Chapter 20
It had been an entire month since Cashmere left the house and five weeks since tragedy struck.
The thing about Savio was he knew how to roll with life’s punches, even the ones that seemed fatal.
Even the ones that were fatal. Cashmere didn’t seem to have that same gumption within her, at least not with this situation.
Savio had decided that would change today.
He’d already lost too much. He’d be damned if he lost the woman he’d fallen in love with too.
After knocking on Cashmere’s door and waiting for several seconds, Savio pushed his way inside her room.
Things had been strained between them for far too long, and though he came into her room to check on her every single day, he hadn’t hung out in here.
It was depressing, with the curtains drawn and no light to illuminate Cashmere’s pretty face, or anything, for that matter.
“Precious? You up?” Savio asked as he entered the room.
Silence greeted him, and he sighed. He moved over to the large window and touched the keypad on the wall to wake the screen up so he could draw the curtains. As soon as sunlight spilled into the room, Cashmere groaned.
Savio ignored her and went into her bathroom and started the shower. Only then did he look toward the bed. His poor baby was hurt, and it showed. She had no physical scars, but those internal ones were a mothafucka.
After gently sitting on the bed, Savio tugged the covers from the death grip in her hands before he hovered over her. “You stink.”
“Then go away,” she said in a dead voice.
Savio’s face screwed up, not because she smelled, but because he didn’t like her response.
“Get up, Cashmere.”
Her puffy red eyes grew wide. He never called her by her first name, so he knew she understood he was serious. But she wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t difficult.
“No.” She tried to roll over, but Savio trapped her in his arms so she couldn’t. “Move, Sav. I’m not in the mood.”
“And I’m not in the mood to spend another day doing this shit.
” He gestured around the room. The only reason it was even clean was because housekeeping kept showing up to do their jobs every day, despite Cashmere’s depression.
“I’m tryin’ real hard to handle you with kid gloves right now, but my patience is thin. I need you to meet me halfway.”
Cashmere scoffed. “Your patience is thin? Fuck your patience. I’m goin’ through something, and if that makes you impatient with me, then maybe we don’t need to be together.”
She moved to roll over again, and this time, he let her. He stood up and glared at her, his emotions building until he exploded.
“You ain’t the only one who lost someone!
” Savio bellowed, and he immediately dropped his head.
He never wanted to yell at her, but while she funked up her room with depression, he fought demons all by himself when he didn’t want to.
He wanted her. He lowered his tone when he spoke again.
“You ain’t the only one goin’ through somethin’. ”
He didn’t say shit else as he turned and walked out of the room.
His first thought was to get out of the house, but where would he go?
His mind immediately pictured Twizz’s face, and he swiped his nose in frustration as he made his way toward his room.
Once inside, he slammed the door, but that wasn’t enough.
His fist flew toward the wall before he could properly think about his actions.
Pain erupted in his hand, but he ignored it as he stalked over to his bed and dropped down on it.
With his head in his hands, he thought about Twizz once again.
The moment his lil homie took his last breath would forever be etched in his brain.
Flashes of Twizz as a kid, all skin and bones, filled his mind as tears clouded his vision.
He shook his head, desperately wanting to think of happier times.
Cashmere filled his mind, and he almost smiled, until he remembered what she had turned into.
Then he remembered that it had been her sister that killed the only person who ever meant something to him . . . until he met Cashmere, of course.
Shit was complicated indeed. The thing was, Savio wanted to work through the mess with Cashmere. Her ass didn’t seem to care about what he needed anymore. It was crazy how just a couple of minutes could literally change everything.
Savio eventually lay down in bed and stared up at the ceiling. He contemplated going to see Marcellus. The issue was that he wanted to talk to Twizz. He wanted to see his lil homie. Marcellus was cool, but he wasn’t Twizz.
The fact that he could never talk to his lil homie again had been eating him alive.
His feelings went back and forth between sadness, frustration, and anger.
Living in this house didn’t help at all.
Twizz took his last breath just one floor below him.
Savio didn’t even know why he was still there.
Marcellus hadn’t assigned him to a new job yet, knowing Savio needed time to grieve.
He could go home. He had a home, . . . but his mind always shifted back to Cashmere.
Her hardheaded ass needs me.
And so, the cycle began again.
His door opening stopped his rampant thoughts, and he quickly sat up. Surprise filled him when he saw Cashmere standing in his doorway, avoiding his eyes. She looked like she was freshly showered, which was progress to him.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
Savio frowned. “Say that again.”
He heard her just fine. He just wasn’t about to let her off so easily.
Cashmere sighed and moved further into the room.
She sat on the bed next to him and looked down at her chipped toenails.
That was how they both knew she was down bad.
It had been weeks since she had one of her maintenance days.
The sew-in she had in had seen better days, and her eyebrows looked less than perfect.
