Page 101 of Are You Going to Love Me

With a shrug, she said, “I am who I am. And you’re that nigga, so we’ll just be who we are and keep winning. But don’t sweat the maybes. What’s in stone is that you have a contract and if it’s violated, then you take your shit and you keep popping your shit. I don’t know who runs UVE, but I do know one thing, they release you or do some fuck shit, it’s a bidding war. You have the leverage, act like it.”

“That right there is going to have you locked up in the house,” he stated, kissing her face. “Speaking life into a nigga and shit.”

“You act like it’s something you haven’t heard,” she said, as she turned to grab her bag and head inside. Her exit was halted. “What?”

Maximus gazed at her with stars in his eyes. “Ain’t nobody ever spoke life into me before. You was doing that shit before you let a nigga hit. That’s why I handle you like this.”

Eden’s cheeks heated, and she nipped the corner of her lip. “Could you do us a favor and stop talking to us like that. We’re still recovering.”

Maximus smirked, licked his lips, and nodded his head. “I can’t kiss it and make it better?”

His question was assisted by a palm to her ass. Eden wiggled away from him, giggling in the process.

“Kissing it and making it better is what had me on my tip toes all night. No, don’t!”

Maximus reached out, scooped her up in his arms, and covered her face with kisses.

“Maxxxx,” she giggled. “We’re going to be late for an appointment you made.”

“We can do that shit online now that I think about it. You know, so I won’t have to share you.”

“You’re going to have to learn to share. You can’t have me locked up in the house.”

“And why not?” he countered.

“Because I like to work,” Eden stated.

“You wouldn’t let me take care of you?”

“I wouldn’t allow myself to rely on anyone to feed me. The power to feed me is the power to starve me, too. Feel me?”

“Spoken just like Poppi. I feel you. I hear you. Ain’t a power I’ll use to control you. Just know you got a stand-up man, taking care of you is going to be something I do with ease.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, but you not my girl yet, so come on, let’s roll,” he joked, leading the way to the front door. “And before you say it,‘ew, Max, you get on my nerves’.”

“You do actually,” she chuckled, as she walked past him.

“Girl, come on, before your neighbor kidnaps me.”

“Oh, I thought you weren’t above snatching people off the street.”

“I do the snatching. I don’t get snatched, E.”

In the interior design boutique, her hands ran over the fabric of the curtain samples. They almost missed their appointment battling the handful of paparazzi who swarmed his truck when they appeared off the private elevator. How they got into the parking garage of a secure building was beyond them, but one thing was certain: Maximus didn’t like how easily accessible she was to outside sources. As he inched through the showroom behind her, his mind danced with the what if’s when he wasn’t around.

“Why would you pin sheets over the windows?” Eden’s question broke him out of his thoughts.

“What else was I supposed to put up?” Maximus questioned in return, studying how she studied each sample. “What else we need for the house? Besides fancy ass window treatments.”

“Not fancy, necessary. You won’t be one of those rappers who have a box spring on the floor and one folding chair in the kitchen. The house needs life. Paintings for your walls, decor that matches. It needs personality like it’s yours,” Eden shared.

“Maybe ours,” Maximus stated. “Needs to look like ours.”

Eden briefly looked up at him in search of a joke on his face, but there wasn’t even a wiggle of goofiness. Returning to what she was doing, she queried, “So what am I supposed to do with my apartment?”

“When is that lease up?”

---