Page 47 of Beacon Grove Chronicles 1: Hassan & Sylvia

“I’m doing my best to keep my shit together.”

Those good feelings evaporated when I could hear how serious his tone was. “What’s wrong?”

I attempted to turn around but he kept my back pressed to his front as he swayed to the music that was being played by the band in the distance. “That nigga Dave just got a lot of slick shit to say and I’mma help him out with it if he keeps on.”

Dave was like a dark cloud that seemed to hunt out my joy and rain on it. The beautiful thing about it was that Hassan had me covered every time he tried. I was just tired of this man having to. “I don’t understand why he won’t leave me alone. He’s in a relationship, I’m single—”

Hassan laughed sarcastically in my neck before he said, “The fuck you are.”

“Hassan!”

He turned me around with his hands still gripped on my hips but his eyes focused on me intensely. I swore I needed to ask him if he’d had his damaged eye surgically repaired like Lucas Bishop from the X-men. There were times I swore he was studying me with it like it was still receiving data from the world. “Is there anything about the way I fuck you, cater to you, and treat you that says you’re single?”

I could hear Jada and her man laughing and I wasn’t sure when they’d even walked over here. I hung my head shamed cause I couldn’t believe he was talking freely like this. “Well, we hadn’t—”

“We hadn’t what, Sisi? I’ve met your babies. You trusted me enough with them and you don’t just deal with anyone. My fucking heart hasn’t been mine for years and I’m sorry that you ended up with that bitch. But I’m here now and I’m not leaving. So nah, you’re not single, Sylvia. Not by a long shot.”

“You claiming me?”

His face frowned up like he was irritated with having to repeat himself but was willing to do it for me. “Fucking right. I was giving you the time to adjust but clearly that was the wrong move. My granny said I was playing you too soft but I gave you too much credit. Clearly I should’ve treated your ass like the slow muthafucka you faking to be.”

I laughed at him because he was doing too damn much. He knew I wasn’t going to assume shit but he was right. He’d showed and proved his desire for me at every turn. “You talked to your granny about me?”

I was wondering why that lady had stopped me and held onto my hand for so long after we paid our respects to the innumerable number of Beacons that were filling the park. Now more of her words made sense about looking after myself even more than her grandson because his job was to cover me physically while I covered him emotionally.

“Hell yeah. If I said anything to my mama she’d already start looking for her mother of the groom dress.”

“She can’t be serious.”

He pecked me on the lips eyes dancing with mischievousness. “Dead ass. That lady is itching for grandbabies and when you’re ready I hope you know that the kids will have another set of grandparents that love them. Shit, I should probably let her go ahead and look.”

I knew he wasn’t joking because his face was soft but serious and both of his eyes were brighter than normal.

“There’s a whole lot of Beacons in this town. They could get their fix from someone else’s babies.”

“Yeah, they could. But those babies aren’t our babies. When I bring you home they aren’t going to want to let you or them go. Get ready to fight with them over sending the kids to Atlanta for the summer.”

My chest warmed thinking about people battling to spend time with my kids. Still he needed to know the Montrose family wasn’t about that life. “You think my family is going to go for that?”

Hassan rolled his eyes and shrugged like we were going to have to figure something out. “Them niggas gone have to learn how to share.”

He kissed me again and I felt like I was on cloud nine. Of course my joy couldn’t last long.

“This really what you doing, Sylvie?” I turned to see Dave scowling at us like we were doing something wrong.

“Sylvia, nigga. She warned you about that shit.” I knew that Dave had said that to get on our nerves and it worked. My hand went to Hassan’s chest but he ignored me and slid me behind him protectively.

“Why are you still talking to me? None of this has anything to do with you. No matter how bad you want to be in this, you’re not. That’s my wife and those are my kids.” He stepped up into Hassan’s face and I was doing my best to get in between them.

“You bet not think bout getting in between them niggas, Sylvia Elise!” I looked over and saw Bug’s ass walking toward me with a frown on her face I could see despite her sunglasses. She must have just gotten here and it was a terrible time for her ass to come. The last thing she would do was calm down a situation and I now had to worry about keeping two people calm.

I turned my attention back to Dave because my brothers were now walking behind Bug which meant shit was now going to be exponentially more violent.

“Ex. Wife. EX. Remember that part. We aren’t together anymore. I don’t owe you anything and you live with a whole other bitch. You had a baby with her before the divorce was finalized and you want me to feel something for you? I did my best for you and by you and I have no guilt about anything I’ve done. I just want you to leave me alone.” I knew being civil wasn’t going to help but I didn’t mind trying again to avoid Hassan losing hiss hit. I could see he held his body rigid because he didn’t even like me speaking to Dave but was trying to let me handle it.

Instead of being an adult Dave had the nerve to smirk at me like Hassan wasn’t even there. “We gone forever be linked.”

“You and the kids are linked, not us. I need you to drop this. I haven’t thought about you in a romantic way in a long time. And definitely not since Hassan made all physical reminders of you a thing of the past.”