6. Let Me Carry It
I had turned my home office into a damn FBI office. I had sticky notes covering the wall beside my desk. Red string connected names and dates like I was one bad day away from ending up in somebody’s True Crime documentary.
Natalie was connected to Charles, who was connected to Cameron, and Cameron to Miles.
My Mother connected to Cameron, who connected to Alan Price.
I had added former classmates like Janessa from law school to the board.
Although I hadn’t suspected any funny business with her, I had to add anyone who knew another party and me at the same time to the board.
I added people connected to old cases and judges.
Anybody who ever had a motive to destroy my family ended up on that wall eventually.
And every time I thought I was close, somehow, none of the shit connected cleanly.
I sat cross-legged in my desk chair wearing Xavier’s black hoodie and a pair of biker shorts while my laptop glowed against the dark room.
It was almost midnight. Genesis had school in the morning, and I had court tomorrow.
And still my brain refused to shut off because somebody was moving pieces behind the scenes, and I had to figure out who the hell it was before my family crumbled.
We were so close to being whole again. I finally had X.
Jared was home, and Kenya and I were bonding more than ever.
Even my dad was taking a sabbatical from the church to make amends with the children he loved but hardly knew.
But despite my wanting to keep hope alive that my family deserved something good, a heavy darkness hovered over the Davis and King families.
The blackmail.
The alley.
The biological father of my child, Charles, being the one who tried to ruin me and kidnapped my sister, was sick as fuck.
But even worse, my own fuckin’ mother sold her son into modern-day slavery to atone for a secret affair and a love child.
Now this long-lost half-sister of mine, Cameron, was like a ghost who couldn’t be caught.
Nothing about this shit was normal. I don’t know what the Davis and King family did in a past life to warrant this much hardship, but it was stressing me out.
I rubbed my temples slowly before staring back at the board.
“What am I missing?”
“You’re missing sleep, Angel.”
Xavier’s deep voice startled me enough that I damn near threw my pen across the room.
I turned toward the doorway immediately. X leaned against the frame shirtless, wearing gray sweatpants low on his hips, tattoos stretching across his chest and arms, while sleep still sat heavy in his eyes.
God.
It’s been a little over a month since we made a home together, and I still feel just as giddy as the day that I met him at the party.
“Why are you awake?” I asked.
“Why are YOU awake, Angel?”
I sighed dramatically before spinning back toward the board. “I’m working.”
“No,” Xavier corrected calmly while walking into the room, “you’re spiraling.”
His hands settled on my shoulders from behind before he leaned down and kissed the side of my head slowly.
His kiss was soft and unhurried. He knew that I couldn’t ever deny his touch.
After going two decades without it, I could never be too far from my first love.
I couldn’t sleep without him, breathe without him, or live without him.
Young Channy would have told me that I was weak.
I would have fought my sister, YaYa, for being the ‘Baby Bear’ who depended on a man.
But my man was a force. He was a person of peace.
He loved me deeply and fiercely and stayed committed and hopeful for me even when I was too thick in grief and turmoil to see his love for me.
Xavier and I loved each other like breathing. Some things are constant and necessary.
I leaned back into him automatically.
“You smell good,” I muttered.
He chuckled softly against my hair. “I’m wearing that melon and sage men’s body wash you left in the bathroom. I took the hint that you liked the way it smells, and you wanted me to wear it.”
“Mhm.” I closed my eyes briefly. “You smell really good, babe.”
“That so?”
“Yes.” I sighed dramatically.
Xavier laughed quietly before his eyes moved toward the wall. The softness in his face disappeared immediately.
He hated this board and hated what it represented.
“Angel.”
“What?”
“You can’t carry all this by yourself.”
I crossed my arms instantly. “I’m literally a lawyer. Carrying impossible shit is my brand.”
“That ain’t funny.” His tone softened the words, but I still heard the warning underneath them.
I swiveled the chair slowly to face him.
“X, somebody is threatening our family.”
“And I’m gon’ handle it. The same way I handled Charles. And the same way, me and Zay have Miles’s ass and your mom locked in our war room.”
“We don’t even know who all we’re handling.”
Xavier crouched down in front of me then, hands settling against my thighs gently.
