Chapter 3
“This is some bullshit,” Ashton grumbled, cutting his steak.
“Indeed it is,” Kyrie hummed. “Nigga didn’t even try.”
“I’m not talking about that bullshit,” Ashton huffed. “I’m talking about this bullshit. I asked for center cut. Carson, what kind of business are you running?”
“A respectable one. I told the kitchen to give you the kid’s option and a booster. I see they forgot the booster,” Carson shot back.
“Your momma didn’t have a problem climbing on daddy’s lap,” Ashton shot back, making the whole table wince.
“I forgot about that shit,” Donnée giggled. “Wild times.”
“I’ll never forget,” Ashton quipped with a smirk.
Emani approached the table, purposely avoiding having to speak to or acknowledge Jahlil. She needed to have some sort of peace tonight. She walked into Carson’s arms. As he hugged her tenderly, he whispered, “You good? You don’t look happy.”
Emani groaned before perking back up. “I’m fine. He didn’t do what I asked. But it doesn’t matter, right? He chose me, I chose him. It’s all fine.”
Carson tensed at her statement. For years, he’d watch her give up a little bit of what she wanted to fit into a box she was never supposed to be in. She thought this was her last option, considering the only option she ever wanted belonged to someone else.
“When it’s not, will you tell me?” Carson asked, before she pulled away and smiled.
“Of course.”
Carson gritted his teeth, shot Jahlil a look, and pulled her chair out for her.
Kyrie picked up her hand and held it in his. “This is a big ass ring. You didn’t know about this, C?”
“Nope, had no clue,” Carson stated. Considering he knew everything, he was just as shocked and disappointed as everyone else.
Emani giggled and took her hand back. “It was the smallest one to choose. This shit is obnoxious.”
“He wants to make sure all the niggas like Jahlil, know you taken,” Ashton spoke with a mouthful. “Why you over here with us? You’re supposed to be taking pictures with your soon-to-be mother-in-law and husband and faking and shit.”
Emani rolled her eyes. “I love all four foot of you too, Ashton. And I was over there before she told me my dress was inappropriate to be around his team. So here I am, in a dress he bought and insisted I wore, unable to eat because it’s too tight. Is that a good enough answer for you?”
“It’ll suffice until later. And I’m coming for that ass,” Ashton assured. “I’ll eat for both of us. Carson fronting the bill anyway.”
Jahlil cut him a look. “You are cheap.”
Donnée spoke up. “Emani, you remember Jahlil right? Jahlil, you remember Emani?”
Emani very briefly looked at Jahlil, careful not to send Malik into another frenzy. “Jahlil. Congratulations.”
“Congratulations are in order for you too, E,” he commented before taking Donnée’s drink and downing it.
Emani nodded and turned back to Kyrie, “I need you to listen to something.”
“You better be talking cash money shit on it too. I want the old E.Rose, type shit,” Kyrie stated, going along with Emani’s need to deflect. She couldn’t handle the way his eyes bore into her. Like her saying yes had violated some secret agreement. The last she’d checked, Jahlil was a married man.
“So how soon is this wedding?” Ashton asked.
“You do need time to order your tux from baby gap,” Carson shot.
“Uh about that,” Emani hummed. “I know everyone is in town for homecoming. Malik wants to get married right before the first game.”
“Like in two weeks?” Kyrie croaked. “E, are you-”
“I’m down with whatever you need,” Carson spoke. “Still need me to give you away?”
“If you don’t mind. Janet is going to be on me about making this traditional as possible,” Emani shared, uneasy in her spirit but for now, she was willing to let it go.
Carson knew and by tomorrow morning, he was going to be on her line helping her work through this.
Donnée sensed Emani’s uneasiness and changed the subject.
“Let’s talk homecoming,” Donnée spoke up again. “We got the house. I figure we do it like old times.”
“Excuse me, what?” Emani and Jahlil sounded off at the same time.
“There you go, Mani,” Malik’s voice floated over, zapping the conversation of protests before it could start.
Ashton chuckled and sipped from his glass. “Oh, this shit is going to be gold.”
Yes, baby,” Emani hummed, falling back into her role.
“I know y’all reuniting but I wanted you to meet the owners for Dose,” Malik stated, offering the table a fake apologetic look. What he wanted was to get her and keep her as far away from Jahlil as he could.
Emani stood and Malik smacked her ass, prompting Jahlil to say, “Make sure you eat, E.”
“I got her, big dawg,” Malik replied, before pulling her away from the table. “I thought you were saying hi, not grinning in his face.”
“I wasn’t grinning in his face, Malik. Please don’t do this tonight,” she damn near pleaded. “I’m wearing your dress, your ring, and no panties. I’m yours.”
She needed to soothe him before he embarrassed her. It worked for all of two hours. Now, they were tangled in the sheets and Emani was trying to think of everything to keep her in this moment. All the sweating and panting he was doing for him not to be hitting anything was a shame.
“Why you not wet?” he grumbled, spitting on his hand and placing it between them. “The fuck you thinkin’ about?”
