11. Officially Missing You
OFFICIALLY MISSING YOU
“Everything okay?” Lotus asked when Toni stomped over to the table where she sat with Breeze and Bijou.
“My mother, stepfather, and hoe ass stepsister are here.” Toni huffed, grabbing Breeze and pulling him onto her lap as she took a seat.
“You must be close.” Lotus’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she popped a cracker loaded with salami and cheese into her mouth.
She was starving, and everything tasted good. So far, she hadn’t missed a tray passing them by.
“That is an understatement,” Toni countered. “And Bull is in there having what looks to be an intense conversation with Eazy’s sister.”
“Essence?” Lotus checked with her.
“Yes. Do you know what that’s about?”
“I’m new to the crew. Sorry.” She shrugged.
Toni noticed that Jou Jou was falling asleep against Lotus, and Breeze had also started to nod off. It was past their bedtime, but they were both trying to hang, thinking they were going to miss something.
“I better get them to bed.”
“I got him.” Bull’s strong voice drew Toni’s attention over her shoulder where he and Eazy ambled over together. “Come on, son.” He pulled Breeze from his mama’s arms and let him settle his sleepy head on his shoulder.
“Goodnight, Breeze. It was nice meeting you!” Lotus waved to him, and Toni stood to grab Jou Jou from her. “And you, Princess Jou Jou, sleep tight.” She kissed her little cheek before handing her over.
“Thank you for keeping them company tonight, Lotus.” Toni positioned her daughter on her hip and carried her into the house behind Bull and Breeze.
Now that she was alone with Eazy, Lotus’s chest tightened, and her stomach fluttered involuntarily.
He looked damn good in his black suit and green Tom Ford shirt.
The diamonds in his ears and against his chest sparkled against the moon glowing over them.
She’d been ducking everyone for weeks, and he hadn’t laid eyes on her since the last time he took her to bed.
She blocked him on her phone, and he wasn’t the kind to be dehydrated behind a female, so he let her be.
It didn’t stop her from invading his mind every other minute, though.
When he asked Jewel about her, he didn’t seem to know what was going on with her either.
Lotus stood without a word. When she tried to step past him, Eazy held his arm up and pressed a firm hand against her stomach.
Inching closer, he watched her breathing hitch before her somber eyes drifted up into his.
She despised how his touch instantly made her body react.
Heart stuttering. Mind going blank. Pussy pulsing and leaking.
“Slow up.”
“We don’t have shit to talk about, Ezekiel.” Her words were sharp, stabbing him like knives.
“So, don’t talk. Why don’t you try listening withcho stubborn ass?”
“I don’t have to listen to you either,” she snarled. “You’re a fucking liar, and I don’t trust a word you say.”
“I ain’t lied to you about shit, aight.” He took offense to that when he got in her face.
“You have fucked me twice now and left me by myself like some damn escort, though,” Lotus sneered. “Your actions speak a hell of a lot more than your fucking words.”
“All that mouth gon’ get you fucked up,” he threatened, towering over her and looking into her core when his dark eyes pierced hers.
Even though she detested him, she couldn’t shake the way he made her heart soar without her consent or the flutters in her stomach when he spoke to her. Something was between them, that was for sure. She just so happened to think it wasn’t worth it.
“Go to hell!” She bumped into him purposely when she passed, but Eazy wasn’t letting her walk away that easily.
Snaking an arm around her waist, he rested a warm hand on the other side of her hip and drew her effortlessly into his space. She smelled good. Looked good, and felt even better in his arms. Heart palpitating, denouncing whatever his head tried to argue with, Eazy took a moment.
“Look, I’m trying to apologize, and I don’t do that shit.”
“Then save your fucking breath,” Lotus replied.
“I want to, aight.” His tone was softer, less aggressive.
She read the shift behind his eyes, so she relaxed and turned off her rah rah shit.
“It’s not you. It’s me.”
“That’s original,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her aching breasts and giving an eyeroll.
Swiping his beard, Eazy nodded and released her.
He’d been with women since Niva, but he hadn’t felt anything.
It was a bunch of one-night stands that didn’t come to much in his eyes at the end of the day.
Lotus brought out a side that he thought died with Niva, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with it.
