Chapter 2 #3
Rome smirked. “Ain’t nobody worried about all that. You know what’s up with me. I’m the same one who protected ya’ll from every fucked-up nigga in your past.”
“Tash,” I warned again.
She let out a frustrated sigh before grabbing my hand and pulling me a little closer toward the front door. “If you need me, call me,” she said low enough so Rome couldn’t hear. “I don’t care if it’s three in the morning and stop worrying about that damn money right now.”
Shit, that money still hurt. Of course I could make more, but it was the principle.
Rome wanted me trapped. He wanted me depending on him long enough to stop trying to leave altogether.
Whole time all he was really doing was making me hate him more.
Tasha squeezed my hand once before letting it go, but before she could move away, Rome’s voice came from right behind me.
“You staying or you leaving?” he causally asked, like nothing had happened.
I slowly turned around to look at him and the calmness on his face aggravated me more than the bruise throbbing across my cheek because that man really knew how to stand there pretending everything was normal after turning my whole world upside down. For a second, I just stared at him.
“I guess I’m staying,” I rolled my eyes.
Tasha made a noise behind me like she couldn’t believe what she had just heard, but I didn’t stop walking.
I headed straight for the stairs, with my emotions all over the place.
I could feel both of them watching me while I climbed up each step, but I honestly didn’t have the energy to deal with either one of them anymore.
“Navy,” Tasha called after me.
“I’m good,” I lied without turning around.
“You don’t look good.”
I lightly chuckled under my breath because ‘no shit’.
By the time I made it upstairs, I heard the front door open downstairs followed by Tasha still cursing Rome out while she left.
He laughed at something she said, which only made her louder, and honestly, if my life wasn’t actively falling apart, it probably would’ve been funny hearing her threaten to beat his ass at eight in the morning.
The front door slammed hard then it got silent.
Well, as silent as this house could get with Rome walking around in it.
I went back into the bedroom and shut the door behind me before sitting on the edge of the bed slowly.
My whole body ached in little places now that the adrenaline from last night was gone.
All I could think about was how badly I wanted to disappear for like a week.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked my messages. Tasha had already started texting me.
Tasha: Girl call me when he leave the room.
Tasha: I’m dead serious.
Tasha: Don’t protect him.
I sighed and dropped the phone beside me before rubbing my hands over my face carefully so I wouldn’t touch the bruise too hard.
The crazy part was that I wasn’t even embarrassed anymore.
I felt past embarrassment at this point.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs a few minutes later and then there was Rome pushing the bedroom door open like he belonged there, which technically he did, but still, even looking at him move around this room made me want to punch his ass.
“You hungry?” he casually asked like it was nothing.
I looked at him like he had lost his damn mind. “No.”
“You ain’t eat since yesterday.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Rome sighed and leaned against the dresser. “Navy, man…”
“No, don’t ‘Navy man’ me.” I stood up off the bed and grabbed one of my pillows before moving toward the couch near the windows. “I really don’t wanna hear shit you gotta say right now.”
“You dragging it.”
I immediately stopped walking and looked back at him. “That’s the problem with you,” I said. “You really don’t think you do nothing wrong.”
Rome rubbed his beard with a slow stroke. “I already told you I was wrong for putting my hands on you.”
“But not wrong for stealing my money?” I raised a brow. “Or fucking other bitches right?”
He had that tight look on his face again. “There you go again with this money shit.”
I laughed in disbelief. “This money shit? Rome, you cleaned my account out.”
“I moved it.” He shrugged like it wasn’t shit.
“Without asking me.” I snapped.
“We married.”
“Please stop saying that like it erase everything else, and please stop throwing up the marriage when it’s convenient for you!”
Rome pushed off the dresser and slowly walked towards me.
Usually when he moved like that, confident and calm, it did something to me.
Rome had always been fine and wasn’t no denying that.
He was tall, dark smooth ass skin, tattoos everywhere, pretty teeth, deep voice, smelled good all the damn time.
Even now, after everything, I hated that my body still noticed him before my brain could stop it, but then I’d look at my reflection in the mirror and remember exactly who he really was underneath all that pretty shit.
“You know why I moved that money,” he said.
“Because you controlling.”
“Because you was about to do something stupid.”
“What’s stupid is putting your hands on your wife and getting another bitch pregnant.”
Rome clenched his jaw, and there went that look again. It was that same look when he was trying to stop from taking it there. “You keep throwing that in my face.”
“Because it happened!”
“And I said I was wrong.”
“You keep saying that like it magically fix shit!” My voice cracked at the end, and I hated it because I sounded too emotional and too affected, and Rome always acted different when he realized he was really getting to me.
He stepped closer. “Come here.”
I moved back.
“Navy,” he said more firmly.
I shook my head. “No.”
“You acting scared of me now?” He questioned.
I stared at him for a second before answering as honest as I could. “I don’t know what version of you I’m waking up to anymore.”
That fucked him up hard and I could tell it did because his whole expression changed a little soft before it got all hard again. “You know I love you Nay.”
He did, and I know he did, but he just didn’t know how to be that man for me without letting his own ego in the way. I almost laughed because men like Rome really believed love covered everything… the cheating, lying, manipulation, bruises, apologies… all of that shit.
“I used to think that mattered,” I admitted. “But you changed when yo got money.” I sighed. “You really did.”
Rome looked at me hard after that, like he was trying to figure out what exactly had changed.
The old Navy would’ve already softened by now.
The old Navy would’ve cried, argued some more, then eventually let him pull her into his lap while he apologized and promised to do better while he fucked me to sleep or bought my love, but the old Navy wasn’t slipping away, and I think he was finally starting to realize it.