Chapter 5
“What up, boy?” Demi asked. Day Night. His best friend.
A man who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the dead of winter, pushing product, and a man who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him on the red carpet of the Grammy’s.
They had truly come up together and stayed down.
Best friends was an understatement. Brothers was more like it.
“My nigga, Lo, been hitting the studio all night. Fuck you was, nigga?!” Day asked, amusement lacing his tone. Day could hear the weed smoke choking him as Demi tried to talk and smoke simultaneously.
“Caught up, bruh. Had this lil’ business to handle, nothing major. I’m headed her way now. You calling to pass messages now, nigga? What up?” Demi asked slightly annoyed.
“You get that joint I sent?” Day asked. “That shit ready for radio, my nigga. Just need a lil’pretty bitch on the hook and it’s out of here.”
“Let me play it and I’ma hit you right back,” Demi said.
“Yup,” Day said.
Demi hung up and opened the email from Day, ignoring the notifications for missed calls as he pressed play on the track that was waiting for him.
Demi knew it had legs when his head fell into a nod to the music. Three minutes and 25 seconds of pure artistry pumped through his custom speakers. He called Day back right away.
“My nigga, yo that’s fucking out of here,” Demi said. “Def needs a feminine vibe on the track.” His mind went to Charlie. “I might have somebody new for it. Let me get to the crib. I’ll hit you about it later today. That paper, though... it’s been taken care of.”
“I knew it would be. Niggas think cuz I’m on the radio I ain’t getting busy no more,” Day stated.
“You not, I will, though. Either way, it’s taken care of,” Demi stated.
“My mu’fucking bro, man,” Day said. “Later.”
Demi hung up and took the exit that led to his home.
When he pulled up, pride swelled in his chest. Four thousand square feet of luxury awaited him.
Tucked in the suburbs of Detroit, Demi lived amongst Michigan’s elite.
He pulled into his four-car garage and sat behind the wheel.
Charlie had overdrafted his heart. It had only taken her a day to disrupt his entire life.
He was playing with fire. As he exited the car and pushed into the interior of his home, he knew he was risking it all.
“Daddy!”
The sound of his eight-year-old son running his way full speed let him know he was risking too much.
“DJ, my man,” he said, picking his only child up and tossing him over his shoulder. “What you got going on, huh?”
“Not much! Playing Roblox! Want to play?”
Demetrius Sky Jr. was a perfect blend of his parents, some called DJ his twin but Demi saw his mother most, but that spirit was his through and through.
“Yeah, set it up for me. Where ya mama at?” he asked.
“She’s in the den,” DJ said.
“A’ight, give me a minute, bet?” Demi said as he made his way through the house.
A woman’s touch was all over every inch.
Lauren had done a beautiful job, not only choosing but filling the house with love and in one night, Demi had poured it out, into another woman’s cup, filling it up, while poking holes all through the relationship he had been in for fifteen years.
He found her in her home office. Her back was to him as she spoke on the phone while pacing the carpet.
“The vendor for the linens is short on stock, so we need to find partners to make sure we have enough to cover all the tables at the reception. Oh, and can you check on my bottles of champagne? We’ll need 300 bottles.
They were due last week. They still haven’t arrived,” Lauren said.
She smiled at Demi when she turned to him, holding up a finger to put him on hold as she ended her call.
“Okay, well, keep me updated. This is a big account for us so we need to make sure this wedding is perfection.” She hung up and leaned to sit on the edge of her desk.
She was so damn pretty. Onyx-colored and short hair that was so fine that she only had to wet it and gel it to the back.
High fashion. Gabonese with some Congo blood in her, by way of Louisiana, she was filled with melanin and culture.
A stint at Clark Atlanta had put a pinch of hood in her.
“Hey, baby,” she said. “I was beginning to think you forgot where you live.”
“You know my job ain’t got office hours, Lo. You know better. What’s with all the calls?” he asked.
“What’s with you not calling? You normally do if you have to stay out,” she said.
Demi deadpanned on her. “I’m not questioning you, Demi. I know the life you live and the things you do to keep a roof over our heads. I’m just saying. Respect me. You always have. I was just worried,” she said.
Demi nodded. “You don’t got nothing to worry about, Lo,” he said.
Lauren crossed her arms and stared at him.
“You seem different,” she said. “You good?”
