by Tracy Gray
“What the fuck does he need to talk to me about?” I asked Busy. He still had a place in Chicago at that time, and I was staying in his guest room for the weekend. We were both home, because we were celebrating Miss Bo’s 70th birthday the next day.
“Who?” Busy asked, as he mindlessly scrolled through his phone.
“Mr. Champion.”
“Mr. Champion? Pastor Champion? River and Reign’s daddy, Mr. Champion?”
“Yeah, he just called me, and asked if we could get together and talk.”
Busy was quiet for a long minute, knowing Busy he was contemplating his next response carefully. “You okay with meeting up with him?”
Something in his voice, in the tone of his voice gave me pause. “Why? You think I shouldn’t be?”
More silence. Busy knew what happened to me right before the start of my rookie season. He knew about the rabbit hole my grandmother's words sent me into. He heard about it after the fact, though, because he was in Kentucky, preparing for his own training camp. I knew my brother, so I knew he felt a way that he hadn’t been there to protect me, or at least build me back up after the thoughts in my own mind tore me down time and time again. I knew that he had guilt about the situation. It was misplaced guilt, and I told him that constantly, but still, he had guilt. “I don’t know, X. All I know is that I’ll feel better if I’m in this meeting with you.”
So, that happened. That afternoon, I rode shotgun in Busy’s truck over to Works of Faith Covenant Church.
It was a Friday evening, the church was pretty empty. One of the deacons unlocked the church’s door for us, and led us to the pastor’s office when we arrived. Truth be told, I didn’t need anybody to show me how to get to the pastor’s office, I’d been in there more times than I could count. Of course it was the first time I was going with Busy, typically when I was ushered in there it was with Reign planted firmly by my side.
If Pastor Champion was surprised to see Busy walk into the room before me, he didn’t allow it to show on his face as he greeted the two of us.
“Maddox, how’re you doing?” He asked, extending his hand in a congenial manner towards my brother.
Busy shook his hand, and reciprocated the vibe. “Good. Good. How’re you, Pastor Champion?”
“Blessed and highly favored.” He said in a tone that let us know he was joking. “Nah, I’m cool.” He turned to me. “Xavier, good to see you. Thank you for coming.”
I shook his hand in the same manner as Busy had. “What’s up, Pastor?”
“Not much. Not much. Please have a seat. It’s a Friday night, I won’t keep you fellas long.”
Busy and I both took seats.
The pastor cut right to the chase. “Xavier, it’s been about a year and a half since you left Chicago to pursue your career in football, and since then I’ve had a lot of time to think about and ruminate over the way I handled the situation between you and my daughter.”
Since this wasn’t my first rodeo with Pastor Champion about my situation with his daughter, my body’s immediate response was to go numb. To pick up my mental baseball bat, and prepare to crush the shit out of the softball-sized complaints and grievances that he was about to toss at me. I was practically a professional at fielding his bullshit, so I mentally got in my stance. But next to me, I could feel my brother’s energy, and it was tense. For the first time in the history of my visits to the pastor’s office, I actually felt myself relax. It wasn’t going to be Reign and me against the world. I was in the room with somebody that actually had my back.
I nodded slightly to encourage him to keep talking.
“As a father, I was not a proponent of the relationship that you and Reign shared over the years.”
“You made that abundantly clear.” I said, then remembered my home training and added a belated, “Sir.”
“But in my desire to lay waste to your...union - I, at times ran roughshod over you, and even more so over her. Watching her mourn the loss of her relationship with you those first few months after you’d gone, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do as a parent. And knowing that she blamed me for your decision to cut ties made the pain even more significant.”
“It wasn’t anything you said.” I told him.
He gave a dry chuckle. “I know it wasn’t, Xavier. You never listened to anything I had to say. There was no way I had any influence in your relationship whatsoever, but Reign’s perception that somehow I had swayed you, made an already tenuous relationship practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, what I thought would be a few months long recalibrating period of her moving past the hurt from the demise of your relationship, ended up dragging on and on, until months became a year. At that point, I decided that I needed to do some soul searching, some praying.”
“None before the year mark, though, huh?” I asked sarcastically.
He surprised me by laughing. “I deserve that. I deserve that. Yes, Xavier, I prayed for both you and my daughter from the day that you left. But after the year mark, I had to admit that I had miscalculated. Misjudged. There was something that was there, obvious to both you and she, that I didn’t see. Yo, listen, I wasn’t raised as a church boy. I grew up looking at the opposite sex as conquests. I wanted the prettiest one on my arm, so I could parade her around and show her off.” He lowered his eyes. “And in my bed, so that I could...partake of her to my heart’s desire. I wanted to possess women until I was tired of them and ready for them to become the next man’s problem. I wasn’t conscientious in my dealings with women. I wasn’t a good steward over their hearts, their feelings or their emotions. I played games with them and led them on. I was a professional waster of women’s time. Never took a woman seriously until I met my wife. When the doctor told my wife that she was having twin girls, all I could do was shake my head at the idea that I was about to reap what I had sown. So, I spent a lot of years doing what I thought I needed to do to ensure that my girls didn’t end up being used, or toyed with. Then came you, Mr. Mayhew.”
