“You weren’t a joke, Mo, and a lot changed for Messiah after y’all got together. A lot changed for us all. It wasn’t just him. We all loved you. We all felt fucked up about how it was going down,” Meek admitted. “We still got love for you, Mo. If nothing else, I would like to be able to call Morgan Atkins a friend. I’m sorry for everything I did to contribute to your hurt, Morgan … to make you change into what I’m looking at, because what you were before was perfection. For that, I’m sorry.”
She nodded and swiped away the lone tear that had escaped. She sniffed as he pulled her into him, wrapping arms so strong around her that she melted. She wrapped her hands around his waist and cried on his shoulder, releasing two years’ worth of misunderstanding, of confusion, of uncut pain. For years, she had held resentments against him, against Isa too. It was one of the main reasons she spent so much time in London … avoiding them. They were the new kings of her old city, and she hadn’t felt like she belonged … hadn’t felt confident enough to show her face after the humiliation and the loss.
“Thank you for being my friend, Ahmeek,” she whispered.
“Always, Mo,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I don’t fuck with many, but I fuck with you, and I know time has passed, but there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about the apology I owed you.”
“Thanks, Ahmeek,” she whispered. “When do you leave?”
“Isa and Aria are here for a few days. I’m on the next bird out in the morning.”
The disappointment that filled her was surprising, and she took a step away from him.
“When you come home, hit me up. I’ll drop whatever I’m doing,” Meek stated.
“You mean whoever you’re doing,” she teased.
He shook his head. “You don’t cut a nigga no slack.” He snickered.
“Not ever,” she admitted, smiling. She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Bye, Meek.”
He held on to her fingers like his life depended on it as she walked away. Distance was the only thing that forced him to let go. Morgan glanced back one final time before pushing open the door and walking out into the night.
3
“Why you won’t fuck with a nigga, Ali?” Isa said as he walked Aria to her hotel room.
“When are you going to stop calling me that?” she asked, laughing.
“You still knocking bitches out without thinking twice?” he asked.
“When they get disrespectful,” she answered.
“Then you’ll forever be the greatest … Ali,” he said. “Now answer my question.”
“Why would I fuck with you, Isa?” she asked as she turned to face him, leaning her back against the door. He placed a balled fist above her head and leaned into her, licking his lips as he lifted her chin with the tip of his finger.
“Because it feels good,” he said. “You don’t even know how bad I want to fuck you.”
Aria frowned and moved her chin out of his grasp. “And that’s the problem,” she said. “You’re kind of disgusting, Isa. Like for real, the shit you say to women. I’m sure other girls eat that shit up, but I’m not them.”
Isa swiped a hand down his face, blowing out a breath of exasperation. “Here we go,” he said. “You know I argue with you more than I argue with my main.”
Aria craned her neck back. “Your main?” she scoffed. “Now there’s a main? Why are you here, then, Isa? If you have a girlfriend?”
“Because this where I want to be,” Isa said. “And I do what the fuck I want to do.”
He was so damned cocky. Aria felt like knocking his head off. She had always known that Isa kept females around. He switched them out like Gucci belts, a different one for every day of the week, but she had never heard him speak of one specifically. She didn’t know why it bothered her, but the word main distinguished one among the crowd.
“Your main,” Aria sneered. “So, what, I’m a side? Somebody you think you about to slide through, then swerve afterward?”
“You know better than that. You talking crazy. You know what it is.”
“I don’t know anything. What else do you want from me? I know you want to fuck me. Everybody wants to fuck me. I sell sex onstage. Every nigga in every venue I perform in want it.”
“Every nigga in every venue can get they shit rocked too, Ali. Stop playing with me,” Isa said, jealousy dancing in his eyes. “I’m the only one driving that.”
“Boy, you don’t even have a key to this. You couldn’t even start my engine.”
“Well, you better put that bitch up for the winter until I find the shit. Let another nigga touch my whip and I’m airing shit out.” He didn’t yell. There was no need to. He meant what he said, and he reaffirmed his words with action. He was with all the gunplay. Anytime.
