Chapter 2
Ari
“Shut up Cyn! It was not guilty?”
“Yes. You know Anne and her boys are up here acting crazy, but I just wanted to let you know because they will probably be talking crazy to you very soon. But I should go now. I need to get Hawk away from here before he says something to one of their asses and then some shit really goes down in here today.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up the phone and rushed the shot of Patron sitting in front of me down my throat. I let the burn ease before I said a word to Tania. After all, I was lost for words because this wasn’t the outcome I had expected.
I mean, I hadn’t seen that coming from what I’ve been hearing about court.
Even being way in D.C. I knew everything that happened every day because Cyn was keeping me informed.
Even on days that I didn’t want to hear about Josiah, Proctor, or that case, I knew because of her.
Sometimes I just wanted the shit to be out of sight and out of mind for me, but because that was Cyn’s new father in law, it had no choice but to come up in conversation.
“Did Cyn just tell you that Proctor was found not guilty?”
Tania asked, sitting beside me at the bar, taking down her 3rd French 75.
I side eyed her before answering her question because her infatuation with Proctor and his trial bothered me for some reason.
Ever since she found out that we had sex that night and how good it was, she always had this gleam in her eye when talking about him.
I guess it was half my fault for talking down on Proctor and saying that I would never sleep with him again because of what he was accused of doing to Josiah.
Though that shouldn’t give her the go to fuck with him, sometimes it’s hard to tell what Tania’s intentions are with Proctor.
Hence that’s why I put Benadryl in her shot that first night.
Of course, Proctor’s murder charge didn’t bother Tania one bit because she couldn’t stand Josiah and that was still true even after his death.
They never found Josiah’s body, so there was never actually a funeral, but I was sure Tania or Cyn wouldn’t have gone if there was.
Shit, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been invited either with the messages and nasty calls I’d been getting since the prosecution presented the evidence of me sleeping with Proctor that night in Vegas.
Them finding his bloody jacket in a bag on the side of a desert rode and tracing his steps back to the club Hawk owned was how this whole case came to play in the first place.
Though I get why they would think he was dead, at first, I was constantly asking myself how they could know who Proctor was talking to out of the friend group since there was three of us together on the trip.
I mean their whole case was built on jealousy and Proctor and me having an affair.
It wasn’t until they played videos from the pool party of Proctor attacking the Santa hat wearing nigga Brandon who fucked with me that I saw how they could convince themselves that Proctor was jealous over me.
That footage along with other videos of several of our public interactions where the chemistry was seeping through the screen helped make that conclusion.
It was the way he would look at me in those videos that screamed he wanted to eat me alive.
Shit he was looking at me the same way in the courtroom when I testified the other day before closing arguments.
I was telling myself I didn’t dress up in my cream colored pants suit that fit just right because I was going to see him, but I slightly was, and of course I keep daydreaming about him in that grey suit and Cartier frames.
Even with a jail house cut, Proctor still looked good.
“You know what I just thought about Ari, they are going to have a big celebration party for Proctor getting out at one of Hawk’s clubs soon, I’m sure.” Tania shook her shoulders happy as hell.
“Yeah, but if they do, I am not going. I have to get back to D.C. to my baby. I am only still in Vegas because I promised Cyn I would be here for her surgery tomorrow. My girl needs my support and hopefully this will be the last one she needs to fix her uterus and give us a bunch of little Cyn and Hawks around here.”
“Yeah, I'm praying for my girl.”
Cyn and Hawk had been trying to have kids for the past year now, but she couldn’t conceive and the doctors found that there was a tare in her uterus that needed sewing up.
I was happy that the cause of infertility was found because no one deserved to be a mother more than Cyn.
Her mama wasn’t available to come to Vegas this week, so I offered to stay after I testified to make sure, she had after care help if needed.
Tania’s reasons for wanting to come back to Vegas were obviously more than just Cyn.
I’m sure partying was the main selling point for her.
“Ari, I was with you before we left for the airport and your aunt told you to try and enjoy yourself while you were here and not to worry about Treasure whatsoever. I mean friend, you have been in the house worried and miserable for over a year now. You don’t get your nails done anymore, the back of your feet are cracked like pavement, and I saw that bush of hair in between your legs when you were putting on your pants this morning.
Since when don’t you get waxes every three weeks? ”
“Since I stopped dancing and fucking Tania.” I over talked her rambling to try and shut her up.
She was too invested in my business, almost as much as my Auntie.
She heard Proctor could potentially be Treasure’s father through Tania’s big mouth and she was trying to force me on Proctor in a way.
Telling me to try and get help with the baby from him instead of focusing on a dead man being her father.
The remorse and sympathy for Josiah was lost in the world around me.
The only person to actually shed tears with me after he died was Cyn.
Everyone else either hated me for what happened to him or hated me for not letting him go.
I don’t know if Cyn was crying on the phone for me or with me, but she still showed compassion towards the situation.
“Well, I’m just saying friend. Now that the trial is over it’s time for you to start healing and getting back to yourself. At the end of the day, you said Josiah stole from you before he vanished. That should be enough to let him rest in piss, I mean peace or whatever.”
I shook my head and stood up adjusting the bottom of my thigh length bandaged dress.
Tania and I walked out of the bar area we were having lunch and across the casino floors to the elevator.
I was quiet for the most part because my mind was racing something serious.
Just being in this town didn’t feel the same, it didn’t feel like a vacation as it had in the past. I remember telling Josiah this was the perfect place to be besides Jamaica.
Now it just gave nothing but bad vibes besides my bestfriend being here.
