“Why you ain’t answer?” Her voice was tight and strained with anger.
“I was asleep. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.” A pause. “I’m lonely out here, Thad. This house is too big and too quiet and I miss you.”
“I know, babe. I miss you too. I’ll come see you again tomorrow, aight?”
“Okay. What time?”
“I got some stuff to handle in the morning but I’ll be there by the afternoon.”
She sighed. “Okay. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up and stood there in the cold night air, looking out at the city lights in the distance.
Two women. Two sets of expectations. Two sets of lies.
I couldn’t keep this up forever. Eventually something would give. Kacey would get too suspicious, or Mehar would get too clingy, or they’d find out about each other and blow up my whole situation.
I needed an exit strategy.
Mehar was the obvious choice to cut loose. She was fun, but she wasn’t carrying my baby. She wasn’t building a future with me. She was just… a distraction. Something to pass the timewhile Kacey was pregnant and emotional and not giving it up like she used to.
But cutting her loose meant potentially pissing off Prime. And I wasn’t trying to burn that bridge, especially not when the casino deal was still on the table.
So for now, I’d keep playing the game. Keep both of them happy, or at least happy enough. Keep the lies straight and the balls in the air.
I looked back through the glass door at Mehar sleeping in her bed, peaceful and trusting and completely clueless.
She really thought I was her knight in shining armor. The man who saved her from that attack. The man who listened to her talk about her dead sister and held her while she cried. The man who was going to give her the love she’d never had.
If she only knew.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
31
PRIME
I couldn’t wait to get back home to my heart. I missed Zainab and Yusef immensely. As soon as this last string was tied, I was going back to LA to be with them. I needed to make sure Zainab was drinking her smoothies and taking her prenatals. And I needed to make sure Yusef was still healing and finishing his school work.
I was officiallyin dad and husband mode. There was no greater job than that. And everything I was doing was to ensure no one ever brought harm to my family again.
The cigar barwas quiet on a Tuesday night. Just how I liked it.
Me, Quest, and Justice had the back corner to ourselves with leather chairs, dim lighting, a bottle of Banks Reserve on the table between us. The good stuff. Aged twenty-three years, smooth as silk, burned like redemption going down.
Quest was on his second glass, talking shit about some investor who tried to lowball him on a property deal. Justice sat across from me, quiet as always, swirling his whiskey but barelydrinking it. He’d been like that since Monica passed. Present but not really there. Going through the motions while grief ate him from the inside.
I understood. I’d been that way too, once. Before Zainab.
“—and I told that nigga, you must not know who you’re talking to,” Quest was saying, animated as always. “I said, ‘The disrespect alone is gonna cost you an extra ten percent.’ You should’ve seen his face.”
“You’re petty as hell,” I said.