“Whatever ain’t good I keep outside this house. I always have,” he said.
Demi didn’t know if it was his conscience or her intuition, but he felt like she was picking him apart, disarming his lies, one by one until she got to the truth.
He had cheated. He never had until now. Not even during their college years.
It had always been her, but things between them had gotten so routine that he could predict the next year of his life with accuracy.
He knew the positions that they would fuck in.
He knew what meals he would come home to.
He knew what candle scents would fill their bedroom.
He finished her sentences; they knew one another so well.
He loved Lauren. Dearly loved her. Respected her, but somewhere along the way, he had fallen out of love with her.
Or perhaps he never really had been in love with her, but the love and loyalty, plus the connection of a baby had been enough to carry them through the years.
Until last night. The mistake he had made eroded his stomach.
If she ever found out she would be devastated.
She lifted from her seat and walked toward him, standing directly in front of him.
She was used to his rules. She wasn’t like Charlie.
She knew better than to touch him and Demi sighed, a bit relieved because his guilt would have allowed him to let her and he didn’t think he could handle any more physical contact.
“I love you,” she said.
“Love you,” he replied. “I’m going to shower.”
“I’ll run your bath. There’s food in the oven for you.”
It was shit like that. She was a woman. His woman.
He knew he needed to do a better job at appreciating what he had.
Normally, he was accomplished at that. Making her smile.
Rooting for her wins. Being her support.
Her protector, but last night he hadn’t protected her at all.
Not from his selfishness. Demi felt like less than a man, as his son’s video game blared in the background, making the soundtrack of their lives.
This was his home. This was his family. He hated the song, Charlie’s song.
“My All.” His all. She felt like his all.
It felt like she expected him to give his all and damn it if he didn’t want to, after only one fucking night.
Witchcraft. Charlie had to be a fucking witch the way she had him running those lyrics back in his mind.
The damn song was interrupting the sound of Roblox.
Lauren looked at him, forehead creased in a look that he was sure was skepticism.
“That’s not what you left the house in,” she said, surveying his change of clothes. Women didn’t miss shit, especially not this woman.
“Since when you don’t know the type of business I’m into, Lo? A change of clothes ain’t nothing new,” he said. “Relax and stop overthinking. A nigga been solid with you, I’ma keep being solid with you.”
He meant it. He drowned out Charlie’s voice, but inside he really wanted to go back to Charliezonia.
The place she had sung about. Their place.
He wouldn’t though. 15 years versus one night.
He’d be a damn fool. One night couldn’t stand a chance but still, it had been a good fucking night, one he couldn’t seem to get off his mind, even as he stood here in front of his girl.
Lauren seemed pacified with that. Her face softened and she walked by him, stopping before she walked out of the room. “Are we good Demi?”
“I’ma always make sure we good.”
He found his son and took a seat beside him, grabbing the remote control.
“You ready, dad?” DJ asked.
Demi opened his phone and clicked on the unread message Charlie had sent. He put his AirPods in and pressed play on the video she had sent.
He found her simplicity extremely complicated.
Her hair was all over the place, destroyed from their time in the shower.
She did little to tame it, opting to pull it up by a red scarf, leaving locs cascading out of the top of her head like pineapple leaves.
Just disorderly. Charlie was a spur of the moment, throw on anything, who cares if it’s wrinkled, type of girl and all those things, all that chaos drove him mad.
Ying and yang. Day and night. They were completely opposite, but the pull he had felt when in her presence made it hard to delete this song.
“Since you stopped me from rehearsing,” she said, as she reached for the phone, coming near the camera, her hand swallowing the frame as he counted the lines on her palm as she adjusted her phone. She positioned it and then sat back, giving him a visual of her.
Her fingers to those guitar strings and the fucking melody that came out of her was hypnotizing. He listened to her sing for 1:42 seconds before his son interrupted.
“Dad, come on!” DJ said.
He clicked out of the screen, sliding his phone in his pocket as he grabbed the remote control and focused on his son.
Charlie was temptation. He had fought temptation through every part of his come up, avoiding women who could destroy what he had built with Lauren.
Putting last night behind him should be easy, but as he thought of her, even in this exact moment when he should have been enjoying time with his son, he knew that letting go of her would be the hardest thing he had ever done. Demi had been touched.