7. Fontaine Jackson
TWO YEARS AGO
“I missed you,” Nairobi whispered, her head tucked against my chest. Her voice was softer than I’d heard in days.
We’d just gotten back to my place after I picked her up from Kyree’s. She was still working him with the other girls from Stilettos.
“Hm. Did you?” I asked as I traced my fingers lightly up her back. She nodded, looking up at me through her long lashes.
“But not enough to tell the others about us, huh?”
She stiffened and tried to pull away, but I kept my hold on her.
“You don’t have to leave when this is over, Nai,” I said, kissing her forehead. She hadn't said it out loud, but I knew what it was. She planned to vanish and throw this away like it didn’t matter.
She cleared her throat and averted her eyes. “Is there food upstairs? I’m starving.”
I sighed, letting her go. “Yeah. I ordered Golden Dragon,” I muttered as the elevator doors closed.
Out the corner of my eye, I caught her lips twitch like she was fighting back a smile.
“Look at you, Bear,” she teased.
An hour later, she was fresh out of the shower, in one of my t-shirts with a bowl of lo mein and wings in her lap.
“God, this is so good,” she moaned between bites.
I watched her, blown at how easy it was for her to check in and out of this thing between us like it was just some fantasy for her.
“Yo, what are we doing, Nairobi?” I finally asked, keeping my voice steady. I was done walking on eggshells around her feelings.
She chewed slowly. “What are we doing with what?”
“You know what I mean,” I said, locking eyes with her, daring her to dodge the topic again. “You keep saying it’s complicated, but what’s so complicated about us being together?”
She sighed and set the bowl down. “We’re having fun. I like being with you. Why put labels on it?”
“Fun?” I scoffed. “Nah. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asked, an edge creeping into her voice. “I told you from the beginning that I don’t do relationships. You knew what this was, Fontaine.”
“You’ve been here for three months and for the past two you’ve been in my bed damn near every night. You got shit in my bathroom right now. That’s not casual, Nai. Stop fucking playing.”
“Whatever. That doesn’t mean?—”
“It means exactly what it means. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
Her brows furrowed together and I could see her retreating behind that wall in real time. “I’m not built for what you’re asking me for.”
“Here you go.”
“It’s the truth! I don’t do this. I’ve never done this. And I was real clear about that from day one, so don’t come at me acting like I led you on.”
“What are you so scared of?”
She just glared at me.
“I’m not asking you to quit your job. You know I respect what you do. But you have more than enough money. You can afford to slow down and build something with me. You wanna travel? We can go wherever. I just want you to choose me to do it with.”
I hated that I sounded desperate, but I was tired of this cat-and-mouse bullshit.
“I—” she started.
“I’m not your pops, Nai,” I said quietly, knowing my choice of words might sting, but she needed to hear it.
“That’s not fair,” she muttered, hopping off the couch and heading to the kitchen.
“This isn’t fair,” I retorted, as she returned with a glass of water. “We can fuck around and play house, but you won’t call it what it is. You think I’m gonna switch up on you?”
“I’m done with this conversation,” she snapped and stormed off toward my bedroom.
I closed my eyes, gripping the glass in my hand, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. She wanted me to chase her. I knew her MO and I wasn’t in the mood for it.
I picked up her abandoned bowl and glass, tossed them in the dishwasher and headed to the guest room down the hall. The en-suite bathroom in here wasn’t as big as mine, but it had everything I needed.
I grabbed a spare toothbrush and stared at my reflection while I brushed my teeth, wondering why the hell I kept putting myself through this.
I could’ve cut her off in a heartbeat—should’ve been done that.
But there was no one else like her.
Nairobi had a wall around her heart, but once she let me in, I saw that those sharp edges were hiding something soft, something sacred and worth loving. That’s what kept me here when common sense told me to leave.
I finished in the bathroom and collapsed into the guest bed. I turned on the TV hoping it’d help me fall asleep. It didn’t—my mind was on one.
Twenty minutes later, the door creaked open.
I didn’t look over, but I felt the mattress dip as Nairobi crawled onto the bed and settled on my lap. My jaw clenched as my dick bricked up instantly. I kept my arms folded behind my head, eyes fixed on the screen.
“You’re blocking my view,” I said flatly.
She didn’t answer but leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head at the last minute, letting her lips meet my cheek instead.
Her smoky body oil mixed with the faintest scent of vanilla was driving me mad.