“This wedding, I’m sorry. I just want to make sure it’s perfect. There’s so much on my plate. Just give me a minute, please?”
Malik huffed and dropped to his back. He pulled the condom off. “Maybe if you let me hit it without a rubber.”
Emani rolled her eyes as she walked into the bathroom. “After we’re married.”
“That shit can’t come fast enough. Let’s just go to the courthouse next week.”
She sat on the toilet and groaned into her hand. “You know you’re taking your mom on that trip. She’ll have a fit if you cancel or take me. After homecoming works.”
“Homecoming?”
“I told you I was going.”
Malik got up and found her. Dick now the size of a knub. “You said you had a concert. You’re doing that shit all week?”
“Yeah. It’s not going to be nothing crazy. It’s great album exposure. I haven’t put out an album in almost six years. I got to get out there.”
“You don’t need that shit. I told you, you got me.”
Emani closed her eyes, attempting to reset. Bad sex and an argument was too much to follow up a horrible engagement surprise party and seeing the man she swore she was going to do life with.
“I know I have you. I just want to have me too. Is that okay? I need to have something left after I become Mrs. Malik Kilpatrick.”
Malik lean down and kissed her face. “You have me, you don’t need nothing else. Can you flush this?”
Emani sighed softly and took the used condom from him.
It was a shame that after a whole bunch of nothing, he came.
She flushed it, washed her hands, and got into the shower.
Malik was back in the bed, busy on his phone.
Regrettably, on nights like this, she thought about how Jahlil had filled her to the hilt and made a mess of her, time and time again.
The instant replay and the shower head allowed her a quick release.
It wasn’t dick and it wasn’t the passion or intimacy that she longed for.
But this was what she had, so she had to make the best of it.
Back in bed, Malik turned his back to her to finish whatever he was doing on his phone, before cussing to himself and getting out of the bed. Emani swore she heard, “stupid bitch” but it could’ve been her mind.
Malik dressed and looked over at her. “Roberts is having issues with his wife. I’m going to go over there before he catches a charge. Get some sleep, I love you.”
“Love you too,” Emani spoke, feeling in her gut something wasn’t right but she ignored it for the sake of sleeping. When morning came, Carson beat her to the studio with breakfast and coffee.
“You ready for me to tell you how I feel for real?” he asked.
Emani sat down and took off her shades. “I’m all ears.”
“You’re settling. Fucking quitting. Why?”
Her eyes fluttered and she chewed her bottom lip. “No one else is going to love me. So I might as well make the best of what I got with who I’m with. What’s the other option? Going back to having my head knocked between the washer and the dryer?”
Carson dropped his head.
“I just want to feel love, C. Even if it’s not real. So this is the sacrifice I’ll make.”
“For all of that, you can marry me,” Carson huffed. “And you know I’m forever against the shit. At least you know I’ll respect you. But this nigga. I don’t know, E.”
“Very noble,” she sighed. “But this is it for me. He got to find his happy, why can’t I find mine?”
“You can, just not with this nigga.”
“I need you to support me.”
Carson yielded. “If this is what you want, then everything is on me. I love you and I want what’s best for you. I don’t have to like this shit though.”
“Anyway, I need a set list for homecoming, are you going to help me or…”
“I’ll help. I just had to get my piece off. Also, I reached out to the band director, the drum line is yours if you want them,” Carson offered.
“What they need in return, new uniforms?”
“Yeah, I was already writing the check though,” Carson stated.
“Oh, you love me so good,” Emani joked. Carson was her best friend.
There wasn’t a question about that. The love he offered her was the purest, most non-romantic love either of them had ever experienced.
The way Emani took care of Jahlil and Andrew was the same way she’d taken care of him in college too.
Carson was the middle child in a group of nine.
His mother, unfortunately, was forced to have her first child at twelve.
By the time she had Carson, there were five kids ahead of him.
There was nothing left for him and she had the choice to stop having children but she didn’t.
The love she experienced had only come in the form of bearing children for men who didn’t want her enough to keep.
Going to OSU was his chance to escape and he took it.
A backpack full of clothes and loose-leafed paper.
That’s all he had. And by some chance of luck, or as Emani used to say angels find their person, they found each other.
If she had food, he had food. If she boosted clothes, they were typically for him.
He would never forget how Emani would enter rap battles, collect the money and make sure he had books.
Now it was his time to make sure that she was good.
There wasn’t anything Carson did that he didn’t include Emani in.
Every new deal, restaurant, and other business, he made sure she got a cut.
He refused to ever have his angel be in a position to depend on someone else.
There were things about Emani that Carson knew that no one else did.
Not even Donnée. Carson was the one who’d picked her bloodied body off the floor.
He hid her until the bruises faded and her body healed.
Carson was the brother she used to pray for.
“You know I do. Which is why I’m staying out of this you and Jahlil mess,” he shared.
Emani rolled her eyes. “It’s not a mess because it’s nothing. I’m not going to stay at the house either. I’ll rent a place nearby.”
“Aight, E. Whatever you say, baby.”
“It’s always whatever I say.”