What’s Next
Sneak Peek
There was a list of things in life that Heavy didn’t play about: his family, his money, his respect, and his mothafuckin’ feelings. At this current moment, he was wearing them on his sleeve and didn’t care how he looked, as he waited for a response from Nia.
“I’m sorry. You need what up off me?” Nia’s head reared back as she questioned him with much more attitude than she’d ever given him.
Dialing it back some, Heavy exhaled, remembering who he was talking to. Nia wasn’t his homegirl, nor was she someone to play with, especially not when it came to her niece. Like him, she didn’t play about her family either.
“Her address. You know I’m not trying to come at you disrespectfully, but I’m saying… you gotta let me know where she is,” Heavy rephrased.
“I can’t do that,” Nia said.
“C’mon, Mama Nia. You and I both know she’s on some bullshit right now,” Heavy fussed.
“It’s only bullshit to you because you don’t like the consequences of your actions.”
Heavy frowned. “You taking sides without knowing all the details.”
“No,” Nia denied, “I’m keeping my loyalty to Cyren. I love you, Heavy. You know I do, but I can’t give you her address.”
Even more frustrated, Heavy scoffed, running a hand over his face.
He knew that was going to be her answer but he asked anyway.
That didn’t mean he had to like it. It was as if Nia and Cyren wanted him to just sit back and accept her moving.
Before he could say anything else, and try to finesse Cyren’s whereabouts out of her, Nia’s phone rang.
The second she glanced down at her screen and saw who was calling, her entire expression changed.
Heavy noticed it immediately. “That’s her ain’t it?” he questioned.
Nia didn’t answer him. She swiped across the screen and lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hey, baby,” she answered while Heavy stared her dead in the face.
He couldn’t hear exactly what was being said on the other end of the phone, but he heard Cyren’s voice, as the volume on her phone was turned up.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Nia said after Cyren asked if she had told him where she was.
“That’s her, right? Let me speak to her,” Heavy urged.
“Do you want to talk to him?”
Heavy knew she was on the other end sighing her life away, and he surely thought she’d say no, but was surprised when Nia handed him her phone.
“Thank you,” he said graciously before speaking directly to the woman who had him fucked up. “Aye. Hello?”
“Yes?” Cyren questioned.
“What is you on for real? Where you at?” he asked, getting straight to it.
“What happened to you saying you were going to leave me the fuck alone, huh? Isn’t that what you wanted?” Cyren asked.
“No! That’s what you wanted. I want your difficult ass! What you not understanding?”
Cyren squeezed her eyes shut, hating that he raised his voice at her.
“D-Don’t holler at me.” Her voice trembled, betraying the waterworks she was fighting to hold back.
“Man, Pooh,” Heavy groaned, detecting the tears in her voice. “I’m not even hollering. You crying? What is you crying for? You did this shit.”
“No,” she sternly said, clearing her throat and all of those damn feelings, “you did this shit. Whatever the hell it is ‘cause it ain’t love. Clearly.”
“How you gon’ tell me what it ain’t?” Heavy grimaced. “You ain’t the one standing outside of a home you should be at, trying to get some answers.”
“Because a man who loves me wouldn’t have professed his love to me, while out of the country with another bitch.”
Taken aback by her words, Cyren shut him right on up but not for long. Heavy was glad she finally said what the real issue was. He was going to address that, too, but needed to get something else off his chest first.
“Another bitch wouldn’t have been there had you not lied about not being able to get off work,” he countered, peeping the widening of Nia’s eyes.
She was getting an earful, and Heavy seemingly didn’t care that she was now more privy to their business. He wasn’t intentionally putting Cyren on blast, but the tension was high, and she took it there first.
Cyren chuckled in disbelief. “Oh, so now it’s my fault that you’re a sneaky-ass nigga? I didn’t lie!”
“But you ain’t tell the truth either. You been planning to move. This don’t have shit to do with Tish or the life I live. You was looking for a way out, and you got it.”
