Chapter 11
Where were you, Demi?”
“Where’s D?” he asked. He ignored her question, partly because he didn’t like being questioned, but mostly because he needed time to think of how he wanted to respond.
“DJ’s with my mom,” she said.
“I told you I don’t like him over there like that if you not staying. Go get my son, man,” he said.
“Where. Were. You?” she asked. Lauren was sitting on the couch with her feet crisscrossed beneath her and a bottle of wine sat on the floor.
It was half gone. Kendall Jackson before noon meant she was emotional, upset.
The last time she had drank in the middle of the day, she had lost an important client and been fired from the event firm she had been working at for years.
Demi had fixed that problem easily. He had put up the money to start her own firm.
He was a 50 percent partner and the investment had paid off lucratively.
This problem. This heartache, he couldn’t fix.
He was the root, her root, and he had dug it up and planted it in Charlie’s garden so that she could have a bountiful harvest.
“I told you where I was,” Demi said.
“No, you gave me some vague bullshit about being out of town and promising to call, but guess who ain’t heard from you?”
Demi sighed and put his keys on the table and then walked around the living room to sit in the chair across from her.
“You happy with me, Lo?” he asked. It was a genuine question.
He had thought they were happy, before meeting Charlie, before feeling happiness in her presence.
He had thought he and Lo were just fine.
Now, well, now he didn’t know what they were.
Comfortable perhaps. Content in the familiarity of one another, but it wasn’t happiness.
It couldn’t be because it was so different than what he had experienced all weekend.
Charlie had that shit that made his heart hurt a little when she left him.
Leaving her had put a fucking canyon in his stomach.
Lauren chuckled and shook her head. “You were with a bitch. Really, Demi? You were with a bitch? After all these years that’s the type of bullshit you on, now?
You couldn’t just be like a normal-ass nigga and get this shit out in your 20s?
You wait until you’re 33 to start acting stupid? ” she asked.
“Ain’t no bitch,” He only semi-lied. Charlie wasn’t a bitch.
She was different than any “bitch” Lauren would ever think to be worried about.
She was the opposite of his type. A young woman, younger than anybody he would normally have the patience of dealing with.
A beautiful soul that he was fortunate to even cross paths with.
Nah, there wasn’t a bitch involved at all.
Charlie was a gift. A kickstart to his dull existence.
He had been getting money too long. He had been in this routine with Lauren for years.
Life was on cruise control and Charlie was like pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
“Stop lying, Demi. I called the hotel. I asked for your room. They couldn’t give me a room number, but I know you had a room there because they confirmed it,” she said.
“You lost your fucking mind? Calling around for me and shit,” he muttered. “I had ten rooms there. We had people who needed to be accommodated, Lo. You know the deal.”
That seemed to deflate her anxiety some.
It made sense enough. He was always accommodating some artist, some star, putting them and their entourage up in a hotel.
The lie was solid. He saw relief in Lauren’s eyes.
He was grateful for it. This didn’t feel good to him, holding hurt over her head.
Lying. Giving what should have been reserved for her, to someone else.
Demi prided himself on being a disciplined man, but Charlie had come along with her chaos and swept him up in her wild.
Even the thought of her now in this moment made his chest ache.
He wanted her. Demi wasn’t used to craving something and then depriving himself of it.
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. So, he had to keep it one hundred with Lauren and end things.
Damn, how could he end this after 15 years?
“You happy?” he asked.
“Demi, why is this relevant? Don’t try to change the subject,” she argued. “You’re deflecting.”
“I’m just asking you, Lo. This ain’t about nobody else. Just me and you. Are you happy with me?”
“Yes! I’m happy, Demi! So don’t use that as some excuse to justify whatever you did this weekend. Like you were doing it for me! Like you were setting me free! I’m happy with you!”
It wasn’t the answer Demi wanted to hear and he hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck as stress crept up his back.
“Who were you arguing with in the hallway at the showcase?” Lauren asked.
Demi’s chest seized but he was good at poker, the panic never reached his face.
“The girl in the hallway,” Lauren kept going.
“Fuck you talking ‘bout, man?” he asked.
“Why do you think I showed up? I heard you were arguing in the middle of the event with a girl, Demi,” Lauren said.
“That was business,” he said. Lied. Demi couldn’t believe he was lying.
People lied when they were afraid, and shit, maybe he was.
Afraid of losing what he had known for so long.
Afraid of hurting the woman he had practically raised.
They were kids when they had met. She was his family.
Yeah, he was scared as shit to lose that.
The ringing of his phone and Charlie’s name on his screen pulled him to his feet.
“Business,” Lauren scoffed. “Is that business too?”
Demi couldn’t stop himself from pressing the green button.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” The sound of Charlie panicking pulled him to his feet.
“Hello?” he answered. Another scream and he was walking toward the door. “Yo!”
Charlie was crying. He could hear the tremble in her voice and when she said, “I need help. Oh my God...” he grabbed his keys off the table.
“Demi!” Lauren shouted. “Are you serious right now?”
He hung up the phone.
