Chapter 6
Navy Achebe
The city muddled past my window as I drove.
All noise. All motion. None of it seemed real.
In my head, it was nothing more than background chatter to my thoughts.
Later had come and gone more times than I could count, and Honor, I still haven't talked about what happened on Wolfe's porch.
For the last week, we co-existed as if everything were fine.
Honor still loved me like I was the sun keeping his world in orbit.
Honor was a man. A broken man, but a man nonetheless, and in today's society, men weren't given the space needed to shed themselves of their hardened masculinity.
They weren't cared for in a way that made them feel safe enough to face the wounds they bandaged but never let heal.
So, for that reason, I made it my job to love Honor in all the ways he needed.
Healing those wounds so they didn't define him but instead became part of his story.
Still, I felt a shift. Something was off about us and had been off since Honor got shot.
The moment I walked into his hospital room and Chosyn introduced me as his sister, the energy between us changed.
It wasn't anything he did, but everything about the confidence in Choyce's tone when she said it.
It held no fear, no uncertainty. Just rightness as if she were well within her right to speak for a man who didn't belong to her.
It'd been years since I'd felt insecure when it came to Honor. Choyce, in that moment, dug those feelings up and tossed them right to me and they've been sitting heavily on my chest ever since.
"I told him not to let anyone in the room. Choyce and I were discussing business. I never meant you couldn't come in."
If I hadn't caught the way his gaze faltered for a split second, I would've believed him. The lie was small, but even the smallest of lies had their way of creating doubt.
As Gravehart Homes came into view, I let out a deep breath and pulled into the driveway. I cut the engine, grabbed my things, and pushed my door open.
"Wassup, Ms. Navy."
The sleep-induced voice greeting me as I stepped out of my car shouldn't have caught me off guard, but it did.
Every morning I worked, Mekhi was on the stoop waiting for me.
He'd been at Gravehart Homes since he was six and was now fourteen.
I did my best not to play favorites with the kids here, but Mekhi was special in a way that was hard to ignore.
"How many times do I have to tell you that this can't keep happening, Mekhi? You should be sleeping. The sun's barely up."
"Come on, Ms. Navy, you know I feel at home with things that go bump in the night."
I frowned. Mekhi had no business knowing about the dangers that happened at night.
"I'm kidding." He chuckled. "You can preach I need sleep until your face turns blue. Any time I see your name on the schedule for these early mornings, I'ma be right here waiting. Who else gon' make sure you're safe if not me?" He took my purse and canvas bag out of my hands before I could argue.
"Such a gentleman." I smiled proudly. Just last year, Mekhi was scamming, and now it seemed like he was back on the right path.
"I try for those who deserve it," he stated.
"What do you mean?" I reached for the doorknob, but Mekhi knocked my hand away gently.
"You're really trying me this morning, Ms. Navy. You don't touch a door when I'm around."
"But your hands are full, Mekhi. I won't faint because I have to open a door."
"I don't care. I'm a man. I'll shuffle some stuff around to make it happen for you," he responded, and his answer shocked me.
"Who have you been talking to?" I asked.
"Wolfe," he answered.
"Wolfe?"
"We text from time to time," he said, as if it were nothing.
"Since when?"
I popped my head into a few of the rooms as we walked the halls, making sure no one was up to anything they shouldn't have been.
"The day he dropped me off here, like a year or so ago," Mekhi replied.
As we entered my office, I tried to place the moment he was talking about. Wolfe didn't come around often, so for him to take a liking to one of the kids was a big deal.
"Oh, you mean the day he caught y'all by the supermarket." I laughed. That was the first time Wolfe had come back here since he moved out.
"Yeah. Before he left, he told me to stop scamming and promised to come back with something for me. I left it alone. When he came back, he asked if I was still on it, and when I said no, he gave me a phone with his number saved in it."
"Did you tell him you already have a phone?"
