Fontaine exhaled slowly, his arm slipping from around me as he shifted. “And if I asked you to come back after you finished this job?”
“I’m not going back to Atlanta, Bear,” I said gently.
His body tensed. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“Fontaine—”
“Nah, Nairobi,” he cut me off with a bitter laugh. “You made your decision, right?”
“I—”
“I thought if I gave you some time, that you’d realize what we mean to each other,” he said, the frustration evident in his voice.
“I do,” I said quickly.
“Then why are you making this shit so difficult?” he shouted, pulling away from me. I flinched as his voice echoed in the dark room.
He got out of bed and dragged a hand down his face as he paced a few steps before turning back to me.
“I’m done,” he said flatly. “I won’t chase you anymore. Happy?”
Panic crept in when I heard the finality in his tone.
“You deserve better than me,” I whispered.
Fontaine froze. In the dim light, I felt the weight of his stare before he shook his head and started gathering his clothes.
“Good luck with your lonely ass life.”
He pulled on his sweatpants, walked out, and slammed the door shut behind him.
I sat in the bed staring at the closed bedroom door, pulling the sheets tighter around me as the truth settled heavy in my spirit.
The best thing I ever had was gone.
And I was the one who let him go.
1 /NAIROBI CRAWFORD
TWO YEARS LATER
I staredat the name flashing across my screen. She’d called an hour ago and I ignored it, which wasn’t unusual for me. But two calls back-to-back meant something was up.
I steeled myself as I swiped to answer. “Kenya,” I said flatly.
“He’s dead,” she blurted, her voice trembling. There was a hiccup, then a sniffle.
I sat up in the soft hotel bed, my chest tightening. “Mama,” I said, the word felt unnatural and awkward coming from me. I hadn’t called her that in ages, but it felt like the right thing to say now. “Calm down. Who’s dead?”
“Your father, Nairobi,” she choked out, her voice cracking. “Sterling… he’s gone. He’s dead!”
A guttural wail erupted on the other end, and I held the phone away from my ear. The tightness in my chest disappeared as a wave of relief washed over me. It sounds bad, but it was the truth. The heavy cloud of my father’s presence that hung over my head for as long as I could remember, finally lifted.
“Hello? Hello?” My mother’s panicked voice called out.
I put the phone on speaker and placed it in my lap, willingthe right words to come to me. My father and I hadn’t been close, I wasn’t a daddy’s girl. I hadn’t seen either of my parents in two years, but I knew I had to show up for her. She didn’t have anyone else.
My tongue felt thick in my mouth. “I’m here, mama,” I replied finally. “What do you need me to do?”