Cyren swallowed hard, hating how much truth was in his words. She wasn’t about to acknowledge them on his terms, no matter how matter-of-fact he was. She had her truths and lies, and he had his. In her eyes, they were even.
“Okay.” Cyren sighed. “Now what? You said all of that to say what exactly?”
“I ain’t about to sit here and go back and forth with you on your auntie’s phone. Unblock me,” Heavy insisted.
“Nah, I’m good,” Cyren replied coolly.
“Nah, you good?” Heavy reiterated and chuckled before licking his lips. “A’ight, bet. Don’t unblock me then. Just know I’ma see you.”
Cyren laughed in his ear, further pissing him off. “And how do you plan to do that?
“Don’t worry about it, liar,” he said, making her choke on an unexpected laugh.
Heavy caught the tail end of it as he handed Nia back her phone. She stared at him with an unreadable, almost sympathetic expression.
“All good? she asked, knowing that wasn’t the case at all.
Heavy’s head bobbed once. “Yep. I’ll see you later on.” He leaned in and gave her a hug. Heavy might’ve been pissed off with Cyren but Nia hadn’t done anything. It was always going to be love for her.
“Okay. Be safe. Love you,” Nia told him as he walked toward his SUV.
“Love you, too.”
Heavy waited until she was inside before backing out of the driveway. Nia closed and locked the door behind her while shaking her head.
“Auntie, all that jeffing you were doing,” Cyren fussed.
In local KC terminology, jeffing meant she was being fake and overly friendly with someone. In Cyren’s eyes, Heavy was an opp.
“Oh, chile, please. You mad because I can openly admit I love him, and you can’t?”
“Oop,” Nia heard someone in the background quip.
Sucking her teeth, Cyren huffed. “I don’t want to get fussed at twice today. That’s not why I called you.”
“And I never had plans to fuss at you until I heard a bit of his side of the story. I’m sure all this confusion wouldn’t have been an issue had you communicated with him,” Nia suggested.
“So, he couldn’t have told me another woman was going with him out of town, or that she was there? I had to find out through a homegirl of mine,” Cyren said, still somewhat missing the point.
“Yes, he could’ve communicated that as well.
But we both know you had your mind made up about moving way before he went out of town.
At some point, you have to be honest with yourself about how things panned out.
You didn’t even tell me you were moving until a few weeks before.
Both of y’all are wrong in this situation, and you’re fighting against something you don’t want to address.
But that’s just my two cents. Now, what else would you like me to tell him if he comes back by again? ”
Nia wasn’t about to sit on this phone and play with Cyren. Yes, she was trying to figure it all out, but hurting people in the process and causing their young hearts even more confusion and open wounds wasn’t something she was okay with. Wrong was wrong, and she meant that.
Cyren knew Nia was being sarcastic when she asked that question, and she couldn’t blame her. Unintentionally, she placed Nia in the middle of her and Heavy’s drama.
“You don’t have to tell him anything else. Hopefully, he doesn’t come back. Well, at least not for me,” Cyren said.
All Nia did was sigh. Her poor niece hadn’t taken her warning about being careful with her heart and Heavy’s.
Now, she was dealing with the consequences of a runaway, grieving, and broken heart.
Nia was going to let her rearrange and figure out those feelings on her own, but like always, she’d be a call or flight away whenever she needed her.
In her eyes, it was the least she could do, considering she felt mostly responsible for putting her in this predicament in the first place.
Navigating her own grief, Nia felt as if she had dropped the ball in multiple relationships, so she couldn’t fuss at Cyren for putting herself first. Even if it that wasn’t technically the morally correct thing to do.
There was no rulebook for their lives. Just trials and errors.
Grief has a crazy way of coming through, shaking shit up, and leaving the broken pieces to fall where they may.
In this case, one of those pieces was hundreds of miles away, wondering if she’d made the right decision.