Aria crossed her arms and shook her head in disbelief. “You’re possessive, but meanwhile, you have a girlfriend?” Aria asked, cocking her head to the side, a frown on her pretty face.
“I ain’t got no fucking girlfriend,” he said, sneering like he smelled something, like the concept of having someone that he was committed to made him ill. “Quit making shit up.”
“Well, what the fuck is a main?” Aria asked.
“Not a girlfriend,” Isa countered.
“And what am I?” she asked.
“A fucking tease,” he snapped.
The words landed on her chin viciously. He may as well have slapped her the way she recoiled. “You know what? I think you should hop that flight home with Meek tomorrow.”
She slid the key card into the lock and entered her room, but Isa was right behind her.
“Isa, good night. Go to your room,” she said, waving him off, tired of the circus act. She was growing bored with the back-and-forth. She liked Isa, but no way would she do anything other than what they were doing, and she didn’t even know what that was. She enjoyed his company, but she knew it was only because he wasn’t hers. He didn’t owe her any loyalty, any explanations. He spent money, took trips, spent time with her at her whim, all without a physical connection. They were friends, and although the attraction was there, Isa was a ladies’ man. She didn’t want to be the girl trying to train a dog because at the end of a day, a dog was going to do what a dog was designed to do … chase pussy. “I’m exhausted, and you’re on some bullshit.”
“I’m on some bullshit? You got me flying you across the world, racing up and down the highway to fuck with you, hopping flights to show love at your shows—”
“That’s what friends do!” Aria said.
“Fuck you. Don’t nobody want to be yo’ friend with your high-maintenance ass. I’m trying to pop that.”
Aria lifted one foot to slide her red bottom off, and she chucked it at his head.
“Fuck me? No, fuck you and your girlfriend, nigga! Get the fuck out my room!”
“Throw something else at me,” Isa threatened, pointing at her from across the room and flinching every time she lifted her other shoe. He snickered a bit, licking his lips. “On God, when I hit that shit, I’m tearing that shit up. I’ma murder that shit.”
Aria tossed her shoe aside and stalked over to him.
“Call her,” Aria demanded.
“Call who?” Isa asked.
“Don’t play stupid,” Aria shot back. Fire blazed in her eyes, daring him to deny her. Isa pulled out his phone, and Aria snatched it from his hand. She typed in his passcode, fingers striking across the screen like lightning.
“Yo, you wild for knowing my code. What you, the feds?” he muttered, his words laced in sarcasm and discontent as he sat on the bed. He leaned forward, elbows to knees, rubbing his head as Aria went through his phone. She frowned as she read his text messages. “So you just think of something cute to say and send it to four different women? You better not ever say this shit to me.”
“I wouldn’t say the same shit to you,” he answered. The sorrow she heard in his tone pulled her eyes to his. Like a magnet, he captured her stare with th
ose light brown orbs. She couldn’t look away if she wanted to, and God, did she want to. There was just something about this rude, foulmouthed man in front of her.
“But you do, Isa. Maybe, not word for word, but you come at me like I’m an object. Like it pisses you off that you haven’t had sex with me yet. Like the expectation is that I just trust you with my body. I’m not that girl. I was going to have you call these women and tell them you’re done … tell them not to call you, but for what? I’m not doing that. A man that wants to lay between my legs wouldn’t even put me in a position to feel like I need to do that. I’m work,” she said. She shrugged. “You’ve got to work for me, and I’m not talking about spending money. You’ve got to show me that you’re worth my time and that you’re worth my energy. Sex is more than physical. I want you.” She held up his phone and then tossed it to him. “Not all of them. I don’t want their energy infecting me.”
She walked to the door and held it open. “Now good night,” she said.
He took his time standing and then walked over to her. He stood directly in front of her, leaving no room between them. He placed both hands around her face, cupping it. Aria tried to maneuver out of his hold, but he pulled her back. She closed her eyes.
