simone couldn't help but be envious and be least envious of Natasha, then at that very moment.
"Let's get some wine first. Are you hungry? I need you to be sober bitch, and help me get these kids off this bus in 4 hours."
"I want to do a stake-out. Like Richard Dreyfuss did in that one movie with that fine ass Emilio Estevez."
Simone was always up for a challenge, especially one that somehow managed to include a reference, sight, feels or mention of someone's fine ass, at some point in the festivities.
"So. Derek is going over there right now. It's the same address that was on the public record of ownership, and that he's been going to consistently for the past week."
Simone dropped her bag on the floor like it weighed 20 lbs, and climbed up on the barstool. Natasha slid a glass and the bottle towards her, which she gladly accepted. This was a hot mess.
"Welp! Glad it's Friday night. I guess we'll be waiting up all night until we get that call then huh?" Simone reached her glass towards Natasha's in a celebratory toast.
Natasha reluctantly clinked glasses with her realizing she no longer had a decent buzz.
Simone was going on and on and on like a Charlie Brown character in the background, WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH. Talking about something else, at that point, of which she had no idea, and of course was typical Simone.
She couldn't shake the idea now that it was in her head, desperately wanting to text Derek and go with him or meet him there. She was ok with pulling her former journalism credentials, saying she wanted to get back into the p.i. business. He probably would know it was bullshit off the cuff, but she was a black woman boxed into a corner with not many options for a clean exit.
Natasha wasn't in the room mentally with her friend anymore. She wanted to know, with utter desperation who and what was at that house, that her husband owned, that she didn't know about, until now. Trying her best to act unbothered, she was dying on the inside. Her mind was definitely wandering...it was going to be a long night.