Shawnie's POV 

I finally decided to go home around 2 am. Joe is a saint. He literally put me and the girls in the car and made sure we were safe and sound. He took us into the house one by one, well I noticed I was by myself and I got out of the car. Joe met me while I was walking into the house, and helped me the rest of the way. When I walked into the house and into the foyer, Aubrey was standing there, just looking at me.

"I knew it... You let her get this drunk?" Aubrey says to Joe.

"My job is to keep her safe, not parent her. Here she is, safe." Joe says

"Depending on who she's with, she gets a little sloppy." Aubrey says

"Well she's going through a lot." Joe says

Aubrey takes me by the hips and Joe lets go.

"She told you what happened?" Aubrey asks

"Yeah." Joe says, walking over and closing the front door. "Have a good night." He says then leaves.

"Are you okay, mami?" He asks and I snatch out of his grip.

"Goodnight." I say, then walk away towards the bedroom.

I take my clothes off, put my hair up and take off my makeup. It took me a while to do so because I was intoxicated. Aubrey was trying to help me but I didn't want his help. I really didn't want him around me. I'm at the point now where I definitely blame him for the miscarriage. I didn't necessarily want to have a baby right now, but it happened, so what else am I supposed to do? The only option for me was to raise our baby, but it was snatched away from me and I blame him.

I walk into the bedroom and over to the bed. I drink the entire glass of water that he placed in my nightstand.

"Mami, I wanna talk to you." Aubrey says

"You did enough talking in the text messages. I don't wanna talk." I say, climbing to bed. My head is spinning and I do not have time for his weak ass right now. All he's about to do is get in his feelings about me not wanting to talk to him. I'm good.

I turn my back to him, laying on my side. I get comfortable and close my eyes.

"Shawnie?" He calls out, but I ignore him.

I feel the bed shift and then I feel his lips on my shoulder, placing kisses there.

"Mami?"

"I'm not fucking you either. Stop!" I pull the blanket up to my neck. "You begged me to come home, I'm home now. Go to sleep."

He lays back on his side of the bed and exhales out of, I'm assuming, frustration. I don't care.

"I don't wanna fuck. I need to talk to you." He says

"Talk to me in the morning."

"No. I need to talk to you now. I won't be here in the morning." He says

"Well, text me then." I say

"What did I dooo?" He says, clearly frustrated.

"Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely, nothing. Aubrey." I say.

"Baby, talk to me. I haven't seen you in days, you haven't been answering any of my calls, and you've been going out every night. I need you to talk to me. Is this about the mis—."

I cut him off, "Shut the fuck up about that." I turn to face him in the bed. "You will not bring that up again. Do you understand me?" I say sternly, pointing my finger in his face.

He stares at me shocked for a few seconds. He wasn't expecting this type of response from me.

"Yea—Yeah. Okay." He says

"I'm sleeping with Atlas tonight." I get out of bed.

"Baby?"

"Goodnight." I walk out the bedroom.

As I walk to the other side of the house, I pass Joe's bedroom. The door was cracked and I could see him doing pushups next to his bed.

I lightly knocked on the door, and peeked my head in.

"Hey! What are you still doing awake?" He asks

"I could ask you the same thing." I laugh

"No reason. I'm just up. What's up? Come in." He says, standing up.

I walk in and crack the door how it was, but then I think about how Aubrey would freak out if he saw me in Joe's room, so I close the door all the way and I walk over to the bed and take a seat towards the bottom.

"What's wrong?" He asks

"Nothing..."

He puts his phone down on the nightstand next to his gun.

"I didn't know you carried a gun."

"Yeah, is that a problem?"

"No, not at all. I've just never seen you carry it." I say

"That's the point, to carry it discreetly. I have all my paperwork and everything if that's what you're worried about." He says

"No. I'm not worried about anything. I actually feel a little bit more safer now that I know that you have one." I admit

"The other guys don't have one?"

I shrug. "I don't know."

He laughs. "Aight. So are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing." I repeat

"Don't tell me it's nothing. I know you're going through a lot right now. What's up?"

"I'm just going into Atlas's room because that's where I'm going to sleep tonight. I need a break. I feel like Aubrey is smothering me." I confess

"That's why you stayed out the last few nights?
"Kinda..." I say

"You guys had a fight?"

"Kinda. But I just don't want to talk to him. I have too many conflicting feelings going on in my head." I say

"Conflicting feelings about what?" Joe says

"Just stuff." I say

"It's okay. Remember I told you you can talk to me." He says, standing over me.

I hesitate for a minute but then I look at Joe and he smiles.

"I like your tattoo. What's it mean?" I ask

"It's a Samoan tribal tattoo."

"Oh, you're Samoan?"

"Yes, and my mother is Italian." He answers. He knows I'm just trying to avoid talking to him.

I sigh, because there's no use in trying to get out of this. I have to talk to someone.

"...Can I tell you a secret?" I ask.

"Of course." He sits at the head of the bed, keeping distance between us.

"...Um...I'm not sure if I want to stay married to Aubrey."

"Oh...You're thinking about that?" He asks, looking confused.

"Our one year anniversary is coming up and that's the only thing that's making me second-guess everything. It's only been a year. I love him but then I have feelings of wanting to step away from my marriage. I don't know."

"You can't walk away after only a year. Is it really that bad?" He asks. "You guys seem like you're alright."

"The things that I have issues with can be fixed. So if they can be fixed, I feel like I shouldn't give up so easily...but the miscarriage, and things surrounding it, I don't think I can let that go. I've been trying to, but it's hard."

"What things surrounding it?"

"Oh, nothing." I laugh it off. I don't want to tell him what went on that night.

