Alexandria House
Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC
Arkansas, USA
Copyright © 2018 by Alexandria House
Cover image from Jaida A Photography
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing 2018
Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC
[email protected]
Let Me Free You
Neil McClain is the screw-up, the one everyone hopes will win but expects to lose. He wants to live a better life, one that his late mother would be proud of, but his belief in himself is weak.
Sage Moniba is in need of a major miracle or she’ll be forced to give up the only life she’s known.
Neil is searching for freedom from the demons of his past.
Sage is in desperate need of help.
Could it be that what each one needs resides in the other?
Prologue
My eyes were glued to the colorful Sankofa painting hanging on the wall just behind her in vibrant shades of red, green, black, and yellow, with the exception of the egg resting on the bird’s back. It was brown. I had memorized that painting in the nine weeks I’d been living and learning to heal in that place. I’d even dreamed about it a couple of times.
Go back and get it. Move forward, but don’t forget to bring those left behind with you. Give back. That was one definition of Sankofa, but the one that touched me was: Learn from your past, and with that knowledge, move into the future. That definition spoke to me, hit a nerve, convicted me.
“Don’t do that. Don’t shut down on me, Neil,” said Erica Blake, the beautiful eighties film star and lifelong recovering drug addict who now owned and operated the Sankofa Holistic Healing Center.
I focused my eyes on her. She always looked regal in a bohemian way—loose dress, headwrap that barely could contain her long, graying dreadlocks. Her usual uniform. “I’m listening. I heard every word you said. You think I’m ready to leave. I know I’m not. I was supposed to be here twelve weeks and I need all twelve. I know I do.”
She shook her head. “You feel safe here, comfortable. Comfort is good, Neil. But true growth comes from daring to leave your comfort behind. Here, we swaddle our clients, make them feel safe, because one can’t heal if they don’t trust the healer, but like a mother bird, it’s time for us to push you out of the nest. Now is the time for you to go. Not in three more weeks. I know that, feel it in my spirit.”
My eyes found the painting again as I adjusted my body in the soft brown leather chair that matched the one she sat in. There was no desk in her office, no certificates on the wall, but she was one hell of a counselor—kind, patient, gentle, motherly.
Motherly.
I believe that’s why I’d grown so attached to her and this place. She reminded me of my mother. Damn, I’m glad Mama didn’t see me fuck my life up like I did.
Sighing, I said, “I don’t want to...fail. What if I get back out there in the world and I can’t cope? What if I relapse, start drinking again, gambling again? I messed up so many times before when I was supposed to do better. I mean, I understand why my family never believes in me. Hell, I don’t believe in me.”
She leaned forward, her elbows on her thighs, the layers of gold bracelets on her arms clanging against each other. “I believe in you, and you should believe in yourself. Your ancestors survived a transatlantic boat ride that was nothing short of a vacation in Duat, a trip that many didn’t survive, designed to weed out the weak. Your people lived through slavery and Jim Crow so that you could carry on their legacy of strength. You are strong, Neil, and talented, and when we’re talented like you are, we are so sensitive, so easily convinced that we’re less than what we are. You’re ready. You just have to believe it and receive it. And...I’m not throwing you out there alone. You’ll be returning once a week for counseling. Did you not hear that part?”
“I did. I just…”
“You’ll be fine. You will. Just remember what I told you.”
I chuckled. “You’ve told me a lot since I’ve been here. You know that, right?”
“What did I tell you about your power?”
I lifted my eyes to meet hers, straightened my posture, and said, “I am a king, a black king, and inside me rests the power of every black king who came before me. It’s how I choose to use my power that will either bring me victory or defeat.”
She smiled and nodded. “Asé, Neil.”
I returned her smile, rubbed my hand down my face, and replied, “So it is, Mother Erica. So it is.”
1
“Damn! You sure you ain’t Nolan?! Man! You look good! No wonder you didn’t want any visitors. We thought you was in there detoxing and getting group therapy and shit, but what you were really doing was getting facials and massages and pedicures,” Everett said, as he stood by the passenger side of his SUV outside the healing center.
I stepped up to him and slapped his hand, smiled when he pulled me into a hug and smacked me on the back.
“Man, ain’t been nothing but hard work going on, but it was worth it,” I said, stepping back a little.
“It looks like it paid off. You ready to roll? Hey, Chink! Come grab Neil’s bag!”
Holding up a hand, I said, “I got it, Ev.”
Everett looked at me and nodded. “A’ight. You can throw it in the back and we’ll bounce.”
We made small talk as Chink drove us to my place. Well, the conversation was actually pretty one-sided with Everett catching me up on what was going on in his world. He shared the success of the Mrs. South EP, which had already gone double platinum. That was crazy in a time when folks could download a single cut with ease. But it was a good body of work that I couldn’t believe I’d contributed to in the fractured frame of mind I was in at the time. I wasn’t perfect after treatment, but I was a hell of a lot better off than I was before.
