Session 33

Chapter Thirty six

The air was cool as fuck out on thebalcony of one of Sila's rich women’s condos, it kept the gin I’d drank from taking over. He passed me the blunt, and I took a deep drag from it, letting the smoke fill my lungs before slowly blowing it out. We were back in a good space for now. He apologized again for the shit at the bar.

“Man, I really fucked up,” I said, my voice just loud enough to be heard over the music coming from inside. “I flipped a damn table, Silas. Then I showed up to Angel putting my stuff out of her house. I saw the look on her face, and it screamed everything is falling apart.”

Three days, and Angel hadn’t answered the phone or come to the door. She’d had the locks changed. I was fucked up. I could only imagine how she was feeling—her heart was bigger than mine, more fragile.

Silas nodded, taking the blunt from me and inhaling deeply. He held the smoke in for a moment before exhaling. “Cheer the fuck up. You and Angel will be okay. Just give her some time to cool down. She’s pregnant, man. Emotions are high. I was skeptical about her at first, didn’t think she’d be there for you when you needed her. But she has been, and I’ve seen you changing for the better. Even I can see it, and I didn’t want to see it.”

His words made me feel a little better. I nodded, taking the blunt back from him. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should wait. Give her some time. I took another hit, the head rush calming me down, then handed the blunt back to Silas.

Before I could say anything else, a blonde chick who looked like she stepped out of a magazine came up to Silas, wrapping her arms around him. “Come dance with me,” she said, pulling him towards the sliding glass door.

Silas grinned at me and handed me the blunt. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched as he disappeared into the crowd inside, the sliding glass door closing behind him. Kanye West’s “Monster” was playing.

I stood there for a moment, thinking about Angel and our baby. What would our child look like? Would they have my eyes or her smile? I wished my mom was here for all of this, to guide me. The memory of her laugh echoed in my mind, and I felt a deep ache in my chest.

With a sigh, I decided to leave the party and head back to Angel’s place. Fuck waiting. I needed to fix things, to make it right. It was midnight, but I knew she would be sleeping. The baby kept her up at night. I opened the sliding glass door, and Megan Thee Stallion filtered out. I pushed through the crowd. As I made my way to the front door, someone grabbed my arm, stopping me.

I turned, ready to shake them off, but my mind went blank when I saw who it was. She was someone from my past, someone I hadn’t seen in years. She was the second most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—right after Angel. Different though.

The world seemed to shrink to just the two of us, the party fading into the background. Seeing her brought back a flood of memories, both good and bad, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to say.

“Cassius?” she said, her voice a mix of surprise and something else—something that I’d forgotten. She was someone I had tried to forget.

“What are you doing here?” I had to nearly yell to be heard over the music.

She smiled, a slow, familiar smile that made my stomach twist. “I’m here with some friends. I knew you lived in the area, but I didn’t think I’d run into you. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it has,” I replied, still trying to wrap my head around seeing her in the aftermath of the person I used to be.

We stood there for a moment. I knew I should walk away. But something in her eyes kept me rooted to the spot, and I couldn’t move.

“I’ve missed you,” she said softly, her hand still on my arm.

The guilt I’d been feeling started to fade, replaced by the pull of old memories. “I’ve missed you too.”

She stepped close, her body brushing against mine. She smelled expensive, her body not as soft as I was used to now. "Let’s walk to my car," she said. "You can roll this blunt for me."

I nodded. “Yeah, okay. But I gotta go after that.”

She intertwined our fingers and started pulling me towards the door.

As we left the party together, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was making another mistake, but I kept walking anyway.

I woke up immediately knowing I wasn’t where I was supposed to be and that the long brown body lying next to me naked in bed wasn’t Angel’s. The guilt about that was gnawing at me like a rabid dog, and it should have sent my ass running home. But I couldn’t deny the relief that came with waking up next to somebody who wanted me there. Angel’s absence was a void, but this—this was something different.

