“Titan, grab the fish from the car. Jah, take Indigo and help Shabu get started in the kitchen.” He spat out orders while glaring at her. “Kennedy, take your hardheaded ass to my room, and I don’t want to hear your mouth once we get in there.”
“Handle your scandal,” Shabu said with a chuckle as Kennedy hauled ass like Relic would change his mind. He was tempted to do so.
He didn’t glance back but flicked his brother off as he trailed her upstairs, heaving through the sudden cramp in his torso when she reached his room and fidgeted with his locked door. After pushing her aside, he retrieved his keys to unlock it and then hesitated before allowing her in as he flicked on the light but kept his distance. Relic watched as she inspected every inch of his personal space before her body stoned once her eyes landed on his glass table.
A blade.
A dollar bill.
A single baggie of coke.
Those three items that’d taunted Relic for over a year had almost won the night prior as he’d sat at that table for hours after Jahleel had gone to bed. The baggie was empty for the first time, while the blade set next to the three lines he’d created with it before rolling the bill into a makeshift straw. When morning struck, Relic had still been sitting in front of it, leaving his son to dress and feed himself while he remained trapped in a mental battle.
Guilt had stacked a fresh set of dense bones atop each other in his internal closet, creating a skeleton for his niece and Savvy, while he absorbed the fact that life had let him walk away too many times with a slap on the wrist. It had finally circled back to either take his life, or to force him to suffer hell on earth, and the only out he saw was speeding up the process since he’d rather ruin himself before letting life do its job. If Jahleel hadn’t come banging on his door and forestalled him; Relic might’ve finally followed in his baby mother’s footsteps.
That thought alone had kept him from reentering his bedroom to lock away the items like he usually would. He figured he’d do it once he made it back home but hadn’t expected Kennedy to show up and bust him, red-handed.
Relic stood there, waiting to face the music because if his hostile temperament, manipulative tactics, or showing his ass at Kennedy’s family home didn’t run her off; those white lines on his glass table sure as hell would.
He wasn’t worth it.
That single sentence moved throughout her brain and curled around her senses—tightening her chest, strangling her lungs, and rewiring the way she’d seen Relic, who was one of the most intelligent and strong-willed men she had met until that moment. The lines on his glass table fucked up her wet dream but also explained his fickle moods and hurtful outbursts. Kennedy had believed that those actions stemmed from trauma, when he was nothing more than a drug dealer getting high on his supply. It wasn’t until that moment; Kennedy realized she placed Relic on too high of a pedestal, and watching him fall from it didn’t bring her the pleasure she thought it would.
Her movements were gradual as she spun to face him with her features contorted somewhere between enraged and pure panic. His mute expression didn’t help matters.
“What the hell is this?” Her tone was breathless as she pointed at the drugs.
“I told you, I don’t want to hear your mouth. I tried to keep you out, Kennedy.”
“What the hell does that have to do with drugs sitting on your fucking table?!”
That gut-coiling, chest deflating feeling struck Relic as he pivoted to slam his door before stalking to her, glaring her down as she matched his eye contact since he had her fucked up.
“You think I care about you being upset when you’re in here doing dumb shit! This is a weak man’s sport, Relic! Am I wasting my time on you? What was the objective for me agreeing to be your partner in the first place?”
The terror and frustration that had consumed her the moment she spotted those drugs intensified as he stared at her, unresponsive. She clapped in his face when she really wanted to knock some sense into his ass.
“Stop looking at me like Jahleel when I get on his butt about homework, and answer the damn question! Why’d I agree to this, Relic?”
“So, I won’t end up like Koda,” he answered through gritted teeth as if it pained him to repeat it.
“Exactly, but that can’t be what you want anymore. I didn’t say anything about you making that bucket list, but now you’re playing in drugs, and Morrone is doing what? Sitting on his ass and waiting for you to get indicted. How the hell can I help you when you rather self-destruct? You don’t want to try, Relic! You rather be a fucking loser like the niggas who want you dead!”
“Those were Jessica’s drugs.” The heavy rise and fall of her chest slowed after he gave her that detail. “She left them in my last place, and I kept them. Maybe ‘cause they were a reminder of her, or maybe because I wanted to see if I was stronger than my fucking mind. I don’t know, but I’ve never done drugs a dayin my life, and I put that on everything I care about. I put that on you.”
A pitter patter behind her ribs sent her arms crossing as she struggled to keep her resolve strong because Relic’s convicting gaze told her that he meant it. She still couldn’t soften for him since he needed a reality check.
“I hope you’re being honest, and don’t bring that shit in here again. Jahleel comes here,” she reminded him. “He could’ve easily found that. I get you’re stressing, but that’s not the answer, just like those bottles aren’t. Control it like you do everything else, Relic. You’re far from the weak ass nigga who’d resort to getting high on his supply.”
“Are you sure about that? Let you tell it, I am.”
“Well, now I’m telling you that you’re not! I expect a level of greatness from you that I probably shouldn’t, but it’s because that’s what you’ve shown me until now. This shit is disappointing. It’s beneath you, Relic.”
“I told you, I didn’t do it. Never have.”
“And I want to believe that. I really do. You can head downstairs with your family. I’ll clean this up.”
Relic stalled like he was undecided about leaving her with the drugs but then walked away while a small wave of guilt crashed into her as his reminder about calling him weak hung in the air. Dirt from the foot she’d stuck in her mouth made her face screw up because when heated, she couldn’t care less about the hurtful digs she spewed, but she regretted imprinting a memory in his head that would put her in a category with people he resented. People like his mother. She couldn’t imagine the number of times that phrase had run through his mind since their argument in the rain.