“Look at me.”
I did immediately.
“You trust me?”
That question felt loaded coming from him. “Of course I do.”
“Then let me carry it, Channy.”
Emotion climbed into my throat unexpectedly. Because Xavier always did this. Every single time life got heavy, this man stepped in front of me like a shield without even thinking about it.
“You already carry enough,” I whispered.
“It’s never too much if it’s yours or Genny’s load.”
Lord. That man would say shit like that and then act confused when I looked at him like he hung the moon.
I touched his face softly. “You know I can handle myself.”
“I know.” His hands slid slowly up my thighs. “But that doesn’t mean you are supposed to handle it. Let me love you the way I know how, through protection.”
Xavier’s thumbs moved absentmindedly against my skin while his eyes studied my face carefully.
“You’ve been in here for hours,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“Did you eat?”
I blinked and was trying to recall what the last thing I ate was, but when I couldn’t remember, I answered truthfully. “No.”
“Angel, how can we expand our family if you’re not taking care of your body?”
Xavier had been shooting the club up in my womb, and I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet.
When I mentioned my concern to my gynecologist, she reminded me that women of advanced maternal age had to prepare a bit differently, especially with my past history of loss.
She needed me to eat clean and avoid stress.
I was failing at both. Our family was at war, and the medical field was making me feel old as fuck by giving me labels at thirty-eight.
I rolled my eyes immediately. “Don’t start fussing.”
“Angel.” That smile spread slowly across his face then. The one reserved just for me.
“You know what your problem is?” he asked softly.
“What?”
“You think too hard.”
I snorted. “And your solution to everything is sex.”
“That’s because whenever you’re stressed, once you get to creaming on my dick, you magically feel better.”
I laughed at how mannish he was being.
Xavier stood and pulled me gently out of the chair to face him.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving my soon-to-be wife from herself.”
“X—”
His mouth found mine before I could finish the sentence.
And just like that? My entire brain short-circuited.
I wasn’t worried about that damn board or who was gunning for our family at the moment.
Xavier kissed me like he already knew exactly what I needed before I did.
His hands slid from my waist to the small of my back while he walked me backward away from the evidence board and toward my desk.
Every kiss felt intentional, as if he was peeling stress off me layer by layer.
And the crazy part was, of course, it worked. I felt my shoulders relax first. Then, my jaw unclenched. Next, the constant noise in my head finally began to dim. I sighed softly against his mouth, and X smiled immediately like he had won a championship.
“There my Angel goes,” he murmured.
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.”
I rolled my eyes, but my hands still slid up his chest anyway.
God, my man was a work of art. He added my and Genny’s faces to the tapestry of art on his chest. Seeing us plastered there in the center made me wet for my man.
This man felt unfair sometimes. After more years apart than together, Xavier still knew exactly how to make me feel soft without making me feel weak.
He knew how to light my body on fire with a look, and once he touched me, I combusted each time.
He backed me against the edge of my desk before kissing my neck slowly.
My breath caught immediately.
His hands tightened on my ass while the kiss deepened, slower now, heavier than before.
With Xavier, it didn’t matter where we were.
Every time with him felt like our first in that penthouse suite with all the champagne and roses.
Making love to him was intimate in that way that only came from years of loving somebody through every version of themselves.
That was the difference with us. X and I weren’t built on longing.
We were built on choosing each other over and over again.
Through chaos.
Through grief.
Through mistakes.
Through growth.
His forehead rested against mine afterward while both of us breathed quietly.
“You know what your problem is?”
“What now?”
“You’re too pretty to be stressed all the time.”
I laughed softly. “That sounded dumb.”
“But you smiled.”
“Unfortunately.”
Before I could react, Xavier lifted me easily onto my desk, sending papers sliding everywhere.
“Xavier!”
“What?” He looked entirely unbothered. “You weren’t using those, at least not tonight.”
I snorted. “That’s a discovery for my case in the morning.”
“Cool.” He kissed my neck slowly again. “Discover these inches inside of you instead.”
I laughed so hard I almost lost my train of thought completely.
He kissed down my neck slowly while his hands moved under the hoodie I wore, warm palms sliding across my skin until goosebumps spread everywhere.