“I bet Lena has really gotten big,” I said, after he filled me in on the video shoot for Panty Gag.
“Man, let me tell you. I think my baby girl is gonna be tall like me. She’s growing like a weed!”
“Nat and Ella ain’t jealous, are they?”
“Naw, Ella is obsessed with Lena. If she could, I think she’d move in with us just so she can hold her all the time. And you know Nat; she goes with the flow. She loves her little sister and is taking this big sister thing real serious.”
“That’s what’s up.”
I’d been so damn preoccupied, talking to Everett while fighting my fears about leaving the center at the same time, that I didn’t notice we were in Calabasas until Chink was punching the gate code into the keypad at Everett’s place.
“I thought you were taking me home?” I said, my eyes on my big brother.
“This is still home for now. Look, I’m proud of you for getting help, but I wanna keep an eye on you for a while. If I like what I see, you can go to your crib.”
I wanted to curse him out, tell him I was damn near thirty-seven years old and that I needed my space, that one of the things that kept me from losing my fucking mind during the early days of my treatment was knowing the end result would be me getting my old life back, my independence, but I got it. He’d be
en out of a lot of money paying off my gambling debts and missed a lot of sleep worrying about me. He was afraid I’d relapse, fall back into my old ways, and since I shared the same concerns and knew beyond a doubt that it was all love on Everett’s part, I simply said, “Okay.”
“Now, look…I know you don’t wanna stay here anymore, but that’s the way it’s gotta be.”
“I feel you, Ev. It’s all good.”
“No, you are not going back to your house yet. I don’t care what you say. I’m your damn big brother, and I’m tryna take care of your ass.”
“Ev, I said it’s cool. I’m good with staying here.”
“For real?” he asked, his forehead full of lines and creases.
“Yeah, I know you’re just looking out for me. Am I in the same room?”
“Uh...yeah. Yeah, same room.” Everett sounded and looked confused as hell, but I understood that, too. He expected me to fight him on this, but I wouldn’t. I was determined to make this life thing work, to straighten my shit out for good, and if that meant being held captive for a minute, so be it.
“A’ight,” I said, as I opened the door and hopped out of the backseat. “I’ma head on up to my room and take a nap. Tell Jo I’ll catch her later.”
“Uh, okay?” Everett called after me as I hopped up the front steps of his house.
*****
“You need to bring your ass down to dinner.”
I shot up in the bed, blinking and squinting, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and where I was. “Huh?”
“I done called your ass, texted you, beat on this door, and your ass still up in here sleep? I’m hungry and Jo don’t wanna eat until you join us.”
The heavy fog of sleep began to lift, and I recognized the bedroom and my brother but still only managed to say, “Ev?”
“Yeah, nigga! Come on so we can eat.”
I dragged my hand down my face, nodded, and yawned. “Okay, give me a minute.”
As he left the room, he mumbled, “Don’t take too long.”
Stretching my eyes, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and muttered, “Shit…so it is.”
After I hit the toilet and washed my hands, I trotted down the stairs, and my heart hopped into my damn throat when a crowd of voices shouted, “Welcome home, Neil!”
Everyone was there taking turns hugging me—Ev, Jo, their three girls, Nolan, and his wife, Bridgette. Kim and Leland were missing, but I knew he was on the road with the Cyclones, and Kat and Tommy were with them since Tommy was still running Leland’s security and Kat was still Leland’s assistant.
“Wow, thank y’all. I mean…damn,” I said, too shocked to say much else.
“Well, come eat!” Jo invited me, and then the thought hit me that this was probably her idea. Jo was real sweet, had always been cool to me. Everett was lucky as hell to have her. All my brothers were lucky in the love department, and as I sat down to eat the fancy dinner Everett’s cook prepared, I pushed the thoughts of loneliness that eased into my mind away and let myself experience something I hadn’t received from my family in a long time—acceptance.
2
Get up and come get something to eat, sis.
Bridgette’s words bounced around in my brain as I rolled over in the bed and buried my face in the downy pillow. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to eat. Truth be told, I didn’t want to do anything but lie in that bed and waste away. I was already homeless, sleeping in my friend’s guest room. And soon, I’d be country-less, forced to return to a land I knew nothing about. My damn heart was broken in so many ways I’d lost count, and I was just…tired. So tired.
“I’m not hungry,” I muttered.
That was a lie. I was always hungry. That was why I was skirting the borders of thick and skidding into pure old fat.
“Girl, get your ass up and come on. You know you got that wedding to work today.”
I sprang up in the bed. “Shit! What time is it?”
“Time for you to get out of that bed!”
Through a groan, I threw the covers off my body and climbed out of bed. After a trip to the bathroom, I joined Bridgette and her husband for a breakfast of crepes and omelets that I knew had to come from some restaurant, because Bridgette could cook but hated to. I wasn’t sure of Nolan’s culinary skills. I could cook but wasn’t in the right frame of mind to.
