Chapter 42 #2
His words don’t sting like they used to.
Instead, they bounce against me and roll off like raindrops cascading down a window.
I don’t even feel the damage he did to my face.
All I feel is the air blowing Rich’s scent on me while we sit in his truck, and all I see is that white egret flying off while we stand together at the end of Joliet.
I hear the drawl in his voice and the faint horror beneath his words when he asked me that loud question in the only way he knew how: “So you be hittin that nigga back or what?”
AJ digs his fingers into my throat, squeezing my answer to Rich back down inside of me.
I can’t breathe, but I still hear Rich asking me that question over and over again. So I bite down, conjuring up as much moisture in my mouth as I can. A deep rasp comes from my chest, and AJ’s eyebrows pinch together as a wad of spit flies out of my mouth and lands in his eye.
He takes one hand off my throat, swiping his eye in disgust.
I gasp and suck in as much air as I can while my answer to Rich shoots out.
“Yeah. I do hit back,” I heave under my breath, ramming my balled fist into AJ’s hard face.
The brief impact makes him pause long enough for me to shove my knee between his legs.
“Fuck!” He pushes me to the floor, doubling over and grabbing himself. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I dive toward Rich’s gun and wrap my hand around its cold, heavy body, and AJ looks up right as I point it at him.
His eyes widen.
“Are you serious right now?” he chokes out as a dribble of blood trickles out his nose. “Where the fuck did you get a gun from?”
I push up from the floor.
“You…you’re gonna shoot me, Lovie? That’s what you’re gonna do? You never even held a gun in your life.”
For the first time in five years, I see fear in his eyes. They follow the barrel of the gun as it shakes in my trembling hand.
“You need to put that down.” He scoffs. “Any…anything could happen. It could misfire. You don’t know how to handle a gun.”
“You need to get on your knees.”
“Are you fuckin serious right now?” he shrieks.
“As serious as you were two minutes ago when you had your hands around my throat. Get down.”
He eases down one leg at a time.
I swipe my bloody nose against my sweater. “Now call Blake.”
He holds his hands out, backing away on his knees. “Lovie—”
“Shut up.”
“Put the fuckin gun down.”
“I’m not putting anything down. I said, ‘Call Blake.’”
“Call him for what?” he shrieks.
“We…we need to have one of those meetings with him.” I sniffle. “You know the ones we used to have with him after you’d beat me down into nothing and then call him to fix it. I…I want one of those meetings.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
“Look at us, AJ. We’re a mess. You’re bleeding. I’m bleeding.”
His eyes soften and he nods with his trembling mouth hanging open.
“Call him,” I urge.
“You need to put the gun down first. It’s easy, Lovie. Just put it down.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I…I can’t do that. My brain isn’t the same, AJ. I’m not the same Lovie I was. I’m different. Look what you did to me.”
“You need to call him…” My voice cracks and tears prickle my eyes. “He can help us work through this.”
He gulps as somebody raps on the door.
“Everything okay in there?” they call out.
I keep my eyes on him, and right when he opens his mouth, I shout, “Yes! Everything’s fine!”
I nod toward his pocket. “Call.”
His hands tremble just as bad as they did the night before he played in his first NFL game. He reaches into the pocket of his sweats and slides his phone out.
“Put it on speaker.”
He frowns. “Seriously?”
I pinch my eyes shut. “Please don’t do this. Just put the damn phone on speaker.”
He breathes heavily while fumbling around, and I open my eyes once I hear the familiar trill from his phone reverberating around the room.
“What up, playboy?” Blake chirps. “Make it quick. I’ve got a one o’clock with Caldwell and a two o’clock with a baddie I met at a lounge last night.”
We stare at each other.
“AJ?” he calls out.
I nod my head at him to say something.
“Blake, I…I….”
“You what? Spit it out, nigga.”
The soft hum from Blake’s car and the sounds of traffic fill the dead space in their conversation.
“Hello?”
“He wants you to come over to his hotel,” I chime in.
“Lovie?”
“Blake.”
“Wait. What’s going on? What are you doing over there?”
“Oh, I’m just over here chatting with AJ about how we can move past this moment we’re having.” I sniffle, wiping my bloody nose against my sleeve again. “Isn’t that what you called it when you came to my aunt and uncle’s?”
He huffs into the phone. “What the fuck is going on?”
“You need to forget your one and two o’clock and come have a sit-down with me and AJ like we used to do.”
“For what? You shouldn’t even be over there. How’d you even get up there?”
“We have a few things we need to discuss about that NDA,” I reply.
“The NDA? You…you said you wanted him to come over to help us work through our problems,” AJ rasps from the floor.
