HER MAN

Chapter 1
My Best Friend Asked If Her Man Wanted Me. I Lied.

Soooo, this is a real-life situation. I promise I’m not capping. You might want to buckle up for this one because it’s really that deep. But before I get into all that, I should probably tell y’all who I am.

My name is Jamie, but most people call me Jenny. Why? Don’t ask. I might tell y’all later. The easiest way to describe me is that I’m the girl who’s always single but somehow always has friends who are in relationships. And when I say always single, I mean always. I’m the friend y’all call after the argument. I’m the one sitting on FaceTime for two hours listening to you cry about how you’re done with that man for good, just for you to post him three days later with “my forever ❤️” in the caption. And do I judge? Absolutely. But I mind my business, especially when it comes to my friends’ men.

I have never, everrrrr tried to talk to one of my friends’ boyfriends. Never flirted with one, never secretly texted one, never entertained one. Nothing. I’ve always felt like there were way too many men in the world for me to ever need somebody else’s. At least that’s what I used to think, because after what happened last Saturday, I’m really thinking about stealing my homegirl’s man.

WAIT. Before y’all close the story and start dragging me in the comments, just hear me out. I was not thinking about this man. Like, at all. He approached me. And I turned him down. Not once, not twice, but so many damn times that eventually I had to block him. And before anybody says I should’ve told my friend, I DID. I told my homegirl everything. Matter of fact, the situation got so bad that all three of us eventually had to sit down and talk about it. Me, her, and him.

The problem is, she loves this man up and down. Lawd. This girl swears she’s going to marry him. She talks about their future kids, their house, their wedding, everything. And I know what y’all are thinking. Jenny, if that’s your homegirl and she loves this man that much, why the hell would you even be thinking about taking him from her?

That’s where this story gets complicated, because I love him too. Yeah, I said it. I love my homegirl’s man. She doesn’t know that part, and nobody else does either. Well, I guess y’all do now. Trust me, I know how it sounds. If somebody else told me this story, I’d probably tell her she was a terrible friend too. But y’all don’t know everything yet. You don’t know what he said to me. You don’t know what happened between us, and you definitely don’t know what happened last Saturday.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. This is already too much to throw at y’all at once, so let me rewind. Back before I ever looked at him like that. Back before he started looking at me like that. Back when he was simply my homegirl’s man, and I genuinely believed that was all he would ever be.

The beginning was Nia.

Nia wasn’t just my homegirl either. That’s important. We’d been friends since tenth grade, when she asked me for a pencil in chemistry and never gave that shit back. Fifteen years later, I still reminded her about it every chance I got. She knew my mama. I knew hers. I had a key to her apartment. She knew the passcode to my phone, even though I changed it after she went through my pictures one night and found something she had no business seeing. Don’t worry about that. We’ll get there.

Point is, me and Nia were close. We were the type of close where people would ask if we were sisters and we’d say yes just because explaining the friendship took too long. If she called me at three in the morning and said, “Bitch, bring a shovel,” my first question would’ve been what size. Okay, maybe that would’ve been my second question. First I would’ve asked who died. Then I would’ve grabbed the shovel.

That’s why when she first told me about Malachi, I really was happy for her. I swear.

Malachi came into the picture about a year and a half ago, and according to Nia, he was the first man she’d ever dated who “made her feel safe.” Her words, not mine. See, Nia had a type, and her type was bullshit. Tall bullshit, light-skinned bullshit, dark-skinned bullshit, bullshit with waves, bullshit with dreads, bullshit with a good job, bullshit with no job at all. She did not discriminate. If a man had pretty teeth and the ability to ruin her week, Nia would find something attractive about him.

So when she told me she’d met somebody different, naturally I didn’t believe her.

“Bitch, he’s serious,” she told me.

We were sitting in my car outside this little Mexican spot on Edgewood, waiting for our other friend Tiff to stop lying about being “five minutes away.” Tiff lived twenty minutes away and hadn’t left the house yet. I knew because I had her location.

