CHAPTER FIVE
Ezekiel
He hadn’t known that woman for more than a couple of hours and already she was lying and breaking fucking promises. What the hell was she doing riding around with the kit when he knew for a fact she’d had plenty of time to get rid of it like she promised to do.
“Hey,” Zeek called out, in lieu of greeting as he walked into Destiny’s shop. “You finally get that book I ordered.”
“I know damn well you’re not coming into my place acting like you ain’t got better sense than you do, Ezekiel Evers. You better get right with God and the devil or I’ll toss you right out of here.”
He stilled, face frozen into a scowl.
Turning, he walked back out the door and paced in front of the building, fists balled, and muttering about the audacity of beautiful women, who acted like he wasn’t somebody good enough to keep their word to.
No fucking way, no fucking way he’d be manipulated by a lying woman again, he thought, temper rising.
Stopping abruptly, he lifted the waistband of his pants as if they’d been sagging then adjusted his feet and raised his fists as if he was about to fight. Rolling his shoulders, he nodded, inching forward as if approaching an enemy combatant.
“Ezekiel! Calm yo’ crazy ass down and get in here!” Dee yelled from her door.
Dropping his fists, Zeek stilled. Looking up, he saw that people had made a wide berth around him. Some paused and looked around as if determining the safest place to go to avoid becoming an innocent bystander to his displaced anger.
Standing upright, he nodded at no one in particular. “Sorry y’all.”
“No apologies needed, son,” Mr. Joffrey said, patting Zeek’s shoulder as he and his wife walked by. “You been doing real good these days. Your mama would be proud to see it.”
Zeek walked back into the store and remained silent until he’d corralled his emotions enough to speak without being ruled by his emotions.
“I wasn’t about to hurt nobody,” he eventually said. “I got overwhelmed, had to shake it off.”
“And did you? Shake it off?”
He sat on the barstool at the end of the counter, nodding.
“You, my mama, Anna, a couple others, we get on real good. But Destiny, me and the women I get into relationships with... It’s like they know just the right thing to do to light this fuse in me and...” He shook his head and sighed. “Let me get a black coffee with chicory, please.”
“If you’re this agitated so early in the day I’m going to assume Maribelle found you,” Destiny said.
He frowned. “Maribelle? What the fuck I care about Maribelle? She could be bleeding out at my fucking feet and the most I would do is toss her a Band-Aid before walking over her manipulative, deceitful ass. What the hell Maribelle got to do with anything?” he snapped, feeling his anger rise again.
“Apparently, nothing.” Destiny chuckled then greeted a group of tweens who entered the shop, making their way toward the books in the back.
“I remember one day when you were like seven or eight. You were on a rip because you didn’t want to go on a weekend trip with your family to Orlando for Edgar’s birthday.”
“In my defense, I’d gone to that damn theme park multiple times a year since I was three, and I hate theme parks.”
“Your parents asked me to babysit you at y’alls house from Friday to Sunday night. I thought I was rich when they paid me a hundred and fifty dollars.” She laughed and he smiled. “When they all left and you were still crying and screaming, you remember what I did?”
He scoffed. “You sat on me.”
Destiny was family. She’d been his sister’s best friend since the two were babies. Being seven years older than him, Destiny had been a teen back then, more lanky than she was now, but as strong as most full-grown men he knew; even back then.
Destiny nodded. “I sat on you until you calmed down and politely asked me to get off you because you couldn’t breathe.
You had one incident later that weekend and I sat on you again, and within minutes you calmed right down.
When you got too big for me to sit on, I got you in a headlock and wrapped my legs around you and almost instantly you settled.
And when you were too big for all that, what did I do? ”
“Wrapped your arms around me and hugged me.”
“Right. Because what I learned early on was that your emotions were just so big you couldn’t hold them, and when they got that big, you usually didn’t have the right words to appropriately express them.
Your mama’s tears, and pleas, and bartering; your daddy’s whoopings and yelling, that only made things worse.
” She set the cup of coffee on a saucer and slid it toward him.
“You feel things so much deeper than most folks, Zeek. When you add your heart to the equation—on top of your horrendous choice in girlfriends—it’d be hard for you stay in control when that’s the very thing they wanted you to lose. You always liked them wild ass women.”
“Maybe I was looking for a woman like you. I don’t see why you can’t just divorce King and marry me,” he muttered before swallowing a mouthful of coffee.
She laughed and he smiled again.
“I’ll tell King you finally talked me into divorcing him then.”
“Please don’t.”
In his opinion, King was as crazy as they came; because of nothing more than the fact that the man just loved to fight. Especially over Destiny.
“In that case, I’ll just say this: look for someone who knows when to hold you instead of fight with you, who wants to do for you as much as you do for her. And make sure she smells right, Zeek.”
He frowned at that last part.
“You got somebody in mind?”
Though St. Cloud was growing, he could confidently say there wasn’t a woman around here who’d fit that bill. His mind tried to whisper that there might be one, but he ignored it.
“Actually,” Destiny said, a faraway look settling in her eyes. “There is a woman I have in mind. Come to open mic karaoke tonight. She’ll be here.”
That smirk that danced at the edge of Destiny’s mouth usually meant trouble.
He drank his coffee and stood, feeling lighter than he had all morning.
“There ain’t a level of trouble I’ll run away from amiga, and you know this. Whoever this woman is...” He shrugged. “You better warn her, or you better be ready to pick up the pieces. And to be clear, those pieces won’t be mine. Que vaya bien.”
“You take care as well. And come with an open heart tonight, Zeek, an open mind. Trust me.”
He trusted her.
But when it came to setting him up...well he’d just have to wait and see.