Chapter 15 #2
As we pulled up, Choyce limped out of the house behind Honor, chin high and eyes blazing.
"Nigga, no one is pressed 'bout that pinky you swear is a third leg!" she yelled, but that limp betrayed her.
"Say that when it's not taking you ten seconds to go from your right foot to your left." Honor laughed, heading toward his car.
"You sure you wanna deal with this shit?" Wolfe whispered.
Reluctantly, I nodded. "I'ma go talk to Choyce. You take Honor?"
"Yeah," Wolfe answered, cutting the engine.
We both hopped out and headed up the walkway.
"Don't leave without talking to me," I warned Honor.
"Man, get ya wife," he groaned toward Wolfe.
"Nigga, you got her in this shit, so she's free to say whatever." Wolfe shrugged.
I leaned up, quickly kissed his lips, then trekked the rest of the way to Choyce.
"Take your ass in the house," I told her. She was still glaring at Honor like she was contemplating running up.
"I'm too grown for you to tell me—"
"Then fucking act like it," I cut in, pushing her inside the house. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Choyce?"
"Don't put your hands on me," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest.
"My hands being on you is the least of your worries."
"Oh, yeah?" A smirk curled on her lips. "What you gonna do? Run and tell your bestie I fucked her nigga into a coma?"
"From the way your limping, Honor did all the fucking," I shot back. "You might wanna sit down and give those legs a rest."
She sucked her teeth. "Ha ha, not funny."
"It's not funny, and that's what you clearly don't understand."
Choyce's smirk faded. "How don't I understand it, Chosyn?"
I exhaled slowly, doing my best not to match her tone.
"Because you think you won something. That you got one up on Navy because you fucked her man."
Her jaw flexed.
"This isn't a game. You're playing with people's lives, their families."
She scoffed. "Of course you'd blame me."
"I'm not blaming you. I just want you to see the severity of the situation."
"You are blaming me," she spat. "In your mind, Honor would never want me."
"That's not—"
"No, let's play it out. I want to hear how you think it happened."
"I'm not doing this with you."
"Why not? You never had a problem saying how you felt before. Don't fold now."
"Fine," I snapped. "If I had to guess, I'd say you played on his concern for you. Y'all talked about your time with Lucian. You cried, made yourself seem fragile."
Choyce's eyes narrowed.
"Honor is a fixer. You made him feel like you needed saving. You fed into his hero complex," I pressed. "Honor can't resist a damsel in distress, so you made sure you looked distressed."
Choyce's hand came so fast I didn't even see her arm move. My head snapped to the side, my cheek burning from her slap.
"You think I gotta trick a man into fucking me?" Choyce's voice trembled so violently that it swallowed mine whole. "You think I'm that much of a weird bitch that I have to cry for dick?" she demanded with glossy eyes. "Like I don't know how to walk into a room and command every nigga in there?"
"It's not what I think. It's what you show," I told her, flexing my hands to keep from swinging on her.
"How would you know what I show when you only started talking to me a few days ago?
" she huffed. "You don't know me, Chosyn.
So no, you don't get to reduce me to some little bitch who had to plot and play damsel for dick.
Honor came here drunk. Whatever he was doing before he got here must've taken a toll on him.
Yes, we talked about Lucian, but no, I didn't damsel my way onto his dick. "
She paused, closing her eyes for a moment, then slowly opened them.
"Honor and I have chemistry," she whispered. "I thought I was the only one who felt it, but he does too. We didn't rush into it. We hesitated and understood the consequences." She shrugged. "We still chose it anyway."
"Why? Knowing it would hurt people."
"I can't speak for Honor, but I wanted to feel chosen."
Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn't wipe them.
"I'm tired of having to be strong. Tired of pretending I don't want softness.
Talon never looked at me like I was something desired or even loved.
I was an arrangement, an obligation. Something his father handed him and said man up.
Talon hated me being his wife and probably hates that I'm the mother of his child even more.
I just wanted to feel love, and Honor gave me that. "
Tears slipped from her eyes, and my heart sank with them.
"You deserve a love that lasts longer than a night, Choyce. That's all this was, a night's worth of feelings that'll never go beyond a moment."
"You wouldn't understand. King might've been an ass that Chance used to keep an eye on you, but he still chose you."
"King didn't choose me. He drained me, left me empty, and called it love. Honor is doing the same to you. It might feel like there's a connection, but he loves Navy. He will always love—"
"Get out."
"Choyce—"
"Get the fuck out." Her voice hardened.
I held her gaze for a long second, searching for the words to get through to her. Choyce was young, with so much life to live, that she didn't understand that what she felt for Honor right now was fleeting.
"Fine." I turned and walked toward the door. Opening it, I paused before walking out. "I love you, Choyce."
"That's funny 'cause it feels like you love Navy just a little more."
My lips parted, but the words got lost somewhere between my chest and my throat.
"Exactly," Chosyn scoffed, slamming the door behind me.
Honor and Wolfe both looked in my direction.
"Everything good?" Wolfe asked, already moving toward me.
"No, but in time it will," I told Wolfe, brushing past him and stomping over to Honor.
"You need to leave my sister alone."
His brows pulled together. "What?"
"Leave Choyce the fuck alone. She deserves someone who sees her as more than a distraction from his problems. Her heart is too fragile to be what you reach for when things are rocky with Navy."
His jaw tightened. "That's not what this is. I—"
"I don't want to know," I snapped, holding my hand up. "Navy knows you came to talk to Choyce, but I told her you slept at our house. I'm not lying for you again.
"I didn't ask you to."
"You didn't have to. I asked you to talk to my sister, so in some weird way this is my fault, and I apologize," I explained.
Wolfe stood a few feet back, watching but giving us a moment.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Honor muttered in a low voice.
"Navy or Choyce?"
"Both."
I nodded slowly because I believed him, but the damage was already done.
"All I can say is figure your shit out. Either your heart still belongs to Navy, or you're trusting it with Choyce, but you can't have both."
Honor didn't respond. He just stared at me.
"Ready to go?" Wolfe asked.
"Yeah."
Wolfe pulled me toward the car, his hand laced in mine.
"You think he's going to leave Choyce alone?" I asked, needing to hear that I'd gotten through to Honor, because I knew Choyce didn’t hear a thing I said.
"There's no getting through to Honor unless you're Navy," Wolfe answered, helping me into the passenger seat. "I'ma be right back.
He closed the door, then jogged over to Honor and said a few words. When Wolfe came back and hopped in the car, I turned to face him. "What did you say?"
"I told him to make this shit right."
Staring out the window, I watched Honor continue to stand there, watching as we pulled off. I exhaled slowly, knowing Honor wasn't about to leave without talking to Choyce. Fiddling with my phone, I considered texting Choyce to tell her not to let him in.
"You said your piece," Wolfe rasped, cutting his eyes in my direction.
"She's my sister, and Navy is my—"
"Some lessons you can't explain," he reminded me. "Choyce gotta feel this if you want her to learn from it."
"I guess." I sighed, sinking back into the seat.
I wished things could've been different.
In my eyes, Talon was just as much to blame as his father.
He should've protected her and loved her in a way that wasn't romantic but still made her feel protected.
Maybe if he had, she wouldn't be standing recklessly on the edge with a man who'd only loved one woman his entire life.
"You can't save either of them," Wolfe stated, as if he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.
I nodded because there wasn't anything I could say to soften the guilt of feeling like I was failing my sister and my best friend.