“You said that about Marquis.”

“Malik.”

“Whatever his name was.”

“You know his name.”

“Unfortunately.”

Nia rolled her eyes. “Malachi ain’t like him.”

“Malik wasn’t like the one before him either.”

“Jenny.”

“Nia.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

She turned her phone toward me. It was a picture of him, and I’m gonna tell y’all something right now that’ll probably make everything that happens later harder to believe. I did not think Malachi was fine. Not at first.

He wasn’t ugly. Let me make that clear because I’m not about to sit here and lie just to make myself look better. Malachi was definitely an attractive man. He was brown-skinned, tall, maybe six-two or six-three, with a full beard that looked like somebody had actually taught him how to take care of it. Broad shoulders, nice smile, tattoos running down one arm. But he wasn’t my type. I liked pretty boys. Malachi looked like he’d change your tire without asking where the jack was.

Nia zoomed in on his face. “Girl.”

“What?”

“Look at him.”

“I’m looking.”

“And?”

“And what?”

She snatched the phone back. “You such a hater.”

“I’m not hating! He’s cute.”

“Cute?“

“Yes.”

“Malachi is fine.”

“To you.”

She looked genuinely offended, and as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it.

The first time I actually met Malachi was maybe three weeks later at Nia’s birthday dinner. She’d rented out the back section of this restaurant in Midtown and invited damn near everybody she’d ever met. I almost didn’t go. Not because of Malachi. I didn’t even remember his name at that point. I’d been at work all day, my hair wasn’t done, and my social battery was sitting somewhere around four percent. Nia wasn’t hearing that shit.

“If you don’t come, we’re not friends anymore.”

“You say that every birthday.”

“And every birthday you come.”

“Because you threaten me.”

“Exactly. So clearly the system works.”

So I went, and that’s where everything started. Not dramatically. No lightning struck. No music started playing when he walked into the room. I didn’t look across the restaurant and suddenly understand why women ruined friendships over men. None of that. Actually, the first thing Malachi ever said to me was, “You Jenny?”

And I said, “Unfortunately.”

He laughed. That was it.

Nia had her arm wrapped around his waist while she introduced us. “This is my baby.”

I looked at her. “Your baby?”

“Shut up.”

Malachi smiled and held his hand out. “Nice to finally meet you.”

I shook it. “Finally?”

“Nia talks about you all the time.”

“Oh God.”

“Mostly good things.”

“Mostly?” I looked at Nia, but she was already walking away. “NI-A!”

She threw her middle finger up behind her without turning around, and Malachi laughed again.

That was our first conversation. Maybe twenty seconds. Completely innocent. Honestly, for the rest of the night, I barely talked to him. I drank too much tequila with Tiff. I argued with Nia’s cousin about whether Beyoncé had any bad albums. I took approximately seventy-three pictures of Nia because apparently none of the first seventy-two were good enough. I flirted with a bartender whose name I don’t remember and whose number I apparently saved as “Bartender Fine Ass” in my phone.

Normal birthday shit.

Every once in a while I’d see Malachi somewhere around the room, getting Nia another drink, holding her purse, talking to her brother, standing behind her while she took pictures with his hand resting on her waist. I remember thinking something that night, but it wasn’t about him. It was about her.

She looked happy.

Like really happy.

There was this softness to Nia when she was around him that I wasn’t used to seeing. My girl was usually loud, argumentative, suspicious of everybody, and ready to cuss somebody out over the slightest inconvenience. Around Malachi, she was giggly. GIGGLY. This bitch had never giggled a day in her life. At one point I walked past them and saw her whisper something in his ear. He kissed her forehead and she smiled. I remember smiling too, because that’s my girl. If somebody made her feel like that, then I was rooting for them.

