Chapter 6
Chapter six
Bryce
“Note to self: Next time, confirm who’s on the guest list”
We were two minutes out from the cabin. The trees were tall as hell, the sky was pitch-black, and the headlights flickered, clearly traumatized by whatever they’d already seen and unwilling to witness anything else. Even the playlist started skipping, sounding more like a warning than a glitch.
“Bryce, are you really gonna be silent the whole time we’re here?” Isis asked with that fake-ass pout she thought would work. “You haven’t said one word to me since we pulled out of my driveway.”
I turned my head toward her, slow and sinister, like a villain in a movie about to ruin somebody’s life just by blinking. “And you wonder why?”
I faced the road again.
“I really don’t know why. Can you tell me?”
“We’re late because of yo’ ass, Isis!” I yelled.
Isis stared, confused. “Late? For what exactly? Is there like… a check-in time? Are we meeting someone there? I’m not understanding what you mean by late.”
I inhaled slowly, counting down from ten, doing my best impression of anger management.
“Isis, I planned on being at the cabin no later than four-thirty; it’s hittin’ on six now! Had you not come outside talkin’ ‘bout outfits and lashes, like you was getting dropped off at the damn Met Gala, we’d be on schedule! I was trying to beat the sun going down!”
She scoffed. “Bryce, calm down. You’re talking to me like I’m one of your passengers.”
“Nah, if you were one of my passengers, you would’ve been denied boarding—too much baggage and zero fuckin’ compliance.”
“Well, you’re a pilot, Bryce. You’re used to pressure, so this shouldn’t be stressful for you.”
I cut my eyes at her. “And you’re a flight attendant, so you should already know, when I give a command, you comply. That’s protocol. You wear a uniform to serve the people in control. So serve silence right now, because you’re in my whip, on my time, heading to my cabin.”
Her mouth flew open. I dropped the conversation and focused on the road before she made me miss my damn turn.
I didn’t fly planes to deal with turbulence on the ground.
Two minutes later—exactly when my patience dropped to negative-fuckin’-infinity—Isis shouted so loud I damn near jerked the wheel.
“Oh my God! Is this where we’ll be staying?! Please tell me yes!”
I didn’t answer, mainly because my eyes were glued to the shiny black Denali sitting bold as hell in the driveway.
That’s not Chesteria’s car… unless she got a new one. And it’s too late for a maintenance person to be here.
“Wait here,” I threw at Isis, opening the door.
“Is something wrong?” she called after me.
“Can you just—wait. Damn.” Every syllable was a warning.
I stomped across the gravel, scanning the SUV. The nighttime made shit harder to see, but the dome light was on inside, and that’s when I saw the items:
A fitted cap chilling on the passenger seat. One of those masculine cologne trees hanging off the mirror. And a half-empty bottle of men’s lotion in the cupholder.
A nigga is here.
My jaw flexed so hard I damn near cracked a molar.
“Motherfuckas got me fucked up, thinking they about to be parlaying in my shit for free,” I muttered as I walked toward the porch, and my thoughts spiraled.
That wasn’t an Airbnb people could just rent. Me and Chesteria debated, thought on it, hell, almost listed it, and then said, hell no. That cabin was ours.
Our space. Our investment. Our second home.
So someone had to break in… because there was no damn way Chesteria was crazy enough to take a nigga up there.
But look at me talking; I brought a whole walking headache with lip gloss and her unpopular opinions.
I turned around and damn near collided with Isis, who was shivering like a wet Pomeranian.
“I told you to stay in the car.”
“You tell me to do a lot of things, Bryce,” she shot back, hugging her coat tightly. “Every time you tell me to do something, it sounds bossy, though, so I don’t listen.”
“Clearly.”
I turned away from her little rebellion, crouched down on the porch, and lifted the loose wooden floorboard. My hand wrapped around the gun I always kept tucked there.
Isis shrieked and jumped back. “Br-Bryce! Who is that for?!”
I glanced at her, expression flat, and chambered a round.
“For whoever think they gonna stay warm in my shit without paying rent, bills, or taxes.”
The second I stepped inside the cabin, everything in me went on alert.
It was warm—too warm—and the vanilla sandalwood candle, one I hadn’t lit in months, was burning on the counter.
