She went back to staring over the rail. “Jahlil, I want to see how far you can fly. Even if it’s without me.”
“It won’t be with anyone else though, E.”
She buzzed. “You’re going to be amazing.”
Jahlil swallowed the painful lump in his throat and nodded. “You are too.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said with a sigh before unfolding her arms. “Give Andrew a hug for me.”
“You not staying?” Jahlil asked, pointing over his shoulder to the crew at the door listening.
She shook her head. “I can’t take it. And I know it’s selfish but if I stay, I’ll make your moment more about me so, I love you. I wish you the best. I’ll be watching.”
Jahlil licked his lips to cool the desire to cry, run behind her and sell her the dream again. But that dream was his and her dream was in his shadow. He watched her walk away from him. “I’m coming back for you. You’ll always be mine, E.”
She looked over her shoulder, offering him that warmth one final time.
“Go fly.”
1 /EMANI
Now
“I don’t knowhow to feel, Micah,” Ryan Jones from SportsTalk commented from the mounted TV across the room. “Jahlil Savage and his team declined Los Oceania in the draft seven years ago and now he makes a knee jerk decision to come back because Ocean City lost in the playoffs last year. TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE SEASON STARTS?!”
Micah Rhodes, a retired NBA player from Majestic Heights chuckled. “I think it was his decision to make. Seven years in the league, one of the best players we’ve seen. He reserves the right to chase the ring. And doing it in his hometown isn’t a bad choice.”
“N-n-now, Ryan!” Angelo Stephens chimed in. “I don’t agree with you often but the boy made a punk move!”
“You can’t call Jahlil Savage, the best forward in the game right now, a boy,” Micah spoke. “I played with him, he’s all beast.”
“If he wanted a ring for L.O., he could’ve done that when Brody was the owner of the Crystal Ball. Comin’ back now, a punk move made by a boy!” Angelo spoke, doubling down.
Emani sighed, looking back at her phone as her hair stylists whipped her mane into shape. The news about Jahlil coming back to the west coast had her mind and home in a frenzy since yesterday. All the dreams she thought were tarnished after the first year of him being gone were back and on replay on a highlight reel. She tossed and turned, woke up to her boyfriend glaring at her. Malik had paced the floor on the phone with the front office trying to block Jahlil’s trade. Emani hadn’t paid attention to it because Jahlil was married. And had been with the love of his life since he planted his feet in the sand of Ocean City. One minute there was a gut-wrenching goodbye, a congratulations text that was left on read when he was drafted in the first round and then there was a girlfriend, and then fiancé, child’s mother and a wife. Malik was worried about someone that Emani no longer had any rights to.
Promises be damned.
“Every morning you listen to this, for what?” the hairstylist, Derrick, asked as Emani’s main stylist rushed into the room. “About time you showed up.”
“My bad, my sitter was late,” Joanna buzzed. “How are we doing the hair?”
“Updo, the 90’s look with loose curls. It’s going to be a vibe,” Derrick spoke, running the hot comb through Emani’s blown-out, waist-length hair.
“Jo, I told you to bring my godbaby when the sitter is tripping. I don’t mind him running around the set.”
Joanna huffed, swiping her face, the shine from the diamonds on the tennis bracelet catching Emani’s eye but she didn’t think anything of it. “I know. I know. Even though we’re locked in, I still want to be a professional. And his ass is bad, E. You know that.”
“He’s busy. Not bad.”
“You’re the only one he listens to,” Joanna replied, moving over to the rack of preselected lingerie pieces. Emani was in the middle of recording an album, launching her lingerie brand, and doing promo for a TV show she’d just wrapped. Booked and busy was an understatement. Outside of what the public knew about – and what Malik knew about, she had several businesses with her college friends.
Donnée oversaw all of her business deals and contracts, Carson and Ashton found and managed investments, and Kyrie was the plug for all of the deals. While he, Carson, and Ashton all managed some part of Jahlil’s life, they did the same for Emani. From the collective of the groups’ standpoint, minus Jahlil, it was important to protect Emani while she swam in the sea of sharks. The entertainment business was ruthless but they weren’t going to eat her alive.
Emani laughed softly. “I’ve been told I have the Midas touch when it comes to kids.”
“And yet you haven’t given Malik a kid yet,” Derrick stated as Sandi walked in.
Joanna grunted. “That body cannot be swollen with a baby.”
