“She’s converted the spare room into an office. She had me help her move furniture yesterday.” He said it with a weight I wasn’t expecting from him. “It’s impressive as hell, boss. She’s smart, about her business. Been running me ragged.”
An office. She’d made herself a permanent workspace in our home. The thought made me feel like I could come out of my spiral a little. Here I was acting like a coward, avoiding her. But the truth was that I wanted to be done with this. I wanted to find out who had been on some snake shit, and now that I had an idea, I was one step closer to learning who my woman was and hoping I could do a good enough job that she’d want to stay.
“I know. She gon’ leave me?” I asked with an incredulous chuckle. I had my fucking nerve, she’d asked me for some simple shit, be home or at least communicate, and I hadn’t. I’d been a lot of things, but someone’s man wasn’t one of them. A bitch couldn’t do nothing but blow me down. And now my soft ass was worried about a woman leaving me. If she did, it would be cool because I’d stop at nothing to find her and bring her back, but I didn’t want to do all that.
“Nah, but you fucking up, and I can say that considering I’m tasked to take care of her. She got her own shit, boss. You want her to stay; she needs your presence and for someone to believe in her dreams. Not a bunch of gifts and shit.”
“Aye, nigga aight. Sound like you getting too fuckin close to my woman,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t like that he was getting a chance to learn her, and I wasn’t.
“You a trip, nigga.”
“Whatever, I got a few more things to handle. I’ll hit you tomorrow.”
What Malice didn’t mention was the three additional security teams I’d positioned around her, teams the family didn’t know about. Let them think I’d left her unprotected. They’d learn differently if they tried anything.
I hung up and leaned against the car door, the St. Louis air thick with humidity and my own frustration. The warehouse behind us was already catching fire, smoke beginning to curl into the night sky. Taiwan walked out, wiping blood fromhis knuckles with a white rag, his wedding ring catching the streetlight.
“This shit got that fat bitch Bones written all over it,” he said, and I nodded.
“Exactly, but his time is coming to an end.” I watched the flames grow, thinking about how my uncle’s poor judgment had cost us time, money, and nearly my freedom, yet he was on my nuts about Coco. “I’m heading back soon. But I got some official shit to handle. Go home.”
I looked at him, my cousin who’d been riding with me since we were teenagers, running small jobs for my pops. We’d left his wedding reception for this bullshit, and he’d been in the doghouse with Alicyn ever since. His wife was familiar with this life, but that didn’t make abandoning their celebration any easier on her.
“Message is sent. They understand Grimson money ain’t to be fucked with, and a nigga can’t be my soldier yapping to police, offering my territory. Stay loyal or take a permanent nap.”
“What about Bones?”
“Go to your wife,” I said. “I got Bones, and I got Tommy.”
“This about your wife?” he asked, reading me the way he always could.
I didn’t answer, but Taiwan knew me well enough to read the silence. He’d seen how my whole demeanor changed whenever Malice called with updates, how I’d step away from shit to take his reports about her safety, her mood, what she’d been eating for dinner.
“Grim, you been different since she came around. Checking your phone and shit, calling Malice three times a day. That woman got you twisted. You want this shit a little bit.”
“She got me right,” I corrected, pushing off the car. Twisted would mean she’d forced her way into my heart. And if anything, I’d let her ass walk in while holding the door open for her.Images of her flashed through my mind, the way she moved through that penthouse like a fairy sprinkling pieces of herself throughout.
Gone were my black couch pillows; we now had a black and pink setup. I missed the sound of her humming in the shower. Her feeding me, king treatment. “For the first time in my life, I got a reason to come home. And I've been fucking it up by staying away. Don’t be a fucking dummy nigga.”
The truth was, I couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of her in my arms during Taiwan’s wedding dance, how she’d fit against me like she was made for that exact spot. The way her perfume had wrapped around me and refused to let go. Even now, standing in a field with smoke in the air, I could still taste the sweetness of that moment.
Taiwan shook his head, grinning. “Never thought I’d see the day Lesley Grimson got pussy whipped.”
“Watch your mouth talking about my wife,” I said, giving him a look that made him reconsider his words.
His hands went up in surrender, but he was still smiling. “My bad, cousin. Just saying it’s good to see you caring about something other than money. She’s gotta be something special.”
“She is. Shit, I’m not sure if that explains it.”
She was resilient. She was calm, beautiful, and a hustler. And surprisingly, she didn’t back down.
I pulled out my phone, staring at the blank screen. I wanted to call her, hear that voice that had been playing in my head. I knew she’d eventually giggle about something. I wanted to know what she was wearing, if she was sitting in that new office of hers, planning some elaborate event, if she’d been thinking about me the way I couldn’t stop thinking about her. But I didn’t know what to say. How do you apologize for being a coward? How do you explain that you’re scared of wanting something toomuch? I wasn’t a soft-ass nigga, but she had me feeling like I was losing my edge.
The woman had me feeling like writing her name in margins like I was fifteen again. She'd told me at the wedding, no siblings, no aunts, no people of her own. Said it plainly like it was just a fact about herself, like she'd made peace with it a long time ago. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about what it meant that she’d been moving through this world alone and still built herself into everything she was. And now I was sitting here in St. Louis, wondering if she wanted kids someday. Wondering if she’d ever let somebody be her family on purpose.
That last part wasn’t information I needed. It was something else entirely.
“You gon’ call her or just stare at that phone all night?” Taiwan asked.
