by Shelly Ellis
Ricky ran his hand over his son’s crown, feeling the dark curls against his fingertips.
“So what are you going to name him?” Mary asked, breaking into the moment.
“Well, I’m . . . I’m not sure,” Simone said, looking at Ricky again. “I don’t think we ever decided. I mentioned Darius. You said you liked the name Shaun. We also said Miles sounded good.”
“Miles,” Ricky said with a nod. “That sounds about right.”
Ricky had traveled many miles to find Simone, to track her down. He’d traveled even more to make sure Simone and his son were safe, and he would travel to the ends of the earth and back to make sure they stayed that way.
“Miles,” she repeated, then nodded. “I like it!” She then looked down at their son and smiled, holding him close as he continued to nurse, oblivious to the conversation around him. “Welcome to the world, Miles.”
* * *
When Ricky woke up the next morning, he blinked and looked around him, trying to assess once again where he was. He wasn’t in his bed at his condo or in a bed at the motel.
He could hear the faraway sound of the morning news and the smell of bacon sizzling. He raised his head from a pillow and looked to his left. Simone was reclined against a stack of pillows, nursing Miles again against the backdrop of the morning light. Ricky grinned, realizing he must have fallen asleep on the guest bed not too long after Simone had given birth.
Watching Simone and Miles now, he swore he had never seen anything so beautiful.
“Well, would you look at that?” Simone whispered down to their son. “Daddy is finally awake.”
“How long have I been out?” he asked, sitting upright and stretching, listening as the vertebrae in his spine cracked.
“About six hours. You managed to snooze through two feedings,” she said, side-eying him.
Ricky chuckled. Of course, he’d slept so hard. Surrounded by so much peace and contentment, who wouldn’t?
“Meanwhile, Mommy fell asleep at one point with a baby still connected to her breast,” she murmured before gently rubbing the spiral of dark hair at the crown of Miles’s head.
“I’ll rock him back to sleep after he’s done feeding,” Ricky offered.
He’d only had the chance to hold his son once since his birth. He yearned to do it again.
“I’d love that, but I’d love food even more. I think Mary is cooking breakfast. Do you mind bringing me a plate?”
He nodded and rose from the bed. “Bacon and eggs coming up, baby.”
He strode out of the bedroom, down the hall, and through the beaded curtain leading to the kitchen. Mary stood by the oven with a spatula in her hand, watching the mini portable TV she had on the kitchen counter as she cooked.
“Good mornin’,” he said, as he walked toward her. “Smells good! Simone was wondering if she could have some of . . .”
His words faded when his eyes zeroed in on the expression on Mary’s face. She had gone deathly pale. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were wide; she looked horrified.
His gaze shifted to where her focus seemed to be, which was on the television screen. He saw footage of Simone’s house surrounded by yellow police tape. He saw police officers wheel out three gurneys with black body bags that likely contained Simone’s mother and sister and the body of Melvin, the man Ricky had killed.
Mary whipped around to face Ricky, still clutching the spatula.
“Oh, my . . . oh, my . . .” she cried hoarsely. “What is going on? What . . . what happened to her family? Why are they dead?”
He held up his hands. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be scared. Just let me explain.”
“Did you do that?” she screeched, brandishing her spatula at him like it was a knife. She seemed less like a homeless woman and more like an escapee from a psych ward at the moment. “Is that why she couldn’t give birth at her house? Did you kill them?”
He shook his head. “No, I di—”
Ricky didn’t get to finish. Mary went rushing across the kitchen, reaching out for the cordless phone that hung on the wall near the refrigerator. She was going to call the police; he was sure of it, and all the effort he had made for him and Simone to stay hidden would be destroyed.
Luckily, he beat her to it and grabbed the receiver before she could. He slowly shook his head. “Don’t do that, Mary.”
“You stay away from me! You just stay away!” As she backed away, she swung the spatula at him, slapping him in the chest, making him wince.
