Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
AHKEEM
Anger had a funny way of clouding your judgment.
Being alone left me with nothing to do besides sit and brew in my anger.
How could Jazzlyn abort our child and keep it from me for two fucking years?
We could’ve had a child walking this earth.
A perfect mixture of me and her, and she took that away from me without even consulting with me first. It hurt me.
Made me feel like I didn’t fucking matter to her.
All that mattered was the way she wanted her life to play out.
She didn’t consider the fact that her life was now mine, and my life was now hers. That shit was fucked up.
Priest knowing made a lot of fucking sense now.
Every time I would mention having kids with his sister, he would say the same shit.
“Good luck.” I always brushed it off, assuming that he meant Jazzlyn would stress me out during her pregnancy because of how demanding and spoiled she was.
I never in a million years would have figured it was because she had already killed my unborn seed.
I had been kicking it over at the Ritz for the past couple of days.
I needed to get my mind right before I considered hearing my wife out.
Communication with her had been real touch and go.
Mostly on my part. I didn’t have anything nice to say, so I felt like it would be best if I didn’t say shit at all.
She made sure to text me every morning with an apology, telling me how much she loved me.
She even continued to hit up Saphir, and I knew that because whenever I spoke to him, he was always telling me about the conversation he just had with her.
The shit she did may have caused a rift between us, but she still remained steady with our son, and I appreciated that.
I had been wallowing in my pain for the past couple of days.
Shit was getting depressing, so I decided to step out of my suite and head to the bar.
I hadn’t really been in the mood to talk to anybody besides my son.
I was hoping a drink would do me well. I had been smoking heavily, and even that shit was getting tiring.
I slid into a seat at the bar and ordered some whiskey. I watched the football game highlights that were being broadcasted on the flatscreens at the bar. Before I knew it, I had put in my fourth order for some whiskey.
“What are the odds?” The seat next to me filled up, prompting me to turn my head.
I was surprised to see that it was Amina. She had a cover-up on, and her braids tied up in a bun, indicating that she had just come from the luxurious pool the Ritz had. “Oh shit. What’s up, Mina?”
“Enjoying my last couple days in the city before I head back to Houston. I decided to treat myself to a pool day.”
I nodded. “That’s what’s up. How apartment hunting going for you?”
She waved the bartender down and placed an order for a watermelon daiquiri.
I told him it was cool to place her drink on my tab, which she thanked me for.
“It has been so stressful. I tried getting into Diamond’s building, but they have no available units.
Everywhere else is too small and too damn expensive. ”
“You making a name for yourself out there in H-town. You got the money, Mina,” I chuckled.
“Yeah, and I wanna keep it, or if I do spend it, I want it to be worth it. I’m not paying three-stacks to rent a fucking shoebox.”
“Welcome back to the city, ma. Ain’t shit changed.”
A heavy groan aired out of her. “Your building was nice when I visited.”
I shot her a crazed look, cutting the thought off before she could spend too much fucking time on it. “Yeah, I don’t think my wife would like to run into you when she’s coming and going. You gone have to find somewhere else.”
“Well, I guess that just confirmed my suspicions.”
“About what?”
“She hates me.”
I chuckled. Amina didn’t know how lucky she was. Jazzlyn was actually sparing her. “Nah. It takes too much energy to hate somebody. She just doesn’t fuck with you,” I corrected her.
“I tried being friendly and nice.”
“My wife ain’t the friendly or nice type. She knew who you were before you even stepped foot in our penthouse, and she knew who we were to each other.”
“You gave her the rundown? You really do love her. More than you ever gave me.”
“I do.” I nodded. “But I ain’t have to give her a rundown.
If my wife wants to know something, she’ll figure it out.
By the time she brings it to my attention, she already has the shit pieced together.
Can’t put shit pass her.” I wasn’t complaining because that was just who my wife was.
She wasn’t the type to just sit around and be lost. She got to the bottom of shit no matter what.
I got myself another whiskey.
“Where’d you two meet?”
