2. Shaun Smith
TWO
shaun smith
THE NEXT EVENING . . .
I clutched the hotel phone, listening as Daylin’s office phone trilled. I was scared to call her cellphone in case that off-kilter ass nigga had her shit tapped or something.
I wasn’t usually scared of anything or anyone, but that Rakim nigga was weird. And after the way his punch sent me to the ER in need of stitches from severing my tongue with my teeth, I wasn’t trying to have smoke with him directly.
My injury was no surprise considering he used to be a professional fucking boxer—something I only recently learned—but after looking into his ass a little bit more, I found out he ran a damn boxing gym and bread distribution company, confusing me on why the muthafucka was so criminally violent.
But as I delved deeper into my fucking searches last night, I came upon an article explaining why the nigga stopped boxing, and it was due to catching a murder charge.
Now, his behavior made fucking sense. He wasn’t just criminally violent; he was a criminal.
“Hello?” My girl picked up her office phone, sounding as sweet as ever. I’d missed her ass more than I ever thought I would.
“Hey, boo.” I grinned, and when she paused like she had to remember who the fuck this was, I immediately began frowning.
“Hey, Shaun.”
“Not boo? Just Shaun?”
Chuckling sort of uncomfortably, she replied, “Sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, I know you came back to a lot after being held by that fucking psycho. I wish I was in town when he let you go,” I said, trying to test her temperature on how she felt about the situation and Rakim. Again, she went mute. Clearing my throat, I asked, “How are you, boo?”
“I’m fine. Um, what time do you land again? Should I pick you up?”
“Nah, Morris will.” I scratched at my jaw, at a loss for words at how she was acting toward me.
This wasn’t my Daylin. And though she’d requested a break prior to being kidnapped, I’d assumed that after dealing with such a horrifying event, her mind would change, realizing how good of a man I was.
The biggest wakeup call would forever be almost losing your life or being in a dangerous situation.
“Alright, well we should meet the next morning so that I can talk to you.”
“About what?” I snickered skittishly. “Progressing our relationship?”
“The conversation I wanted to have before I went away, Shaun.”
She didn’t call me boo or babe yet again. I rarely heard my name from Daylin unless we were fucking arguing.
“Aight, well I love you, boo.”
“See you soon.”
“Damn, I can’t get told ‘I love you’ back?” I chuckled to soften the blow and lighten the sour ass mood of this call. “You really don’t love me no more?”
Had that nigga truly gotten in her head? I’d heard of shit where hostages got attached to their kidnappers and shit, but I thought that was for weak ass females, . . . not ones like Daylin.
“Shaun, stop. See you Thursday morning.” She hung up, skipping right past my fucking inquiry.
Putting the phone back down in the cradle to hang it up, I sat there muddling through my thoughts and trying to understand what the fuck was actually going on.
On one hand, I was wise and knew what battles to pick or leave alone, and any nigga that could make me almost bite my fucking tongue off with an uppercut wasn’t really a nigga I was trying to compete with.
Same time, I loved Daylin with everything in me and had mapped our lives out to the point where I wasn’t even sure life was worth living if she wasn’t with me.
“Did you hear me?” Morgin collapsed onto the bed, whatever bodywash she’d used in the shower peppering the air around me.
“Nah. What you say?” I looked over my shoulder at her laid out, wearing the hotel’s robe.
I’d told Daylin I wouldn’t be back for a couple more days, even though I came in today because I needed to spend some time with Morgin. Aside from her gold digging and ghetto tendencies, she had good pussy and was a freak.
Initially, I felt bad for cheating on Daylin and with her assistant, but then again, this was all her fucking fault. How she expected a grown ass man to abstain from sex was wild to me.
I tried not to fall into this bitch, I truly did, but after Morgin kept making eyes at a nigga and eventually slid in my DMs on social media, I fell victim to her shit.
She was beautiful too—light skinned, fat ass, hips, pretty face, and rare ass blue eyes she claimed to have gotten from her grandfather—so it wasn’t as if I’d stumbled into some shit with an ugly bitch like most niggas. Still, she wasn’t Daylin.
Daylin had all she did in the looks department, but the way she carried herself spoke volumes. Not to mention she was a hustler and successful, so I knew she would make an amazing wife.
Only complaint I had about her other than the sex was how she got out of pocket on occasion.
She could be disrespectful and demeaning, emasculating a nigga to no end.
That was the one thing Morgin had up on her.
