9. Roman Blake
Being back in the city everything was louder. The traffic. The club life, and especially my thoughts about her.
Saint Lucia felt like some shit I dreamed. Sun, water, Melissa laid up under me actin’ like she wasn’t scared to need nobody for once.
Back here?
She went right back to playin’ me to the left.
Not all the way. Not how another nigga might notice. But I paid too much attention for the little shit to slide past me.
Texts took longer.
Calls went to voicemail more than they rang.
She’d hit me back with a “my bad, I fell asleep” or “I was busy wit’ Fee, April and Charlee,” but I wasn’t stupid.
I knew distance when I felt it.
The problem was… I wasn’t built to just sit with it.
I was sittin’ in my office at Club 4 Play, phone in my hand, starin’ at our last thread. My last message had been from the night before.
You make it in the house?
She ain’t respond for damn near four hours.
Yeah. Just got in.
Then nothing.
I zoomed in on the time stamp like that was gon’ tell me somethin’ different.
It didn’t.
“Yo, you good?” Truce’s voice came from the doorway.
I locked my phone quick and looked up. “What?”
He stepped in, dropped down on the couch across from my desk. “I said, you good. You in here starin’ at your screen like you waitin’ on Jesus to text you back.”
“Mind your business,” I snapped.
He chuckled. “It is my business if whatever got you tight start spillin’ over into how we move out here. You been snappin’ on niggas all week.”
I leaned back in my chair, annoyed that he wasn’t wrong.
“Money straight?” I asked. “Everything good with the Philly spot?”
“Yeah, money straight,” he said. “Everything runnin’ smooth. That ain’t what I asked, though.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I’m good, Truce.”
He watched me for a second, then his mouth kicked up. “This about Melissa, ain’t it?”
I cut my eyes at him. “What?”
“Don’t what me, nigga,” Truce said, sittin’ back in the chair like he was gettin’ comfortable. “I know that girl. You think I ain’t peeped the way you been movin’ since y’all came back?”
I frowned. “Since when you ‘know’ Melissa?”
He gave me a look. “You forget my twin used to be on her heavy? Trend and Melissa use to be a couple?”
I paused, tryna remember.
“Oh,” I spoke under my breath. I did remember them bein’ around each other back in the day, but I never paid that shit too much attention. “That was light.”
“For him,” Truce said. “Not for her. She liked him more than she ever admitted. Problem is, Melissa used to bein’ the man and the woman in her shit.”
I raised a brow. “What that mean?”
“It mean she used to runnin’ it,” he said.
“Trend tried to let her be soft, she ain’t know what to do with it.
She wanna make all the decisions, control every move, then get mad when a nigga don’t magically read her mind.
That’s why them two ain’t work. She ain’t know how to fall back and just be a woman with a man that would actually hold her down. ”
I sat there, lettin’ that marinate.
“And then she went from that to Jordan,” Truce went on, shakin’ his head.
“And you know that nigga straight fucked her up. Played in her face, embarrassed her, had her out here lookin’ crazy.
She been carryin’ all that around. So now?
Any time she feel herself likin’ somebody too much, she start actin’ funny makin’ her pullback game strong. ”
My jaw tightened.
He wasn’t sayin’ nothin’ I ain’t already feel but hearin’ it from somebody who watched it from the outside hit different.
“So yeah,” he said. “If she actin’ weird, that’s probably all it is. She used to gettin’ her way, bein’ the one callin’ the shots. You the first nigga that don’t move when she say move. That’s gon’ throw her off.”
“Shorty must be actin’ funny?” Truce pushed. “You look like you ready to choke somebody, but I’m tellin’ you…this just how she built. She don’t trust easy, and when she finally do, she lowkey be waitin’ on you to fuck her up.”
I leaned back, thumb draggin’ over my bottom lip. “I’m not that nigga.”
“I know you not,” he said. “She don’t. Not yet. In her head, Trend didn’t feel safe enough to lean on, and Jordan proved every fear she had right. So now she on defense with you before you even do shit.”
“So what you sayin’?” I asked. “I’m supposed to just sit back and let her move however?”
Truce shook his head. “Nah. You ain’t built for that.
I’ve known you too long. I’m sayin’ if you really want her, you gon’ have to out-stubborn her.
She gon’ push, you gon’ have to pull. She gon’ try to be the man, you still gotta be the man anyway.
‘Cause if you fold, she really not gon’ respect you. ”
I huffed out a breath, the tension was sittin’ on my shoulders. “Sounds like a fuckin’ headache.”
He smirked. “You already in it, so what we talkin’ about? I ain’t never seen you this stuck on nobody. Not even Mo before she was your wife. You usually cut shit off the second it don’t move how you like. With her? You lettin’ it slide and gettin’ mad about it later.”
He wasn’t lyin’.
I had always been the type to walk away from shit that didn’t move how I needed. Business or personal.