Another chuckle sourced out of me. “At a storage unit. Shit wasn’t romantic, but the second I bumped into her, I knew I had to have her. Did I see myself married five years later? Nah, but I can’t say I mind. She’s the one.”
Despite us having a rough patch, I very much still loved my wife. Yes, she betrayed me, but it couldn’t erase the years of love we shared together. I just needed to figure out how the fuck we were gonna navigate this shit.
I gazed down at the portrait of her on my arm. I had been looking at it since I left the penthouse. As angry as I was, each day, I was slowly breaking down, and I knew eventually I would be back in my wife’s arms. I just needed to get my mind right.
“You two look good together.”
“‘Preciate it. What about you, though? What got you running back to the city? You were doing so good out there in Houston.”
“Career wise, yes. Personally? Fuck no. I got into a bad relationship, and he’s been hell ever since I called it off.” She rolled her eyes.
“Damn. You know all you gotta do is give Diamond the word, and she’ll catch a flight.”
Amina giggled. “We both know what Diamond would want to do. I’ll let the nigga live. I’ll just subtract myself from the equation and move back home.”
“I feel that. Sometimes you just need space to get your mind right.”
She ordered herself another drink. This time, a double shot of tequila.
“Looks like you’re doing the same thing. The classic hotel bar, alone, getting hammered. Must’ve pissed wifey off.”
I laughed because I was being real fucking cliché. “Something like that. Trying to get drunk enough to call her and smooth shit out.”
“You always been quick to apologize, even when I was in the wrong at times,” she recalled with a short laugh.
Apologizing was embedded in my nature. My last conversation with my mother before she passed was an argument.
I fussed at her about her decision to stop treatment for her cancer.
I wanted her to fight, while she was tired and ready to let go.
I didn’t speak to her the following days, and she ended up passing away.
I never got the chance to apologize for the way I expressed my pain and frustrations, and that shit haunted me.
“That’s just who I am.”
“Well, I would like to apologize to you. I never really took accountability for the way I handled our relationship,” she said as a look of sorrow etched her face.
I ordered another shot of whiskey before tossing it back. “I ain’t tripping. We were young. I couldn’t give you what you wanted, so you threw in the towel.”
My relationship with Amina had always been turbulent.
We fussed, fought, then fucked, just to repeat the cycle all over again.
We said we loved each other, but I had to experience love with Jazzlyn to realize that what I had with Amina was nowhere near love.
We just ran to each other because we were all we knew.
Amina had dreams of pursuing a career in radio.
She had this big personality and wanted to share it with the world.
She did some apprenticeships at a few radio stations in the city, but they never worked out.
She got an opportunity to be a co-host on an upcoming hip-hop radio station out in Texas and took it.
At the time, we were dating and getting into it with each other every damn day about what I wanted out of life.
I was moving guns and making money, but shit wasn’t good enough to keep us from struggling.
Plus, I was going through it with my mother’s cancer.
When Amina decided to leave, I felt like she was leaving me during the hardest time in my life.
It made me bitter toward her for a while, but I eventually let that shit go.
I locked in, and two years later, met Jazzy and elevated my hustle.
Amina ending our relationship and moving away was really a blessing in disguise.
Had she stayed, I probably would’ve remained stagnant.
She forced me to be uncomfortable and elevate myself.
“We were young, but I could’ve extended you more grace. You were dealing with your mom, and your dad wasn’t doing too well either. You really were doing the best you could with what you had, and I just always made it seem like it wasn’t enough.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Shit, it wasn’t enough for you, and that’s cool. No hard feelings.”
We kicked it at the bar for a couple hours. We shared memories about shit from our past when we were together. We fought a lot, but we always had a good time when shit was good between us. Before we could get cut off from the bar, we decided to wrap it up, and I closed the tab.
“Shit, what floor you on?” she asked as she led the way to the elevator.
“Fifteenth.” We waited together for the elevator before stepping inside together.
“Ahk, you’re fucked up,” she giggled.