Still, to Savio, she was the most beautiful woman.
“I’m sorry, Sav. I’ve been selfish.”
“Go on,” he urged. He wasn’t even trying to be an ass. He just wanted her to talk.
They had attended both funerals together, and Cashmere didn’t speak to a soul through either. She silently cried and then took her ass home and locked herself in her room. She had refused to talk to him whenever he went to check on her, so whatever conversation she had for him, he would take it.
Cashmere cleared her throat before she spoke again, and he heard the waver in her tone. “I don’t know how to do this.”
He nodded because he understood what she meant. He didn’t know how to navigate life without Twizz or how to navigate their relationship since it had suddenly become so complicated.
Savio let out a long breath as he ran a tattooed hand down his face. “I don’t, either, but the difference between us is that I want to figure it out together.”
His words came out bitter, but he couldn’t help it. Cashmere Taylor had turned him into an old bitter nigga because she refused to reciprocate his love when he needed it the most.
She looked at him with watery a watery gaze. “I do. I do want to figure it out together,” she whispered.
“Really? Because I can’t tell,” he said. He wasn’t trying to be so hard on her, but now his emotions were high, and he found a hard time reigning them in.
Frustration flashed in her face, and he instantly felt bad.
“I’m trying, Sav. You don’t understand. Ivoree was all I had—”
“You really think I don’t understand? Until you came along, Twizz was the only person I’d ever loved.
He was like a son to me. Maybe I wasn’t old enough to be his daddy, but I gave the nigga everything I had like I was.
We ain’t ever had nobody but ourselves. He held me down during the toughest times of my life.
He may not have been, blood but trust me when I say I fuckin’ understand.
Ivoree was your sister. I get it. She meant everything to you.
I get that too. The difference is your everything killed mine. ”
His words hung in the air like a storm cloud. Tears streamed down Cashmere’s face, and Savio wanted to pull her into his chest, but he needed to take several deep breaths to calm himself first.
Silence sat between them like a taut cord, ready to snap them into pieces at any moment, until she finally spoke.
“What I was going to say is that Ivoree was all I had until I met you. The guilt I feel behind Twizz and your pain is unbearable. My sister . . .” Her breathing faltered, and Savio pulled her to him.
Her words melted all the anger and frustration within him, and he could hear her with a clear mind now.
“My sister is the cause of all this, but I enabled her. I didn’t realize how much I enabled her until we were all in the living room with her waving a gun around at us. I feel like this shit is all my fault—”
“Don’t do that.” He cut her words off sharply. Under no circumstances would he allow her to blame herself. Had he known that was what she was doing all these weeks, he would have put an end to it much sooner.
“But—”
“Nah. Hear me when I say this shit was not your fault. Did you enable her? Yes, but you did not dictate her actions. You didn’t kill Twizz. She did.”
Silence stretched between them. Her head buried into his shoulder as they sat side by side. Finally, she whispered, “Twizz died saving us.”
Savio’s heart broke but then pieced back together again. He kissed her head and nodded. “That was the kind of nigga I raised.”
Cashmere tilted her head and looked up at him. “You’ll make a good father one day. You know how to raise good people. I clearly don’t.”
She hung her head. Frustration flared within Savio once again, but for a new reason.
He wasn’t used to Cashmere talking down on herself and doubting herself.
She had no idea that he still felt like she deserved nothing but diamonds at her feet.
Not once in the past few weeks did he ever blame her for what happened.
“As much as I want to strip you out of them clothes and put a baby in you just so I can prove you wrong, I ain’t gonna do that because it’ll justify that bullshit that just came out of your mouth. Come on.” He stood up and held his hand out for her.
She looked up at him in confusion. He hated the way her tears left red splotches all over her face. Shit right now was way too depressing, and Savio needed away from all that.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You trust me?”
She nodded hesitantly. “Yes.”
“Then come on.”
She gently reached up and grabbed his hand. Her frown deepened. “What happened to your hand?”
He’d forgotten about punching the wall. He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing.”
She sighed like he had just sucked all the life out of her. “Look, I’ll go with you wherever, but you need to let me bandage your hand up first.”
It was his turn to frown. He looked at his hand and noticed the swelling and slight bruising. As soon as he gave it some attention, it throbbed. He clenched his jaw before he nodded curtly. Whatever it took to get her out of this house, he would do it.
When she stood, he led her out of the room and toward the closest bathroom where he knew there would be a first aid kit, since there was one in every bathroom.
He waited patiently while he tended to her, paying attention to the gentle way she handled him. He loved her ass, and she had absolutely no idea how much.
Finally, she finished, and he led her out of the house, not caring that security had to scramble to keep up with them.
Cashmere was with him, and just because he wasn’t on the job didn’t mean she was unsafe.
He always had her back, even when she pissed him off, and not even this situation could push him away.
He planned to show her that over the course of the next few days.