When we stepped off the elevator, we made a left by the large mirror in front of us, and I knew I was about to go straight to my bed. I yawned so loudly that Tania smacked her lips because me being tired, obviously inconvenienced the plans she had in her mind.
“You’re yawning and look, Cyn is calling me. She probably wants to meet up. The party might be starting already.”
Tania smirked hitting accept on the phone call. She answered the phone and put it on speaker.
“Hey bitch?”
“Where are y’all!” Cyn screamed, panic ripping through the phone so hard I stopped mid-step and spun towards Tania.
“We just made it up to the room, Cyn, what’s wrong?”
“Jojo just shot Hawk! He shot my husband!”
The sound she made next wasn’t even a scream. It shot straight through my chest and woke up every nerve in my body.
“Cyn, calm down. Where are y’all at?”
“I’m, I’m, I’m at the courthouse. They’re doing CPR.
I, I. Tania! I can’t do this!” Her breathing spiraled, sharp and fast, like she couldn’t pull enough air into her lungs.
I have known Cyn for years, and I’ve never heard her sound like this.
Like she was fighting just to survive without being injured herself.
“Cyn, breathe. Just breathe. What the hell happened?”
“Ju-Justin ran up on Hawk, talking crazy when we got outside the courthouse. Hawk knocked him out, and then his brother ran up and shot him in the fuckin chest and then they all ran off. Y’all, I cannot lose my husband like this. I can’t!”
Tania and I stayed on the phone with Cyn as we made our way downstairs and I called an Uber when she told us where Hawk was being transported.
The entire way there we had to listen to my bestfriend cry through the phone, often times hyperventilating so much, I thought she would pass out and all we would hear is a thud.
The Uber driver got us to the hospital, and we got out just as Cyn was running into the lobby.
When she saw us, her body was so weak, I had to hold her up while she held on to me tightly.
“Y’all, y’all, my heart is breaking. I can’t lose him. That's my baby. That's my protector.”
She whimpered.
“Come on Cyn, let’s find a seat, calm down, and start to pray.
” I held her hand hoping that my touch was just the comfort she needed.
Often times, Cyn and I had to be there for each other through hard times like when Josiah would cheat on me, or when she lost her grandma Vivian.
Cyn was the kind of friend who you could call at 3:00 AM, just to vent about something others felt was small.
I love Tania true enough, but as far as what friend I would drop everything for and run like a bat out of hell for was Cyn.
She would do the same for me, no questions asked.
We sat down on the hard blue chairs in the lobby, Cyn in the middle of me and Tania.
I stroked the back of her head while she leaned on Tania’s shoulder.
Her phone was blowing up in her hand, but she didn’t have strength to answer it, so I grabbed it for her, seeing it was a call saved under Sergio.
“Cyn, it’s Hawks security guard; do you want me to answer it?”
She nodded her head, yes, and then I hit accept on the call.
“Cyn what happened to my fuckin son! Where is my son!”
I immediately had to pull the phone away from my ear when the deep, heinous, growl came through. It was Proctor and I was so stuck from hearing his voice that I started to stutter.
“Proc, he’s, uh.”
“Cyn tell me where the fuck he is and who I have to kill about harming my fuckin son!”
Proctor sounded like a straight up demon over the phone, and I could feel his voice vibrating into my ear.
“He’s in the back Proctor; they are working on him now.”
I could hear Proctor sucking in air trying to cool himself down.
“Who the fuck is this anyway? This is not fuckin Cyn!”
“It’s, Ari, Proctor. Cyn is sitting next to me and we are at the hospital waiting to hear something.”
“What hospital?”
“MountainView.”
The line disconnected and I had that empty unsettling feeling start to coat my stomach.
The thought of Proctor coming around me with that kind of fire in his voice was unsettling to say the least. Seeing him in person again already sounded nerve wrecking enough, but what if he somehow and some way blamed me for my ex in laws harming his son.
Though I wanted to leave, nothing inside of me could make me leave my bestfriend here in the condition she was in. If Proctor choked me out in here, at least I would already be at the fuckin hospital in order to get some help.
Over time, a few of Hawk’s close friends, and family I had never met, came into the lobby.
They all spoke to Cyn, holding her hand and showing her respect.
It was weird seeing this. Hawk wasn’t even dead at the moment, and she was getting more sympathy than I’d gotten in over a year after Josiah’s death.
At the end of the day, there was a time that I loved Josiah, and losing him did affect me in ways I could hardly talk about.
When the sound of heavy footsteps nearby sounded, it drew my attention to the sliding glass doors and my heartbeat sped up like the tempo of jazz swing music. It was Proctor, standing in the doorway of the hospital scanning the room like he was looking for the next person to take out.
He walked over to us and dropped down on one knee to be eye level with Cyn.
“Give it to me straight. Is he going to make it?”
I watched as his jaw muscles tighten as he stroked the back of Cyn’s hand with his thumb.
“He is in the back, and I don’t know anything as of now. We are just waiting.”
“Nah.” He stood up shaking his head.
“Waiting isn’t something I’m willing to do about my son. Let me go find someone to talk to. I’ll be back.” He stood and walked away.
Proctor hit the corner of the lobby, and I thought we would have a little peace to continue praying and keeping Cyn calm. That was however before loud commotion started through the doors and who I knew as the bitch named Nina was running into the lobby.
She was pretty like a supermodel, but from what I hear, that bitch was rotten as hell on the inside. I need to make sure these sandals are strapped up extra tight just in case I have to whoop her ass for coming in here and fucking with my friend.
Right now was not the time for any bullshit.