Chapter 1
ONE
TWO YEARS LATER
Karys Hill
His eyes were trained on his phone, hoping for an update.
Anything that would verify that Cyanna was coming and sent Damari ahead of her.
Nothing. No reply to any of the dozen texts he’d sent.
No calls answered or returned. Just silence from her and an overly excited Damari.
It was a playoff match. The Los Oceania Bobcats hadn’t been on this stage since the inception of their team.
Karys was hoping to celebrate the win with her and the plus one.
Damari just happened to be her husband, his college roommate that made the move on her before Karys could get to her.
It was a snake move. Even if Damari didn’t know the extent of how Karys felt, he knew it was something and had to stick the landing before him.
“Karys, what’s good nigga!” Damari shouted, as he exited the Sprinter van. Damari’s exit was followed with a few more guys from college and their spouses but no Cyanna.
Karys threw him in a head nod before shooting another text to Cyanna.
K: don’t make me pull up on you
A threat that wasn’t idle. He would and he had.
She’d done this a year ago and he caught the first flight and pulled up on her at the house she shared with Damari.
He was away on a work trip, and Cyanna was buried under building contracts and proposals.
That soothed Karys’ feeling that something wasn’t right.
Even though, there was no way of telling unless she said it.
Forcing her to talk had always be a sure-fire way of making her go into a vault.
“Where’s Cyanna?” Karys asked, brows furrowed, looking over at Damari, whose wandering eye wasn’t a secret anymore. “She’s not answering my calls.”
Damari shrugged as if not having his wife with him this weekend was like leaving unwanted baggage at home. That mere gesture disgusted Karys. Cyanna was the type of woman to make a man better, not one that added unbearable weight on him. If that was how Damari viewed her, it was by his own doing.
“I don’t know,” Damari passively said, eyes wandering behind a woman passing by. “She ain’t talking to me.”
Karys’ frown deepened. “Fuck you mean she ain’t talkin’ to you? That’s your wife, nigga.”
“And my wife ain’t talkin’ to me. My wife ain’t fuckin’ with me or fucking me,” Damari spoke, letting out a disgruntled breath. “I mean, it’s been six months since the miscarriage. She should be over it by now.”
That was news to him. News that forced a visceral wave of anger over him. Not that Cyanna didn’t tell him – that she didn’t call. That she kept it locked away and her husband was standing here like that type of loss was something she should be over.
“What you mean, miscarriage?” Karys asked as if he were hard of hearing and understanding. He was frustrated, vigorously rubbing his forehead, fighting with himself not to fly back home and do what he should’ve been doing, checking in with her regularly.
Life had just – sent him swimming. Sent them swimming.
He tried respecting the space of her marriage.
He tried occupying himself and his time with relationships of his own.
Well, he tried. No one got him. It was the charm they were blinded by and the stardom that sometimes shined brighter than him.
The only one who’d ever been able to see through all of that was her.
In the past two years, he’d seen her a handful of times and their conversations were always on limits.
She’d tease him about the new girl on his arm.
He’d tease her about spending more time with her blueprints than she did with Damari.
Now, he got why she was buried in blueprints.
She was attempting to self-soothe. A horrible habit she picked up when loss and grief held her captive in a vice grip.
“I mean we had an agreement,” Damari shared, as if he were talking to his homeboy and not the defender of Cyanna’s honor.
Though, in the moment, Karys felt like he’d failed her.
“We were going to wait to have kids and bam, she pregnant and excited about it. I just made partner at my firm. We had an agreement, man. A few years to sort out this marriage shit, her firm, me making partner. Maybe one kid. That was the agreement. I wasn’t ready for no kid, man. ”
Karys turned to him, ignoring the hustle and bustle of hotel guests and people on the street. “Do you hear yourself, nigga? Huh? That was your kid she was carrying. You a fuckin’ piece of work.”
Karys threw his hands up and pivoted into the hotel. He was back to calling Cyanna, back-to-back until she answered. She didn’t answer until he was in his hotel room; sneakers kicked off in frustration.
“Karys, I’m putting out fires. What’s up?” she asked, sounding like she was in the whiplash of building a company from the ground up.
“Why the fuck aren’t you here?” Karys’ voice came out harsher than he wanted it to. “What’s going on and be real with me.”
Cyanna inhaled deeply and then pushed it out. “I’m – I’m fine. I’m just busy, K. I wanted to come this weekend but I’m in the final walk-through of this house.”
“So we don’t talk to each other?” Karys pressed. “You don’t tell me what’s up? You called me six months ago. I knew something-”
“Karys, please,” Cyanna blew. “You have a match. I have this really naggy ass client. We’ll talk about it later, I promise. I just-” she paused. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Aight,” Karys conceded. “Don’t make me pull up on you. I’m serious, Cyanna. You know I’ll do it.”
She pulled in a sharp inhale. “I know.”
“Cyanna, I-”
“I know. Have a good match,” she commented lowly.
“What am I supposed to do with this nigga you sent up here?”
“He’s your friend,” Cyanna huffed. “Do whatever it is y’all have done for the last two years when y’all kick it.”
The issue with that was that this was the first time Damari and Karys had been in the same spot. Another penalty.
“I got to go, Karys. Don’t get ejected this time, yeah?” Cyanna tossed before hanging up.