by B. Love
“Yea. Leigh is here.”
Taylor’s smile wavered slightly as her stance hardened. “Oh. Did you… want to go and speak to her or something?”
Ransom looked in her direction, and she was slowly making her way in theirs with Maria on the side of her. But she wasn’t looking his way, as if she planned to walk right by him. Which was new. Usually if she ever saw him with another woman, Leigh was quick to pop up and speak. Maybe she was really letting him go and accepting the fact that they would either co-parent or not be in each other’s lives again if she gave up her parental rights.
Truthfully, Ransom was considering leaving the business if Leigh gave up her rights, but he hadn’t told her yet. If she did, he would leave Memphis… but that would be the only reason he’d leave. It wouldn’t be because of Money or anyone else besides his child.
Before Leigh could pass him completely, Ransom grabbed her wrist and pulled her in front of him. And at that moment, everything and everyone else faded away. Her cocoa brown skin was glowing… more than it ever had before. Her long waist length hair was parted on the side with loose curls for a change. Those beautiful, under turned eyes stared into his brightly. And as always, her smile had the ability to warm every cold crevice of his heart.
Just her smile alone could tilt the room.
And the longer she smiled at him the longer Ransom wondered what the fuck he was doing on a date with Taylor or anyone else for that matter.
“You ain’t gon speak, Leigh?”
Her head shook as she wrapped her hand around his wrist while it continued to hold onto hers. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Hi, I’m Taylor.”
Surprising Ransom, Leigh’s smile was just as warm when she turned in Taylor’s direction. “Hey,” she greeted, extending her hand for Taylor to shake. “Leigh.”
“Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Hopefully he doesn’t talk too bad about me.”
Taylor chuckled as they released each other’s hands. “All good.”
Leigh nodded as she returned her eyes to Ransom.
“How are you?” she asked, trying to pull her wrist from his hand, but he held it tighter.
“Good. How are you?”
“I’m good.”
If they would have been alone, Ransom would have made no excuse for why he couldn’t take his eyes off her. But because they weren’t alone, he forced himself to think of things to continue to say.
“What you doing after you leave the game?”
“Going to Christian’s house. She’s frying me some chicken.”
“Us,” Maria corrected, reminding Ransom of her presence. Leigh rolled her eyes as Ransom released her and chuckled, pulling Maria into him for a hug. “You remembered I was here now?” she teased, getting a quiet…
“Shut up,” out of him before he kissed her temple. “I might slide through,” he warned, looking down at Taylor as she cupped her hand inside of his and leaned into his side.
“Just let me know. If you do, I’m sure the rest of the crew will too.”
With a nod, Ransom turned his attention to Maria. He wanted to say that he was surprised she was out and about, but he wasn’t. Even if she was in pain, Maria wouldn’t sit down for too long. It worried him like crazy, but thankfully, Jax was always somewhere nearby.
“You good? Where Jax at? I can’t believe he let you come out alone.”
With a huge grin, Maria grabbed Leigh’s arm and slowly began to drag her away as she tossed, “He thinks I’m home sleep and you better not say shit about it either,” over her shoulder.
Ransom’s laugh died down as he watched them walk away. Watched Leigh walked away. His eyes and attention didn’t return to Taylor until Leigh was nowhere in his sight.
“You know what you want to eat yet?” he asked casually, resisting the urge to pull his arm away from hers. It was cool before he talked to Leigh. Now… it felt weird.
“So… you’re just going to act like that didn’t just happen?”
Scratching the top of his head, Ransom removed his arm from hers and turned more in her direction. “What you mean?”
“I mean you damn near couldn’t take your eyes off the girl. Shit, you really couldn’t!” Taylor’s arms flailed as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I understand that you still have love for her, but it’s clear to me now that you still have feelings for and attraction towards her too.”
Shrugging, Ransom couldn’t pull himself to lie to Taylor. Besides, that had never been his style. “Of course I still have feelings for her. It hasn’t even been six months since we stopped fucking off. She’s carrying my child. And she’s beautiful, so I am attracted to her. But none of that means I’m going to fuck off on you. Even if I did, we’re not in a committed relationship.”
Rolling her eyes, Taylor crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know about this anymore. I mean… I don’t expect you to be completely over her so soon, but I’m also not sure how comfortable I will be with you being around her. If she wasn’t pregnant it would be cool, but I don’t see how you’re going to get over her if y’all are still hanging out and shit.”
