He kissed her neck again. “Nah, not really.”
Nahla stood then turned to face Cannon. “Get in bed with me.”
Instead of denying her as she thought he would, Cannon stood and followed her to the bed. She got comfortable first then reached out for him. Cannon got in bed, rested his head on her chest, and wrapped an arm around her waist.
They lay there silently for quite some time, Nahla caressing his face, and Cannon staring into the darkness. She knew they hadn’t ended on the best of terms before she went to sleep that night, but she hated to think she was the reason he didn’t get any sleep that night.
Nahla was caught in her thoughts about Cannon when he broke their silence.
“La, I’m sorry ’bout?—”
“Nope.” She shook her head, still tracing his beard with her finger.
“What you mean, nope?” he asked.
“I mean, you’re not apologizing to me for anything. If anyone needs to apologize, it’s me. And Idoapologize, Cannon. I careabout you so much, and the last thing I wanted to do was make you feel like I view you as a story. I don’t.”
Cannon lifted his head and looked at her.
“Nah, you didn’t deserve how I?—”
“I said no, Cannon. We can finish that conversation later. Not at four in the morning when your eyes are begging for some rest. Lay back down.”
He did as he was told, resting his head back on her chest. His being that close to her heart made her acutely aware of her heartbeat. It was steady and calm, nothing like a few minutes ago when she thought he wasn’t there with her.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?” Cannon asked.
“My heartbeat,” she replied. Cannon nodded.
“Do you know that when I realized you weren’t beside me, I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest? The second you touched me, everything inside me calmed down. I noticed my body had the same reaction the morning everyone was blowing my phone up about the press conference—and again, today, when the second press conference was released.
“I didn’t need coffee to regulate me. I needed you. When I’m with you, I don’t feel anxious or afraid. I just feel protected and cared about. That’s what you do for me. You calm everything down. I appreciate that more than you know, Cannon.”
Pressing a kiss to her bare chest, he said, “And I appreciate you more than you know. Bein’ the person who can do that for you makes me happy as hell, La.”
She bit her lip. She wished she could bring him that kind of peace. She had a man whose mere presence got her together, and she wanted to be able to return the favor.
She decided to lean into her gift of storytelling to try and lull her man to sleep.
“Have I ever told you about the first article I ever wrote?” she asked.
He nodded against her soft skin. “Yeah, the op-ed about police.”
“No, that was my first published piece of work, but my first ever story was one no one ever got to see.”
Cannon adjusted his body so that he was facing her.
“I’m intrigued,” he said with a smirk.
Nahla grinned and kissed his lips.
“I was twelve years old,” she continued. “And a girl at my church had gotten pregnant. She was fifteen. So many of the adults—including my parents—were whispering about heras ifshe werethe problem, when the truth was, a grown man was the father.
“They kicked this girl out of the choir. They made her stand before the congregation and repent for her sins. The messed-up part was that it seemed they wanted her to ask for their forgiveness, not God’s. That and the fact that those crazy ass people were acting like she was capable of ‘tempting’ a grown and married man into sex with her had me pissed.
“I quit the choir as an act of solidarity. My parents tried to force me to continue, but I handled that quickly.”