That’s exactly why I need y’all to remember something before we go any further. I did not want this man. I didn’t. I wasn’t secretly checking him out. I wasn’t comparing myself to Nia. I wasn’t waiting for an opportunity. I went home that night thinking about the bartender, not Malachi. Matter of fact, I woke up the next morning with a headache and a text from “Bartender Fine Ass” asking if I’d made it home safely, and that occupied my attention for about the next two weeks.

Malachi became exactly what he was supposed to be. Nia’s boyfriend.

Eventually, he became part of the furniture. If Nia was coming somewhere, Malachi was probably coming too. If we went to brunch, he might meet us afterward. If we were at Nia’s apartment watching movies, he’d come home from work, speak to everybody, kiss her, then disappear into the bedroom. Sometimes he’d cook, and the man could cook. That part did impress me.

The first time he made us salmon, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and these little garlic butter rolls from scratch, I looked at Nia and said, “Okay, bitch. Maybe you did something this time.”

She smiled like she’d won something. “I told you.”

“I didn’t say all that.”

“You basically did.”

“Can he cook breakfast?”

From the kitchen Malachi yelled, “Yes.”

I froze while Nia started laughing. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

“You talking about me loud as hell. Same thing.”

“Nobody asked you to listen.”

“It’s my house.”

I looked around. “Nia, you ain’t tell me this nigga moved in.”

“He didn’t.”

Malachi leaned around the kitchen doorway. “Yet.”

Nia threw a pillow at him. He ducked, and I laughed.

That’s how it was with us. Easy. Normal. He became somebody I joked with because he was around all the time, nothing deeper than that. Sometimes he’d take my side when me and Nia argued. Sometimes I’d take his. One time Nia got mad at both of us and told me to “go home with my new best friend.” We laughed about it for ten minutes.

None of it felt dangerous.

That’s the thing about dangerous shit, though. Nobody rings a bell when it starts. There’s no narrator standing in the corner telling you to pay attention because this is the moment that’s going to fuck your entire life up. Sometimes it’s just Tuesday. Sometimes you’re sitting on your best friend’s couch eating Chinese food. Sometimes her boyfriend asks you to pass him the hot sauce.

And sometimes you look up and catch him staring at you.

That’s what happened maybe four months after Nia’s birthday. Me, Nia, Malachi, and Tiff were at Nia’s apartment. We’d ordered enough Chinese food for twelve people because nobody could agree on what they wanted, and Nia and Tiff were arguing about some girl we went to high school with who’d gotten pregnant by a married man. See? Foreshadowing.

I was sitting on the floor with my back against the couch, scrolling through Instagram while eating lo mein straight out of the container.

“Jenny, pass me that.”

I looked up. Malachi was sitting on the opposite end of the couch. “What?”

“The hot sauce.”

It was beside my leg. I grabbed it and held it out. He took the bottle without our hands touching, thanked me, and I looked back at my phone.

A few seconds passed.

You know that feeling when somebody is looking at you? Women know. I don’t know how we know, but we know.

I looked up.

Malachi was staring at me.

Not my face.

My legs.

I had on these little black biker shorts and one of Nia’s old college T-shirts. Nothing crazy, but his eyes were definitely on me. I caught him, and he knew I caught him. For maybe half a second neither one of us moved. Then his eyes came up to mine.

I frowned. Not playfully either. It was very much, Nigga, what the fuck are you looking at?

He looked away.

That was it.

I didn’t blush. I didn’t smile. I didn’t secretly like it. I remember actually feeling irritated because Nia was sitting right there. Right fucking there, laughing with Tiff and completely oblivious.

I stood up and said I was going to the bathroom. Nobody cared. I walked down the hall, closed the bathroom door, and looked at myself in the mirror.

“Absolutely not,” I whispered.

I don’t even know why I said it. Maybe because I already knew men. Maybe because I’d watched too many of my friends learn the hard way that men will test whatever boundary you give them. Or maybe because there was something about the way Malachi looked at me that didn’t feel accidental. Either way, I washed my hands even though I hadn’t used the bathroom and went back into the living room.

