Chapter 12 #3
I hat let Cherish slide past every wall I had because she was beautiful and I stopped thinking straight. And look where that had landed me. Getting left behind like trash, then tied to a chair in a warehouse while my brother stood over me like a stranger, ready to murk my ass.
I wasn’t doing that again.
“It’s real good seeing you, Ivy,” I said, straightening up. “For real. But I can’t be the nigga for you. My head is in a different place right now. I got things I’m handling and I can’t afford to be distracted.”
She looked at me without blinking. “Who said anything about you being the man I need? Nigga, we at a bar, having drinks.”
I frowned slightly.
“All I need,” she said, calm and unbothered, “is to feel you tonight. That’s it.
Then you can go on about your business like none of this happened.
” She paused, let that land, then added, “Besides. We’re supposed to be married by now.
You owe me that much at least. Give me just this one night.
” She said with a straight face. She was so forward that it damn near scared me. Was this a set up?
I laughed before I could stop myself. A real one, deep from the chest. This woman was something else. She was more than I could have imagined.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the Hennessy.
Maybe it was the fact that I had almost died today and my body hadn’t fully processed it yet.
Maybe it was just her, the way she always had this pull on me since a kid that I never completely understood.
But after a while, sitting there with her, I heard myself agree.
I don’t even remember making a conscious decision. It just happened.
Me agreeing to leave wit her ass and I hadn’t seen her in over fifteen years was crazy.
Hell, me bumping into her ass was even crazier.
But the feeling she gave me wasn’t as if we were strangers.
Hell, like she said, she pose to be my wife.
With all I had going on, I needed this relief.
While Ivy was begging me to leave with her, she didn’t even know that I was about to tear her ass up.
There was no way that I wasn’t. She said that she wanted to feel me, and she had no clue what she was even begging for.
We walked out together. She slid her hand into mine in the parking lot and I let her, and I felt it immediately — something different.
Not like with Cherish, where everything had been heat and chaos from the jump.
This was something slower, something that moved in my chest instead of just below the waist. Like something that had been dormant for a long time had just registered a familiar frequency and started waking up.
I didn’t like it, but I didn’t pull my hand away either.
Hell, I didn’t know what to do with her.
I looked over at her when she stopped at her truck.
She had a nice ass baby pink Ford Bronco, sitting on a clean set of rims that had no business on something that color.
I shook my head slowly, smiling without meaning to.
We came from the same nothing, same broke, same hand-me-down everything, and this woman was out here doing it.
“Get in,” she said, reaching for her door.
“I’ll follow you,” I told her. “We’ll check in together. I ain’t letting you take me nowhere, and I damn sure ain’t leaving my car here,” I pointed to my old school, and she smiled at the sight.
She cut her eyes at me but didn’t argue. I walked to my car and pulled out ahead of her, watching her headlights fall in behind me in the mirror. I decided on the Hilton. I knew that they all had great security and that the hotel wasn’t too far from my crib.
I was familiar with the area. I wasn’t about to let her take me out of my comfort zone, if we were going to do this, I was going to be in full control of this situation.
When we pulled into the hotel lot, I parked and walked over to meet her at her car before she could pull the door open herself. I opened the door for her, then reached out my hand.
“Give me your phone,” I said sternly.
She looked at me.
“I’m not playing with you, Ivy. That’s the only way. I’m not tryna be rude, but I’m a nigga who can’t risk a set up. Phone.”
She didn’t get offended. She didn’t make a production out of it. She just reached into her bag, powered it down herself without me asking, and put it in my hand. I tucked it in my jacket pocket and nodded once.
We walked in together.
At the desk I handled everything myself, slid a hundred across the counter without making it obvious and looked the clerk dead in the face. “Don’t give out none of my information to nobody. Somebody asks, you never saw me and I’m not here.” I said, paranoid.
The clerk pocketed the bill and nodded. No questions.
By the time we made it to the room, I’d already run the hallway, checked the exits, noted where the stairwell was. Old habit. I didn’t sleep easy in unfamiliar places and I damn sure wasn’t about to start tonight.
Inside, Ivy dropped her bag on the bed and immediately started digging through it.
I stood near the window with my arms crossed, still running a quiet check on the room in my head.
She pulled out a small case, a lighter, and in a few minutes she had a blunt rolled and was sitting cross-legged on the bed looking at me like she lived there.
She lit it, pulled slow, then held it out toward me.
“What’s got you so tight?” she asked, smoke easing out with the words. “What are you afraid of?”
I walked over and took it from her fingers. Pulled deep and held it, felt the tension in my shoulders drop by one degree.
“With the life I live,” I said, letting the smoke out slow, “I can’t ever be too cautious. That’s not fear. That’s just how you stay alive. But I’m not scared of shit baby girl, you worded that wrong.”
She watched me. Her brows lifted just slightly and I could see it — the curiosity. The question forming behind her eyes about exactly what kind of life I meant. She didn’t ask it yet. But she was going to.
I took another pull and passed it back.