Chapter 131: Misery Loves Company

Two days. It’d been two days since Amari had dropped off the kids and gotten upset after seeing Jenelle. She took off and hadn’t returned my calls, hell she wouldn’t even take calls from the kids. She sent some vague ass message to them about needing time for herself, that she was fine, and that one of the kids needed to take care of the dogs. She left no way to reach her in case of an emergency, she just took off.

The ceramic tiles in the shower cracked under the impact of my punch. How could she just take off like that? How could I make her take off like that? Things were to the point that I didn’t even know what I was doing anymore.

Shutting off the water, I stepped out of the shower, not feeling any more relaxed than when I got in. Since finding out she’d taken off, there’d only been one thought in my head about where she’d gone. It’s all I could think about and each time that I called her and got voicemail those feelings of jealousy and hatred that I’d been trying to move past took a stronger foothold.  No matter how I’ve tried, based on her past actions, I’d been unable to make myself believe her when she said I was who she wanted. 

Something in the back of my mind kept nagging at me that Amari’s settling, that she was  putting forth this effort out of guilt more than love. That thought had me rethinking my answer to her question last time we talked. While I did love Amari and admittedly a part of me always would, was I hanging on for the wrong reasons? My actions were pushing her away. I was now doing the same thing she’d done, sabotaging things whether it was consciously or unconsciously, it was happening.

I was an ass for not talking to her for weeks, but I didn’t know what to say. I’d used my wife in the worst possible way and to hear she let me because of my past attitude towards her stripped away everything I was trying to reclaim. I was left with feelings of shame, completely embarrassed that I could have stooped so low. Like she’d said, I was supposed to be better than him.

The doorbell rang bringing my thoughts back to the present. I needed to get my day started. Jenelle was already here and I heard her footsteps as she walked across the hardwoods to answer the door. Voices. A male voice. His voice. My mind had to be playing tricks on me because there was no way that he would be at my house. Hell, how would he even know where I lived? As soon as the question popped into my head, the answer followed. He had to have gotten the information from Amari. 

The sight before me was the last thing I expected. That son of a bitch was holding my daughter, giving her a bottle like it was the most natural thing in the world for him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The smug bastard smiled at me. “With all the kids you’ve made, I’d have thought this would be fairly obvious. Your very sexy…assistant here had her hands full so I offered to help.”

“I…I’m sorry Marcus, he said he was a friend,” Jenelle stated, clearly picking up on the tension that quickly filled the room.

“Friend? There’s a lot of things I’d call you, but friend wouldn’t be one of them,” I responded keeping my eyes fixed on Mulo. “Jenelle, please take Gwen and Gracie upstairs and stay up there with all of them until he leaves. Which should be shortly,” I added.

She nodded before walking over to gather Gwen from him. Mulo’s eyes followed Jenelle as she walked up the stairs. “I can see why you hired her. The sexy nanny thing, a lot of men have that fantasy. You even have the built in excuse of having actual kids for her to also take care of. A win/win.”

Jenelle cast a quick glance over her shoulder and smiled. I ignored his implication, it was the same one Amari hinted at when she was here. She instantly assumed I was sleeping with Jenelle. It was the excuse she needed to go running back to him guilt free this time and she seemingly wasted no time in doing so. I sent her running straight to him.

“Why are you here?” I asked, trying to keep my imagination from running wild.

He walked over, taking a seat on my sofa, making himself at home. “You aren’t going to offer me a drink? A bite to eat maybe? Jenelle smelled divine. Does she taste as good as she looks?”

“I wouldn’t know.” My hands clenched and unclenched as I tried to not let him get under my skin. “Say what you came to say or get the hell out of my house. I’m not in the mood for your shit today, or any day for that matter.” Just looking at Mulo, knowing he was infecting my house with his presence was enough to get my blood boiling.

“It’s killing you isn’t it?”

“What?”

“From the moment you walked down the stairs you’ve wanted nothing more than to finish what we started at the hospital. I can see it in your eyes and your very tense posture. But…you’re holding back, I’m assuming because of the little ones upstairs. If I’d known you had this death wish I would have saved myself the time and trouble of saving you in the first place. My life would certainly have been better if I’d just let the cancer kill you. I understand why you’ve been reluctant to thank me for that, but you’re welcome anyway.”

“You arrogant son of a bitch. Yes, let me thank you for interfering in my life. Thank you for being a raging lunatic that couldn’t handle defeat so you kidnapped me, ripping me away from my pregnant wife and sons all so you could try and worm your way back into her bed. You’re right, you’ve done so much for me how could I have not thanked you before now? Oh that’s right, I don’t owe you a damn thing that’s why!”

Every interaction with this man made me wonder how I had to compete with him. It made me wonder even more how and why she could claim to love him. I knew it was unlikely I’d ever understand since I couldn’t stand him, but even if he had some mysterious half-way decent side to him, that couldn’t possibly outweigh all the shit he’d done and put her through.

