Vanessa Miller - Better for Us

Well, everything but the scowl on his face as he pushed the buzzer several times in a row. Ryla swung the door open. “My goodness, do you really need to wake the neighborhood?”

“I’ve been standing here for five minutes. And I know it doesn’t take that long to get to the front door in your house.”

Was that supposed to be some sort of crack about the size of her house? She put her hand on her hip and protested, “I was busy. And you did come over here without calling first.”

“Do I have your number?” Noel rhetorically asked.

Noel’s voice was rising, so Ryla stepped out on the porch and closed the door behind her. “You might want to keep it down a bit.”

With nostrils flaring, Noel said, “I didn’t come over here to play games with you, Ryla. Is Jaylen home this morning or not?”

Nodding, she said, “She and my mother just arrived. But I haven’t had time to tell her about you yet.”

“When do you suppose you’ll get around to that?” he asked, in a sarcasm-infused tone.

“She’s eating breakfast right now. I was going to tell her as soon as she finished.” She tried to shoo him off the porch. “So, can you just come back in about an hour or two?”

Noel’s feet were firmly planted. “I’m not leaving until I meet Jaylen, so I hope you’ve fixed enough breakfast for me.”

“Why do you have to be such a bully? Can’t you understand that I need to break this to Jaylen gently?” Ryla knew that denying Jaylen the access to her father was wrong, even though her reason for doing so was to save her daughter from heartache later down the line. Ryla needed to clean up her own mess. She needed to make sure she didn’t do any further harm to her daughter.

“I thought you said that she’s been asking to meet me for a year now.” He looked at her as if they were having a “duh” moment. “The simplest thing to do would be for both of us to go in there, sit down with Jaylen and tell her how you kept her from me all these years.”

Ryla’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t dare do something like that.”

“You don’t think so...? Watch me.” Noel stepped away from Ryla and put his hand on the doorknob.

Ryla grabbed his arm. “Okay, okay, you win.”

He turned back around. “And what exactly have I won, Ryla?”

“You don’t have to leave. I’ll go inside and talk to Jaylen right now, just go back to your car for a minute.”

With a raised eyebrow he asked, “How long?”

“Give me ten minutes.” As he got ready to step off the porch, Ryla grabbed his arm again. “You won’t say anything bad about me to Jaylen, will you?”

“That depends,” Noel said with a devilish grin. “Have you been saying anything bad about me in all these years that you’ve had her to yourself?”

Shaking her head at the notion, Ryla said, “That’s ridiculous, Noel. I’ve never said a bad word about you to Jaylen!”

“Oh, you haven’t said anything bad about me to Jaylen, so just who have you been running me down to?”

Before Ryla could think of a way to avoid telling Noel that she had indeed been talking about him to her two closest friends, Danetta and Surry, the front door opened. Ryla swung around and, as if in slow motion, she watched Jaylen look up at Noel and make the connection.

Ryla panicked. “Go back in the house for a minute, Jaylen. Mommy is talking to someone right now,” Ryla said breathlessly.

But Jaylen swung open the screen door and jumped into Noel’s arms and kissed his face. “Daddy! I’m so glad you came. I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you.” She kissed him again as she said, “Now I know why Mommy fixed my favorite breakfast. This is a special day.”

Chapter 4

Noel had experienced a lot of things in his thirty years on earth. He’d been a superstar on the basketball court since grade school, graduated college with honors, was a first-round draft pick, had earned a championship ring his second year in the NBA and had become a millionaire several times over. But he’d never experienced anything like the joy he was now feeling as Jaylen hugged and kissed him. He gave her a tight never-want-to-let-you-go kind of hug. And then Noel put her down and stepped back. He had to be mindful that the DNA test had yet to be done, and as far as he knew, Jaylen could belong to another man. It could’ve been Ryla’s sick, twisted mind that decided it would be a good thing to give another man’s child his middle name. Not knowing what else to do, Noel stuck his hand out and said, “Hi, I’m Noel Carter.”

Jaylen giggled as she shook her father’s hand. “Silly. I know who you are.”

That’s right, Noel reminded himself, Ryla did tell him that Jaylen kept an old photo of him and Ryla on her nightstand. “I wasn’t sure that you would recognize me from an old photo. I have aged a bit since then,” Noel said in a deeper, older man’s tone.

Jaylen laughed again as she told him, “I saw you on the TV, too. You look the same.”

Noel turned to Ryla for clarification on this. Had Jaylen been watching one of his old basketball games? Had Ryla taped his games and watched them as a way of having him around her...why hadn’t she just picked up the phone and called him?

“Jaylen and my mom went to Dallas for the weekend and she saw one of your ads for Congress. Congratulations, by the way. I guess you finally found a way to help your community.” Ryla was biting her finger again.

“Yeah, I’m finally pulling it all together,” he told her as he racked his brain, trying to remember when he’d shared this particular dream with Ryla.

The front door opened again, and with that same big Texas grin, Juanita Evans said, “Well, hello, Noel. It’s about time you showed up around here.” She opened the door wide. “Y’all might as well get off the porch and come on in the house. We can all sit down and catch up over breakfast.”

Jaylen grabbed Noel’s hand and began pulling him toward the door. “Come on, Daddy, we’ve got the bestest breakfast ever this morning.”

“French toast,” Juanita said.

Noel rubbed his stomach. “It’s one of my favorite breakfast meals also. So, I’ll gladly join you.”

Jaylen stopped walking and looked up at Noel in awe. “We have a favorite thing together?”

Noel smiled. Jaylen was speaking in seven-year-old language, but he knew exactly what she meant. “Yes, little one, you and I like the same kind of breakfast.”

Noel followed Juanita and Jaylen in the house, and the smile left his face as he glanced back at Ryla. The look he gave her simply said, you’ve got some explaining to do.

* * *

Sitting at the breakfast table stuffing her face with more starch than she had put in her body in over a week, Ryla noticed that she was not receiving the you’ve-got-some-explaining-to-do looks from just Noel, but from her mother also. The beautiful and sophisticated Juanita had never fathomed that a woman would walk away from a man who could provide for her in ways she couldn’t provide for herself. But Ryla was looking for more than a checkbook kind of man. She wanted love, respect and faithfulness. Noel had proven himself to be unfaithful, so Ryla had had no choice but to leave him or end up like her mother.

After breakfast, Jaylen turned to Noel and said, “Wanna see my room?”

Noel Stood. “Sure thing. Lead the way.”

Jaylen stepped back as she looked up at her father. “Whoa. You know, you’re a lot taller than I expected. I hope I’m not going to be so tall.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. My mom and my sister are both about five-seven.”

“Good,” was all Jaylen said before turning to march off to her room. Noel followed close behind, smiling but also appearing to be suppressing a giggle.