Lauren was fully prepared to press these doctors. She would bend this man’s fingers back until he called mercy if that’s what it took. If they thought they were going to keep her from her child, she would have her attorneys on the line so fast that their heads would spin. They wanted to keep her in her grieving mother bag because if she got in her boss bitch bag, there would be hell to pay. She saw the doctor debating in his mind. To follow protocol or to tap into humanity and allow this mother another moment with her child. Lauren was grateful when the man said, “You can sit with him until the morgue comes for him. After that, we legally must process things on our end.”
Lauren nodded. She didn’t even attempt to find Demi. She wanted these moments alone with the child she had birthed. She had brought him into this world, and now she had the heavy burden of returning him to the earth. It was the mostunnatural thing she had ever felt. She hadn’t been given enough time. He was supposed to bury her, not the other way around. The fact that she hadn’t seen this coming made it impossible to process. Oh, how she wished she could rewind the clock. All she needed was a few hours. If she hadn’t invited Nyair over, she would have been more alert, more aware of DJ, and more attentive to his needs. They probably would have been watching a movie together or catching up on his favorite show,The Walking Dead. If only she had been tuned in. God, one moment of selfishness, of feeding her irresponsible urges, of wanting to be carefree and throw caution to the wind and call a man to the crib, had resulted in this. Catastrophe. One moment where her motherhood had slipped had come with a consequence she couldn’t roll back. How? Why? She had seen Demi put himself first so many times over the years to no detriment. The world just continued to spin. DJ lived to see another day and Lauren picked up the slack whenever she could. Who was there to pick up her slack? She had one night where she had given away her focus just a little, and now her son was dead. How was this fair? How was she supposed to reconcile this without rage? How could she go on day to day without wanting to die right behind her son?
She followed the doctor to the back. Her feet were heavy, her stomach churned, and her eyes blurred as the energy that was death pulled her near. It was sickening. Her motherly instincts had always triggered her body whenever she was near her son. Often, she could feel his spirit when she was miles away. When she would be at work, and he would be at school, she could feel if something went wrong in his day. If she was away on vacation, her gut would churn with worry, and she would call home only to discover some illness or issue that had suddenly plagued him. A mother was just connected to her child, but as she walked down these halls, she felt disconnected. Their connection haddissipated into the air when he had breathed his last breath. There was no feeling that could compare to this. Not her divorce. Not the loss of her grandmother years ago. Not the miscarriages she had suffered in the past. This was irreparable. Lauren would never bounce back from this. Her world was forever changed, and the light within her eternally dimmed.
As soon as she saw the white sheet that covered his body, she stifled a cry. Dewy emotion clung to her lashes as she took her place by his side, rolling down the sheet to expose his face. He had already lost his color. His ashen, lifeless face tore her right in two.
She couldn’t speak. The apologies and I love you’s that she wanted to scream were overpowered by a hopelessness that she couldn’t beat. All she could do was lay over her child and weep.
Chapter 2
Nyairsat shirtless on the couch. He leaned over, elbows meeting knees as he held a cup of joe in his hand. Shannon Sharpe’s voice boomed through his television. It was a program that Nyair rarely missed, but today, he couldn’t focus. Today, his mind was stuck on a woman who had become a fixation out of thin air. He had left the hospital with no resistance. Lauren and Demi had a right to privacy in their time of distress. He couldn’t imagine their loss. He had witnessed it before. He had prayed for others during their time of need, but he had never experienced the loss of a child. If he was honest, no parent he had ever counseled had bounced back the same. Tremendous sorrow filled him, and his empathy wasn’t reserved only for Lauren. He felt for both parents. So, when he was asked to leave, he complied without taking offense because it was their right to lean on one another. Only the two of them knew what this tragedy was like. He didn’t belong there, and he knew it. It was too sacred of a space for someone casual to linger in, and that’s all he and Lauren were, friendly fucks to each other.