He didn’t look at me again.

Not once.

I decided I wasn’t telling Nia. Before y’all start, what was I supposed to say? Hey girl, your boyfriend looked at my thighs for three seconds? Be serious. I wasn’t about to plant insecurity in my friend’s relationship over a look.

So I forgot about it.

Or at least I tried to.

For another month or two, nothing happened. And I mean nothing. Malachi never flirted with me. Never touched me. Never said anything inappropriate. Never followed me on Instagram even though he followed Tiff and damn near everybody else Nia knew. Eventually, I convinced myself I had imagined the whole thing.

Then one night Nia called me crying.

When I say crying, I don’t mean cute crying. I mean couldn’t-get-the-words-out crying. I sat up in bed immediately.

“Nia?”

All I heard was breathing.

“Nia, what’s wrong?”

“Jenny.”

My stomach dropped. “What happened?”

“I need you to come get me.”

“Where are you?”

She gave me an address. It wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t Malachi’s either.

“Whose house is that?”

“Please just come.”

I was already putting pants on. “I’m coming.”

Twenty-five minutes later, I pulled onto a street I’d never been on before and saw Nia sitting on the curb barefoot. Her purse was beside her, her mascara was running down her face, and Malachi was nowhere in sight.

I jumped out of the car. “What the fuck happened?”

She stood up and hugged me hard. For a minute she didn’t say anything. She just cried into my shoulder while I looked past her at the house. There were people standing on the porch watching us, a woman I didn’t recognize, two men, and another girl recording with her phone.

I picked Nia’s purse up off the ground. “Where are your shoes?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I left them.”

“Left them where?”

She pointed toward the house behind us.

I looked at her. “What happened?”

She wiped her face. “I caught him.”

My eyebrows pulled together. “Caught who?”

She looked at me like I was stupid. “Malachi.”

My stomach sank. “Doing what?”

She started crying again.

“Nia.”

“He was fucking somebody.”

Oh.

Ohhhh.

Now I was pissed.

“Where is he?”

“Jenny.”

“Where the fuck is he?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know.”

I looked toward the house again. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know the bitch?”

“No!”

The girl recording us lowered her phone when she saw me looking at her. Smart.

I turned back to Nia and told her to get in the car. She didn’t move at first, so I told her again. This time she picked up her purse and got in.

We drove to my apartment in silence for the first ten minutes. Then she started talking, and the story she told me made absolutely no sense.

Malachi had apparently been acting weird for about a week. Staying out later, turning his phone facedown, taking calls outside. Nia asked him about it, and he’d told her she was being paranoid. So she did what any emotionally stable, rational adult woman would do.

She followed him.

I know.

Don’t judge her.

Actually, judge her a little.

She followed him from his job to that house and waited outside almost forty minutes before finally going to the door. Some woman answered. Nia asked for Malachi, the woman said there wasn’t a Malachi there, and then Malachi walked through the living room behind her.

Apparently all hell broke loose after that.

By the time she finished telling me, we were sitting on my bed.

“You sure he was fucking her?”

Nia looked at me. “Jenny.”

“I’m asking because you said you saw him in the house. You didn’t actually see him fucking her.”

“Why the fuck else would he be there?”

“I don’t know.”

“At eleven-thirty at night?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“Exactly.”

She started crying again, and I pulled her into me.

“I’m sorry.”

“I love him.”

“I know.”

“I really love him.”

“I know.”

“I’m so fucking stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No. He’s stupid.”

She wiped her face. “Do you think I should leave him?”

And this is where I fucked up.

Not because I wanted Malachi. I didn’t. Not because I had some secret plan. I didn’t. I fucked up because instead of saying yes, I told my friend the truth.

“I think you should hear what he has to say first.”

Nia stared at me. “You do?”

“Yeah. Then make your decision.”

She nodded slowly.

I didn’t know it then, but that one sentence would come back to haunt me.

