day one, june 24th
I couldn’t sleep, so I ran.
From what I wasn’t sure.
Shit, yes, I was. Skye fine ass fuckin Campbell.
Infinity Island at four in the morning couldn’t touch her.
It was still dark out, but the warmth hadn’t let up. My feet found the ground, and my lungs found the air, and for the first time since that beach dinner, I stopped thinking and just moved.
I was breathing easy for the first time in weeks, and all it did was remind me how long I’d gone without her air.
My phone buzzed somewhere around mile two. It was Devon. I glanced at my watch to read the text without breaking my stride.
D: Call me when you’re up. It’s Bianca again.
I was over her shit. She had been talking since the engagement ended, which was her right, even if it was a bunch of bullshit.
The arrangement had been understood by both of us from the start, something our families wanted, something neither of us had pushed back on.
It worked fine until it didn’t. She started wanting a real husband out of it.
I couldn’t give her that; that promise already belonged to someone else.
Or maybe she had always wanted more. If I thought back to it, she’d moved to Upland to take over her father’s firm the same season I took over mine, and I’d read it as two heirs taking their seats.
Our fathers being best friends never made a difference to me.
It never made me feel I owed her anything, least of all love.
I hated that anyone thought it did. I’d only tolerated her, same as everyone else did.
But tolerating her got harder the more she wanted.
More parties I had to show up to on her arm.
More calls I had to take just to keep the peace.
More of her popping up places she had no business being, all while I was already running myself into the ground at the firm.
My body started keeping score even when I wasn’t.
When I took the Mudd case, everything shifted.
Spending real time with him meant spending it with his people, and that’s where Bianca couldn’t hide what she was.
We’d broken bread with the man and his family.
She’d call his wife a friend at the mall, then call Mudd a thug behind his back.
All smiles in a selfie with rappers, then sick over how it looked for me to be “defending trash.”
She was starting to sound too much like Ruben in a wig and lipstick.
Me: Devon, I don’t have shit to say. I just won the biggest case of my life. If she wanna spiral in front of mixed company, let her. Paperwork doesn’t lie.
D: I hope you know what you are doing. She’s calling me nonstop for your location. She said she has something important to tell you.
I hadn’t expected her reaction and didn’t fully understand it, because none of this was ever real. We’d never even slept together, hardly lived together. We vacationed, did dinner, showed up together to give people breadcrumbs, and it seemed those same crumbs went to her head.
She’d bring up Skye sometimes, out of nowhere, never by name, always some version of “the project still has your heart” or “encouraging me to let my puppy love go.” I never fed into that shit.
There wasn’t a single thing she could say to move Skye out of the space she’d been sitting in since college.
After two more miles and more running through all the ways I couldn’t fuck this up, I received a call from my father. I was tempted to ignore it, but as I stepped into my villa, I answered.
“Yeah.”
“You see the articles. Bianca is not going away easily.”
“I heard about them, not really interested in seeing the shit.”
“Ducane, this is a mess. She’s talking to everyone.”
“I know, and if you were confused, I don’t give a fuck.”
“Son, Congratulations on your success, but appearances are still just that. We have a name to protect. This is messy.”
“Pops.” I kept my breathing even. “You and Mama picked Bianca. Whatever she’s doing right now, that’s your mess to manage. You know what your best friend raised.”
Silence.
“Is that all you called for?”
“Yeah, your mother is hellbent on defying me and going against my wishes. If you really want to–”
I hung up and hit the shower. I wasn’t tryna hear that shit. I’d earned everything I had, sacrificed, and some more shit. My grandfather had left me all his shares of the law firm, and my mother had forfeited hers to me as well. Ruben couldn’t tell me shit now.
I wished I could say it was worth it, and on most days it was.
I had been blessed, become wealthy, and made a name for myself.
But it was all at the expense of losing Skye.
I’d never forgive my people for that; it didn’t matter how many shares they gave me.
They’d robbed me, and I was owed this shit.
This shoulda been Skye and me on some couple shit sliding to an island to celebrate our success, and instead Skye was somewhere on this island right now, unsure about me.
She wasn’t ready to say yes. She wasn’t saying no either.
And being in limbo wasn’t good for me.
By the time I dressed, the decision was already made. I wasn’t going to sit in my villa and wait for noon to take her away from me. I had done enough waiting. Years of waiting.
I called the resort kitchen. Ordered what I knew she liked without thinking, which told me everything about how deeply this woman still lived in me. Then I got Lola to handle the rebooking before the food was ready.
I picked up the tray and walked to her villa in the early morning light, with five days mapped out on my phone and no guarantee she would let me in.
I knocked anyway.
She opened the door in a sleep shirt with her curls everywhere and one eye barely open. She looked at the tray. Then at me.
“Dukeeee, it’s seven in the morning. No way you’re still such an early riser.”
“Seven fifteen.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not getting on that plane.” I held the tray up. “I brought breakfast.”
She looked at me. Then stepped back and held the door open.
“You just couldn’t trust me to stay on my own, could you?” Lips pursed, trying to look annoyed, not quite getting there.
“Skye, don’t get on that bullshit this morning.” I set the tray down and looked at her. “I said what I needed to say. What’s up? You staying or what?”
She looked at the tray. Then at the window. Then back at me with those brown eyes I loved so much, she wanted to fight me, but Skye knew how far she could push me.
“Let me shower first.”
She walked toward the outdoor shower without waiting for a response. I stood in the middle of her villa, understanding that I had just gotten my answer.
The terrace wrapped around the side of the villa where the shower sat open to the morning light. Steam kept most of her hidden and showed just enough to be a problem. A shoulder. Water running down her back. Her hands in her hair. I looked longer than I had any right to.
