Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Isat behind my desk with my phone in my hand, looking at Imani’s name like staring hard enough could make it ring.
Downtown Pittsburgh moved outside the windows beneath a gray sky. People crossed Grant with coffee, bags, umbrellas, somewhere to be. From this high up, the city looked easier to manage than it actually was.
My office usually gave me that same illusion.
Dark walnut. Leather chairs. Glass. Signed jerseys, magazine covers, photographs from business openings and football seasons. Beyond my door, people answered phones and handled problems before most of them reached me. My name sat on contracts, checks, buildings, and decisions.
Most days, knowing what to do was my specialty.
Imani had gone quiet, and none of that meant shit.
My businesses didn't care.
Jones Motor Group had two contracts kicked back from Wexford because the financing terms were wrong. Omar wanted to handle it by email, which meant Omar was about to turn a correctable mistake into a fight with timestamps.
“Call Terrance,” I told him.
“He messed up two contracts.”
“Then call him and figure out why. Training or warning. Pick one after you know.”
“You always make me be reasonable.”
“I pay you too much for emotional emails.”
“You send emotional emails.”
“I own the company.”
“That is not a leadership principle.”
“It is today.”
He laughed and called.
North & Vine had a chef ready to threaten a produce vendor over mushrooms, and rain was coming fast enough to make Jones Outdoor move three crews. I handled both, then called Pops after he texted me a route sheet with nothing but a question mark.
“You looking over my people’s shoulders again?”
“They were my people first.”
“Good afternoon to you too.”
“That crew on Fifth needs moved.”
“Already done.”
Silence.
I smiled. “You sound disappointed.”
“I wanted to catch you slipping.”
“Find a hobby.”
“I have one. Minding your business before you mess it up.”
That got my first real laugh all day.
Five minutes later, my office went quiet again and Imani walked right back into my head.
I knew why she'd left.
At least I thought I did.
Pictures. Comments. Other people reaching into something we barely understood ourselves.
Understanding why didn't make waking alone feel better.
I had already made enough mistakes in my twenties by translating silence for both of us. I wasn't doing it again.
The phone rang, and everything in me reached for Imani. Marcus Hale appeared on the screen instead.
I considered letting my agent join voicemail, then answered.
“Marcus.”
“Tell me you're in a good mood.”
“I'm not.”
“Well, damn. I was hoping for neutral.”
“What you need?”
“Apex wants an answer.”
I leaned back.
National studio. Pregame desk. Postgame analysis. Travel, lights, producers in my ear, my face back in living rooms every Sunday talking about what other men should have done with their bodies.
A lot of people thought I should want it because it kept me near football without asking anything from my knee.
Marcus had wanted it for me too.
“You're not taking it,” he said.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I looked toward the framed photograph of me in a Forge uniform.
“I don't want to sit under studio lights talking about the game.”
He waited.
“I can do it. That ain't the issue. I know football. I know television. But I don't want Apex owning my Sundays so my opinions can become clips by halftime.”
“Never?”
“I didn't say never. I said no.”
He breathed out.
“All right. I'll tell them.”
“You disappointed?”
“A little. But I work for you, not Apex.” He paused. “For what it's worth, I knew you weren't in it.”
“How?”
“You never asked the questions you ask when you want something. You asked the questions a man asks when he's trying to make ‘no’ disappoint fewer people.”
I rubbed my jaw. “You always this insightful?”
“No. Usually I'm charming and expensive.”
“Stick to that.”
He laughed. “Take care of yourself, Dre.”
“Trying.”
The call ended, and I sat there with one less thing pretending to matter more than it did.
Apex was done.
Work was handled.
I picked up the phone, deciding I would call Imani once more and then give her the room to choose what she needed.
The screen lit before I pressed her name.
Imani.
For half a second, I stared.
Then I answered.
“Mani.”
I heard her breathe.
“Hi.”
One word loosened my chest so quickly it almost irritated me.
I had plenty I wanted to ask. Where had she been? Why did she leave like that? Did she regret what happened between us?
I didn't start with any of it.
“You okay?”
“I am.” A pause. “Mostly.”
Mostly was on the phone.
I could work with mostly.
“Talk to me.”
She went quiet, and I made myself let her.
“I saw the posts Sunday morning,” she said.
“Camille texted. I opened Instagram while you were asleep and saw us at the game, outside The Nocturne, all of it.
People were pulling Aubrey into it and making timelines and deciding what I was to you before we'd even discussed it.” Her voice tightened. “I panicked.”
“I figured.”
“That doesn't make how I handled it okay.”
“No.”
I kept the hurt in my voice because removing it would have been another kind of lie.
“I should have woken you,” she said. “Or left a note. Answered when you called. Something. We said we were taking our time, and the first time everything got loud, I ran before you had a chance to show me what doing this differently looked like.”
That reached me.
“It wasn't because I regretted you.”
Everything in me stilled.
“Say that again.”
“I did not regret you, Dre.”
The breath left me rough.
“Okay.”
“I woke up happy. Scared, but happy. You were asleep, and I wanted to stay.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then I saw the pictures and felt twenty-two again. Like I was trying to figure out how to love you without getting swallowed by everything around you.”
“I don't want you swallowed.”
“I know.”
“I don't want you reduced to me either.”
“I know that too.”