Every kid eleven and older received a phone monitored by staff. Younger kids got iPads during scheduled downtime.
"I did, but he said I needed something you wouldn't search."
"Oh, really." I chuckled. "Let me text him."
Me
I find it funny how you gave Mekhi a phone and told him to hide it from me.
"Ms. Navy, be easy." Mekhi laughed. "He said it was important for a young man to have privacy. I don't know why he said it when he checks the phone regularly."
Me
Never mind. It's nice to know you're checking Mekhi's phone. Thank you for being a positive influence for him.
Wolfe
It's nothing. Tell my lil' nigga it's up when I see him for ratting on me.
I laughed and set my phone on my desk. Wolfe and Mekhi forming a bond was cute.
A part of me was happy he was getting close to Wolfe and not Honor.
In my head, I believed Mekhi being close with Honor meant he'd end up just like him.
Wolfe and Crown were proof of Honor's strong influence.
They were who they are, but also who Honor shaped them to be.
Both carried pieces of the man I loved, whether they knew it or not.
Shame burned in my chest for thinking that way because loving Honor meant embracing his influence and not fearing it. Still, it was hard because Honor hated my father but was like him in certain ways.
Crown was too old for me to love on him in a way that protected his innocence. Wolfe… I poured everything into him, hoping he'd stay the sweet boy I met, and for the most part, he did. However, like Honor and Crown, something dark lingered inside of Wolfe. I didn't want that for Mekhi.
"You good, Ms. Navy?"
I blinked, realizing I'd been lost in thought, and gave Mekhi a small, embarrassed smile. "I'm fine. What was that I'ma gentleman for those who deserve it comment about?"
Mekhi was at the age where girls became a thing, and his awkward phase was ending.
His voice dropped, the acne cleared, patches of facial hair grew in, and he shot up in height.
At only fourteen, he was already my height, five-foot-eight.
Mekhi was coming into his own, and I wanted to make sure he stayed away from fast-ass girls who meant him no good.
"Some girl at school." He shrugged.
"Now you know you have to give me more than that."
"Ight. There's this girl, Mercedes in one of my classes. She's a year older than I am since I skipped a grade. I didn't know how to approach her, so I hit Wolfe for advice."
"Oh, lord." I sighed.
The Gravehart men were romantics in their own way, but obsessive at the same time. I wanted Mekhi to be the kind of man who loved deeply, but wisely, and not just be consumed by desire.
"Nah, he gave me good advice. He told me to be a gentleman, hold doors, carry her books, and give compliments. I did all of it for like three weeks and got nothing but smiles from her. I was cool, tho. She might've just been a slow burn."
"Slow burn?" I raised a brow.
"Yeah, slow burn." He chuckled. "I was fine with it, not trying to overdo it. Then I pull up for gym and she's behind the bleachers with some dude. When she saw me, she jumped, but dude was already done. Ms. Navy, she had the audacity to tell me it wasn't what it looked like."
"Maybe it wasn't. Maybe she just—"
"She had nut on her lips," he quipped, momentarily shutting me up.
"Mekhi!" I hissed through clenched teeth, trying and failing not to laugh.
"Nah, don't yell at me. Go yell at that hoe. She's fifteen and getting slutted out. Dude didn't even clean her off. He just laughed and told me not to wife her."
"How did seeing that make you feel?" I asked, finally recovering from the shock.
"It's whatever."
"Don't dismiss your feelings, Mekhi, not with me."
"I mean, I felt like a sucker, but it is what it is. From now on, I'm just gon' be picky with who I'm nice to."
"I won't lecture, but don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch. Now come help me get breakfast started."
We left my office and headed into the state-of-the-art kitchen I had remodeled once I took over.
Gravehart Homes had around-the-clock staff, but nothing felt better to me than being hands-on.
The chef usually came in around seven on weekends and six on weekdays, but today I called and told her to come in for lunch.
I planned to handle breakfast and get some work done until it was time for me to call it a day.