“Put it on speaker.”
He frowns. “Seriously?”
I pinch my eyes shut. “Please don’t do this. Just put the damn phone on speaker.”
He breathes heavily while fumbling around, and I open my eyes once I hear the familiar trill from his phone reverberating around the room.
“What up, playboy?” Blake chirps. “Make it quick. I’ve got a one o’clock with Caldwell and a two o’clock with a baddie I met at a lounge last night.”
We stare at each other.
“AJ?” he calls out.
I nod my head at him to say something.
“Blake, I…I….”
“You what? Spit it out, nigga.”
The soft hum from Blake’s car and the sounds of traffic fill the dead space in their conversation.
“Hello?”
“He wants you to come over to his hotel,” I chime in.
“Lovie?”
“Blake.”
“Wait. What’s going on? What are you doing over there?”
“Oh, I’m just over here chatting with AJ about how we can move past thismomentwe’re having.” I sniffle, wiping my bloody nose against my sleeve again. “Isn’t that what you called it when you came to my aunt and uncle’s?”
He huffs into the phone. “What the fuck is going on?”
“You need to forget your one and two o’clock and come have a sit-down with me and AJ like we used to do.”
“For what? You shouldn’t even be over there. How’d you even get up there?”
“We have a few things we need to discuss about that NDA,” I reply.
“The NDA? You…you said you wanted him to come over to help us work through our problems,” AJ rasps from the floor.
“Uh-huh. That’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna work it all out. Don’t worry.”
“She needs to leave, AJ. I told you to stay no-contact! Get her out of that room!”
Screeching tires make my ears ring.
“I…I can’t,” AJ stutters.
“What you mean you can’t?”
I step forward and push the barrel against his forehead, just like he did to me on that New Year’s Eve I can’t erase from my mind.
“You want to see something?” I brush my finger against the safety, relishing in the sound of theclick. “Rich says that’s kind of like the on and off button. First it was off, and now it’s on. Was your gun on that time you pointed it at me on New Year’s Eve, AJ?”
“I’m calling the cops,” Blake blurts.
