by Naima Simone
“Yes, baby, I remember,” he whispered.
“Because I want their love. I want them to accept me for who I am, to love me for me. But that means sacrificing my own dreams, my own desires, and conforming to theirs. Just like they’re already starting to do with Angelique. She said to excuse her for loving me. I can’t.” Mycah tightened her grip on him, tugging, closing her eyes. “I can’t excuse her. Because their love comes at too high a price. My identity. My peace. My...soul.”
When the last word left her, she wilted, as if the outpouring sapped the last of her strength. Achilles caught her, hauling her against his chest. He rose, holding her in his arms as if she weighed nothing, and took her place on the couch. And when the numbness cracked down the middle, and the hurt, anger and sorrow gushed in, drowning her, she didn’t fight it.
She sobbed her disappointment, her outrage, her pain, her fear. How long she curled on his lap, pressed against his chest, she didn’t know. But by the time she glanced up, the sky outside the bay windows had deepened from purple to black, casting dark shadows across Achilles’s face.
A chasm of emptiness yawned wide in her chest, but unlike the numbing from earlier, this was...cleansing. Sighing, she shifted, wincing at the weariness that weighed down her limbs. She should get up, move, say something. At least apologize to Achilles for losing her shit, then crying all over him.
Before she had a chance to decide which one to do first, he stood, still holding her in his arms. She gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck, and even that effort was almost beyond her at the moment.
“Bedroom?” he asked.
“Down the hall. Last room on the right.”
He didn’t speak again, just followed her instructions. In moments, he entered her room. Not bothering to turn on the lights, he set her on the bed and left, making his way to the en suite bathroom.
The light flicked on, and seconds later, the sound of running water reached her. Surprise whispered through her, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because he returned, gently grasping her waist and bringing her back to her feet. With a quick efficiency that didn’t contain sensuality but only tenderness, he removed her clothes and once more lifted her against his chest.
No words were spoken as he settled her in the warm bath, removed the tie from his own hair, gathered her curls on top of her head and bathed her. In other circumstances, she would’ve objected. She’d always been the caretaker, the provider, the one in control. But now, as Achilles smoothed the bath cloth over her shoulders, arms and breasts, she handed that control over to him. Let him care for her. Wash her. Pick her up out of the tub and pat her dry.
When he carried her back to her bedroom, slipped her between the sheets and climbed in behind her, she didn’t protest. No, she welcomed his hard, protective body curled around her. This wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t about expectation.
And as she drifted to sleep, for the first time in longer than she could remember, peace filled her.
Thirteen
Achilles raised his arms above his head, stretching them toward the beautiful, vaulted ceiling of Mycah’s living room. Groaning at the burn in his muscles, he lowered his arms, exhaling and surveying the room he’d temporarily commandeered as his workspace.
As soon as Mycah had fallen into a deep sleep, he’d slid out of bed, retrieved his laptop bag from his car and set up just down the hall so if she needed him, he could hear her. After that meltdown, no way in hell he was leaving her alone tonight. She shouldn’t be alone. He had the feeling she was alone too often.
And yeah, he definitely caught the pot-calling-the-kettle-black hypocrisy of that.
Leaning back against the couch cushion, he took in the surprisingly warm, cozy apartment. If a person could call huge bay windows with ornate designs, a massive fireplace that nearly spanned one wall, beautiful hardwood walls, floor-to-ceiling fully packed bookshelves and gorgeous molding something as simple as an apartment. Still, he liked it much better than the penthouse where he stayed. Here, trees filled her view, and in her spacious bedroom with its exposed brick walls, he’d snagged a glimpse of a garden outside her window. Even her kitchen looked like an actual kitchen—homey, lived in, with a table, chairs, wood cabinets, windows—instead of something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.
Mycah had even decorated it with furniture meant for comfort instead of appearance. The overstuffed couches and chairs, earth tones and jeweled pillows, throw rugs, standing lamps, Afrocentric art—they all invited a person to sit down, curl their feet underneath themselves, talk, stay. A far cry from her parents’ house that screamed “this is staged so you know how affluent, powerful and important we are.”
The apartment wasn’t the only surprising aspect he’d learned about Mycah.
Jesus.
Her pain.
So much of it, she’d cracked under the weight.
He propped his elbows on his thighs, digging his thumbs into his eyes, rubbing them. How could her parents not look at her and be proud of the woman she was? Not appreciate all that she sacrificed for them? Despite how they chose to show it, he didn’t doubt that Laurence and Cherise loved Mycah. But that love came with conditions. And those conditions were asphyxiating the relationship with their daughter as surely as weeds choking the life from flowers straining to reach the sun.
A muted sound came from the direction of Mycah’s bedroom, and he tilted his head toward it, frowning, listening. Several seconds passed, and just as his muscles loosened and he returned to his laptop to resume working, the sound reached him again. He recognized it.
Surging from the couch, he strode down the corridor, entered Mycah’s bedroom and headed for the bathroom. He spotted her, hunched over the toilet and clinging to it as she vomited into the porcelain bowl.
