He Don’t Play About Me 2

Chapter 1

Wtf

Love’s words sat heavy in my chest, but I wasn’t weak behind it, just caught off guard.

“What you mean you gotta kill him?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

Love looked at me, head tilting just a little, but his expression didn’t change.

“Why you askin’ me that?” he said, calm, but there was something under it.

I took a breath, choosing my words better this time.

“I’m just sayin’… I didn’t think… I didn’t want it to go there.”

The air in the room shifted instantly. Keith and Kenya stayed quiet, like they already knew what time it was.

Love stared at me for a second, then let out a short breath through his nose.

“You seen what he just did, right?” he said, not loud or emotional.

“I did,” I nodded. “I just don’t want it to turn into something bigger than it already is.”

He ain’t respond right away. Just looked at me like he was reading me, trying to see exactly where I stood.

He nodded and turned his attention to Keith.

“Handle the store, get it cleaned up all the way, and get the people here to fix the glass today.”

Keith nodded quickly and hopped on his phone.

Love walked toward the door, looked both ways, then looked back at me.

“Come on.”

I looked at Kenya.

“Girl, just text me later,” she said.

I nodded and walked over to Love. He took my hand, and we walked out with his other hand gripping his pants and his head on a swivel as he opened the car door and helped me in the backseat. He hopped in, shut the door behind him, and the driver pulled off smooth.

I leaned back into the seat, my fingers still laced with his, but my mind was somewhere else. The city moved past the window, fast but slow at the same time, and I couldn’t shake the feeling sitting in my chest.

Love ain’t say nothing.

He sat back, one arm stretched behind me, the other resting on his lap like he was ready to go at any moment. His eyes were moving, watching everything, and I could tell that he was thinking.

I stared at the street flying past the window, trying to shake what he said earlier, but it wouldn’t leave me alone.

“Gotta kill him.” That statement was still echoing through my head.

He said that shit like it was just something that had to get handled.

No shake in his voice. No hesitation. That’s what made it worse.

We stopped at a red light, and I stared out the window at all the people walking around living their best life, while it felt like mine was starting to fall apart. Music leaked out of rolled-down windows, everything normal on the surface, while my chest stayed tight.

Love moved a little in his seat, adjusted like he was sitting with a purpose instead of comfort. His arm was still behind me, but there was some distance in it now. Not physical. Mental.

I finally broke.

I turned toward him.

“You really serious about what you said at the store?”

He didn’t look at me right away. Just kept his eyes forward like the road was more important than the question.

“I don’t say shit that I’m not serious about, my love.”

His face was straight, his posture was calm, and my stomach tightened.

“That’s not what I mean,” I said quieter. “I mean… You really gonna take it there with Gio?”

He finally looked at me, not soft, not mean. Just direct. Like he was trying to figure out what part of me didn’t understand yet.

He looked at me like he was about to say something, then just looked down at his phone. I smirked and turned my body toward the window.

We finally got to the house, and Love walked around me like I wasn’t there, grabbing his weed, sitting by the window, and calling his son to check on him since we were back from our trip.

I walked back to the bedroom, started to undress, checked the group chat with my girls, and saw Kenya was getting them caught up about what happened.

Deja added, “Love was not the nigga to fuck with back in the day.”

I instantly texted back.

Me: What the fuck you mean?

Kenya and Deja started typing at the same time, then the bubbles went away, then came back, then went away like them bitches was playing with me. I was about to call them when a message finally came through.

Kenya: I told you, Love was that nigga. Niggas was scared of him. He is well connected through Zone 6.

Deja: Yeah, to be honest, I am surprised he hasn’t done shit yet.

I couldn’t get my fingers to type fast enough to question what he might do, when he pushed the bedroom door open and looked me up and down.

“We need to talk.”

That was all he said before he walked back down the hallway. I dropped my phone on the bed and followed him to the living room. He sat back down by the window, and I sat in the chair beside him.

Love relit his blunt, let out a cloud of smoke, and stared at me.

“You know I love you, right?” he said softly.

I nodded. “I know, baby.”

“And you want a life with me, right?”

I scrunched up my face. “Yeah, baby, I just said yes to marrying you the other day.”

He nodded. “Then you need to let me move the way I need to.”