Nyair wasn’t looking for a relationship. He wasn’t interested in love. He was trying to stay focused, trying to repent for so many years of selfishness and bullshit. Lauren, however, was a lovely distraction. For a man like Nyair, a woman like that, with her vulnerability, with her pain, with her neediness, with her effortless sex appeal, and unassuming expectations wasdangerous. She spoke a need to him without ever moving her lips, and he couldn’t control his primal instinct when she was around. Years of self-control had gone out the window. He didn’t know how to feel about it. He couldn’t even focus on feeling anything because his craving for her was too strong to feel anything else. Nyair required Lauren in a way that was unreasonable. Every part of him wanted to be enveloped in her. Inside her body. Inside her mind. Inside her heart. Her thoughts. Her legs. That mouth. My oh my, the work she did with that throat. Lauren had swallowed him in ways that women were normally too shy to partake in. It was like her body had been dormant, and his sex had awakened her because she fucked like she was making up for lost time. He was so unfocused because even now, his dick reacted just thinking about it. But at this moment, he wanted to be more for no other reason than she needed more. He wanted to take root inside her spirit because he could feel that it was drained. Her faith was gone. He knew at this moment, the devil was whispering in her ear because nobody blamed God more than a mother who had lost a child. If Lauren gave in, she would never recover. DJ’s death would lead to her destruction. He had seen it time and time again. Addiction, alcoholism, promiscuity, all symptoms of a woman with a broken heart, and not just any type of injury caused that type of despair. A maternal travesty. God didn’t design the realm of humanity for mothers to bury their children, but time and time again, the natural order of things was disrupted. To pick up the phone and call would be too aggressive, but Nyair was an aggressive man. In all ways, on all days, he was assertive. Grieving left no room for him. He would be lucky if he ever heard Lauren’s voice again.
“Get your head right, G,” Nyair whispered to himself. He took a sip from his mug and then lifted the diamond cross he wore around his neck. He lifted the chain to his lips and kissed it.“Prince of Peace, do your job. Don’t leave that woman’s cries unanswered,” he prayed aloud. He shook his head, his chest aching, a symptom of caring too much. He wasn’t supposed to know Lauren enough to care at all. He was her son’s football coach. He had crossed a line. Plenty of his players had beautiful moms who had shot their shots at him over the years. He had only given in once. How complicated this thing had become. He had helped to create confusion, and he couldn’t be sure that his involvement didn’t push DJ to hurt himself. The weight of the possibility that he was to blame was taxing. Nyair set down his coffee mug and reached for the Bible that sat on his table. He opened it to the book of Psalms. Instantly, his eyes fell upon the highlighted verses. Nyair was a student of this book. He studied it, deciphering the Word of God because it was written by men so long ago that it was hard to bring things current. He contextualized every word from cover to cover daily so that he never forgot. Life was hard. It was impossible at times, and he didn’t know how a man could even attempt to face it without a playbook. That’s the type of man he had always been. He had needed coaching and guidance ever since he was a boy. It was how he had become a star athlete. He memorized the playbook. When his career had come to an end, the Bible had become his playbook and God his coach. He needed to brush up defensively for this loss. He didn’t know how to move life forward after this.
“So much life left in that kid,” he mumbled, sniffing away an unexpected bout of overwhelm as he gritted his teeth in protest. He hated to hear about the loss of anybody, but a child, especially one that he had coached and engaged with closely, hit so much harder. He couldn’t help but wonder if his interactions with Lauren had been that straw that broke the camel’s back. He tried to run memories back in his mind to see if he had missed anything. Had there been a sign of distress that Nyair had ignored? He was a football coach. Hecould normally pinpoint the kids who were troubled. He usually fed the ones who came to him hungry. He counseled the ones who came to him angry, teaching them how to control their emotions and minds. He had bought shoes and clothes and taught hygiene to some who showed up to his practice without knowledge of self-care. He had sent home care baskets, wiped tears, all that. How the hell had he not noticed the crater of self-harm and self-hate growing within DJ? It didn’t make sense. Little boys committing suicide? How had DJ become so unhappy that self-mutilation was mistaken for relief? Where did he even learn it from? He clamped the Bible shut, suddenly angry at…at...hell, even he didn’t know, but he had resentment in his heart, and DJ didn’t even belong to him. He kept replaying the sound of Lauren’s screams. The octave was so agonizing that it hurt to hear. It was the kind of cry that evoked tears from the eyes of men. Misunderstanding lived in him. He had done this with his friend Alani. He had watched her be eaten alive after losing her daughter. He didn’t know if he could do it again with Lauren. He cared too much, and it fucked him up because he couldn’t even pinpoint how he had begun to care at all. To witness another strong woman unravel before his very eyes would make him begin to ask questions about life, death, and divinity. He was good at calming the heartbreak of others, but how many times could he witness it without tainting his own faith? Nothing hurt worse than seeing a woman hurt. He had seen a lot of that in his lifetime. He had caused a lot of it, too. A big part of his life had been spent making up for the damage he had caused to a woman he had loved once. All this death around him triggered memories that he didn’t welcome, which meant it was time to distance himself from Lauren. It would be best for them both to establish boundaries now before they were too far gone. Heneeded to cut her off before either of them became too attached, or before her trauma became his mission to heal. He opened his phone and went to her name in his contacts. His thumb lingered over the screen for a while before he deleted it. He didn’t know her number by heart, so he wouldn’t be able to give in to temptation and call her. She would have to reach out to him, and he knew that under the circumstances, he would be the last thing on her mind. He doubted he would ever hear from her at all because he knew that she also thought their rendezvous was theincitingincident that had caused DJ to hurt himself. A mother wouldn’t soon let go of that blame. Neither would Nyair. So, this was it. He was out, and they had to be done. It was for the best.