“I never used or played with Reign. I never wasted her time, took her for granted or considered her a conquest. I loved Reign. I love Reign.”
He nodded his head slowly. “It took me a long time to come to that conclusion, Xavier. I was too busy projecting my own thoughts and behaviors onto you, to really look at your dealings with Reign as what they were...an act of worship.”
My heart rate sped up. Did he just say what I thought he said?
“When I had the luxury of time, when I wasn’t so caught up in the maelstrom of my congregation telling me what it looked like you two were up to, and what it felt like you two were up to, when nobody had actually witnessed you two being anything other than two kids in love, I could see clearly. But at the time, the rumor mill, and the perception - along with Reign’s lying, deception, defiance and rebellion just added stress to my shoulders and pushback from me. I spent so many days thinking about how if I didn’t have to spend so much time dealing with the teenage telenovela that was playing out in my home and in my church, I could spend that time on other things. But you two were completely and utterly dedicated to one another, nothing could come between you.”
“In retrospect, Pastor, I can kinda see how my relationship with Reign could’ve brought undue tension and scrutiny to you when we were still in high school. I mean, with all the rumors that she was pregnant, or had been pregnant, or was gonna get pregnant - which were all a lie, just so you know.” I assured him. “What I never got, was why everybody - you, my grandmother, her grandmother all seemed to double-down when we got to college, and particularly when I was headed to the league. If anything, I would’ve thought that would’ve been the time to accept the fact that we were really into each other, but instead, that was when everybody dug their heels in to really try to break us up.”
“I can’t speak for your grandmother, or my mother. What I can say is that by that time, I had seen you and Reign together for about seven or eight years. You all got together so young. So young
, Xavier. Even you have to admit that.”
I nodded. I could admit that.
“I honestly felt like my daughter never had the opportunity to have any experiences that didn’t include you. You were at college in Virginia, she was in Atlanta, but you all were always on the roads back and forth at each other’s colleges. Everywhere you went, she went and vice versa. It seemed...unhealthy.”
I fought not to scoff.
“But who gets to determine that how somebody lives their life is unhealthy?” Busy asked, speaking for the first time.
“Exactly.” Pastor Champion said, lowering his head. “Who gets to make that call? It shouldn’t have been me. That’s why I asked you to meet with me today. I owe you an apology for the way I handled you when you were a teenager, and when you were a young adult. I let the whispers of a few disgruntled, busy-body parishioners convince me that my own daughter was my enemy, and not the same sweet baby girl that I used to bounce on my lap, and snuggle up on my chest. I let them convince me that an upstanding, motivated young man was going to be the ruination of my family, and for that I apologize. I pitted myself against you for years Xavier, and you didn’t deserve that. In the end, it only served to separate my daughter from the love of her life, and me from my daughter.”
I didn’t know how to react to his admission. I was used to being in opposition to the man, we had never, ever played for the same team.
“You were never anything but good, respectful, protective and dedicated to my daughter. I see sweet girls that I’ve baptised as infants waltz into church with some knucklehead on their arm for a few weeks. Then when their bellies start to grow with the tale-tell signs of pregnancy, the knucklehead is nowhere to be found. Most of those girls’ parents would’ve loved it if their daughter had a guy like you on her arm, Xavier. Thank you for loving Reign the way you did.”
“The way I do.” I corrected him. “My grandmother managed to come betweens us, but that don’t kill the love. I don’t have to be her man to love Reign. And I love her.”
He nodded solemnly. “Well, I realize that it’s a day late and a dollar short, but you have my blessing to continue loving Reign with the same...enthusiasm you have always loved her with. I know you two aren’t speaking right now, but I hope...I hope you’ll find an opportunity to get back in with her. Even though she would never say it to me, I know she still loves you.”
Now…
I read her face when I finally stopped talking, and she was shocked. Nodding, I said, “yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” I repeated.
“What did you think after he said all that?”
“For a minute, I honestly didn’t think anything. Not anything...concrete, anyway. I mean, his words kept replaying in my mind for a couple of weeks. My nemesis sat me down and told me that he realized that he made some mistakes in the way he handled me, in the way he judged me - treated me. He basically gave me permission to pursue his daughter. To love his daughter.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Did you really need his permission, though?”
I couldn’t help smirking at the expression on her pretty face. “If the past is any indication, then nah, I didn’t need his permission. But it was...different having it. It was cool, because he basically nullified the negative voice in my head that told me that he knew I wasn’t shit, and that he thought I was holding you back. It kinda felt like his words freed me from the implications my grandmother made. The idea that I was in love with your love, and not with you.”
“I can’t believe you even thought that.” She lowered her voice. “All you had to do was ask me, I would’ve told you that you loved my dirty drawers.”
I laughed out loud at that. “Oh, is that where I was in life? Loving your dirty drawers?”
“Pretty much.” She seemed to consider her thoughts. “At least that’s how you made me feel, Xavier. Like, every time I think about your grandmother selling you that, it sounds so much like obvious bullshit to me. I mean, your love always felt so much bigger than mine. I always felt like I was...playing catch up to your love. Like I gave you everything I had, but your love was bigger, stronger, faster, deeper. I felt very loved by you. Very loved.”