Nia did hear him out, and Malachi had an explanation. The woman wasn’t somebody he was sleeping with. Supposedly, it was his cousin’s ex-girlfriend, and his cousin was there too. There was some situation involving money, a car, and a disagreement I never completely understood because every time somebody explained it, the story changed slightly.

Nia believed him.

Or wanted to.

They got back together, and life went back to normal. Mostly.

Except something had changed, not between me and Malachi, but between me and Nia. She started asking questions. Little ones at first.

“You think Malachi fine?”

I’d laugh. “You’ve asked me that before.”

“I’m asking now.”

“He’s not ugly.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“Girl, yes. Your boyfriend is attractive. Congratulations.”

She’d smile, and I’d think it was over. Then a week later she’d ask if Malachi had ever DM’d me. No. Had he ever tried to talk to me? No. Would I tell her if he did? Obviously.

Another week would pass and she’d ask, “You think he’d cheat on me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Nia, how the hell am I supposed to know what that man would do?”

She’d get quiet.

That’s when I started realizing Nia didn’t trust him anymore. The problem was, she loved him too much to leave, so instead she started distrusting everybody else.

Including me.

I didn’t take it personally at first. I understood, until the night she asked me something that actually pissed me off.

We were at her apartment getting ready to go out. Malachi wasn’t there, and Tiff was supposed to meet us at the club. Nia was doing her makeup in the bathroom mirror while I sat on the counter. She didn’t look at me when she asked, “If Malachi ever tried to fuck you, would you tell me?”

I laughed because I thought she was joking.

She wasn’t.

My smile disappeared. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why would you even ask me that?”

“I’m just asking.”

“No. You’re not just asking. Where the fuck did that come from?”

She shrugged.

“Nia.”

“I don’t know. I just feel like he likes you.”

I stared at her, and for one split second, that night on the couch flashed through my head. His eyes on my legs.

I could’ve told her.

Maybe I should’ve.

Instead I said, “You’re tripping.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

She finally looked at me. “He’s never looked at you funny?”

“No.”

That was my first lie.

A small one. Tiny, really. Barely even a lie if you think about it.

And don’t do that. Don’t look at me like that. I already told y’all I’m telling you what happened, not pretending I handled everything perfectly.

Nia stared at me for another second before nodding. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

We finished getting ready. We went out, got drunk, took pictures, posted each other, called each other sisters in the captions. Normal shit. But something between us had shifted. Neither one of us said it, and neither one of us had to.

Three days later, Malachi followed me on Instagram.

I stared at the notification for a long time before accepting it. I didn’t follow him back. That mattered to me at the time. I wanted there to be a difference, a line. He could follow me. Fine. That didn’t mean I was following him.

Stupid, I know.

Two minutes later, he liked a picture. Not a recent one either. A picture from seven months ago of me in Miami wearing a bikini.

I looked at the notification, then his profile, then back at the notification.

I didn’t tell Nia.

That was my second lie.

Still small. Still explainable. Still nothing I couldn’t justify.

He didn’t message me that night, the next day, or the day after that. A whole week passed. Then, at 1:17 in the morning on a Thursday, my phone lit up.

malachiw_ replied to your story

I’d posted a picture from my bed. Nothing sexy, just my legs under the covers with the TV in the background and the caption can’t sleep.

His reply was four words.

You always up late?

I stared at it but didn’t answer.

Another message came.

My bad. Ignore me.

I did.

The next morning, both messages were gone. Unsended.

I went to work.

Didn’t tell Nia.

Third lie.

See how this happens?

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides they’re going to betray somebody they love. At least I didn’t. It happens in inches. A look you don’t mention. A notification you delete. A question you answer technically instead of honestly. A secret that doesn’t feel important enough to tell. Until suddenly you’re standing somewhere you swore you’d never go, looking behind you, trying to figure out which step actually crossed the line.

At the time, though, I still thought I was on the right side of it.

