No More Tears in the End Read Online Free Page A

Wanda decided to hold her tongue.
    When Bobby announced that he was coming back to run Impressions, nobody was happier to hear that than Wanda. Relieved was more the word for how she felt about it. Now maybe I can get a good night’s sleep, Wanda thought when she heard the news. While Nick was running the club, Wanda would be there every night. Most nights she would be there until the club closed. Then she would get a couple of hours of sleep and go to work.
    The fact was Wanda was a jealous woman. The sight or even the idea of a woman, any woman, getting too close to Nick seemed to drive her mad. She had always prided herself on not being one of “ those” women who were so insecure that they couldn’t stand for their man to be out of their sight, but there she was, one of “those” women, and it bothered her. It just didn’t bother her enough to keep her home at nights when he was working. She fell asleep many a night on the couch in Nick’s office.
    Wanda thought back to one night at the club when they talked about it. She remembered Nick shaking his head and saying, “The point is that you don’t trust me.”
    “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she lied as she got up from the couch. She walked over to the window in the office that overlooked the dance floor and pointed. “It’s those half-naked bitches down there that I don’t trust.”
    “Why? I don’t want any of them. Wanda, I love you.”
    “I know that, Nick, but I just don’t understand for the life of me why you have to chat up every half-naked tramp in the club.”
    Wanda knew it wouldn’t be like that if Nick took over the game. Other than a few working girls, and the occasional poker player, there wouldn’t be many women to throw themselves at him. Her only issue was that if he took over the game, he would still be out at night. That meant that she would still never see him unless she posted up there every night.
    It was a quarter past nine when the hostess escorted Bobby to the table. “Thank you, honey,” Bobby said and handed the attractive hostess a twenty. “And if you don’t mind, beautiful, would you send our waiter, please,” he said as he sat down.
    “I would be happy to,” the woman said and slipped the bill in her pocket.
    “You’re very pretty,” Bobby said watching the hostess as she turned and walked away.
    Wanda shook her head. “Aren’t you still married?”
    “Pam and I have an understanding,” Bobby said and continued to watch the hostess. She waved to him when she turned and noticed that he was watching her.
    “What understanding is that?”
    “She understands that if she isn’t gonna give me any pussy that somebody is,” Bobby said and continued to flirt with the hostess.
    “Whatever. You still don’t have to be all out in the open with it.”
    “What’s the matter; you afraid that I’m a bad influence on Nick?”
    Wanda looked Bobby in the eye. “Yes.”
    “Nick is a grown man.”
    “Excuse me,” Nick interrupted. “Nick is sitting right here and can speak for himself.
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Wanda said. But she meant what she said. “I just liked you better when you didn’t cheat on your wife.”
    At one point, Bobby was a devoted married man and a good father to his four children. That changed when he met a dancer named Cat . It began shortly after Black left for the Bahamas with Cassandra and Freeze had taken over running the organization. Wanda thought that Freeze was running the organization into the ground and told Bobby that he needed to be more active in the business. He met Cat one night while he was at Cynt's.
    She was dressed in a black cat suit with a small tail and mask to match. Bobby watched her as she approached somebody at the bar and started talking. “Who is that?” Bobby asked Freeze that night.
    “That’s Cat. She just started workin’ here a couple of weeks ago. Cynt says words can’t describe the way she dances. Said it’s