“I don’t even know why I do this with you,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Yeah, you do,” he said, picking her up. Aria wrapped her legs around his waist, and he carried her away from the door toward the bed. He sat her down at the edge of the bed, gripping her chin in the U of his hand and causing her lips to purse. Her heart was so tender it ached. She felt every beat as he took her lips, stealing kisses that he knew she was too stubborn to give. They were soft, gentle … his kisses were everything he was not, and Aria felt like an idiot when she lifted hands to his face to kiss him back.
He pulled back. “I’m sorry. I hear you.”
He kicked off his shoes and removed his suit jacket before pulling her down onto the bed. She turned and tucked her body underneath him. It was a position they had taken many times before. Aria would call him just so he could warm the other side of her bed. She felt better with him around. It was the only time she could close her eyes without nightmares. He eased her soul, even with all his women, and even with all his bullshit, Aria valued the odd bond they shared. He never pushed her limits, never let a hand slip where it didn’t belong. He just held her, and in that moment, none of the other girls mattered because he wasn’t doing this with them.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
He craned his neck backward so he could look in her eyes, then he placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I hate yo’ ass too. Hate you like a mu’fucka.”
4
“Keep going, youngblood. You don’t want it. Keep pushing that shit. To the limit … to the fucking max. How bad you want it? How bad you want your old life back?”
“Agh!” Messiah roared in pain as the old man beside him added another one-hundred-pound plate to his back. Four steel plates threatened to level him as he continued to power through the push-ups.
“Fifty push-ups, a minute plank, let’s get it … let’s get that shit. Eat that shit! All the way to a thousand! Mind over body. That’s your mind telling you to quit! That’s your brain telling you to stop. You survived worse. Keep pushing that shit!”
Messiah gritted his teeth and locked in on the picture in front of him. Morgan Atkins. The love of his life. The only person he had ever hurt that he held regret over. It was too late to get back to her. He was dead to her. He had made sure of it. The hardest thing he had ever had to do was disappear from her life, but it was the only way to get her to grow, to get her to move on. Morgan was a butterfly. Messiah had been her cocoon. He had wrapped himself around her so tightly and protected her so fiercely that she had flourished when she was with him, but cocoons were temporary. It was inevitable for Morgan to transform into the next phase of her life. He had let her fly free because he had cancer, and he didn’t want her to watch his sickness take him under. No way could he let her ride that disease out with him. He wasn’t even supposed to be breathing. The doctors had given him only weeks to live, but one specialist, one surgeon, Dr. Buscemi, had convinced him to let her try one more time, to cut out the cancer and take him through a treatment so intense he would wish he were dead. Messiah had been through hell the past two years. She had taken him from the hospital and declared his status as null in the system. He’d been transported all the way to Maryland, where she practiced at Johns Hopkins. They had cut his body to pieces, removing infected muscle and even shaving down bone to remove every cancerous cell in his body. The pain had been unbearable. The solitude alone was enough to bring a man to insanity. He had begged her to kill him. Through tears, he had cursed her name because who the fuck delivered this type of excruciation and called it healing? Then the chemo had eroded him. It had been worse than the cutting. It was poison. It was the devil’s serum running through every fiber of his being. It was a year of living on the brink of death as Dr. Buscemi tried to keep him hopeful. Messiah had counted up every dollar to his name and sent a check to Morgan. One million dollars. It was everything he had hustled for over the years, and it was hers. She deserved every red cent for what he had put her through. If he died, she’d get another million from his insurance policy. It was enough to set her up for a while, and although he knew she didn’t need it, Messiah felt responsible for contributing. He had been her man, and a man took care of his. She would forever be his, despite the miles that separated them.
When he made it to one thousand, the weight was removed from his back, but the mental heaviness that he lived with daily remained. Those steel plates were lighter than all the burden he carried around with him.
“Looking strong, young,” the man in front of him stated, giving Messiah a firm pat on the back.
“I don’t feel it. The cancer could come back at any time,” Messiah said, breathless as he lifted a water bottle to his mouth. He gulped down the liquid relief, wincing from exhaustion.