“What is all this yelling about?” Simone asked, strolling into the kitchen, cradling Miles to her shoulder. “Is everything okay?”
“No, it is not okay!” Mary shouted. “Simone, are you this man’s prisoner?”
“His prisoner?” Simone repeated. “Why would I be his prisoner?”
“Did he kill your family? Has he threatened you, sweetheart?”
Simone went quiet. She looked at Mary, then Ricky, then Mary again. “He hasn’t hurt or threatened me. He didn’t kill my family either. He saved me. I might be dead, too, if it wasn’t for him.”
“What?” Mary asked. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, girl? What did you bring into my house?”
“You have nothing to worry about.” Ricky held up his hands again. “Just . . . just put down the spatula and sit down, and I swear, we’ll explain everything, okay?”
Mary looked warily at them both.
“Mary, please,” Simone said, and Miles began to wail.
He watched as Mary slowly lowered the spatula to her side. “Go ahead and tend to the baby,” she said to Simone before eying Ricky. “Meanwhile, you better start explaining.” She pointed up at him. “And I mean pretty damn fast, buddy boy, or I’ll tackle you down and grab that phone right out of your hand!”
He pursed his lips. Her bravado didn’t scare him. He had her by about a hundred pounds and thirteen inches, but he admired her courage. Ricky debated on what parts of the tale he should leave in or keep out, and finally decided to just tell her everything—well, almost everything.
“Okay, I’ll explain, but it’s a long story,” he began.
Mary eyed him. “I’ve got time. Start talking!”
Chapter 6
Jamal
Jamal slowly opened his eyes, surprised to find his mother gazing down at him, hovering mere inches away from his face.
“Oh, my baby! You’re alive! Oh, honey! You gave your mama such a scare!” she drawled before leaning down to kiss his brow.
Jamal blinked and slowly looked around him.
The last memory he had was of being slumped on his bedroom floor, holding a balled-up bedsheet against his wounded shoulder, trying his best to stop the bleeding from his gunshot wound. But even the sheet was soaked with blood by the time the paramedics had arrived.
“Are you still with us, Jamal? Can you hear me?” a male voice had called to him, shining a penlight into his eyes, making him flinch.
“Yeah, I hear you,” Jamal had answered. Or he thought he had.
It probably actually sounded a lot more garbled to the EMTs.
His eyelids had grown heavy. He’d been losing the battle to stay conscious before they arrived. Once he saw the uniforms, his body had given out.
“Shit! We’re losing him,” another voice had said just as Jamal’s head thumped against the hardwood floor.
But they hadn’t lost him. He was still here. That was evident from the room he now found himself in.
It was obviously a hospital room and he was obviously in a hospital bed. Several vases filled with bouquets of roses, carnations, and Asiatic lilies filled the space, along with Mylar balloons of all shapes and sizes. His mother hovered over him protectively, patting his cheek.
He noticed a petite, blond nurse stood at the foot of his bed in short-sleeved green scrubs.
“Welcome back to the world, Mr. Lighty,” she said, brightening her pretty face with a smile. “I’m Samantha, though you can call me Sam. I
tell all my patients that. Less syllables makes it easier to say.” She chuckled. “I’ll be your nurse during this shift. The doctor said your surgery went well. We called him and told him you’re awake now. He should be in shortly to explain everything in more detail.”
“Thanks,” Jamal said.
He noticed as he spoke that his throat was a little sore. The drugs, which undoubtedly included a cocktail of painkillers, were also making him a little groggy.
“I told my son about livin’ in this godforsaken city!” his mother interrupted, kissing his brow again. “That’s why I moved back to North Carolina to leave all this fightin’ and shootin’ behind. My blood pressure can’t take it! I told him that he should have left with me.”
Jamal rolled his eyes. He had just woken up and he felt tired already; his henpecking, melodramatic mother could exhaust him so easily. It was one of the reasons he had no intention of ever moving anywhere close to her home in North Carolina.
