“Not right now,” she hissed. “I don’t have time for the tears.”
The nights of fighting with Malik she tried to shake off were putting her back on the floor of her aunt’s living room. Donnée curled on the couch in tears, Emani on the floor trying to play it tough. Fact of the matter, a grown man accusing two teenage girls of trying to seduce him wasn’t anything to be tough about. It was bullshit. The fact her aunt believed him and called them every whore in the book was disgusting. Life on the streets with the Azul Hearts was easier than living there.
A plan was made that night. They’d get out of that house and never look back. They did.
Emani swiped a tear and breathed through it. “Come on, stop. Please stop.”
“You still talking to yourself after all these years?” Jahlil’s voice graced her ears like a sour fruit to her tongue and a warm blanket around her body.
Her body snapped back into what it was trained to do, perform. “You got the key?”
“Yeah,” he said, dangling it in the air before moving toward the door to unlock it for her.
“I’ll take those. Thanks.” She walked past him, taking them from his massive hand and quickly withdrawing before she could feel that jolt.Too late.
“You want me to stay?”
“The answer is no but you’re going to do what you want,” she sassed.
“Glad you know. D is probably going to be out all night.”
Emani refused to look at him in the bright light of the foyer as she climbed the stairs. “I can stay by myself. I told you I don’t need you.”
He grunted. “A seven year old lie, E. You’ll always need me.”
“Jahlil, don’t piss me off, okay?” Emani snapped, shooting him a heated glare. She found his arrogant smirk. The need to smother it with her straddling his face buzzed through her. “I can’t stand your ass. Lock the door when you leave.”
Jahlil muttered something else she refused to make out. It was late and this was going to be the first night she slept without Malik and his bullshit. At least she thought she was going to sleep. The tears were back and sleep never came.
10 /JAHLIL
Donnée never showed up.Partially because Jahlil texted her an hour after he arrived that she didn’t need to. The other reason, she was caught up in something that was going to have her tied up well into the morning.
With that, Jahlil got comfortable on the couch too short for his long body. Sleep was off and on. The moment he fell asleep he was woken up by the noise from the college students or Emani moving around upstairs. Six o’clock, his alarm rang out and he was already on the floor doing pushups until he could get back to the house and hit the gym.
In the middle of his last rep he caught a glimpse of pink silk fabric flowing around Emani’s small feet as she tiredly moved to the kitchen. Jahlil finished his pushups and stood, leaving the shirt he pulled off hours before and roamed into the space behind her.
Emani’s back was turned to the entrance, her head was free of the wig, replaced by a bonnet that matched her muumuu. She stood at the teapot and scrolled through her phone.
“Are you going to just stand there or tell me you’re leaving?” Emani snipped, her voice coming out in a rasp. He closed his eyes letting the sound of her in the morning tickle his senses.
“You didn’t sleep,” he said moving closer.
Emani looked over her shoulder finding him shirtless, she turned back around as if she was unbothered by the sight of him. “I don’t sleep. Too much to do. You can go now though.”
The doorbell rang making Emani put her phone down on the counter and walk past him to get the door. The wind that floated past him smelled like jasmine, rose, creamy sandalwood and amber. Forget tickling his senses, that scent livened him up. It was putting his self-control to the test. If this were a perfect world and she was his, he’d snatch her up, lift that muumuu up and have her all over the kitchen because he could.
“Dammit, E,” he grumbled, leaving the kitchen to find his shirt.
“You ordered me breakfast too?” a male voice rang out happily. “Uh uh, what’s the face? You didn’t sleep?”
“Do I ever?” Emani asked, closing the door behind the man that found Jahlil’s shirtless body easily.
“Ohh, that’s why you didn’t sleep,” the man crooned, touching the pearls around his neck.
“Derrick, don’t even,” Emani said with a roll of the eyes as she walked into the kitchen with the breakfast Jahlil ordered for her. She moved to the wallet she had on the counter and pulled out three twenties to cover it. “Here.”
“I don’t want your money, E. You need to eat and sleep, but you can start there.”