“You’re right, but you got to keep your mind strong. Get your body as strong as you can to get ready for the war when it comes. Right now, you’re cancer-free. Thank God for that. Celebrate the small wins. Eight months cancer-free, and you’ve built your body up well. A strong mind, strong body. Remember that.”
Messiah nodded and snatched up the towel from the weight bench in front of him. His trainer walked out, leaving Messiah to his thoughts. He snatched up the picture of Morgan and his phone, then opened his Instagram account. He went to her page, something he did daily, sometimes for hours. He never liked anything, but today he had an overwhelming urge to connect to her, to communicate with her even though he knew she wouldn’t know it was him. He went through every single image, clicking the little heart beneath. He snickered, shaking his head, because only Morgan could have him on some sucker shit. The liking of pics and heart eyes and such. He clicked the message icon. He had never slid into a DM in his life, but Morgan was always the girl to get him out of character. He typed two words …
Pretty ass.
* * *
Morgan’s phone buzzed as she pushed the twins in their stroller through the busy airport.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just wait until I can come with you?” Bash asked.
Morgan shook her head as she pulled the phone from her pocket. She stopped walking and opened her notifications. She frowned as she saw the name. MurderKing810. Her thumb moved down her screen as she saw how many pictures had been liked.
Such a creep.
“Mo?” Bash called, jarring her attention back to him.
“I’m sorry, what?” She shook her head and focused on Bash.
“Taking the twins through the airport alone on a ten-hour flight. Why don’t you just wait a couple of weeks and we’ll go back together?”
“No, I’ve already told Ethic I was coming home. Bella’s birthday is coming up. I have to be there. You stay and handle your business at Cambridge. I’ll be
fine. Join me when you’ve wrapped things up,” she said.
She appreciated the way he worried about her. He was accommodating. He was caring. He was honest. He was handsome. He was … fucking boring. After loving someone who made her soul feel like it was on fire, being with Bash was mind-numbing. The uneventfulness of their lives, the routine, was growing old. She hadn’t realized it until Aria and the crew had come to visit, but since then, she had been dying to escape.
Morgan hoisted the diaper bag onto her shoulder, accepted the goodbye kiss from Bash, and then slid her phone back into her pocket. She maneuvered through the masses of people, then handed her ticket to the agent standing at the security checkpoint. Her stomach was in knots. She hadn’t been home in a long time, and what awaited her there was terrifying. Old wounds, ghosts of lovers past, and she would never admit it, but Meek was there too. Flutters filled her mind just thinking about him, and as she waved goodbye to Bash, she knew that she should turn around. Flint was trouble. Meek was trouble, but he made her feel again … he listened … he was the only one who could see that she was drowning in a roomful of people. He noticed the vacancy in her eyes when she smiled. So instead of turning back, she was like a moth drawn to the flame … Morgan was tired of running. She just wanted to go home.
5
There was something about being in the city of Flint, Michigan, that made Morgan’s heart swell. It had declined over the years. Its cruddy city blocks and boarded-up homes looked worthless to others, but to her, it was home. When she stepped off the plane, pushing sleeping babies and struggling with a diaper bag, she breathed deep. Anxiety filled her as she made her way to baggage claim. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed home until the plane had touched down. She had secluded herself and her babies from her family, and she was desperate to make up for lost time. Morgan struggled with a sense of belonging. With two dead parents and a sister in a grave beside them, she never felt like she had true family. Family was supposed to share your blood, and although Ethic had adopted her when she was a little girl, he hadn’t been able to fill that void. Being away from him had caused her to rethink things. He had done all he could do to nurture her. She hadn’t understood how potent his love for her was until she gave birth to the twins. Over the past two years, she had learned a lot about love. As much as Morgan had taken Ethic through, he should have given up on her a long time ago, but he was still hanging on, loving her through it all. The only love that could endure her type of defiance was parental. Ethic was her father, and no matter who came into his life, he always would be. It had taken her a while to grasp that. His marriage had made her feel threatened once upon a time, but the twins had made her realize that the bond between parent and child was forever.
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