I didn’t bother turning on any lights. I just sat there on the couch with my elbows on my knees, gun resting in my hand,letting the dark swallow me while I thought about how the fuck I had ended up there.
The answer was Ava. It was Ava always Ava. I couldn’t keep denying I loved her until one day I looked up and saw her walking down an aisle toward another nigga who didn’t have to be dragged into loving her right.
I had finally decided I was going to do what I had to do to get my woman. The thought of losing Ava made me feel sick. The thought of another nigga building a life with her, touching my son, raising him in ways I should’ve been the one stepping up to do, had been stalking me all day.
I loved her, and I had loved her for a long time. I was just scared to acknowledge it.
Finally, I heard keys at the door. Then the lock turned.
The door opened, and the hallway light spilled into the condo, cutting a long line across the floor before Kam stepped in and pushed the door wider with his shoulder. He shut it behind himself, tossed his keys on the entry table, then flipped on the light.
The second he saw me sitting there on his couch, he lost all the color in his face, as if he was looking at a ghost.
His hand moved toward his waist, but my piece was already aimed at his head before he could grab his.
“Don’t do it,” I told him.
He froze with his hand halfway there.
He stared at me, with regret in his eyes, like he knew what this was.
I angled my head toward the love seat across from me. “Sit down.”
He didn’t move.
So, I sat up a little. “Sit the fuck down.”
He walked toward the chair across from the couch I was sitting on, eyes still locked on the gun.
I bent down and picked up the duffle bag by my feet. It was heavy enough that when I set it on the cocktail table between us, the wood made a thump under the weight.
Kam looked down at it, then back up at me. “What’s that?”
“Open it.”
He didn’t reach for it.
So, I unzipped it myself and folded the top back.
His eyes dropped to the contents inside, then darted back up at me.
“That’s fifty bricks,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, hearing the quantity. “For what?”
“For you to move out of the building and leave Ava alone.”
Kam leaned back in the chair, still looking at the work, then back at me like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I can’t kill you,” I admitted. “Believe me, I want to. It would be easier and much less expensive. But the fact that I’m second-guessing it lets me know I love her. I’m ready for her because I’m making a sacrifice right now. I’m humbling myself, nigga.”
Kam stared at me like he was trying to figure out whether I had lost my mind or finally found it.
“If you feel like you can do better by her than me, don’t take it. If you’re really in her life because you want to be with her and be a stepfather to my son, then don’t take it. Stay and I’ll move around.”
That made his eyes narrow.
I pointed at the bag with the barrel of the gun. “But if you take it, then I know you was just in my way.”