"It's totally fine if you want to fix things, you should want to, but you have to talk to him about it. You can't just assume he knows what your issues are with him because we're not mind readers. Women are very complex and we don't understand you guys and us men are very simple. If you tell him and he knows what the problems are, and if he doesn't wanna fix them, then he doesn't care. But, if he tries to fix them, he does care. And I think he cares. I think you guys are good when you guys are on good terms because what I witnessed in Vegas were two people so far in love that I was disgusted. Literally. But here, in LA, you guys are completely different and I honestly don't understand it. You guys are the complete opposite."

"We had issues while we were in Vegas as well but we decided to put them aside for the weekend and the reason I stayed Monday was because he wanted us to spend time together. I don't regret that, we did have a great weekend but it's like LA is just a dark cloud over me and my relationships." I say

"So why don't you guys go back to Toronto? Make it easy on yourself."

"Because my daughter is here with her dad and I'm just trying to make it easier on him. He was flying to Toronto every two weeks just to see his daughter and this is the least I can do. I'm comfortable and he gets to see his daughter." I explain

"But you're not comfortable because your marriage is not going well. You rather sacrifice your happiness to live here just so he can see his daughter when he's completely capable of coming to see her. There's other solutions other than you being here. If you're not happy in LA, don't stay. Go back home. Leave your daughter here. She's with her dad, he's not gonna let anything happen to her. He has her, just like he has her right now. I see how much he loves you and wants you to be happy." He says

"Yeah, Chris may love me and wants me to be happy but I think it's pretty safe to say that he cannot stand me right now. It's hard for me to relinquish control. I have been in control of everything in my life since I could remember. And the last three relationships, including my marriage, were somewhat out of my control. I refuse to end up like my parents. I feel like if I can't control my marriage, it's not gonna work. I want my marriage to work, I want Chris to see his daughter, I want my son to have his father in the house with him, I want all of us to get along and have no drama. I want Aubrey to stop supporting bitches that he thinks I don't know anything about. I also want him to stop trying to control everything I do. I want—."

Joe cuts me off, "Hold up... Go back to him supporting other women?"

"Aubrey doesn't know that I know he supports five different women." I admit

"Five women? How did you find out?" He asks

"He put me on all of his accounts. I think he thought that I wasn't gonna find out for whatever reason but I can see everything. I see all the money coming in and going out, and I counted five different women. He sends them $20,000 a month. Craig, his accountant, has the transactions listed as miscellaneous but I track the accounts and they're going to women. This has been going on way before we got married."

"What?" He says in disbelief.

"Yeah I know. While I was in Toronto I met with every last one of them. I flew them out to me, of course they thought they were meeting Aubrey and I told them that their last payment will be a lump sum of $30,000 and they would leave us alone for good. I made them sign contracts."

"Have they contacted you?"

"No and they can't contact Aubrey either because I made him change his number, but he doesn't know why. I told them to go away and never contact us again." I say

"And you're still with him?"

"Yes. I took care of it. I'm going to defend my marriage if I feel I need to. I love him, and I've worked so hard on my marriage and so that is why it's hard for me to let go. Yes, I'm a little unhappy, but like I said, our problems can be fixed."

"Yeah, they can be fixed but..." He asks

I cut him off because I know where he's trying to go with this. "I just want him and I to get back on the same page as we were. The miscarriage has complicated things in my mind and I'm trying to work through that but, I'm just so uncertain about things. I want this to work out but there's so much..."

"You're very strong for sticking with him when you found out that information. I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of my woman with someone else and stayed. It would kill me." He says

"I think I'm strong too. I've dealt with a lot. I have the world talking shit about me because of some of the decisions that I made but I don't care."

"Because of Drake?"

"Because of Chris." I answer. "Being with Chris is not good, regardless of what anyone thinks. I love him to death but being with him comes with too much. That doesn't take away anything from him. I just don't feel that we should be in a relationship. I might've slipped up a couple of times with him but that still doesn't equal me getting back with him. I married Aubrey and if I decide that I wanna make my relationship work then that's what I'm going to do. By any means necessary."

"I feel you." He says. "But, if you're not happy..."

"I know. I'm not sure if I've ever said this to you before but I married him because he refills a void in me that I didn't realize I was missing until I didn't have Christian in my life."

"Who's Christian?" He asks

"An ex, my first boyfriend." I sigh, "I never talk about him. I never felt that void was filled with Chris, but I got it when Aubrey and I started dating. And I'm just not ready to let that or the feeling go. Being married to him may come with fame, which I don't like, but I almost feel like I will continue to deal with that because I wanna be with him. I just have to try to figure out ways around it." I say

"Like being locked away in that big ass house? You can't do that and that shouldn't even be an option for you. You have to get out every now and then and that's going to eventually start to take a toll on your mental state." Joe explains

"I know...I just have a lot to think about. I give people too many chances and I just wish I could stop myself from doing that. It's hard to do when it's someone you love." I confess

"I think you already have your mind made up but you're scared to move forward with it. Just take your time and move at your pace. Things might end up working out, but if you're done, don't drag it out. I understand if you're unsure but don't put yourself through hell in the process."

I smile. "Thank you."

He pats my leg, "Anytime."

"I don't know what it is but I always just seem to spill my heart out to you. You're very easy to talk to." I say

"That's a compliment. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. Well, goodnight." I stand up and walk over to the door.

"As long as I'm here nothing is going to happen to you." Joe says

I look at him for a second. That wasn't a whatever comment. That comment had a meaning to it. Maybe Joe knows more than he lets on.

I just smiled and left his bedroom.

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