This was Ciara, the girl from before everything was fucked up. Back in college, before my pops killed my mom, Ciara was one of the few women I actually liked. She was long and lean, pretty in a way that was my usual type. No one knew about her, not even Jonas. Confident. She didn’t ask questions. She had no expectations of me. We were fucking around for about a year and a half.

I stared at the ceiling as my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Angel hadn’t answered my calls in days, and now she wanted to talk. I ignored it. I had more immediate concerns.

I turned to her, about to tell her she needed to go, but she cut me off, straddling me. Naked, she ran her hand up her flat stomach, then cupped her breasts. They were perfect. Big hard nipples, areolas a couple shades darker than her brown skin. She was so wet her bare pussy glistened. Before I could react, she grabbed a condom, rolled it onto my already hard dick, and sank down with a slow, deliberate motion. My guilt was momentarily drowned out by the sensation of sliding to the back of her pussy. I let out a groan.

Afterward, as she lay next to me, I knew I had to tell her I needed to go. But she cut me off again.

“Take me to breakfast,” she said, her tone firm. She wasn’t asking—she was telling me. That’s what I liked about Ciara. I didn’t have to guess.

I sighed, knowing I couldn’t refuse her. “Alright, give me a minute to shower and get dressed.”

She giggled.

I pushed myself up out of bed. At least ten condoms littered the hotel floor. I groaned. I had really fucked up, but there wasn’t shit I could do about it now.

After a short shower, as I pulled on my clothes, my phone vibrated again. I shoved it into my pocket, determined to deal with it later. We stepped out of the high-end hotel, and the morning sun was doing its big one, damn near blinding me. Ciara’s big-body Benz was waiting outside. She linked her arm through mine. “You drive. Take me somewhere expensive with alcohol,” she said, laughing, as the valet handed me her keys. His eyes trailed her body, getting stuck on her round, bouncing ass. It felt good not to care that he was looking. I would’ve tried to knock his fucking eyes out of his head if he looked at Angel like that.

Over breakfast, she started telling me about her life since we last saw each other. “I became a nurse, you know. It’s been challenging, but I love it.”

I nodded, half-listening as she spoke. Her voice was background noise; my mind was elsewhere.

“I missed you, Cassius. I thought about you a lot.”

I nodded. “I’m proud of you, Ciara,” I said, meaning it, instead of lying and saying I missed her. Now that I thought about it, I really hadn’t. “You always had a drive about you.”

She smiled, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “And what about you? How have you been?”

I hesitated, not sure how to explain the mess that was my life. “It’s been… complicated.” Ciara didn’t know the new me.

Her eyes softened. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

I nodded, but before I could say anything more, my phone vibrated again. Ciara’s eyes flicked to the phone on the table.

“Who’s Angel?” she asked, probing.

I froze, my mind racing. “Nobody,” I lied, hoping she wouldn’t push further.

Ciara raised an eyebrow but didn’t press it. She started reminiscing about our nights at the strip club, the wild parties, and the spontaneous trips overseas.

“You remember our trip to the Dominican Republic?” she asked, her eyes gleaming with nostalgia. “That was one of the best times of my life.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, that was wild. We almost got kicked out of the hotel.”

“Good times,” she said, her laughter loud enough to draw a few eyes.

After breakfast, I walked her to her car.

My phone buzzed again, and Ciara glanced at me, curiosity in her eyes. “Who keeps calling you? Who am I keeping you from?”

“Nobody important,” I said. She was so fucking important; I was just treating her like she wasn’t.

Ciara sighed. “You seem stressed. Why don’t you come spend some time with me in Miami? It’d be just like old times.”

I knew I shouldn’t. Angel was pregnant, and anything could happen. But the allure of escaping my current reality, even for a little while, was tempting. “I don’t know, Ciara. Things are different now.”

She leaned in closer. “Just think about it. It would be good for you to get away, clear your head. Besides, you know you want to.” She gave me a seductive grin.

My phone vibrated again in my pocket. But as I looked at Ciara, I found myself wanting to go back to that time before everything bad happened.

“Okay,” I said, the word slipping out before I could stop it. “I’ll come to Miami.”

I might as well. I had already fucked up.