Chapter 37 Jahlil
The voice that left his body was strained. His eyes were closed and frustration drenched over his being. The loss was tough but the loneliness was a stark reminder of the seven years he’d spent in the dark.
“I need you.”
Emani’s tone was soft and just what he needed to shake off the first part of his worry. “I’ll make arrangements. What else do you need?”
Jahlil pulled his eyes open to find Emani’s concerned orbs staring at him through the screen. He nipped the corner of his lip and swayed his head. “I don’t like being lonely, Rose.”
“None of us do,” she replied, moving out of the JoyRide she was in. “Let me call you right back.”
Abruptly, she hung up, only causing him more frustration than he was experiencing. A low growl of irritation buzzed through his body as he attempted to call back only to be sent to her voicemail.
He expected her to be on the way to the studio.
When they spoke before the game, he told her that driving back and forth late at night wasn’t sitting right with him.
So for the week and half he was away, he’d book platinum JoyRides to take her to and from the studio.
What he wasn’t expecting was the tap of knuckles against the door.
“About time they showed up,” Jahlil huffed, standing to his feet and dragging them to the door.
Upon opening it, he held his hand out for his JoyEats delivery, only getting a soft hand and a giggle in return.
He looked, finding Emani in one of his branded jogger sets, sneakers, skully pulled over her curly hair and sunglasses on her face. The wide smile said it all.
“Emani Rose,” he grumbled, letting his agitation fall off of him.
“Oh that face is getting red… you were maadddd,” she dragged out playfully as he pulled her inside the room and engulfed her in an embrace that lifted her off of her feet.
Her laughter was muffled. “Amazing that Sanaa looks just like you when she gets mad. Skin all red, mouth balled up, eyes narrow like she’s trying to shoot daggers at me. ”
She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms his neck. Jahlil placed a series of kisses on her lips, muttering between each peck. “Babygirl not mad at you.”
“Oh, she’s heated. Would you like to hear the voice notes she left me while I was on the flight?” Emani asked.
“Actually yea,” Jahlil stated, placing her on the nearby countertop.
Emani fished out her phone and played the messages in order.
“EMANI ROSE WACK ASS LAST NAME SAVAGE. I cannot believe you left me here with Drewy. You’re a muffin eating ninja shark!
” Sanaa’s voice a mixture of muffled and clear because of her phone placement.
“My daddy isn’t all that cute to be running to him like that.
Did you know that he’s a hating ass nigga? !”
Jahlil snorted in laughter.
“Oh the last one is the best one because by then she realized that I wasn’t going to be back by the time she woke up,” Emani said, hitting the final message.
“I hope when you and daddy start moving that bed that you pull a knee cap. And you have to crawl to the game. Come back and get me, nigga lady! Right now!”
“Did she?” Jahlil started but later sniped his words.
“Call me a nigga lady? She sure did. You should have seen the way she looked at me when I got in the car. It broke my heart, I wanted to run back in and take her with me. I’m pretty sure she called me a weak muhfucka before I pulled off.
According to Aunt Vi, she cussed in the corner for thirty minutes. I’m sure Andrew recorded it.”
“I apologize that my child is a cusser at such a young age,” Jahlil shared, still laughing.
“Oh, by the spring, she won’t be cussing anymore. Don’t worry about that. How are you? I don’t like the way you sounded before the game. And after watching you play…you got to tell me what this is,” Emani changed the subject to the reason she caught a red eye to Waynesville in the first place.
Jahlil gritted his jaw and then dropped his head to hers. “I miss her, E. I fuckin’ miss her.”
The her in reference was his mother.
She rubbed his back and offered him the safety he needed to grieve. He hadn’t been able to fully do it. Grief was tricky that way. You could walk around for a decade and a half and then a scent, a phrase, or a place could tear open the seams.
“I was good. I knew what today was. I knew it was going to be me against me. And then a reporter asked me about what I did to celebrate her today and I-” He pulled in a deep, shaky breath.
“I realized for the last seven years I barely honored the woman who brought me into this world. I don’t know if it was my ego of thinkin’ I had my shit together or if it was the fact that I’d gotten myself in some shit I was trying to figure out… or if.”
“If it’d been so dark for so long that your mind couldn’t even process the fact that you miss her.
And that’s okay. But you’re awake now. And you’re here and I know she’s proud of you.
For not just all that you’ve done, but for loving her baby like he was yours.
Even though her mind wouldn’t allow her to be the mother she wanted, she always had you.