She stole his thoughts, made him second guess things, and when it came to making decisions about his life, somehow, she wasn’t far from those thoughts either.
Reading the frustration in his eyes, Lotus decided she wasn’t there to give him grace after he shitted on her more than once.
“Look, you don’t need to feed me some bullshit, okay.”
“I don’t know how much Jewel told you about me, him, or none of that. He got fucked up a few years ago in an accident.”
“I know. He almost died. My parents been preaching to him to get his life together since.” Lotus huffed.
“That same night, me and my girl was hit. I spent a few days in a coma because of that, and she died,” Eazy confessed.
Standing beside the pool, he gazed into the water reflecting off his glossy eyes.
Lotus took in his sudden melancholy demeanor.
He reached into his pocket for his blunt pack and dug a freshly rolled one out to spark up.
She stumbled over her tongue for words when she read the pain there.
Now, she understood why he handled her the way he did.
“I didn’t realize… I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Nah. I mean, I’m dealing with it.” He half shrugged before glancing her way.
“I just didn’t want you to think it was your fault.
Shit is all in my head, shorty.” He shook his head and exhaled a cloud.
“The last time, when you came home with me, shit kind of fucked with me. So, when I left… I went to her grave to talk to her about it. About you.” His dark eyes focused on her.
Lotus’s misting eyes fell away from his and landed on the crystal-like water in front of them.
“For the first time since she died, I connected with somebody else, and it wasn’t just physical. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I still don’t.” He took another drag from the blunt in his hand and held the smoke in his lungs.
It made sense to her. His words somehow became a comfort.
It meant she hadn’t imagined what she thought was between them either.
She’d never suffered that kind of loss, but clearly it wasn’t something Eazy had dealt with himself.
Essentially, she would still be a rebound for him.
She already felt like an option because the women he really wanted was gone.
It sounded worse than being a side chick.
“I’m not holding you to anything but respect.”
“I respect the fuck out of you,” Eazy assured her, the evocative resonance of his tone making her middle tingle.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have made sure you woke up in the gallery before it opened, and I damn sure wouldn’t have left you sleeping in my bed in my grandparents’ house,” he reasoned, giving her something to chew on.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.” She turned to walk away and nearly ran over Bull in the process. She didn’t bother speaking as she stomped off, but he glanced after her before turning to Eazy.
He was stuck on Lotus until she vanished inside the house. Shaking his head, he gripped the blunt tighter between his fingers and brought it to his lips. There he was, trying to let her in, and she was still on some bullshit.
“What’s wrong with her?” Bull queried.
Eazy blew out a harsh breath, which rattled his lips, before shaking his head.
“Me,” he answered, passing the blunt to Bull.
“And you talking about me.” Bull tittered and moved the blunt to his lips. “Jewel know?”
“Nah. I ain’t said nothing to him about it. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing. Shit just happened.” Eazy went to sit on an iron chair with a matching table and umbrella a couple of feet from the pool.
It was getting late, so the air was a lot crisper and cooler than earlier. The deep blue water from the pool reflected in his dark eyes when he peered into it.
“So, what’s the problem?” Bull followed him and took the empty chair across from him.
“Nigga, she fine, her pussy good, she talk shit, and—”
“Now you feeling her?” Bull surmised, smoke still in his lungs when he nodded along.
Eazy didn’t have brothers. So, meeting Bull, Bronx, and Oracle in school was one thing.
He was among his tribe when he was with them.
Nobody knew him better. Jewel came along after high school, but he quickly proved himself to be one of them and fit right in with their antics.
Although he was the youngest of the crew, Eazy took him under his wing and saw right away that he had heart.
His crew was elite. When it came to heists, they were a myth to begin with.
Nobody ever really believed they existed with the kind of stunts they pulled, but the fame wasn’t something that mattered to any of them.
“The fucking irony.” Eazy accepted the blunt when Bull rotated it back to him.
“She ain’t the first chick I been with since Niva.
Shit just different with her. She ain’t got her hand out, expecting a nigga to take care of her like most chicks, for one, and we really be on some chill shit when we around each other.
Ain’t gotta force what’s already there.”
“Is that what it is? You can’t let her in because of Niva’s ghost?” Bull queried, causing Eazy’s head to swivel in his direction.