I really did.

Then Friday night came.

Nia called me around eleven, drunk and happy.

“Jenny!”

“What?”

“I love you.”

I laughed. “How much you had to drink?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Where are you?”

“With my man.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course.

Malachi said something in the background, and Nia started laughing.

“What he say?”

“Nothing.”

“Put him on the phone.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna tell him something.”

“Tell him what?”

“Give him the phone!”

She did.

Malachi’s voice came through. “Hello?”

“Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“If she wakes up tomorrow crying, I’m beating your ass.”

He laughed. “I’m serious,” I said.

“I know.”

“Take care of my friend.”

There was a pause. Not long. Maybe two seconds.

Then he said, “Always.”

Something about the way he said it bothered me. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’d seen that house. Maybe because I’d seen him looking at me. Maybe because I’d watched his name appear in my Instagram notifications three times and hadn’t told the woman laughing beside him.

“Good,” I said.

Nia grabbed the phone back. “Bye bitch!”

“Love you too.”

“Love you more.”

She hung up.

I put my phone down.

Thirty seconds later, it vibrated again.

Instagram.

Malachi.

My stomach tightened when I opened it.

Why you keep ignoring me?

I stared at the screen before typing back.

Because you’re my friend’s boyfriend.

The typing bubble appeared immediately. It stopped, started again, then stopped once more before his response came through.

I know who I am.

I frowned.

Then act like it.

Seen.

Nothing.

I waited.

I don’t know why I waited.

But I did.

A minute passed, then two, then five. Eventually I tossed my phone onto the bed.

“Exactly,” I said to nobody.

My phone vibrated.

I grabbed it too fast.

And yeah.

I know.

I know how that sounds.

You really don’t know do you?

I stared at his message.

Know what?

He started typing, stopped, started again, then finally sent:

Never mind.

Oh, absolutely the fuck not.

No. You wanted my attention. You got it. Know what?

He didn’t answer.

I called Nia.

Straight to voicemail.

I called again.

Nothing.

Then my phone buzzed.

This time it wasn’t Instagram.

It was a text message from Malachi.

Which meant this man had my number.

I sat straight up.

Don’t call her.

My heart started beating harder.

How the fuck did you get my number?

His answer came immediately.

That’s not important.

It is to me.

Jenny.

I stared at my name on the screen. I don’t know how to explain it, but something about seeing my name in a text from him made the whole thing feel different. Real.

What don’t I know?

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then came back.

Finally, his response came through.

Ask Nia what happened the first night we met.

I frowned.

I was there.

No you weren’t.

I sat completely still.

Another message came.

Ask her where she met me.

I read it twice, then a third time.

Nia had told me where they met. At least I thought she had. A lounge in Buckhead. She’d been out with coworkers. He bought her a drink. They exchanged numbers. Simple. Cute. Normal.

Why would she lie about that?

Malachi didn’t respond.

Instead, the messages started disappearing one by one.

He was unsending them.

“What the fuck?”

I started screenshotting, but I was too late. Everything vanished except my own messages.

Then his final text came through.

Forget I said anything.

I called him.

I don’t know why.

Actually, that’s another lie.

I know exactly why.

I wanted to know.

He declined the call.

I called again.

Declined.

Then another message.

Not tonight. She’s here.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

That should’ve been the moment I blocked him. That should’ve been the moment I called Nia until she answered and told her everything. That should’ve been the moment I chose my friend.

Instead, I typed:

Then when?

He read it.

No answer.

I waited five minutes, then ten, then twenty. Nothing. Eventually, I fell asleep with my phone beside me.

When I woke up the next morning, there was one new message from Malachi, sent at 4:38 a.m.

Ask Nia where we really met.

And underneath it:

And ask her who I was with when we did.

I stared at those words for a long time.

Remember when I told y’all this story started with Nia?

I lied.

Apparently, it started with Malachi.

And a woman Nia had spent the last year pretending didn’t exist…