“I never said you couldn’t, Love—”

“You acted like you were bothered by what I said. You know I have a lot more to lose than that nigga?”

I sat there lookin’ at him, tryin’ to hold my face steady even though my chest was already tight again.

It wasn’t even the words he said that bothered me anymore. It was how easy he could switch into that version of himself, like it was normal life. Like love and violence could sit at the same table, and he ain’t see no contradiction in it.

He took another pull of that blunt, slow, like he had all the time in the world, then leaned back against the window frame. The smoke curled up around his face, softening him for half a second before his eyes cut right back into me.

“I ain’t tryin’ to argue with you,” I said finally, keeping my voice low so it wouldn’t turn into something bigger than it already was. “I’m just tryin’ to understand what you actually mean when you say move how you need to move.”

He exhaled through his nose, not annoyed, not patient either. Just steady.

“What you think I mean?” he asked.

That question sat in the air too long.

Because the real answer wasn’t something I wanted to say out loud.

I looked down at my hands instead.

“I think you mean you already made up your mind,” I said. “And everybody else just gotta adjust.”

His jaw ticked a little at that. Not mad. Just acknowledged.

The room got quiet again except for the faint sound of what was on the TV in the background, nobody was actually watching.

He reached over, set the blunt in the ashtray, then leaned forward a bit, elbows on his knees for the first time since we got in the house. He looked less like he was in motion and more like he was actually present with me.

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “But you’re making it sound like I just be reckless.”

I didn’t respond.

He kept going anyway.

“I don’t move off emotions,” he said. “I move off what I already see comin’. That nigga been trippin’, and it finally reached my doorstep.”

My stomach dropped a little at how calm he said it. Like consequences were just weather. Something you predict, not something you question.

I leaned back in the chair, trying to slow my thoughts down before they ran away from me.

“And where does that leave me?” I asked.

That made him pause.

Not long. Just enough to show the question hit a place he wasn’t tryna touch too deep.

He looked at me different now, not softer, but more focused.

“It leaves you where you already at,” he said. “Right here.”

I shook my head slightly.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

The air between us tightened again, but this time he didn’t shut down or shift away from it.

He stood up slow and leaned against the window again, like he needed something to look at while he talked.

“I never lied to you about who I am,” he said. “What I got, where I came from, none of that.”

I watched him, not interrupting.

He continued.

“You knew I wasn’t regular when you met me. You just haven’t seen that part of me yet.”

That part hit different because he was right. I have seen pieces of him, all the good parts, and I have seen the ugly side.

He turned back to me.

“And now that you see it,” he said, “don’t switch up on me halfway through, actin’ like I changed.”

I could hear my heartbeat in my ear.

“I’m not sayin’ that you changed, I am sayin’ that I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

That was the truth.

The way it felt in my body wasn’t something I could explain clearly.

Loving somebody like him didn’t feel simple. It felt like standing too close to something that stayed hot even when it wasn’t burning you yet.

He studied me for a moment like he was tryna decide if I was talking or confessing.

Then he walked back to his chair and sat down, moving closer to me but not touching me.

“You don’t have to agree with how I move, mamas,” he said low. “But you damn sure can’t be scared of how a nigga bout to move for you and the family that we are building.”

I slid to the edge of my seat, looking him in his eyes. “I don’t want to lose you,” I said softly. “Gio is trippin’ in ways I never seen that nigga move, I don’t want to lose you in all of this when we could just ignore it and let him dig his own grave.”

Love chuckled a little bit. “You will never lose me to a clown, baby. I’m smart, my money longer, and that nigga in my city. I got niggas on speed dial that could touch him, but I don’t want to do that.”

Love was calm and cool as he talked. Just from that, I could tell that he meant every word that he was saying.

“That nigga will definitely dig his own grave,” he continued, laughing. “I can promise you that.”

Love stood back up, grabbed my hands, and pulled me into his arms.

“I love you, and I be damn if I let that nigga fuck up what we’re building or bother you in any way. Do you believe me?”

I nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

I paused, looking in his eyes. “I do, baby.”

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“You know I do.”

Love pulled back and kissed me. “Then let me do what I need to do.”

He stared into my eyes, and I exhaled. “Okay, baby, do what you need to do.”

A grin came across Love’s face, a grin that I had never seen before.

“Say less, mamas, say less.”