“When the cops called me and told me you were shot, Jay, my heart almost jumped out of my chest.” She fell back into a brown pleather chair beside his bed and patted a buttery hand to her skinny bosom. “I almost died, baby!”
“No, I almost died. You just freaked out,” he said dryly.
He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Nurse Sam was laughing silently as she tapped something into the computer tablet she held.
“You hear that?” his mother asked Nurse Sam. “You hear how he treats his mama? He’s picking at me even though I took the first flight up here to be with him!”
“Stop talkin’ about me like I’m not here, Mama—or like I’m deaf,” he mumbled.
“Yes, he can be ungrateful sometimes, but I still love him. And I’m glad he’s better,” she continued like he hadn’t said anything. She turned back around to face him. “I’m glad you survived this, baby. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t.” She leaned forward in her chair. “You know it was all over the news: the shooting and the arrest. People were shocked to hear the deputy mayor got shot in his own apartment building.”
Nurse Sam raised her brows. “You’re deputy mayor?” She glanced around his hospital room. “That would explain all the balloons and flowers! I just thought you had a big family.”
Jamal shook his head. “I’m not deputy mayor anymore.”
After Mayor Johnson had had the reporter Phillip Seymour at the Washington Recorder murdered for sniffing too close around his dirty business dealings, Jamal couldn’t stomach working for him any longer. Under Melissa’s advice and guidance, he had finally worked up the courage to quit—whatever the consequences might be. He wondered if he was suffering those consequences now.
“You aren’t the deputy mayor anymore?” his mother asked, looking genuinely shocked. “When did that happen?”
“Last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Jay?” his mother cried.
Jamal gave a side glance at the nurse, who was staring at them, still looking amused. “Mama, do we have to talk about this right now?”
“Well, anyway, Jay used to be deputy mayor,” his mother said to the nurse, sounding dejected. Jamal had taken away prime boasting fodder that his mother could lord over his aunts and uncles at the dinner table back in North Carolina, whose sons in comparison were unemployed or in jail for overdue child support. “He was in the business department.”
“Planning and economic development,” Jamal corrected.
“Impressive,” Nurse Sam said with a nod, making her blond ponytail bob up and down. “I thought you looked familiar. I’ve seen you on TV a few times, haven’t I?”
“Maybe,” he murmured, and tried to shrug, but noticed his left shoulder was now in a sling.
“Don’t be shy about it, honey!” his mother insisted. “Being deputy mayor was a big deal and I bet you’ll even become mayor one day—even though that boy tried to take away your chance before you could even try! The police caught him, you know? They said he’d been hiding in the stairwell, running between floors before the police tracked him down. He never even made it out of the building.” She slowly shook her head. “He’s only seventeen years old. Can you believe that? What on earth would make a young man follow someone to his door and shoot him? I blame poor home training!”
And I blame something very different, Jamal thought.
He suspected Mayor Johnson was behind it. Jamal had run afoul of the mayor when he announced that he was tired of keeping the mayor’s secrets and he was quitting city hall. The old man had promised that Jamal would pay a heavy price, though Jamal wasn’t sure at the time if he would go through with his threat. Now he realized it had been foolish not to take the mayor seriously. It seemed too random that the boy had targeted Jamal and the boy had insisted before shooting him that he had to do it, that he had no other choice. This was a hit—a targeted hit.
And I wrote a check to that son of a bitch to give him back all the dirty money he gave me, Jamal thought with disgust.
“Well, I’m going to check on my other patients,” Nurse Sam said. “Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything, Mr. Lighty. Your call button is right here.” She leaned forward and pointed to a blue button on one of the hospital-bed brackets. “You can reach me or the nurses’ station that way.”
“Thanks,” he said, smiling.
She nodded again and walked out of the hospital room.
“She seemed nice,” his mother said when they were alone again.
“Don’t all nurses seem nice?”