I turned toward the water and made myself stare at the horizon instead. She hadn’t given me that part of her back yet, and I wasn’t about to take it.
Then the noises started.
Soft at first. Then a little louder. Heat crawled up the back of my neck before my brain caught up to what I was hearing. A man can’t catch a sound like that coming from behind the steam and just stand there.
Then she moaned my name, long and drawn out, a sound I hadn’t heard aimed at me in seven years. Every rule I had about giving her space walked right out of my head. I was across that terrace before I finished the thought.
She was standing there under the water with her head back, laughing before I even got words out.
“Really?”
“What?” She wiped water from her face, still laughing. “My shoulders were tight.”
“Skye...” I shook my head. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“And you came running, didn’t you?” She pointed at me. “Some things never change.”
“You are so childish, bruh. Why you playing?” I laughed, rubbing my neck.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She reached for her towel without a hint of shame. “Hand me that robe.”
I handed it to her because that’s just how easy things were between us now. We’d slipped back into our rhythm without either of us trying. I wasn’t mad about it. She came out onto the terrace with her hair up and sat across from me at the breakfast table.
She scooted closer and made her plate. I sat back down and did the same. She grinned at me, showing all her teeth.
“Are you willing to beg?” she asked, sliding her French-tipped toes in my lap. I grabbed her foot.
“Nah, no begging, Mrs. Simmons,” I said, locking eyes with her. She held my gaze and grinned, wide-eyed, caught. I placed a soft kiss on the heel of her foot, then another. “So, what’s it going to be, Spot?”
“What’s in it for me, Ducane? I can afford my own trips. I can treat myself to nice clothes.”
Her eyes rolled, but she kept it cute. She didn’t need my free trip to the island or my money. We both knew it. I’d made her promises before. Talk came easy to a man who did it for a living. It was standing behind the words after, day after day, that I’d been praying I was ready for.
“Everything I should’ve given you the first time,” I said. “I’m not going to tell you I got it all figured out. But I’m not running, and I’m not letting them pick for me again. That’s what’s in it for you. Me, all the way, this time.”
She searched my face, trying to read me.
“Fine, I’ll stay.”
MB: Shops open.
“Skye, I gotta step out for a second. Eat breakfast, get dressed, and give me an hour or two. Cool?”
“Yeah, are we exploring?”
“Is that what you want to do?”
She nodded.
“Let me hear you say it, Skye.”
“Yes. It’s what I want, Ducane,” she said, biting the corner of her lip. “You aren’t playing fair, and I’m going to remember that.”
I laughed low before kissing her forehead and heading out to meet my boy, Myheir Blackwell. She had no idea I was about to spend every day left of this trip winning her back. She was going to feel every one of them.
Myheir was already on the terrace of his suite when I got there, feet up. He stood when he saw me coming, and we dapped up.
“Simmons.” He handed me a Cuban without being asked and sat back down. “Congrats on the Mudd case. If I ever need you, nigga, you better pull up for me. Same way.”
“Preciate that. That shit changed everything. And the way you pull up for business, I’ll do that shit for free.”
“My nigga.”
I clipped, lit, and let the first pull settle. The island and its guests were waking up around us, and I had a whole day ahead of me with Skye, but I needed to handle this first. An apology alone wasn’t enough. This had to cost me something real, or it wasn’t worth saying or doing at all.
“Okay, peep. I’m looking for some fly ass shit for my lady.”
He took a pull off his Cuban and looked at me. “What’s the occasion?”
“I need an expensive apology, take a nigga back type of shit. I’m willing to pay whatever.”
“The one you never got over? Or somebody new?”
I looked at him because calling her my ex was never happening. There was nothing about us x’d out. From this moment on, I’d be chasing and gunning for Skye until our Heavenly Father returned to collect my black ass.
“Oh, you on some as soon as possible type shit?” He stood and headed inside. Came back out with two locked briefcases and placed them on the table.
I rubbed my hands together. I’d run this moment in my head a hundred times.
Myheir leaned back. “Tell me about her.”
I thought about where to start and started where it was true.
“She’s the realest one in any room, no cosign needed.
” I turned my glass in my hand. “I call her Spot. The birthmark at her temple was the first thing I noticed about her when we met in college. White cutting right through the dark. I couldn’t take my eyes off it then, still can’t.
” I sat with that for a second, thinking about us.
“She’s smart, encouraging, true to herself.
” I paused. “Skye is one of a kind. The ring must be as well.”
Myheir opened both cases on the table between us. Rows of stones and settings most people never got to see outside a vault. He looked through without rushing, which I appreciated about him. He was a man of his craft.
He pulled one out and held it up to the light.
It was pear-shaped, warm white with a faint champagne undertone, set on a gold band with intricate detailing, with two smaller stones flanking it. Unique. Simple. Specific. My Skye.
“The center stone has a natural inclusion.” He turned it so I could see. A small dark thread running through the white. “Most jewelers grade it down. I kept it because it makes the stone one of a kind. If that’s your girl, this says that.”
He handed it to me with a loupe.
“See for yourself.”
I held it up, and the stone caught the light, and I already knew before I'd even focused the lens. It was exactly what I came for.
“Nigga, this is nice. Perfect. What’s it going to cost me?”
He named the number. I didn’t even flinch, shit was pocket change after the week I’d had.
“I know you got it after winning the Mudd case,” he said, grinning. “I’ll even throw in a band for you.”
I reached into the bag beside me and stacked the cash on the table.
“Wrap that shit up. It’s a deal.”
We dapped and embraced. He wished me luck, and I headed out with the ring in my pocket and the whole day ahead of me.