And as heavy as that calling is, you’ve done in a way that is so beautiful.
” Emani reached up and wiped his face. “You’re beautiful and I’ll say it for her.
I’m proud of you. I love you. And I thank God that he gave me you to do what I couldn’t. ”
He nodded, allowing himself to shed the frustration through his tears. “Tha-”
“Nope. Don’t. I got you. When it’s heavy, I’ll be right here. Tell me how you want to honor her before the day is over.”
Jahlil wryly laughed. “She used to always want to go get Ray’s after a game. Win or lose. We’d go in and Ray would just smile, shake his head and point to a booth. Before she started self-medicating, that was a highlight.”
“Well, we’re in Waynesville. We don’t have Ray’s but we do have Big Rod’s and one call to Trae Way and the path is clear.”
“Oh damn, I almost forgot my lady got real plugs and connections,” he chuckled after kissing her forehead.
“You know it. Speaking of which, to smooth over Sanaa’s disappointment in me being a weak ass muhfuckin’ nigga lady, I chartered them a plane to meet us in Ocean City. I rented a house to have a cute little Halloween party – chef, candy, décor all of that.”
“Damn, wasn’t even going to let me pull out my card and ask to help?” Jahlil teased as Emani pecked away on her phone, checking in with Trae Way MB.
“Maybe Christmas, if I remember,” Emani joked. “Go put something on, we’re headed to Trae Way.”
“Question.”
“Answer, my love,” Emani hummed back, watching as he walked away from her.
“You’re supposed to be recording…how are you doing that here tending to me?”
She grinned. “Plugs and connections. MB has a studio, Haddon and Normani are here too. You head to practice in the morning I’ll be at the studio and then done and ready for your third game. Don’t worry about me. I’m focused on you.”
“Mmhmm. I know and I’m not letting you get lost in me again. Hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
A JoyRide to Trae Way and a seat at Big Rod’s updated restaurant settled his spirit. The woman across the table helped too. From aggravation to trying to stop himself from grinning too big, he chuckled.
“Why are you doing all that chuckling?” Emani posed, sending a text and putting her phone down. “Andrew is up picking out his clothes for tomorrow.”
“One, because you really got your famous ass on a commercial flight and came to save my big ass. I’m going to marry you.”
Emani laughed. “I know. Only ring I want to wear that I didn’t buy myself. What’s two?”
“Andrew gives a damn about what he looks like now. Before he was going to school in pajama pants and a hoodie. In OC. I knew his ass was going to have a heat stroke. Three, Sanaa is mad at you which means she’s attached to you.”
Emani’s smile was full. “I’m attached too. It’s going to be some furniture moving if you let me go again because I will take those kids.”
“Won’t be no again. And they’ll go with you is the crazy part. Are they in our bed tonight?”
“I can guarantee it.”
Jahlil reached out her hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Savage.”
“You’re welcome. I’d swim oceans for you.”
“I’d move mountains for you.”
“What’s the look for nigga?” Jahlil asked Tyris, who was shooting warm up shots beside him.
Tyris’ eyes kept darting to the sideline where Normani sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Emani.
He could tell in her posture that she was anxious about being here especially by how their last encounter turned out.
Emani had her hand wrapped around hers which meant she wasn’t going to let her leave. There was hope.
“Ohh,” Jahlil buzzed. “You know she’s helping E with her new album, this was bound to happen.”
“You didn’t say they were friends now though,” Tyris grumbled, trying to get himself together.
Everything in him wanted to run across the court and beg for her to take him back.
Nothing was the same. Nothing tasted right, sounded right, felt right.
Normani was as much a part of him as he knew he was to her.
They were meant to be and he’d just lost the plot in his own rise.
Jahlil kissed his teeth. “You should’ve known that shit. E doesn’t fuck with anyone she doesn’t vibe with. Look at them. Holding hands and gigglin’. All that girl shit. You got to get on your playa shit and get your lady back.”
“Nigga, I’ve been trying,” Tyris grumbled, catching a ball and shooting a three.
“Apparently you ain’t doin’ shit because she ain’t even look at your ass. I tell you what, I’m taking E to dinner after this win. I’ll make sure your girl is there. Bring your black ass and some A1 game.”
“Nigga-”
“You welcome. Man up, stop being a pussy. Let’s get ready to run these niggas over. She might be willing to talk to your ass if you put up more than ten tonight,” Jahlil teased, walking off the court.
“If you pass me the ball, nigga,” Tyris quipped back.
“Make yourself open, it’s coming to you.”