He smiled again, leaving his place on the couch. “I debated on if I should even bother coming here or not.”

“But in the end you decided that ruining my day before it really got started was the way to go.”

He shrugged. “You know what they say about misery and all.”

“Right. I’m going to ask you one more time why you’re here and I need you to either answer or get the hell out!”

“Do you know why I didn’t let the cancer kill you?”

“Because you’re a sadistic fuck that gets his rocks off playing god with people’s lives?”

He laughed, like this whole thing was a joke to him. Then again what did I expect from a man with no care or concern for anyone other than himself?

“That’s one possible reason, but mostly it was for her. See I knew that if Amari ever found out I had anything to do with your disappearance, she’d eventually find a way to forgive me. She always does. However, if I took you and let you die, well, that she might have had a harder time coming to terms with.”

“Are you still waiting on me to thank you for not letting me die because that won’t happen. Together we’d talked about my situation and together we’d come to a solution before you felt the need to interfere. I don’t owe you my life, not even close.”

He smiled. “If that’s what helps you sleep at night. Regardless, it’s all been wasted. I’ve seen Amari go through a lot. Admittedly a lot of it was of my doing. She and I have come to terms with that.”

I started to say something, but he kept going, not giving me the chance to interrupt.

“Even with all she’s been through. With all that was put on her shoulders to bear, the only thing that has ever, truly brought her to her knees was you. Losing you to be more exact. Did she soldier on? Yes, because she’s an amazingly strong woman and she found a way to keep going, but she wasn’t the same.”

I wanted him to get to his point sooner rather than later. The less I had to hear about him spending time with my wife the better it was for me.

“She wouldn’t have been put through that if you’d just stayed out of things.”

“True, but I wanted her and I needed you gone for that to happen, so I got rid of you.”

His flippant attitude about what he’d done surprisingly didn’t shock me. “So if you had everything you wanted, why tell her the truth?”

“I never quite understood the saying love makes you do stupid things, until it made me grow a conscience, at least where she is concerned.”

“I’m supposed to believe that you were self-sacrificing, giving up your chance with Amari so that she could what, see that she had everything she wanted all along in you and you could win her with a clean conscience?”

Again a smile spread across his smug face. “Maybe. You are certainly making it easy to do so.”

“What the hell does that mean?” His conceited attitude grated on my nerves. I’d been listening to him for longer than I ever wanted to and this whole odd conversation needed to come to an end.

“She has forever put you up on some sort of pedestal and in doing so put herself down, berating herself because she didn’t deserve your love, kindness, blah, blah, blah. And you, you love to make her squirm, trying to force her into some mold of what the high and mighty Marcus deserves.”

I took a slow breath. My hand fisted slowly. I felt my calm and self-control slipping away with each second I had to be around him. This man had been nothing but a plague on my life and he had the audacity to come to my house and lecture me on my relationship with Amari.

  

“I’ve never forced her to do a damn thing. It was you that made her jump through hoops. It was you that manipulated her, lied to her, and ultimately forced her into a life of servitude to further some revenge plot. It is things like this very conversation that make me question her sanity when she looks me in the eye and utters the words she can’t help it if she loves you. After all you’ve done, I have to share my wife with you! If that isn’t some cosmic joke I don’t know what is,” I said, shaking my head. “I need you to leave now. I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t care. I have children to take care of, so you need to go crawl back under whatever rock you were hiding under and leave me in peace.”

“You want to blame me for your situation, but you’ve created your own downfall.”

I knew asking why wasn’t a wise move, I knew what he was doing, baiting me into continuing this conversation, but I needed to understand. I needed to understand why he was such a factor in Amari’s life which meant he was a factor in mine.

“And how have I done that?” I found myself asking despite it all.

“Simple, you’ve let your hate of me override your supposed love of her.”

“My supposed love?” My odd curiosity was now giving me an I told you so as this man of all people questioned my feelings. “Who the hell are you to cast doubt on how I feel about my wife?”

“Where is she?”

“What?”

“You don’t know do you?” Mulo asked. “If she came here and saw what I saw it’s no wonder she ran off!” he yelled, losing his cool for the first time. “You hate me so much that you are hurting her simply because she doesn’t. Yes, I can doubt your feelings for her. According to her, you were supposed to be the good one. I’m a bastard and I freely admit it, but as much as you hate me and all I’ve done to hurt Amari, you are no better than me. In fact you could be worse. I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not, but you…you’ve been masquerading around as some upstanding, understanding, forgiving guy, but deep down, you’re just a bastard like me.”

That was it, the last straw. I’d entertained this whole thing long enough. “Get the hell out before I throw you out.” I was trying to maintain my composure and take him up on his offer to finish what we’d started before, but he knew how to push buttons.

“Gladly,” he replied with a smile. Mulo started to walk out but stopped. “I told Amari I would back off because she asked me to. She said she wanted to make things work with you, that she wanted to be the wife she thought you deserved. Since it’s apparent that you don’t want her I guess I no longer have to stay out of the picture.”