As I ate, my eyes darted around the sunny breakfast nook. This house was so pretty. Hell, Malibu was pretty, and the rent-free room was great. I was grateful to the McClains for taking me in after Gavin’s ass bailed on me, leaving me with that high-ass rent to pay alone, the rent on the apartment he chose, in the same neighborhood where his no-keeping-a-job ass’s rich parents, who footed his portion of it, lived. He was stupid, but so was I for giving up my reasonably-priced apartment to move in with him after only knowing him a month. But that was me—impulsive, always falling in love—actually, lust—too quickly, gullible, needy, dumb as all hell. And soon to be added to the list? Suicidal, because I truly didn’t know how I’d cope with having to leave the only life I’d ever known.
After I cleaned my plate, I left the table and showered. About thirty minutes later, me and my heavy makeup case were out the door.
I met Emery Tatum Bledsoe in junior high school. She was pretty, tiny, like four-eleven back then and never grew past five-feet-even. She was a true country girl, green as a damn shamrock, innocent as hell, and she was crazy about me from jump.
I was wild. Not the kind of wild that gets arrested for stealing shit or driving drunk or smoking dope. Well, I smoked my fair share of dope back in the day, but what I’m trying to say is, my wildness was more in my thinking. I loved to challenge myself. I liked adventure in every part of my life, especially my sex life, made a game of fucking as many women as I could until I eventually fucked me and Emery up. Because her being my girl and having been my girl for years had no bearing on how many pussies I dipped in. She never complained, never got mad, never said or did anything about it…until she did. And then she left me.
For good.
Shit, she left me and never turned back, completely erased me from her life.
That’s when I lost it. I couldn’t cope, didn’t understand how I could lose my sure thing, my constant, my heart. But I did. I lost her. She left me, moved on, and was happy, I guess. Yeah, she was happy. She built this great life while I slowly tore mine down punishing myself, I suppose. Drinking to numb the pain of being a habitual fuck-up, gambling just to feel the high that came from winning. But not fucking. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I hadn’t had sex in years. Maybe that was part of my self-imposed punishment, too, or maybe I’d fucked enough when I was fucking to never have to fuck again. Or, it could be that my dick just didn’t work for anyone but Emery Tatum Bledsoe.
*****
“No, I want the screen to be going the whole time with the graphics and shit. Nonstop,” Everett said, irritation on one hundred. I was sitting in with him at a meeting with his stage manager. Courtney, his assistant, was there, too.
“Oh, that’s new. So, you want the graphics to be going behind you at all times and the side screens to focus on you? Last tour, you wanted all three on you,” Don, a geeky-ass light-skinned dude, said. He’d been Everett’s stage manager for years, and they were good friends, but something was going on with my big brother that had zapped his patience.
“That was last tour. This is now. I wanna change it up.” Everett scrubbed a hand down his face and stared at the papers covering his desk. “This tour is packed.” Falling against the back of his seat, he added, “Shit.”
“Yep, just the way you like it,” Don said proudly. “We got it all booked in record time, too. The fans are going to go crazy with this many dates to choose from.”
Everett closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. Uh, I think that’s it. Thanks, Don.”
Recognizing that he was being dismissed, Don grabbed his briefcase and said goodbye before leaving, a confused look on
his face.
“What the hell is going on with you, Ev? You are in a mood!” Courtney said, echoing my thoughts.
My brother shrugged. “I’m good. We got anything we need to discuss?”
“Uh…yeah. We need to really get on looking for my replacement.” Courtney had put in her notice so that she could dedicate more time to her husband and new baby. Being an assistant to a rap legend and movie producer didn’t fit with her life anymore. It was too demanding and time-consuming, required too much travelling. I knew that from experience.
“Uh, I’m sitting right here,” I said. I hated this assistant shit, but he’d put it on me, so I accepted it. Probably would’ve accepted any role Everett assigned to me. I owed him more than I could ever repay.
“Naw, I’m cutting you loose, letting you get back to your real life,” Everett said, his attention on me.
My eyebrows shot up. “So, you letting me go home?”
“I ain’t say all that.”
“Shit.”
“But I’m handing the reigns of your store back over to you. Got some folks interested in your song-writing skills, too. It’s time for you to get back on your grind.”
“For real?” I asked, surprised and excited as hell at the same time.
“For real. Anyway, go ahead and put the word out or whatever you need to do. See who you can find for me,” he said to Courtney.
“Okay. No young females, right?”
“Yeah. That’s Jo’s rule. Shit, see if you can find a gay man or something. That’d thrill her ass, and that way, I won’t have to worry about some dude pushing up on her.”
I had to laugh at that. He was not trying to mess up his happy home.
Let Me Free You (McClain Brothers Book 4) Page 1