“Oh, no! You should’ve met the nurse who tended to your grandmother when she had a double mastectomy. As mean as the devil, honey!” His mother paused and looked down at her purse that sat in the chair beside her. “This thing won’t stop buzzing.”
“What thing?” he murmured tiredly.
“Your phone!” She reached into her purse, pulling out his cell. “The hospital said that you were holding it when they took you into the ambulance. They had to pry it out of your hands. They gave it to me when I got here.” She wiped the screen with a Kleenex before handing it to him.
He frowned as he looked down at his phone. Even through there were smudges of blood on the screen, he saw a list of calls and text messages that he’d received in the past twenty-four hours. About a third of the calls were from Melissa. Without even thinking he pressed the button to automatically call her back and raised the phone to his ear.
“Jay, I don’t think you’re supposed to use cell phones in here,” his mother chastised.
She pointed to a sign on the wall with an illustrated cell phone and a red X drawn through it, but he ignored her and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line.
“Jay!” Melissa shouted. “Oh, my God! Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, smiling again. His chest instantly warmed at the sound of her voice.
“Shit! You scared the hell out of me! I’ve been seeing all this stuff on the news and . . . and I tried calling and texting you, but you wouldn’t answer. I was so worried. I couldn’t even concentrate in class. I bet the kids think I’m crazy! Are . . . are you okay? I know you’re alive but . . . are you okay? You’re talking, so you must be okay, right?”
He laughed. “I’m alive and I’m okay, I think. I’m awake and out of surgery. I think I’m in one of the recovery wards at the Washington Hospital Center,” he said, judging from the signage he saw around his room.
“Can I come see you? Can you accept visitors?” she asked.
“Sure!” His face was a full grin now. “Of course, you can come see me. You know that!”
“Okay, I’ll leave school right now. I’ll tell the principal it’s an emergency and ask my assistant to take over. I should be down there in a couple of hours. All right?”
“All right. See you soon.” He hung up.
“Who was that?” his mother asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“A friend,” he muttered, not eager to tell his mother all of his business at
the moment. He continued to scan his text messages.
“Sounded like a lot more than a friend to me,” she mumbled.
He didn’t comment.
An hour and forty-five minutes later, Melissa arrived with a bouquet in one arm and a small grocery bag in the other. She strode into the hospital room, looking as beautiful as ever with her coils in a bun atop her head, wearing a button-down pink shirt and black pencil skirt—her fourth-grade teacher attire. She made for a very sexy teacher, in his opinion. Though Jamal was in a sling and a hospital bed, he wanted to reach out and peel off that pencil skirt that hugged her curves in all the right places.
“Melissa! Is that you, girl?” his mother shouted, rising from her chair when Melissa entered the room.
“Mrs. Lighty! Oh, my . . . I haven’t seen you in such a long time! How have you been?”
Melissa set the bag and the flowers in an empty chair and the two women embraced.
His mother had known Melissa back from the early days when she would occasionally tag along with Derrick, Jamal, and Ricky. She still saw her every couple of years when the guys hung out together.
When we used to hang out, Jamal thought forlornly, remembering their old friendship.
“I’ve been doing good,” his mother said as she took a step back and gazed at Melissa. “And you look as pretty as ever! You’re gonna look so nice in your wedding dress, honey! Have you picked it out yet? You and Derrick finally settle on that wedding date?”
“Mama,” Jamal said warningly.
Melissa’s smile disappeared. She lowered her eyes.
“Oh, they’ve been engaged for a while now, Jay! I’m not the only one asking.” She patted Melissa’s shoulder. “I know you probably get tired of people quizzing you, honey. Just know that I’ll be looking forward to that invitation in the mail if I can’t convince my son to take me as his plus-one.”
Melissa cleared her throat. She slowly raised her eyes from the linoleum-tile floor. “Actually . . . umm . . . Dee and I . . . well, we broke up, Mrs. Lighty. We did a few months ago.”
“Oh,” his mother said, looking crestfallen. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry to hear that!”