Chapter 2
Nyair sat shirtless on the couch. He leaned over, elbows meeting knees as he held a cup of joe in his hand.
Shannon Sharpe’s voice boomed through his television.
It was a program that Nyair rarely missed, but today, he couldn’t focus.
Today, his mind was stuck on a woman who had become a fixation out of thin air.
He had left the hospital with no resistance.
Lauren and Demi had a right to privacy in their time of distress.
He couldn’t imagine their loss. He had witnessed it before.
He had prayed for others during their time of need, but he had never experienced the loss of a child.
If he was honest, no parent he had ever counseled had bounced back the same.
Tremendous sorrow filled him, and his empathy wasn’t reserved only for Lauren.
He felt for both parents. So, when he was asked to leave, he complied without taking offense because it was their right to lean on one another.
Only the two of them knew what this tragedy was like.
He didn’t belong there, and he knew it. It was too sacred of a space for someone casual to linger in, and that’s all he and Lauren were, friendly fucks to each other.
Nyair wasn’t looking for a relationship.
He wasn’t interested in love. He was trying to stay focused, trying to repent for so many years of selfishness and bullshit.
Lauren, however, was a lovely distraction.
For a man like Nyair, a woman like that, with her vulnerability, with her pain, with her neediness, with her effortless sex appeal, and unassuming expectations was dangerous.
She spoke a need to him without ever moving her lips, and he couldn’t control his primal instinct when she was around.
Years of self-control had gone out the window.
He didn’t know how to feel about it. He couldn’t even focus on feeling anything because his craving for her was too strong to feel anything else.
Nyair required Lauren in a way that was unreasonable.
Every part of him wanted to be enveloped in her.
Inside her body. Inside her mind. Inside her heart.
Her thoughts. Her legs. That mouth. My oh my, the work she did with that throat.
Lauren had swallowed him in ways that women were normally too shy to partake in.
It was like her body had been dormant, and his sex had awakened her because she fucked like she was making up for lost time.
He was so unfocused because even now, his dick reacted just thinking about it.
But at this moment, he wanted to be more for no other reason than she needed more.
He wanted to take root inside her spirit because he could feel that it was drained.
Her faith was gone. He knew at this moment, the devil was whispering in her ear because nobody blamed God more than a mother who had lost a child.
If Lauren gave in, she would never recover.
DJ’s death would lead to her destruction.
He had seen it time and time again. Addiction, alcoholism, promiscuity, all symptoms of a woman with a broken heart, and not just any type of injury caused that type of despair.
A maternal travesty. God didn’t design the realm of humanity for mothers to bury their children, but time and time again, the natural order of things was disrupted.
To pick up the phone and call would be too aggressive, but Nyair was an aggressive man.
In all ways, on all days, he was assertive.
Grieving left no room for him. He would be lucky if he ever heard Lauren’s voice again.
“Get your head right, G,” Nyair whispered to himself.
He took a sip from his mug and then lifted the diamond cross he wore around his neck.
He lifted the chain to his lips and kissed it.
“Prince of Peace, do your job. Don’t leave that woman’s cries unanswered,” he prayed aloud.
He shook his head, his chest aching, a symptom of caring too much.
He wasn’t supposed to know Lauren enough to care at all.
He was her son’s football coach. He had crossed a line.
Plenty of his players had beautiful moms who had shot their shots at him over the years.
He had only given in once. How complicated this thing had become.
He had helped to create confusion, and he couldn’t be sure that his involvement didn’t push DJ to hurt himself.
The weight of the possibility that he was to blame was taxing.
Nyair set down his coffee mug and reached for the Bible that sat on his table.
He opened it to the book of Psalms. Instantly, his eyes fell upon the highlighted verses.
Nyair was a student of this book. He studied it, deciphering the Word of God because it was written by men so long ago that it was hard to bring things current.
He contextualized every word from cover to cover daily so that he never forgot.
Life was hard. It was impossible at times, and he didn’t know how a man could even attempt to face it without a playbook.
That’s the type of man he had always been.
He had needed coaching and guidance ever since he was a boy.
It was how he had become a star athlete.
He memorized the playbook. When his career had come to an end, the Bible had become his playbook and God his coach.
He needed to brush up defensively for this loss.
He didn’t know how to move life forward after this.
“So much life left in that kid,” he mumbled, sniffing away an unexpected bout of overwhelm as he gritted his teeth in protest. He hated to hear about the loss of anybody, but a child, especially one that he had coached and engaged with closely, hit so much harder.
He couldn’t help but wonder if his interactions with Lauren had been that straw that broke the camel’s back.
He tried to run memories back in his mind to see if he had missed anything.
Had there been a sign of distress that Nyair had ignored?
He was a football coach. He could normally pinpoint the kids who were troubled.
He usually fed the ones who came to him hungry.
He counseled the ones who came to him angry, teaching them how to control their emotions and minds.
He had bought shoes and clothes and taught hygiene to some who showed up to his practice without knowledge of self-care.
He had sent home care baskets, wiped tears, all that.
How the hell had he not noticed the crater of self-harm and self-hate growing within DJ?
It didn’t make sense. Little boys committing suicide?
How had DJ become so unhappy that self-mutilation was mistaken for relief?
Where did he even learn it from? He clamped the Bible shut, suddenly angry at…
at...hell, even he didn’t know, but he had resentment in his heart, and DJ didn’t even belong to him.
He kept replaying the sound of Lauren’s screams. The octave was so agonizing that it hurt to hear.
It was the kind of cry that evoked tears from the eyes of men.
Misunderstanding lived in him. He had done this with his friend Alani.
He had watched her be eaten alive after losing her daughter.
He didn’t know if he could do it again with Lauren.
He cared too much, and it fucked him up because he couldn’t even pinpoint how he had begun to care at all.
To witness another strong woman unravel before his very eyes would make him begin to ask questions about life, death, and divinity.
He was good at calming the heartbreak of others, but how many times could he witness it without tainting his own faith?
Nothing hurt worse than seeing a woman hurt.
He had seen a lot of that in his lifetime.
He had caused a lot of it, too. A big part of his life had been spent making up for the damage he had caused to a woman he had loved once.
All this death around him triggered memories that he didn’t welcome, which meant it was time to distance himself from Lauren.
It would be best for them both to establish boundaries now before they were too far gone.
He needed to cut her off before either of them became too attached, or before her trauma became his mission to heal.
He opened his phone and went to her name in his contacts.
His thumb lingered over the screen for a while before he deleted it.
He didn’t know her number by heart, so he wouldn’t be able to give in to temptation and call her.
She would have to reach out to him, and he knew that under the circumstances, he would be the last thing on her mind.
He doubted he would ever hear from her at all because he knew that she also thought their rendezvous was the inciting incident that had caused DJ to hurt himself.
A mother wouldn’t soon let go of that blame.
Neither would Nyair. So, this was it. He was out, and they had to be done. It was for the best.
“Where the hell is Kiara Da’vi?” Stassi asked as she spoke into the headset while maneuvering her way through the thick crowd. “According to the call sheet, she was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
Stassi was trying her hardest to remain focused.
She hardly knew DJ, and she wasn’t too fond of Lauren and Demi, but she would never wish this type of tragedy on anyone.
She couldn’t imagine what they were going through.
The fact that Day had up and left this multi-million-dollar event in her hands without thinking twice meant that he trusted her wholeheartedly.
He trusts me too damn much, Stassi thought as she tried not to panic.