“Uh-huh. That’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna work it all out. Don’t worry.”
“She needs to leave, AJ. I told you to stay no-contact! Get her out of that room!”
Screeching tires make my ears ring.
“I…I can’t,” AJ stutters.
“What you mean you can’t?”
I step forward and push the barrel against his forehead, just like he did to me on that New Year’s Eve I can’t erase from my mind.
“You want to see something?” I brush my finger against the safety, relishing in the sound of the click. “Rich says that’s kind of like the on and off button. First it was off, and now it’s on. Was your gun on that time you pointed it at me on New Year’s Eve, AJ?”
“I’m calling the cops,” Blake blurts.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” I murmur.
“It sounds like you have him at gunpoint! What the fuck do you mean you ‘don’t think I wanna do that?’”
“Because we had another fight, Blake. A bad one,” I croak. “AJ couldn’t control himself as usual, and this was the only way to get him off me.”
“What the fuck, AJ?” he hisses.
“Wait until you see my face,” I reply. “He messed up really bad this time, and to think the staff downstairs was just bragging about how lovely we are together. You think they’ll still love the Jersey boy next door when they see what he did to me?
AJ wants me to show them what happens when I don’t listen. ”
“My…my face is fucked up too. She hit me too!” AJ yells.
He wipes the crusted blood from his red nose with his shoulder.
“She weighs a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet! I highly doubt it’s as fucked up as hers. Let’s be for real right now.”
“And I…I don’t have my makeup to fix this,” I stutter.
“How am I gonna get out of here, Blake? How am I gonna get through the lobby and talk to the valet? How…how am I gonna explain this to my aunt and uncle when I get home? You told them AJ didn’t do stuff like this. All of this is alleged, remember?”
“Fuck!” he yells. “Her fuckin face, AJ? In a hotel? What the fuck did we talk about? People look, AJ! They talk! They gossip! Oh my God.”
“You’re the one who told me about the dude! Now you’re blaming me for reacting when you know how I get about her?”
“Reacting? Nigga, when you’re a millionaire you don’t react like this.”
“Look, go by the mall and grab some concealer and that…that powder stuff she uses.” AJ blinks, grabbing the back of his head. “She can cover it. We can tell everybody she…”
He glances around the room.
“Tell them what? Hm?” Blake asks. “That she tripped and fell on your fist? We’re not gonna get lucky and get some fanned-out cop every time you wanna go off and backhand her.”
“Look, you just need to get here. Now. We…we want you to help us,” AJ stammers.
“We?” Blake screams. “We? She has a gun to your head, and she’s asking about the NDA! There is no ‘we’! Open your eyes, you idiot! None of this is for your benefit.”
AJ’s eyes flicker up to mine, and a bead of sweat rolls down his forehead.
“You’ve completely lost control of a situation you told me you could always control!” Blake hollers. “You said you had her under control! This don’t look like the case to me, playboy!”
AJ’s eyes rake across my hot face. “Is that true, Lovie?”
“Is what true?”
“You don’t really want to fix us?”
I push the gun deeper into his head at the sound of “us” coming out of his mouth.
“It’s that dude, huh? You let him come between us.”
“There was nothing for him to come between.”
“What the fuck do you mean? We were in love! I love you! My family loves you! You know all of my secrets, my fears, my…my weaknesses. How can you do this to me?”
He scoffs, then jerks his arm up, and I strike his mouth with the gun. He blubbers out an agonizing scream.
“Shut up.” I breathe out as blood gushes from his mouth. “I’m so tired of hearing about you. Everything is always about you! What about me? What about what I’ve been through? Wha—”
“That’s enough! What do you want, Lovie? How can we make this go away? How can we make you go away?” Blake asks.
“I want money.”
“Money? Okay, what? Ten thousand, the AC unit, and punching bags for your uncle. Then you sign and leave. Done!”
“Blake don’t insult me.”
“Okay, fuck it. Fifteen thousand and the bullshit for the gym?”
“What would I want with an industrial AC unit and punching bags? My name isn’t on that gym.” I scoff. “And fifteen thousand dollars? That’s pocket change for him, and you know it.”
“So what the fuck do you want then?”
“Three million, no NDA, and I’ll go away for good.”
He sputters out a loud, “Fuck no!”
An angry laugh bursts out of me. “You’re funny, Blake. Really, really funny. But I mean that’s all men are good for, right? A good joke.”
“And I’ll be that because we’re not giving you three million and letting you run off without signing that NDA. You’re out your rabid ass mind.”
Another warm trickle of blood glides over my lips and falls into my mouth.