“I got to go, Lo. I told you it’s business. I’ll be back tonight, and we gon’ talk,” he said.
Lauren’s lip trembled violently. The end of their relationship was near. They both could feel it. It hurt. It was impossible to wrap their minds around because they never thought they would see this day.
“Stop the drinking Lo,” he said, removing the bottle from the floor. “Go get DJ and bring him home. I’ll be back.”
It was all he could say before he rushed out of the house.
“Oh my God! Thank you so much for coming! I’m freaking out!” Charlie said as Justin hopped out of his jeep.
“Don’t worry about it,” Justin said, laughing. “Where is it?”
“I couldn’t even get in my apartment because it’s right by the door handleeee,” Charlie whined. She wiggled her body and shook her hands because it felt like something was crawling all over her.
“Where your keys, girl? You’re dramatic as hell,” he said, laughing.
Charlie handed him her house keys and then stood behind him as he walked up her porch steps.
“Oh shit, this motherfucka is big,” Justin said. He took some spare mail from her porch and used it to smash the spider.
Charlie’s unreasonable fear dissipated.
The sound of bass pulled her attention and her heart stalled when she saw Demi’s car pull up.
“Umm, thank you, Justin,” she answered. “Just ummm. Thanks. I owe you. You saved my life.”
Justin snickered.
“Yeah, Charles. You owe me, a’ight,” he said, winking. “I’ll see you at the club.”
He walked off as Demi exited his car and approached her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Interrupting, apparently,” he said, his tone deadly.
“Kinda, you are, yeah,” she answered, a little irritated at the fact that he had an attitude. “I told you Justin is my friend...”
“You called my phone fucking hollering at the top of your lungs. I thought something was wrong,” he said.
“I did what?” she asked. She grabbed her phone and noticed she had indeed dialed him. “It must have dialed you by mistake when I dropped my stuff. There was a spider. I was freaking out and...”
“That nigga was here with you?” he asked. “I just left you, now he here?”
Demi’s disdain laced his tone and Charlie was taken aback by his passive aggression.
“No, I called him, and he came to kill it for me, otherwise I would have never gone inside again,” she said.
“Okay, Bird,” he said, turning back for his car.
“Hey! Don’t walk away from me all mad. You’re tripping,” she argued, going after him.
He spun on her. “Do you know what the fuck I was doing before I came here? What I had to drop to get to you!” he barked.
Charlie’s brows lifted. “I didn’t ask you to drop shit! So, fuck you and whatever it is you’re so pissed about missing!” she turned to walk into her house, but he grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.
She pushed him and pulled away, but Demi pulled her back. It was like holding onto an iron, but he didn’t let her go.
He gripped her face so tightly that her jaws pushed in and her lips pouted as he stared intensely at her.
“You call me, you understand me?” he asked as he backed her up into her apartment.
Bails came running to the front door, barking and tripping them up as they made their way inside.
Charlie nodded and he kissed her lips. First-degree burn.
His lips tingled a bit. “Call another nigga over here and see don’t I fuck you up.
” A second-degree burn as he kissed her again.
“I was trying not to be clingy, babe,” she said, her eyes stinging.
“Be clingy, Bird,” he said, loosening his grip, but now she was tightening hers, around his neck as she gazed up at him. “Cling to me, baby.”
Kiss three. Third-degree burns. He felt it in his body as his kiss took her down to her couch.
“He’s just my friend, Demi,” she said.
“If you want to keep him breathing, stop playing with me, Bird,” Demi said. He was dead serious.
“You can’t possess the wind, Demi. I blow where I want to,” she said. “I have people in my life that were here before you and they’re not going anywhere.”
She was defensive, stern like she wasn’t willing to lose anyone to gain him.
He gave her space, swiping a hand down his goatee as he thought about what she said.
“I don’t want you to cut me off from everything and everybody I love.
I just want you to be here too. I don’t want to lose myself in you, babe.
I don’t want to be your everything. I don’t want that much pressure from anybody.
I just want to be something to you, not everything, not your whole world, just a piece of it,” she explained.
Demi was lost on the concept of doing this with her at half-mast. She wanted him to dial it back, turn down the heat a little.
Could he? If he was going to half-feel Charlie, he could just keep Lauren.
He already half loved her. Charlie was different because she made his whole heart work, she made it race, she made his skin burn.
She touched him. “I mean, you have people, right? I would never tell you to get rid of your people for me,” she said.
It was then and there that Demi decided not to leave Lauren. Charlie wouldn’t even stop a random nigga from coming around for him and here he was having sit-downs with the mother of his child for her.
Fuck you doing? Get your head on straight, he thought. He stood, hiking up his pants.
“Yeah, Charlie. You got it. I’ma get out of here so you can call your people back. Do whatever you want to do,” he said.
“Babe,” she called after him as he stood. Demi was irritated at the innocence in her tone, as if he were asking too much, as if she were confused about why he was leaving. He ignored her and kept it pushing toward the door. “Demi!” He didn’t say another word. He walked out and Charlie let him.