Kneeling next to her, he murmured her name, rubbing soothing circles on her back, feeling...helpless. Not an easy thing for a man to admit. As soon as she’d told him about the pregnancy, he’d read everything he could about it—especially that first trimester. So he knew morning sickness—a misnomer if he ever heard one—was normal for most women, but he hated to see her suffer like this and not be able to do anything to help her. He’d witnessed his fair share of people puking. Some of the men his mother had dated. In high school. In jail. College. But this was different. With them, he hadn’t wished he could trade places, take their misery on for himself.
Standing, he moved across the large bathroom, grabbed a bath cloth from the linen closet and wet it under the faucet. He folded it a couple of times and returned to her, settling it on the back of her neck as his mother had done for him when he’d been sick.
“You don’t have to—” Another bout of retching cut her off, her back bowing under the force of it. She moaned as the last of it passed, a tremor shaking her.
“Yes, I do.” He shifted behind her, curving his body around hers, lending her his strength, even though, realistically, it was an impossibility. Still, she could lean on him. Know he was there for her. He kissed the top of her curls. “I’m not leaving, baby, so don’t ask.”
Another groan. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
He scoffed. “I’ve seen those birthing videos. In seven months, I’m going to see you looking a hell of a lot worse. This is nothing.”
She reached behind her and weakly slapped him. “That’s a really messed-up thing to say. And don’t remind—Oh, God.”
For the next ten minutes they remained in the bathroom, and when they finally emerged, with her tired and clothed in fresh pajamas, Achilles led her to the living room and tucked her in on the couch. He rummaged in her kitchen, and soon returned to her with a steaming cup of peppermint tea and a slice of toast.
“It’s not much,” he said, sitting both the cup and the small plate on the table in front of her. “But it’ll settle your stomach. And from what I’ve read, both are good to help ease the morni
ng sickness.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, reaching for the tea and sipping from the cup. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“What?” He lowered to the couch next to her, shifting his laptop, bag and manuals over to give her room.
“That you’ve been reading up on it. Watching videos.” She studied him over the rim of the cup. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone with a hungrier brain than yours.”
“That sounds...disturbing.”
The corner of her mouth quirked in a sardonic half smile. “It’s a compliment. You’re voracious for information. It’s what makes you so brilliant. And so intimidating, too. People look at the hair, the ink, the size—” she waved a hand up and down in front of him “—and underestimate you. For instance, my parents’ party. I didn’t even know that about my ancestors. Not that I’m ashamed of it. I think it’s cool as hell. Still, I didn’t know. But you did. Like I said. Information. And you wielded it like a double-edged sword.”
“Unexpected?” He heard the edge in his voice, wished he could dull it. But years of being on the “You’re smart for being poor/brown/an ex-con” end of the stick was hard to shake.
“For them maybe,” she admitted softly. “But not for me.”
Silence thrummed in the room, and they stared at each other, a tension thick with words unspoken, desire a living, breathing entity right there with them.
“Eat,” he finally said, nodding toward the plate and the untouched toast. “You need to coat your stomach.”
“More things you read?” she teased, that faint smile touching her sensual mouth. But she did pick up the bread and nibble on it. “What are you working on so late?” she asked, dipping her head toward his laptop. “Is there a project from the office that you had to bring home?”
Achilles shifted his attention to his computer. He stood on a precipice, one of trust. No one knew about the video game. Not even Cain and Kenan. He glanced at Mycah, who slowly frowned the longer he remained quiet. His heart thudded, echoing in his head until all he heard was its bass rhythm. His tongue thickened, nerves twisting in his gut like a nest of snakes.
This was important because she was important. As much as he wanted to deny it, Mycah had crawled beneath his skin, into his bones, into his soul. She wielded the power to hurt him like no other, not even his brothers. And exposing this vulnerable part of himself to her—this project that encapsulated his passion, his hopes, his dreams—meant taking a leap of faith in her.
In the faith that she wouldn’t reject the truth of him.
He touched the mouse, bringing the screen to life, and with a few more taps, opened the file with the video game art. For several moments, he studied the digital image of a ravaged land, a castle in the distance, a forest with malevolent blinking red eyes glaring from its depths, and in the foreground, a lone Black teenager, his locs falling around his face, in a white T-shirt and light blue jeans and a long, gleaming sword in hand. Inhaling a deep breath, he turned the laptop toward her. She scanned the monitor, then shifted wide eyes back to him.
“What is this?” she breathed.
“Mine.” And again, hearing the defensiveness in his tone, he tried again. “A video game I’ve been working on for the past year. It’s a high-fantasy, open-world, action-adventure video game.”
She huffed out a soft laugh, returning her gaze to the laptop. “I have no idea what that means. Except for high fantasy. But the rest of that? I’m lost.”