“X…” I moaned out.
He lifted the hoodie over my head and removed my biker shorts. His eyes moved over me appreciatively.
“Since you want to stay up all night, I’m going to fill you up all night, and I need that pretty pussy to drink all this cum up like the Angel you are.”
The praise in his voice instantly warmed my skin.
“Now stand up and face that board you’ve been stressing about.”
I listened, and while I faced the board, I was so anxious about how X would please my body that I couldn’t make out a single name.
“Spread your legs and hold the board, Angel.”
Just as I spread my legs, I felt his long ass tongue lick me from my pussy lips to my asshole.
Xavier explored every hole as I cried out for him.
I wanted to turn around and face him, but I knew if I disobeyed, he would take longer to fuck me with his thick dick.
As he assaulted my holes, I cried out his name.
“X baby….. Uhhhh….babyyyy.”
“Let that shit go Channy and cum out that stress.”
I moaned out my release. He grabbed my neck and spun me around to face him. He was undressed, dick already bricked up and ready for me. He sat in my office chair and parted his legs slightly.
“I want you to ride this motherfucka’ as you tell me why you’re not gon worry about this shit anymore.”
I eased myself on the tip of his dick, trying to be cutesy. But this man grabbed my hips and thrust me on top of him. I cried out at his intrusion. His length and girth eased into me like the perfect puzzle piece match. I bounced up and down as he grabbed my nipples.
“Tell me, Angel. What are you worried about when I’m here?”
I continued to bounce. “Uhhhhh…X …Nothing, baby.”
He bounced me harder on his dick as he looked me in the eyes. “Are you protected, Channy?”
“Yessssss,” I yelped.
“Are you loved and cherished?”
“Yessss, X…”
“So let go, Angel. Of the case and that orgasm you’re holding.”
I cried out, not being able to hold on to the flood that was ready to coat his walls. I leaned down, biting his neck as I came, and he followed me to our own paradise.
X left my office to freshen up. He came back with a warm rag and a towel.
He gently cleaned me up and sat on the couch in my office.
I lay across Xavier’s chest on the couch, wrapped in one of the blankets from the back of my chair, while his fingers traced lazy circles against my thigh.
The evidence board still sat across the room. But it didn’t feel as loud anymore.
Xavier kissed the top of my head softly. “Do you feel better?”
“Mhm.”
“Told you.”
“You’re very arrogant for somebody using sex as a therapy technique.”
“That shit is effective though.”
I tilted my head enough to look up at him. “Have you ever thought about how crazy our lives are?”
“All the time.”
“And you still chose me?”
Xavier frowned immediately, like the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Angel.” His fingers brushed my cheek softly. “I’m choosing you in every lifetime.”
I kissed him before he could keep talking and make me emotional again.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzed against the coffee table.
I groaned dramatically. “If this is another threatening message, I’m moving to another country.”
X laughed softly while handing me the phone.
But the second I saw the caller ID, my brows lifted.
Hellertown Law Group Chat.
“What the hell…”
I answered reluctantly. “Hello?”
“CHANEL!” Sonia’s loud voice immediately exploded through the speaker. “Girl, I’m so sorry to call you so late, but the Democratic ticket is open, and the party is looking to endorse someone for mayor, and I heard rumors that the party will be approaching your brother, Jared Davis, to run.”
“Jared?” I sat up straighter immediately. “Absolutely not.”
But even as the words left my mouth, I hesitated.
Because my brother had a degree in political science and had always loved politics.
X told me that he taught the men in jail about the political system and how the government works.
But he would have said something to us, right?
The more questions I asked myself, the more I thought about how the media was making my brother a martyr and a symbol for how young Black men were failed by the system.
People listened to Jared Davis when he spoke, and if I’m being honest, the family could use the good press.
The more Sonia discussed the possibility, the more I realized it might not actually be impossible.
Xavier noticed my expression instantly.
“What?” he asked quietly.
I looked toward the evidence board. Toward the city outside my office windows. Toward the future, shifting in real time.
“I think my brother might run for mayor, and his story might be the key to helping transform Crestwood and our credibility with the alleyway case.”