I licked my lips, feeling the pebbled tips of her nipples press against my chest through her t-shirt.
She licked the side of my neck, tracing slow circles on my bare chest with her fingers, coaxing me to give in.
I blinked slowly, swallowing down a low groan building in my throat.
“I need you, Bear,” she whimpered.
I stared ahead. She peeled the shirt over her head and tossed it aside. My gaze shifted to her as the glow from the TV cast shadows across her bare skin.
My hands tightened behind my head, nostrils flaring as I fought to hold my ground. But the pull between us was relentless.
Testing me.
Pushing me.
Daring me to break.
The stale warehouse air brought me back to the present. The whole place was quiet except for the low hum of the fluorescent lights as me and Slim followed Jelani through rows of stacked crates.
We’d just gotten a shipment of guns from the Reapers. So far, the alliance we’d made with them for helping Cash get Jasmine back had been working well for us.
I popped open the latch on one of the crates and pulled it open. Inside, brand new weapons were tightly packed.
I glanced at Jelani. “How many are we keeping?”
“Half,” he said as he flipped through the manifest. “The rest are going down to Miami.”
Slim peeled back some bubble wrap on a second crate. “Rocket launchers? Since when we needed these?”
“They threw it in as a bonus for the last shipment,” Jelani replied, not looking up. “Something about appreciation for the last drop.”
I grunted. CJ had been on my shit list since I first met him in New York.
The nigga was too cocky and the fact that he was the one Nairobi chose to keep her bed warm while she was gone?
Shit sat in my chest like lead. I kept telling myself it wasn’t personal—she wasn’t mine.
And once she left, I realized she’d never really been.
But that didn’t stop my jaw from clenching every time I thought about them together.
“Yo,” Jelani said, slamming the crate shut. “I heard your girl’s back.”
“Who?” I asked, knowing damn well who he was talking about.
It’d been a week since I pulled up outside her condo like a lovesick teenager. I knew she wouldn’t let me up, but I couldn’t help myself. She hadn’t reached out to me since, and I’d been keeping my distance.
Didn’t mean I wasn’t keeping tabs though.
Slim sucked his teeth. “So you actin’ brand new now?”
“I’m single,” I muttered.
“Yeah aight,” he snorted.
“I don’t know what the fuck y’all are goin’ on about.” I pulled out my phone to check her location again. She was still at her mom’s.
“Mmhm,” Jelani grinned, leaning against a crate. “Slim, how much you wanna bet this nigga already seen her? Mr. Hack-the-Planet probably got her geotagged like endangered wildlife or some shit.”
I cut my eyes at him. “Whatever, nigga.”
She wasn’t geotagged exactly—but it wasn’t that difficult to hack The Agency’s servers after she disappeared in New York. I didn’t do anything too wild, just enough to see what cities she was working in and who her marks were. I wasn’t trying to interfere. I just needed to know she was okay.
And maybe… maybe I’d flown out once or twice.
Miami was the first time when I thought I could convince her to come back.
I watched her lure Hunter Barlowe in with that smile—made him feel like he was the one pulling her when she was building this web around him.
A year later I did it again in Morocco. It was a mercenary this time, a real big motherfucker.
But the result was the same. She was art in motion, and I was the idiot standing outside the exhibit, obsessed.
I stopped after Morocco after I started noticing a pattern in her movements.
Every time she had a job in New York, she’d stay longer than necessary.
A few extra days here and there. It didn’t take long to figure out why.
She was spending time with CJ. Once I saw that, I deleted the back door I’d built into The Agency’s servers and told myself I was done.
Watching her move on was something I wasn’t built for.
I’d never say that shit out loud though.
I slipped the phone back in my pocket and glanced at the two of them. “We done here or y’all still got more jokes?”
Slim shook his head. “You been scowling all tense like you finna punch a hole in the wall. What happened when you went to Miami?”
I rubbed a hand over my head. “Ain’t shit to say. She obviously didn’t want to come back.”
Slim squinted. “But you checking her location, though.”
“I wasn’t checking her location.”
“Have you at least talked to her?” Jelani asked. “Money said her pops died. Is she good?”
I bristled. Why the fuck were they so interested in my love life?
I turned to Slim. “I ever bother you about the chick in Brooklyn? Or you going back and forth with my sister?”
His face dropped.
I looked over at Jelani next. “I ever press you when you and Monica were beefing and making up every other day?”
“Hold up,” Jelani said, holding his hands up. “Not too much. Me and Monica good right now.”