Page 19 of Certified Pressure 2
We ain’t say shit at first, just fell in step next to each other like the night pulled us together. I dragged on my blunt, blew smoke in the air, then handed it over. She wrapped her lips around it slow, pulled in, and for a moment I remembered everything—her head on my chest at night, her voice in my ear, the way our bodies used to snap together like we was built for that shit.
We started talkin’ then, light shit at first. After a while, her hand slid into mine. I ain’t stop her. I let her lace her fingers with mine, and let her remind me what her touch felt like… warm and possessive.
Her voice broke the quiet. “I miss sleepin’ in your bed.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I miss it too.”
She squeezed my hand tighter, slid her arm through mine, and then she was right there pullin’ me closer. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and when her lips hit the side of it, I had to close my eyes for a second. That flame we had… it was still there, and had always been there.
She wanted to stay the night, I could feel it before she even said it. And truth be told, my body was screamin’ fuck yes. My dick remembered her better than my mind did. But I shook my head and told her low, “Not tonight.”
The look on her face changed quick. “Something is off with you, and I don’t like it at all.”
I sighed. “Why everything gotta be a fight with you, Kash?”
She pulled back, heat in her voice. “’Cause you actin’ different, Pressure. You pushin’ me off, like I don’t know what’s goin’ on. Like I don’t know who you really thinkin’ about.”
Her words dug deep. I ain’t need her to say Pluto’s name out loud, but the way she said it lit me up. My jaw clenched as I snapped back, “Why everything always gotta come back to that? Why we can’t just be us? Damn.”
She stepped back, her eyes shinin’ with emotion, her voice raisin’. “’Cause you ain’t lettin’ us be us! You sick with games, Pressure. One day you all in, the next you treat me like I don’t even exist. Once again, you’re pushing me away. You not gon’ be satisfied till somebody get hurt.”
I grabbed her wrist hard when she tried to walk off, yankin’ her back to me. “Don’t fuckin’ walk away from me when I’m talkin.” My voice was sharp, cuttin’ through her tears.
She glared at me, her voice shakin’ but strong. “I’m sick of you, Pressure. Sick of this back and forth. Sick of bein’ the one holdin’ shit down while you out here actin’ confused like you don’t know where the fuck we stand! Ugh!”
I let out a heavy breath, lookin’ down at the stones beneath us before I finally said, “My mama and pops gon’ be here soon. You’ll meet ’em. What you show them gon’ tell me everything I need to know about where we goin’.”
That stopped her cold. The fire in her eyes dimmed, replaced with somethin’ else. She looked at me different, like I handed her a crown she didn’t know she wanted at this moment.”
“The impression you leave on my people gon’ determine if we make it or not,” I told her, lettin’ the weight of my words settle.
She nodded slow, humbled now and her eyes softenin’ in a way I wasn’t used to. I leaned down, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and whispered, “Goodnight.”
Then I walked off, leavin’ her in the glow of the estate lights while I headed back inside. My blunt was half-burnt, my drink was warm, and my heart still felt like it belonged to multiple people, no matter how much I tried to fight it.
Trill-Land, Jungle Estate
Two days later…
Ihad been up all morning, laying across the bed with my eyes on the ceiling.
Pressure had taken me to get my phone programmed, and actually let me keep it in the room, instead of the lockbox. And he let Toni have hers too with the strict rules of neither of us posting about what was going on in the mansion. I was confused as to why he never asked for my number or even volunteered to give me his. It bothered me, but I dropped it.
It had been two long days since anything between me and Pressure felt close, and I was fighting with myself heavy because I wanted to act like it didn’t matter, but it did. We weren’t havingsex, there wasn’t much hugging or kissing, and the silence between us had been louder than any argument we ever could’ve had. I kept telling myself to pack my shit and go, but the thought of leaving this mansion without knowing what our lives could’ve been like together felt like a punishment I wasn’t built to take. Walking away might’ve been the smart thing to do, but love don’t ever move smart, and my heart wasn’t ready to let him go.
My fear wasn’t just leaving him, it was leaving the not knowing. Not knowing if he would’ve eventually chosen me and made me his wife. Not knowing if I was meant to stand by his side and wear that crown. That “what if” was the only thing that had me dragging myself through each day, keeping me glued to a situation that had me second guessing everything.
I picked up my new phone and signed into my Instagram, scrolling through the old DMs that had carried over from before. My chest tightened when I opened the messages between me and Pluto. There we was, talking like sisters, hyping each other up about coming to the mansion, laughing about what we thought life here was gonna be like. There was messages about outfits, late-night voice notes, and dumb memes we used to send back and forth. All of it was a reminder of how close we used to be before everything fell apart.
My thumb hovered over her name more than once, like I wanted to type something, like I wanted to break the ice and pull us back to what we had. But the truth was, I didn’t know what to say. Too much had gone down, and Pressure was in the middle of all of it. The same man who was supposed to bring us together had turned into the wedge driving us apart.
I couldn’t lie, I told myself over and over that Toni was cool, but she wasn’t competition. She had her little lane, but I knew Pressure wasn’t looking at her like that. The only reason I never opened my mouth about her and Kay’Lo spending time together was because Toni was solid with me, and I wasn’t about to throwher under the bus for a cheap one-up. She wasn’t my problem anyway. My problem was Pressure’s silence, the distance he was putting between us, and the way my mind spun every time I thought about Pluto or Ka’mari.
And as far as Ka’mari was concerned, I wouldn’t even give that hoe the time of day. I made it my business not to look her way or give her the satisfaction of thinking she mattered to me at all. She could walk around the mansion like she was somebody important, but to me she was invisible. What stung more was Pluto. I didn’t even have to see her to feel her shadow over me. Pressure had taken her to meet his parents already, and no matter how much I tried to shake it, that shit haunted me. What impression had she left on them? Did they look at her like the type of woman they could see standing next to their son forever? And if they did, what chance did I really have?
Before I could get too lost in my thoughts, the sound of Blaqson’s voice cut through the quiet. He was calling all of us downstairs, and from the way his tone carried, it was Pressure behind it. My stomach twisted up, but I got myself up off the bed, washed up and checked my reflection before heading out.
When I stepped into the foyer, there he was—standing at the bottom of the stairs in emerald silk pajamas, his shirt hanging open to show off his chest, diamonds gleaming around his neck, on his wrist, and shining from his ear. He had a cup of coffee in one hand, and the kind of calm only a man like him could have early in the morning while everybody else was scrambling to figure out what he was thinking. The whole scene looked like some shit straight out of a dream, and he was the only one that could pull it off without looking ridiculous.