“Open world is where players can explore the game and choose for themselves how to approach the world and its particular challenges. Action-adventure games combine the best elements of both kinds of games. Just-adventure games have situation problems for players to resolve but little to no action. And action games center on real-time interactions between players that test their reflexes. Action-adventure games combine both—problem-solving and testing the reflexes.”
“Angelique would be crushing so hard on you right now.” Mycah flashed him a smile. “I really need to introduce you to her.”
A banner of warmth unfurled inside him, even though a voice cautioned him that it was probably a throwaway comment on her part. To introduce him to her sister meant telling her parents about the baby and his being the father.
And she’s too ashamed of you to do that.
Right. She needed time to prepare herself and them. Months.
The reminder doused that flare of warmth.
“Why this world?” she asked, her finger circling over the screen. “Why did you choose this particular setting?”
He hesitated, but said, “I’m not sure what you know about my past...”
“Only what the media has reported.”
“I grew up in a rough neighborhood of Seattle called White Center. Back then crime, gangs and drugs had a grip on the area. Mom worked most nights, and by the time I was eleven, my grandmother had died, and I stayed in our apartment by myself. It wasn’t anything to hear drug deals, fighting or gunfire in the alley behind our building. I was so immune to it, I’d just turn up the TV to drown it out. There wasn’t any calling the cops.”
The memories worked themselves back in, vines sprouting from seeds he’d thought long dormant. The fear of being home alone, wishing his mother was with him. Missing his grandmother.
“Still, with all that around me, my mother made sure I never got caught up in drugs or gangs. Even though she came in dragging, dog-tired and bleary-eyed at five o’clock in the morning after a night shift, she got me up, made my lunch, walked me to the bus stop, met me there after school, helped me with my homework, fixed dinner and then went to work. When she noticed I had an aptitude for computers, she took on more shifts and found a way to enroll me in college-level computer courses because I wasn’t being challenged enough in high school. She always made a way. I graduated high school in the top ten percent of my class because of her. I was accepted to college because of her... And then I failed her by going to jail.”
He remained silent, watching the shock wash over Mycah’s face. Waited for the disgust or at least the unease as she realized she was in a room—that she’d gotten pregnant by—the thug her parents, the media called him.
But the disgust never came.
Compassion did.
And he had to battle past his first instinctive defense—slam up his guard. Reject what he perceived as pity.
Then she touched him. Covered his clenched hand with her smaller, more delicate one, and his walls cracked and tumbled down.
“Tell me,” she said, her thumb brushing over his knuckles.
And he did. The story he’d never shared with anyone pouring out of him as she held his hand, his gaze and his heart.
“My mom... Like, I said, she gave me everything, all of her. So I never begrudged her the little bit of life she grabbed for herself, even if the men she chose were...lacking. It’s like she had a radar for unemployed, drunk users. Most of them were jerks but harmless, but the last one...”
A fine tension invaded his body as he traveled back to that night ten years ago in their White Center apartment. His mother and her boyfriend arriving home after a night out at the local bar. Both had been drinking. Arguing. Getting louder and louder.
“Achilles, look at me.” A hand cupped his cheek and he opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. “Keep those beautiful eyes on me. Go ahead. Finish it.”
He nodded, squeezed her hand and drew it down to his thigh.
“One night, Mom came home from a date with her new boyfriend. Matt.” His mouth twisted around the name, a thin layer of grime covering his tongue. “They’d been dating for two weeks and he was different from the others. There was nothing harmless about him. He had an edge to him. Mean. Hard...” Achilles shook his head. “They were a little drunk and were arguing. I was in my room and tried to ignore it. She wouldn’t have appreciated me interfering, anyway. But
then I heard her cry out in pain. I bolted out of my bedroom into the living room and he had her on the floor, hitting her. I...I snapped. I punched him. And I kept punching him. I found out later that the neighbors overheard and called the cops. Next thing I know, I was in cuffs and hauled off to jail.”
He slid his hand out from under hers. He spread both of his hands out and stared at his fingers as if he could still see the bruised and swollen knuckles stained with Matt’s blood. Could still feel the pain from beating a man unconscious.
It didn’t take much to conjure the horror that had filled him at his actions.
“I ended up serving two years for the assault. Only my mother’s testimony, my clean record and Matt’s not-so-clean record kept me from more time. But while I was in, I saw men—boys, really—just like me who’d made mistakes. One bad decision that had led them there. Whether it was made in the heat of the moment or done years ago and set them on a path of more poor decisions. Yes, some of them belonged right where they were, there’s no denying that. But others? Others didn’t have the ability to see anything different. And when I was locked up in that cell, I started dreaming about this game. And the idea stayed with me after I graduated college after I was released from jail, and years later after I started working with the software design company. What story could I tell? But more importantly, for youth like me, like the men I was locked up with, like the girls I went to school with who were told they were worth no more than their bodies and smile... What could I get them to see?”
He grabbed his laptop, clicked a few keys and pulled up more game art. This one depicted the same teen stepping through a portal. One side was the world from the previous art and on the other side was a present-day urban inner city. A kid from one world stepping into an unknown one.