But this?
I couldn’t shake.
Truce stood up, adjustin’ his chain. “Look, whatever it is, get your head around it. We got that meet with the security team tomorrow. I need you locked in, not sittin’ in here rereadin’ text messages like a bitch.”
“I’m locked in,” I said.
He gave me one more look like he didn’t believe me, then headed for the door.
At the doorway, he paused. “One more thing.”
I lifted my chin. “What?”
“Melissa been havin’ to be the man for herself and her parents for a long time,” he said. “If you really want her to be your woman, you gon’ have to show her she safe enough to put all that down. That ain’t gon’ happen from you playin’ cool. You know that.”
He left without waitin’ for an answer.
Soon as the door shut, I pulled my phone back out.
Scrolled up.
Saint Lucia.
Her sendin’ me pictures of the water, her food, her toes in the sand. Little shit. But she was sendin’. She was initiatin’.
Back home, I was the one startin’ most of the conversations.
“You good?”
“Did you eat?”
“What you doing?”
Half the time she’d answer, half the time she’d leave me on delivered for hours.
I called her.
The phone rang damn near to the end before she picked up.
“Hello?” Her voice was breathy, like she’d been movin’ around.
“You busy?” I asked.
“Kind of.” She let out a small sigh. “What’s up?”
I ain’t like that.
That “what’s up” like I was some nigga from Instagram askin’ where she at.
“Where you at?” I asked anyway.
She let out a little laugh. “Wow. You not even gon’ ease into that?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I ain’t wanna know,” I said. “Where you at, Melissa?”
“Why?”
That one word rubbed me wrong.
“‘Cause I asked you,” I said, in a flat tone.
She went quiet for a second. I could damn near see her rollin’ her eyes.
“I’m at Charlee house,” she finally said. “We goin’ out later.”
My jaw tightened. “Where y’all goin’?”
“Roman.” Her voice got that warning edge. “Why?”
I stared at the wall. “So I know where you at.”
“You don’t gotta know my every move,” she said, a little sharper now. “I’m grown.”
That laugh that came out of me wasn’t even funny. “I ain’t Tr—” I caught myself, shook my head. “You sound just like you always do when you tryin’ to keep control of everything.”
“Excuse me?”
“You so used to playin’ man and woman that you don’t even know what it feel like to let somebody else give a fuck,” I said quietly. “I’m not askin’ ‘cause I wanna boss you. I’m askin’ ‘cause I care. Big difference.”
She went silent.
I lowered my voice. “I like knowin’ where you at. Who you with. If that’s a problem, say that.”
She exhaled into the phone, softer than before. “You not my damn daddy, Roman.”
“I’m not tryin’ to be your daddy,” I said. “I’m the nigga that’ll break somethin’ behind you if I have to. That’s it.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I don’t need you breakin’ nothin’ behind me right now. I just wanna have a good time with my girls.”
“You act like I’m sayin’ you can’t go out,” I mumbled. “I just asked where.”
“Some lounge,” she said, like it cost her somethin’ to give that up. “Downtown. We ain’t even left yet. Charlee still gettin’ ready.”
I checked the time.
“Aight,” I said. “Send me the name.”
“For what?”
“So I can pull up if I feel like it,” I answered honestly.
She laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “Yeah, no. You not ‘bout to be on that.”
“On what?”
“On poppin’ up everywhere I go like you own me,” she said. “That’s not cute.”
My jaw clenched. “Who said I was tryna be cute?”
“Roman.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Before I could say anything else, the line went dead.
I stared at my screen.
She really hung up on me.
My thumb hovered over her name ready to hit redial, but I dropped the phone on the desk instead and sat there, feelin’ my blood boil.
She wanted space.
“To have a good time with her girls.”
Cool.
But that shit didn’t mean I was gon’ sit here wonderin’ who was in her face, what niggas was lookin’ too long, if she was drunk, if she was good.
Truce said she was used to bein’ the man.
I’d just decided I was done lettin’ her play that role with me.
If she wanted to fight for control, I was right there.
‘Cause one thing about it… I’d rather be obsessive than absent.
And she was gon’ feel that either way.
I sat there a minute after the call ended, phone face-down on the desk, jaw tight.
Truce’s words kept spinnin’ in my head.
She used to bein’ the man and the woman.
She don’t know how to fall back and be soft with a nigga that’ll actually hold her down.
He wasn’t lyin’.
Soon as we touched back down in the city, she went right back into that mode...Pullin’ back. Takin’ forever to answer.
Actin’ like tellin’ me where she at was some big-ass favor.
I could’ve left it alone.
Let her have her “girls’ night,” pretend I ain’t care.
But that ain’t me.
I grabbed my phone, opened our thread again.
Me: Send me the name of the place.
Seen. No reply.
She thought if she ain’t say it, I wouldn’t know.
Bet.