“You never felt like my love for you was overwhelming?”
“Your love was completely overwhelming, X. It was...a lot. At times, it felt like it straddled the line between being almost too much, and downright too much, but I just let myself float in it.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t have the words. I would have to ask Joya. She’s the one who writes lyrics and stuff. I’m an Interior designer. I make spaces pretty, and functional. I’m not eloquent or articulate.”
I watched her wrestle with trying to put what she wanted to say into words, and stayed quiet.
“Your love was all consuming, but it didn’t consume me.” She said finally. “I used to pray about it, about me not being deserving of your love, because I couldn’t match it. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t good at handling it - at handling you. One day, God gave me a word. It was so clear, it was like He was talking right in my ear. He said, “Baby’s love is like the sun, but I made you like the rain, so he won’t burn you up. I built you for this love.”
Reign
6
Saturday morning, I woke up feeling sluggish. I knew the reasons behind it. For one, I had no business eating tacos after midnight. Or staying up late entertaining. I dragged myself into the office right around 7:45am. River was already there.
“Well, good morning, Sunshine.” She said, the coffee mug that she was holding to her mouth doing absolutely nothing to disguise the huge grin she was wearing.
“Hey.” I said suspiciously. “Why’re you cheesing like that?”
“I talked to Mecca this morning. She might’ve mentioned to me that Busy might’ve mentioned to her that Xavier didn’t come back to the Airbnb last night. You know anything about that?”
“Why would you automatically assume that I know anything about Xavier’s whereabouts?”
She sighed, and I knew she was frustrated that I was making her work for the tea, instead of just giving it to her. “Because Brandon told Busy that Xavier left the club last night, heading to see you.”
“Uhl.” I turned up my nose. “That’s a lot of he say-she say, and gossiping and stuff. All of y’all need to get some business.”
“I have business, and if you need receipts, Shawn was all up in my business last night. Was X all in yours?”
I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, but couldn’t help giggling. River loved her some Shawn Kirkland. Didn’t care who knew. She followed as I headed towards my office. When we got there, I set my purse on my glass topped desk, and turned to face my twin sister.
“It wasn’t like that, Riv. Yeah, X came over last night. He brought tacos.”
“Did you ask for tacos, or did he remember?”
“He remembered.” I admitted, trying to ignore the butterflies that were swishing their wings back and forth in my stomach. “Said that he remembers everything I like.”
“Come through, Xavier Mayhew.” She said with approval.
“We ate and talked. Then we sat on my sofa, watched a movie, and talked some more. Next thing I knew? The sun was coming in through the curtains and shining right in my face. I woke up on the sofa, all cuddled up with X, but we were both fully dressed.”
“Well, that was a waste.” She shook her head. “I always thought that Xavier was gorgeous. I mean, all three of them are just as fine as they wanna be.”
I nodded in agreement. It was true. All three Mayhew men had the ability to make panties drop.
“But now, Xavier is just...diesel as hell. Where the fuck is he doing his NFL workouts? In prison? I mean, he looks like he’s been down for at least five years.”
I laughed, because she was slightly exaggerating. Just slightly, but still, he wasn't jail big. He was football big.
“When I look at him, Twin, the only thought that comes to my min
d is, Big sexy.”
“Have you shared this with Shawn?” I asked with a serious expression.
Her face fell, before she reached out and slapped my forearm. “Shut up! I’m just saying. I don’t know how you’re managing to resist Xavier, when he’s basically throwing it at you. Is it because he hurt you so badly?”
I measured my response. “I don’t know. I’m really trying not to live in the hurt right now. I’m trying to just live. So, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more that it can’t be like it was before. Him loving me to distraction, me loving him with everything. I need balance. When I was a kid, his love carried me, took me where I needed to go, but I’m like, grown now. I own a freaking business.” I widened my eyes at her. “Can you believe that?”
“No, I can’t. Sometimes I look around my office and think, when the hell did I get here? With responsibilities and shit?”
“And he has a career that puts him in the center of everything. We can’t be that same teenage couple. I guess I’m just trying to find my way, and see how and if Xavier fits into what I have going on now.”
“Can’t you just make him fit? I mean, what would stop you from making him fit?”
“I can’t make him fit, River. You know that whole analogy about the round hole and the square peg, right? I can’t force him to fit into my life. He either does or he doesn’t.”
“Okay. Okay. It’s your life. We are, however, expected at Miss Vera’s house at 9:00. I have a roofing guy, a tuckpointer and a landscape designer coming.”
River and I were a match made in design heaven, without initially even trying to be. I’d gone to college knowing that I wanted to do design. I always loved making things beautiful, and I’d craved the need for balance and symmetry just as long, so design was a natural fit for me. River went to college for architecture. She dreamed of building things after spending two summers during high school volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. I planned to get on with a major design firm either in Atlanta (where I went to college) or New York City. River always planned to leave Hale Williams University and return to Chicago to do urban planning. As fate would have it, we decided to start our own firm utilizing our strengths and bond as twins.
