Chapter 3
The sound of locks disengaging caused me to put my phone away, cross my legs over the dinner table, and lean back in the chair. The person walking down the hall whistled as I waited nakedly and patiently for him to notice me. When he went to turn up the lights, I stopped him.
“Leave them low,” I said as he paused his whistling and steps.
Marcus’s eyes shifted to me, and he smirked.
I stood from the table in nothing but my heels and his tie and walked over to him.
Like a magnet, our lips locked, and I began to undress him.
Demarcus was an accountant at Jones you miss this pussy,” I told him, softly biting his cute, slender nose.
He chuckled, placing me on my feet to grab towels and washcloths. “I always miss that, but I also miss your presence. It’s like I only see you when you’re horny. Although I don’t mind breaking your freaky ass off, I would still like to see you in the daytime.”
“I can’t come out in the daytime. I’m a vampire.”
He laughed. “Yeah, a’ight, Kali. Come on. Let’s get cleaned up while I hit that one more time before you ghost me.”
I shook my head and smirked as I climbed inside with him behind me.
Yeah, it was time to ease up some. I could tell he was starting to catch feelings, and I had to wonder why he hadn’t taken my advice and seen other women.
We fucked three times a week, and I always pulled up in the wee hours of the morning and would be gone before daybreak.
I knew if I were a man, there was no way I would catch feelings for someone I knew was emotionally unavailable.
After tonight, I was going to ghost his ass for a minute. There was no way I could allow this sappy shit to take me under. I didn’t love anyone besides my family, and I was positive I never would.
What these niggas wanted from a bitch?
I sat at the table as I watched the inmates file out of the gate. Standing, I watched the influx of prisoners walk to their respective tables to see their loved ones. My father was the last to walk out, and I stood with a smile on my face. Time did nothing to this man.
He had been locked away for ten years, and he still looked the way he did when he walked inside the prison.
My dad hadn’t aged a bit, with the only difference being that he’d gained a few pounds from hitting the weights and building muscle.
His long, soft hair was braided in four cornrows.
His brown skin was blemish-free, and his teeth looked whiter than when he was free.
I missed my daddy so much. Things weren’t the same without him, and I secretly cried at night thinking about how life would have been if he were home with us.
His dark eyes were hard until he spotted me, then they softened. He strolled over to me casually until he reached me, and I tossed my arms around him. He held me tightly as tears gathered in my eyes.
“I miss you so much, baby girl.”
“I miss you, too, Daddy. I miss you so much,” I whispered.
“Logan... ” I could hear one of the guards call out to him. “Come on, you know the rules.”
My daddy sucked his teeth and held me a few seconds longer before he released me. We sat down at the table, but my father’s focus was on the corrections officer. I looked back and noticed the CO looking scared as he diverted his gaze across the yard.
“Daddy,” I called out to him. He finally peeled his eyes away from the CO, and his eyes softened again once they landed on me. “Let it go, Daddy. Okay? Please?”
“Anything for you, baby girl.”
I smiled. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m doing what I can. What about you? How’s Paige and ya moms?”
“Paige is good. She had a job so she couldn’t make it today, and I’m sure you know how Mom is,” I said, squinting at him.
He smirked. “I was going to call you. You didn’t have to drive all this way to come check on me.”
“Daddy, what were you thinking?”
“Arie, I need you and ya moms to move on from me. It ain’t shit I can do for y’all while I’m locked up in here. As promised, I’ll always keep y’all protected, but as far as visitations, I need y’all to stop taking that trip.”
“But, Daddy?—”
“No buts, Arie. I love you, Paige, and your moms to death—you know that—but the longer y’all keep waiting for my return, the longer y’all are locked up right along with me.
That business you’re into has a deadline.
You have until 2023 to have settled all of your affairs.
Ya moms barely even see you anymore, and she’s afraid she’s going to lose you to those streets.
Your uncle Lamont has already been given clear instructions on ending your contract?—”
I frowned. “You can’t do that.”
“I can, and I am. I know I introduced you and Paige to this shit, and I was fucked up for that. Back then, I felt like I had to teach y’all how to be savage because this world is cruel.
I just wanted y’all to be able to protect yourselves.
You have accomplished more than I ever did.
You have a whole nightclub, which I hear is doing numbers and doing its thing.
What the fuck you need that other shit now for, huh? Clout? Fame?”
I scoffed. “This has nothing to do with clout and fame, Daddy. The money is good?—”
“All money ain’t good money, Arie. You’re damn near thirty-five years old. What the fuck are you chasing? Before you end up in the dirt, I’m ending this shit for you.”
I bit the corner of my bottom lip and nodded.
“So… that’s it? You tell Mom to move on from you like you’re not even her husband, then you snatch me out of what I’m doing, all because of what?
Why are you doing this? You don’t want her as a wife anymore, and it sounds like you’re dissing me as your daughter too. What the fuck is really going on, Dad?”
“I don’t need y’all riding this shit out with me, Arieana. It hurts my fucking soul to hear and see how this shit is affecting y’all. You don’t know how bad I want to be out there with my wife and my daughters, but because I was young and dumb, I did some stupid shit that I can’t take back.”
Once again, tears gathered in my eyes as I looked away from him. He reached across the table and took my hand.
“Hold ya head up, baby girl. I’m doing this for my sanity, and for y’all’s too.
Life is still out there moving for you, Paige, and ya moms. In here…
time is standing still. I love you all so much that I have to let y’all go to continue to move forward in life.
Write me, send me pics, but don’t come back up here. You hear me?”
I swallowed back the tears that threatened to spill onto my face and looked into his eyes. “Yeah... I hear you.”
“Now, we only got thirty more minutes before this visitation ends. Tell me something good.”
As much as I wanted to let those tears fall, I knew I had to hold them until I got to my car.
Hearing the man that I looked up to, admired, and wished to be tough like, tell me to stop coming to see him and forget about him, hurt like hell.
As tough as I was, my tough exterior was no match for the love I had for this man.
I wanted my father out of here. I felt like I lost a piece of myself when he got sentenced.
He didn’t flinch, cry, or beg when that judge gave him fifteen years.
He held his head up high while my mom, Paige, and I broke down in that courtroom.
I hated what he was doing to us, but I could do nothing but respect it. He didn’t want us waiting on him, and from the look he gave that guard, I knew that man’s days were numbered, which could only cause more trouble for my dad.
When our time was up, he hugged me long and tight. “I love you, baby. Tell ya moms she’s still my greatest love. If time happens to reverse, I’ll be waiting at the altar, ready to make her mine again.”
I gave him a half smile and nodded. “I love you too.”
He winked, kissed my forehead, then strolled to get in line and head back behind those walls.
I went in the opposite direction where the visitors were being let out. Once I got inside my car, I allowed those bitch-ass tears I’d been holding in to free-fall.