The latter respected me for the most part and acted as if I were a catch, whereas Daylin made it obvious a nigga was disposable.
“I said I’m hungry. You told me after we fucked, we could get some room service. I want steak.” Morgin pouted, rubbing up and down my bare shoulder.
“Aight, I got you.” I picked up the menu, listening to her squeal with excitement. I loved that it didn’t take much to impress a bitch like Morgin. After ordering us both some food to the room, along with dessert and drinks, I said, “Aye, you be keeping our shit on the low, right?”
“Of course.” She frowned. “I been fucking you for almost two years and no one knows, right?”
“Right.” I ran a hand down my fade in contemplation. “You don’t be dropping hints or nothing, right? Not even recently?”
“Shaun. No. What the hell is this about? Why would I mess up all that you do for me by telling her?”
She was right. I paid Morgin’s bills and allowed her to use the money she made working for my girl as play money. However, she wouldn’t be the first stupid ass kept bitch that didn’t play her role wisely.
“I don’t know, man. Daylin been acting weird, even before she . . . left. I just spoke to her on the phone while you was in the shower, and she was dry as fuck.”
I refused to believe Rakim had Daylin so wrapped up in him over a matter of a couple months, when I’d been with her for three years. Yeah, she may have fallen for some shit while in captivity, but by now, whatever spell he’d cast on her should’ve been lifted.
“Weelllll . . .” Morgin sat up on the edge of the bed beside me, making me look her way with bated breath. “A foine ass nigga did come in and bring her some roses, food, and I think some money because he was carrying a Bank of America bank bag, and when he left, he no longer had it.”
“The fuck,” I mumbled, already knowing exactly who that was.
This shit was real. I’d lost my woman and to a muthafucka that kidnapped her. What kind of shit was this? When muthafuckas said nice guys finished last, they meant that shit.
Here I was damn near kissing the fucking ground she walked on when, clearly, I should’ve been hiding in her closet preparing to sack her ass and transport her to a remote location for holding. ’Cause while Rakim was getting her love, I was getting told she needed a break and dry ass phone calls.
“She swears she went away for a family emergency, but what family does she have that isn’t her damn parents and siblings?
I have never heard this girl mention anyone but them, and now all of a sudden, she’s gone for months for family?
” Morgin scoffed, shaking her head. “She clearly met that rich nigga and ran off with him for a little bae-cay.”
“So you ain’t recognize him?” I asked as one last-ditch effort, hoping it wasn’t Rakim that Morgin saw. Another nigga, I could compete with.
“I did. He’s that nigga that used to box. Rakim Godfrey. You probably won’t remember since he ain’t been in the ring in forever.”
“How the hell you remember him?”
“Well, I went to a party with Daylin, and he came. She looked his name up, and then when he came to bring her food, he told me his name again, so it’s fresh.” She shrugged one shoulder as if we weren’t discussing the love of my life being with another nigga.
“Party?” I frowned, befuddled. “She started fucking him at some party and you ain’t say shit?”
“No! We just saw him, and she looked him up because I kept calling him a name. And why the fuck do you care this much! If you loved her so, you wouldn’t be fucking me!” She stood from the bed.
Joining her ascension, I hollered, “I told yo’ ass from jump I just wanted to fuck! Calm yo’ ass down ’fore I skip out on that fucking rent money!”
“Do that and I’ll be on the phone first thing, sending Daylin plenty of evidence as to where you are when you claim to be working.” Morgin hiked a brow.
“Stupid bitch.” I stepped away, knowing it was best I shake off the itch to slap the shit out of her ass.
“Since we’re on the subject of evidence and funds, I’m pregnant,” she threw out nonchalantly.
I spun around so promptly that I low-key got whiplash.
“By who?”
“You, negro! And don’t act surprised! I told you I wasn’t on any birth control or anything, and you was still sliding up inside this raw!”
“Shut up!” I growled, feeling like I was losing my fucking mind. This was too much at once.
From Daylin possibly leaving me for another nigga to Morgin being pregnant, my life had turned to shambles in a matter of fucking days.
I couldn’t have a baby with Morgin. The thought made me wonder if Daylin broke her celibacy for that nigga.
Only time a muthafucka went as hard as he was, was when he got some pussy.
All this shit journeying through my head gave me a pounding ass headache.
“Ooh! The food is here!” Morgin pranced to get the door, giggling with the hotel worker while I was going through it.