“But knowing and feeling ain't always the same thing.”
“No.”
I stood and went toward the windows because sitting had become impossible.
“I woke up and you were gone, Mani. You weren't answering. The internet was already running its mouth, and I didn't know whether you regretted me, needed space, or decided this was too much trouble.”
“I didn't regret you.”
“I heard you.”
“I needed space.”
“I can respect space.”
“I handled it badly.”
“No argument.”
A tiny embarrassed laugh came through the phone.
I let myself smile.
Then I asked what had been sitting beneath every other question.
“Can you handle it, Imani?”
Silence.
“Handle what?”
“The attention. Pictures. Blogs. People thinking because they watched me play football they own pieces of my life. Women attached to my name because somebody caught an angle or made a story.” I kept my voice low. “Can you handle that?”
I hated asking.
I needed the answer anyway.
Wanting Imani couldn't turn me into a regular man. I could protect her privacy where I had control. Correct lies. Tell the truth. Make sure she never stood beside me wondering whether I had chosen her.
I could not erase every phone.
And I couldn't build something real with a woman who disappeared whenever the public part of my life touched hers.
“I’m not asking because I think you're weak.”
“I know.”
“I need to know if you want to learn how to do this with me. Not around me. Not after you get scared, disappear, calm down, and come back once it gets quiet.”
Her answer took a moment.
“I can handle it.”
I closed my eyes.
“I may not handle it perfectly every time,” she continued. “Clearly. But I can learn how to do it with you instead of running from what scares me.”
Something in my chest lowered.
“And I need you to understand something too.”
“I’m listening.”
“I can handle attention. I cannot handle being made small.”
“You won't be.”
“I need more than that promise.”
“You'll get more than one.”
I meant it.
She would get the behavior too. The correction when somebody crossed a line. The consistency. Me standing beside her without letting anybody turn Imani Bennett into an accessory to Andre Jones.
“You still at work?”
“Yes.”
“What time you leaving?”
“I don't know. Soon.”
“Make it now.”
A pause.
“What?”
“Pack up. Be downstairs in ten.”
“Dre.”
“I’m coming to get you.”
“You're coming here?”
“Yeah.”
“Right now?”
“Unless you tell me not to.”
She grew quiet.
I stood with my keys in my hand before I even knew whether she would say yes.
“I do not want you showing up at my job making a scene.”
“I’m not coming upstairs. I'm not asking for you in the lobby. Your coworkers don't need our business.”
“What are you doing?”
“Driving to you. Taking you to my place.”
Another pause.
“Your place?”
“My home. No hotel. No alumni. No cameras. No comment section. Somewhere we can talk without anybody else in the room.”
“You think that fixes it?”
“No. I think it gives us privacy while we work on it.”
“And if I say no?”
My hand stopped on the office door.
“Then you say no, and I go home knowing I came toward you this time instead of sitting here hoping you understand what I didn't say.”
Her breathing changed.
That was all I wanted her to hear.
“I wanted you to call because you were ready. You did. Now I'm coming because I'm ready too.”
“Dre.”
“What?”
“I’m nervous.”
“I know.”
“I don't know why.”
“Yes, you do.”
She exhaled.
“I’m not coming to argue. I want to see you. Then we can talk somewhere the whole world doesn't think it bought a ticket.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn't. But everybody else doesn't have to make it harder.”
The quiet lasted another second.
“Okay.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“Okay?”
“I’ll be downstairs in ten.”
The breath that left me was impossible to hide.
“Good.”
“Bossy.”
“With you? Yeah.”
She hung up.
I knew she was smiling anyway.
The outer office shifted when I walked through it. Nobody stared, but people who worked around power learned to recognize movement before an announcement came.
“Cancel anything after four,” I told my assistant.
She checked her tablet. “Done.”
No questions.
The elevator carried me to the private garage. My Escalade waited near the curb, and I got behind the wheel thinking about one thing Pops said the day before.
Put legs under it.
Traffic slowed twice on the way to Saint Aurelia, including one man who treated a green light like a philosophical suggestion.
By the time I turned onto her block, Imani was already outside.
Cream blouse. Camel coat. Wide-leg trousers. Diamond bracelet catching what little city light made it between the buildings. Braids neat, lip gloss in place, face composed enough to fool somebody who didn't know her.
I knew her.
She looked tired.
So did I, probably.
I parked.
For a few seconds we watched each other through the glass.
Then I got out.
People noticed. Somebody always did. A woman leaving the building next door lifted her phone halfway before apparently remembering manners.
Imani saw it too.
Her shoulders tightened.
I walked straight to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know.”
“I shouldn't have left like that.”
“No, you shouldn't have.”
The hurt in her eyes made me want to soften the answer, but I didn't.
Honesty wasn't punishment.
Then I touched her chin gently.
“But you called.”
“I did.”
“And now you're here.”
“I'm here.”
I kissed her.
I didn't do it for the people watching, but I also wasn't going to withhold affection because somebody might see. They’d have to get used to seeing me love on my woman.
My woman.
Possessiveness rose fast and hot inside of me. I wanted to spend my life showing her what being my woman meant.
When I pulled back, her eyes were sparkling with emotion.
“Come on,” I said. “Let me take you home.”
“To your home,” she corrected.
My mouth curved. “For now.”