Page 33 of The Promise

“We’re number one!” Borys shouted.

I heard it, understood it, but couldn’t quite appreciate it. My eyes were locked onto a now perplexed Jas. He knew something was off with me but likely wouldn’t ask. Things had been so fucked up between us for way too long.

You’re here?

I wanted to shout in excitement similarly to the way my team was doing all around me. Jas showed up for me. Out of all the potential support…all the promises and declarations made by people over the months, Jas never committed his support forIDC. But his showing felt on par with the energy he’d always represented in my life: consistency, even at the bane of my perceived happiness. The man had been unfailingly present. Generous in expressing mercy and grace.

“Yo, you hear that?” Jas lifted Chi-Chi in his arms, attention still to me. “You guys won.”

I did. But something far more riotous was going off in my head and heart.

“Thanks for coming,” I managed, fighting back my emotions, knowing my face was a canvas of melted crayons.

And it happened again. The flip in his eyes from hard and cold to helpless vulnerability.

“Always.” His delivery was soft or perhaps drowned out by the boisterous shouts and screams from my team, who’d scooped me into the air with celebratory flair.

“We have to get our trophy, Shi-Shi!” Borys chided.

I turned back to Jas, ready to tell him I’d be right back. But it was unnecessary. The proud gleam in his eyes expressed they’d be right there until I returned.

“Three, four, five…” Chivon hopped on each leg, one at a time, while she clasped my hands above her. “Seben, eight—”

“You missed six,” I corrected her.

“Sir,” Eric, one of my security guys, approached us, leaning into me with a low volume, “Bob just hit me. Seers is here. Four o’clock, near the curtain.”

My eyes scanned an almost ninety-degree angle. Amongst the dancers in uniforms and backstage staff, I saw three niggas. Two of them whispering and looking my way. Immediately, Austin Seers’ chin lifted, and lips balled. His mans with him, whispering in his ear, pulled him back by the arm into the shadows of the curtains.

Oh, word?

She got that nigga here?

“What you wanna do?” Eric asked.

Thinking for a minute, processing the shit, I continued to stare Austin’s way, and could still see one of his boys partially covered by a shadow. A few scenarios ran through my mind, none pretty. I told that nigga four years ago to stay the fuck away from Ashira. That was before she had my baby. Did the nigga think now was a safe bet? Did Ashira cosign this shit? Did she put the battery in his back? Or did his pussy ass forget I wasthatnigga?

“You hear me, Daddy?” Chivon yanked at my hands.

My attention dropped to her pretty face, set into an angry scowl. I would swear her mother could be identified in each tense muscle of her expression.

“My bad, baby. Whatchu say?”

“Six. Six, Daddy!”

“I’m sorry. Good job. You’re getting so much better, Blueberry.”

She wiggled beneath me, shimmying in her dress. Chivon’s smile exploded. “It okay.”

Even being angry with me, my baby knew how to deliver mercy. Damn. She was so good for me. A true gift from God. Had to be. Nothing soothed my inner craze like the simple sight of her miniature being or the sound of her soft, innocent voice. Chivon quieted brewing storms in me a lot now.

That had my gaze shifting up and seeing their coward asses still in the wings of darkness.

“Nah. He good for now,” I finally answered Eric.

I didn’t know what the hell Ashira was on.

But I’mma let her have it…

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