My heart is my throat as the realization.
“Three bands, huh?” A snide lift to lips and a hardening of his stare lets me know he saw and heard everything that happened between me and Bahir.
“Where were you? How —” I pull the covers tighter around my chest. My heart is slamming against my ribcage like it’s trying its best to escape.
“Now, sugah, what would be the fun in that? But keep entertaining man like you do is gonna cause a lot of motherfuckers turning up in Tombigbee with their folks unable to identify them.” His voice drops to that calm register of a psychopath, letting me know he means business.
“Wow.” Shaking my head at him in mock pity, I sigh. “Poor, liddle Snake mad because his toy is not crying after he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. Did el Presidente make you leave me alone?” I give him. “Are you going to have to face The Reckoning for being a disobedient puppy?” Get. Out” my teeth clench at the end, my fury at his abandonment rising like its own storm.
He crowding over me before I can take the next breath. I flinch.
He rakes me with a knowing look. “Scared? After you begged me so prettily?”
He grabs my locs, preventing me from shaking my head. “Uh-uh, none of that, little menace. You talked your shit. Keeping talking it. G’head, tell me how you hate me. How you hate what I do to you. All the other bullshit lies that make it easier for you knowing you want a monster with your entire soul.” His mouth covers mine in a brutal, punishing kiss.
I try to twist away, but he holds fast, making me take his lips, his tongue. The minute he spears inside, I’m lost. I open for him in helpless surrender, locking my arms around his neck drawing him close as I can get him without having to admit how much I missed him, how much I needed him, or how my heart blew to bits with incandescent joy when I saw it was him rising from the darkened alcove of my cozy living room.
I’m powerless against my addiction — a six-foot-eight Snake.
Chapter fifteen
FREE TO DO WANT I WANT
SABAN
It almost seems blasphemous to ride my chopper up to St. Agustus (Tolton) Catholic Church, named after the first Black bishop in the U.S. The irony of it being on the Shelby side of town is not lost on anyone — this being the bastion of the Shelbys who once enslaved every Black person in this area save for the Spencers, who were free and cousins to the Shelby patriarch and could often pass for white with their fair skin and green hazel eyes. Yet most of the congregation is Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Latine. I’ve found out since Bahir dropped the little tidbit about the nun who just came, transferred from a parish in New Orleans.
Turning off my bike, I kick the stand down, removing my helmet and smoothing my hair back into a ponytail by readjusting the band.
“Hey,” looking up, I’m startled to see Rocco standing off to the side of the building.
“Hey.” Dragging out the word, the question of why he’s here lingering. My mind instantly goes to Snake, who’s shown upevery night for a week to hold and watch over me while I sleep, only to be gone when I woke in the morning.
“Heard that big-ass engine. Everyone’s around back.” Jerking his head to the side, leading to the rear of the church, he pivots, leading the way like he didn’t just curse on church grounds like a heathen, he goes back the way he came.
Coming to a stop behind him I’m surprised when I see a sweat-slicked Padre wearing the thinnest t-shirt known to man and a few more perspiring el Diablo guys breaking up soil under the supervision of three women — two women I’ve come to know as Crimson and Clover Love and a dark-skinned woman with thick locs reaching well below her hips cascading from a high top knot at crown of her head.
The twins are wearing identical blue-jean coveralls with lavender tops underneath. They’ve tucked their long auburn, kinky-curly hair into two long ponytails. Both wear broad-brimmed hats to protect their delicate skin, along with dark protective lenses covering their sensitive eyes. I almost feel like it’s a privilege to see them. People say they’re the most protected of all the Loves. Thier people will dead a motherfucker for even speaking on them.
One thing everyone knows is the Loves don’t play about the ones they deem cherished and blessed. Crimson and Clover fall in that category, so the fact that the Rocco and Padre are allowed within ten feet of them is more than intriguing. They and The Love Apothocary their parents gave to them before moving to Mozambique is said to be sacred to the Love family — it was the very first business they established along with a mercantile that was said to be burned to the ground during the great riot of 1875 that ended up splitting the town in two.
“Hey,” Clover calls over to me in a sweet, lyrical singsong fashion as her sister signs a greeting. Both of them smile sweetly at me before looking at one another in silent communication.
“Hey,” I say, my eyes straying to the other woman, who looks up from the rows of the planting she was intent on until her regard settles on me in curiosity.
I’ve lost most of my Haitian Creole accent over the years, but she still seems to pick up on the little nuances of my cadence.
She rises, a seed bag swaying around her ample hips, looking at me with a keen intensity that I should find unsettling, but I don’t. Maybe it’s the longing of wanting a connection from my homeland, but I welcome her scrutiny, which only emphasizes the warm smile spreading across her face as she dusts fresh soil from her skirt as she approaches me.
“Are you the girl from Haiti?” she asks in lightly accented English.
“Wi, I’m Saban,” I answer in my native tongue, cutting through the niceties I’m sure the church taught her.
“Bon bongay,” her smile broadening, her gaze sweeping me with a warmth I didn’t expect.
Immediately, I feel covered in the warmth and acceptance of her regard. I don’t know if it results from her chosen profession or who she is at her core, but she exudes love the same way Ezekiel-Jane does, accepting everyone no matter who they are or where they come from. I don’t know if it’s their faith or just who they are as people, but it transcends anything I’ve experienced.
“Hey. You can’t just stand there gabbing. We’ve got sh — work to do.” Rocco grumbles, which makes the twins giggle at his almost misstep in front of the sister of mercy.