“Where the hell is Kiara Da’vi?” Stassi asked as she spoke into the headset while maneuvering her way through the thick crowd. “According to the call sheet, she was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
Stassi was trying her hardest to remain focused. She hardly knew DJ, and she wasn’t too fond of Lauren and Demi, but she would never wish this type of tragedy on anyone. She couldn’t imagine what they were going through. The fact that Day had up and left this multi-million-dollar event in her hands without thinking twice meant that he trusted her wholeheartedly.He trusts me too damn much,Stassi thought as she tried not to panic.
Kiara Da’vi was the biggest act of tonight’s show. She was the headliner and Dynasty Records’ most viral artist. TikTok had blown the bubbling rapper and mumble singer out of the water lately, but with the rise in popularity came an inflation in ego. The star was late, and if Stassi didn’t get her on that stage soon,the entire night would be a bust. She didn’t want to have to call Day to fix this.
“Helloooo? Am I talking to myself? Where’s my goddamn headliner?” Stassi shouted into the headset.
“Her manager says they’re en route. ETA is 15 minutes, but she isn’t stage ready.” It was the worst thing that the production assistant could have told her. Glam would take the singer another two hours. There was no way the audience would wait that long. Stassi beelined for the dressing rooms where the house glam team was set up. She knocked on the door out of courtesy but didn’t wait for permission before entering.
“Hey, ladies, I’m Stassi. I’m producing the show tonight. Which one of you is on hair and has lace wigs on hand?”
“I have wigs, but I was about to get out of here. The label only paid me for one look tonight. Why, what do you need?”
Stassi sighed in relief. “What’s your name?”
“Everybody calls me MiMi,” the girl replied.
“Well, MiMi, I need you to stay and prep one wig on the mannequin for Kiara Da’vi. She normally rocks blonde. You got any colored units?”
“If you got green, I got color,” MiMi replied, rubbing her fingers together. “Cuz this is feeling like overtime.”
“I’ll double your rate, sis. I’ma make sure the label takes good care of you. Come see me at the end of the night. Can you get a blonde wig wand curled in half an hour?” Stassi asked. She opened her Instagram and went to Kiara Da’vi’s page, then showed MiMi. “This is how she normally wears her hair. Can you emulate that?”
“I got you,” MiMi answered.
“Thank you. I’ll send her back when she arrives.” With one problem resolved, she felt her chest lighten some, but sure enough, the small win was short-lived.
“Stassi, do we have a permit on hand? Fire department is trying to shut us down.” When the voice came through her headset, she groaned. Stassi wanted to snatch that bitch off her head. Good news never came through. It was always someone paging her to tell her something catastrophic.
She felt like she was being pulled in a million different directions. Every time she put out one fire, another sprouted out of thin air. She was juggling a million balls, and if she dropped even one, she would fail.
“No, they are not! Do not let them in! I’m on my way to the front!” Stassi shouted as she hightailed it through the venue. Her toes screamed in excruciating pain from the high heels she was wearing. If she had known she would end up working, she would have worn sneakers.
“Wait! Wait!” she shouted as she neared the door.
“I’m sorry, sir, can you step over here for a moment so we can discuss this?” she asked as she moved out of the doorway. I’m Anastassia. I’m the producer of this show. I can assure you we have a permit for this event. Why exactly are you threatening to shut us down, and what can I do to stop that from happening?”
“What’s the point of applying for the permit if you aren’t going to follow the law? You’re over capacity. If the parking lot is any indication, I’d say by about 30%. Cars arespilling out into the street, and you’ve got people parking in the fire lane,” the fireman said. He was pleased. His tone was impatient, and she needed all the patience she could get tonight.