And the biggest giveaway? R just spa selfies, brunch captions, ass shots, lace fronts, and somebody else’s AMEX.
Not mine, though.
Soon as I got back to the city, I was tossing her out my truck without a full stop and blocking her number mid-turn.
“Isis,” I muttered, gun raised. “Shut up.”
“What? I’m just saying—”
“Hush before you die by accident.”
She gasped, acting personally attacked by the universe, but to her credit, clamped her mouth shut.
I moved slow and silent, following the flickering kitchen light with a predator’s focus.
And there he was—some random-ass nigga lanky, dark-skinned nigga… drinking orange juice straight out the damn carton, like he’d been fighting off scurvy, had a lifelong beef with cups, and the doctor warned, “Drinking more orange juice is your last defense before you turn into dust, my boy.”
He didn’t even tilt it cute; nah, he had that bitch upside down like he was wringing out the Florida orange fields himself, completely unaware he was about two seconds from meeting Jesus, the devil, and every dead homie and relative in between—all lined up like a heavenly hood tribunal waiting to flame his ass.
His meeting and reunion would’ve went a little something like this:
God: “Son, you risked eternal life over pulp? I ain’t even write this chapter. The angels ad-libbin’ now.”
The Devil: “See, this why I keep the gates hot. Y’all doing dumb shit on Earth like this and expect A/C when you die.”
Lil Marcus: “This how I went out too… fridge crimes. I opened a stranger’s fruit cup and never made it to dessert. Rest easy, my nigga.”
JuJu with the one dreadlock: “Was the Vitamin C worth the capital D? As in death, dummy?”
Dre-Dre from 63rd: “So you just walk in random cabins and go raw on the carton? That’s wild.”
Uncle Elroy: “You ain’t even sniff it first; you just trusted your gut, huh?”
I walked up behind him smooth, silent, and lethal. Then I pressed the cold steel of the Glock to the back of his skull.
With the carton still in his hand, he froze instantly. I was sure his life clearly flashed before his eyes in 4K.
“Nigga,” I growled, low and deadly, “who the fuck are you, and what you doing in my shit? You got ten seconds to answer both before I rearrange yo’ whole future. Use your words wisely.”
He stiffened, dropped the carton, and his hands flew up in the air, shaking.
“Aye, bruh! I’m… I’m just here with a friend!”
“Friend? What friend, nigga? The tooth Fairy? Santa? Yo’ dead grandma?! I need a name!”
“I’m here with—”
“Bryce!”
Chesteria, the last person I expected to see, rushed into the kitchen, eyes wide, and heart probably in her throat.
“Wh–What are you doing?! Put the gun down! Wait—what are you even doing here?”
“Chesteria?” I asked in disbelief, wondering what the hell she was doing up here and with a nigga at that.
I lowered the gun just enough to look her beautiful ass up and down. She wore a fitted cream sweater, leggings that hugged every curve God personally crafted, and some fuzzy socks that made her look softer than she wanted to admit.
For a second, my thoughts went somewhere freaky… then I yanked it back to the moment.
“In the flesh,” she answered. “Now again, what are you doing here?”
“No, the question is, what the hell you doing here?”
“Bryce, you know I hate it when somebody answers a question with a question and you do that shit like it’s your love language,” she fussed, voice sharp but dipped in that sexy-ass tone that used to have me doing damn near anything she wanted. “But I’m visiting. This is my month.”
“Your month?” I repeated, low and slow.
Her month?
I stood there, jaw flexing and mind ticking. Then I started running the numbers in my head.
Shit! Had I slipped?
I’d been so buried in work, stress, and bullshit that I convinced myself December was my first month starting over in the three-month rotation.
“Fuck!” I rubbed my forehead and exhaled. “My bad, Chess. I ain’t even gon’ lie… I thought this was my month, and that somebody had broke in.”
I holstered the gun but kept my eyes on ol’ boy, still sizing him up like a problem I wasn’t done solving.
“And honestly…” I nodded at him, “I still kinda think somebody did.”
“Well, clearly he didn’t break in, ‘cause if he had, I’d be standing over his body, not explaining his presence,” Chesteria quipped.
That told me everything I needed to know: the nigga didn’t just show up; he’d been invited.
I stepped toward her, mad as hell, fists clenched, breathing tight, but the closer I got, the more it fucked with me.
Fuck.