Page 184 of Are You Going to Love Me

“Music to my ears. The sickness is going away, and the horniness is kicking in and I don’t want our baby coming out with a stutter.”

“Yo! Eden, please.” He laughed. “What?”

“That rose is no joke, I didn’t want the baby affected, so I’ve been suffering. I need my dick. Rested, though, I can wait.”

Maximus quieted his laughter. “If it’s any consolation, this is the last tour you’re not on. Ain’t have your scent, your touch, your motivational speeches in person. I need all that.”

“I need you too. Happy I stayed. What’s on the schedule before the show?”

“Ohh, not you all in my business,” he joked. “I’m soundin’ like you. That shit is crazy.”

“You are my business. Heard me?”

“Yo ass. You right, though. I got an interview at WSV. Hit up David and Daniel for some bud for the shop. One last sound check and then show time.”

“I love show time,” Eden spoke with a yawn.

“Admit you were feeling a nigga before I got out.”

Eden fake snored.

“Aight, one day you gon admit to being a stalker. Just like me.”

Eden smirked and popped an eye open. “No one is you.”

“Oh, so you woke up for that?”

Eden closed her eyes and went back to fake snoring.

“Heard you.”

sixty-one

. . .

“Why you touchin’on me?” Maximus asked, giving Eden the eye.

Eden was fresh out of the shower and hydrated with her body oil he’d had to buy two replacement bottles of. “You know why I’m touchin’ on you. I’ve done this every morning since you got home. Isn’t that right, Teddy?”

The Cane Corso looked up at Eden as if they had established a secret language in his absence. She’d gone out and bought him a bed, toys, top of the top-of-the-line dog food. He got groomed weekly, had a babysitter to tend to him on the days she wasn’t home to do it herself. Teddy had even gotten used to curling up at Eden’s side. The last three days he’d been home, Maximus found himself going back and forth with a dog. Teddy only moved when Eden told him to.

“You and this dog,” Maximus grumbled. “All that screaming you did the other night, he tried to break down the damn door.”

“Max, that is literally your fault. You had him trained to only listen to me. Ain’t that right, Teddy? Hm?”

Teddy nudged her and licked her ankle.

“And he stays licking my ankle. That’s my ankle, boy,” Maximus toyed, earning him a bark.

“Alright, Teddy, that’s enough. Go lay down,” Eden spoke, and Teddy trotted away.

“You ain’t tell that nigga who the big dog is in this house?”

“I did. He told me it was him,” Eden joked, as she rubbed his shoulders and hummed.

“You gon’ tell me what you’re doing?”

Eden looked up at him and squinted. “Amen. Why must you always interrupt the prayer?”

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