“How and when I get over her isn’t your concern. You said you wanted to have some fun, and we can do that, but that’s as far as this shit goes. What I do with Leigh or anyone else for that matter ain’t got shit to do with you. If you can’t rock with shit like it is just let me know.”
Releasing a loaded sigh, Taylor looked away. While Ransom didn’t feel bad about the boundaries he’d put in place, he did feel bad about making Taylor uncomfortable. It hadn’t been his intention. Hell, he didn’t know how he’d react if he was ever around them at the same time.
If she got on some act right, he’d probably pay for her to have a spa day or some shit like that tomorrow, but if she wanted to part ways Ransom would’ve been cool with that too.
“You’re right. I’m tripping.” Her arms fell from her chest. “I guess I just got a little jealous and possessive. I’ve never been the insecure type, but I really like you, and knowing that that’s the woman you love… it fucked with me.”
“I understand, and I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable. If I would have known she was going to be here we could have done something else.”
Taylor’s head lowered briefly before she wrapped her arms around him. “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t be around us comfortably at the same time, and I don’t want you to feel like she’s something we can’t discuss and agree on. If something was to ever pop off between you two, I want you to be comfortable enough to be able to tell me. So we’re good. This is something that I will have to work out on my own, just like you have to work this shit out on your own.”
Nodding in agreement, Ransom licked his lips before lowering himself to kiss hers. At this point, he didn’t see himself with Taylor for the long haul, but if communication and problem solving continued to be this easy… maybe he’d have to check his vision.
Because the truth of the matter was, even though Leigh was everything on his life partner list, there were a lot of things she lacked… and Taylor was showing him on a daily basis that what Leigh lacked, she had.
“He called again,” were the first words out of Porsha’s mouth, and they had Maria wishing she would have sparked her blunt before she went inside her mother’s home. This made the third time, that she knew of, that her father called looking for her. While she wished she could have been more excited because of his desire to check on her and reconnect, it was a few years too late.
And by a few, she met over twenty.
Maria scratched her scalp before running her hand down her head. “His guilt is not my concern. If he wants to all of a sudden feel bad about not being in my life because I could have lost it, that has nothing to do with me.”
“So you don’t want to talk to him?” Maria shook her head no. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”
“Cool,” was all she offered as s
he scrolled the notifications on her phone.
Ricky barely got any space in her mental in the past, and Maria had no desire for that to change now. The shooting was a whole two weeks ago, and he hadn’t caught on yet.
“You hungry?” Porsha asked, standing to her feet.
Shaking her head, Maria stood and followed her mother in the kitchen, passing Derrick along the way. Normally, when the two passed each other, they would get all googly eyed and find a way to get close enough to touch each other. This time, they barely made eye contact as Derrick walked down the opposite end of the hall. Everyone was entitled to a fight or bad day in their relationship, but Maria hardly witnessed that between her mother and Derrick, so it alarmed her.
Not so much that she felt it was necessary to question her mother about it now, but enough for her to become mindful of her mother’s wellbeing.
When they made it to the kitchen, Porsha put on a pot of coffee before lighting a cigarette. It was a nasty habit that she started after Ricky left and hadn’t tried to break it since. Maria sighed as she pulled the case that held two blunts out of her purse. The last thing she wanted was for her hair and clothes to smell like cigarette smoke, but she couldn’t check her mother about it in her own home.
Maria originally said she wasn’t hungry, but when she realized her mother was making her sausage casserole for brunch along with mimosas her stomach began to growl. She’d stopped taking the prescribed pain medication she was given, instead opting for a more natural way to relieve her pain as she healed. Using weed, oils, and other herbs, Maria had gotten to a point where the pain was dull and nagging but bearable.
Plus, the pills she was taking made her super drowsy, and she didn’t like feeling as if she couldn’t take care of her business when she needed to.
Porsha had become the Queen of spiked coffee over the years, which was why her daughters loved drinking it so much. She fixed them both a cup of vanilla-caramel spiked coffee before sitting across from Maria at the table that was situated between the kitchen and den.
“So what’s going on with you, baby?” she asked, tapping her cigarette along the rim of the ashtray. “How you feeling? In all areas?”
Maria started with the basics. She told her mother about how business was going and that she planned to stop by the arcade when she left there. It was already hard for her to stay at home before she got shot, and she especially didn’t want to stay there now. The last thing she wanted to do was spend hours bored and in pain physically and emotionally.
As great as things were going between her and Jax, every once in a while, thoughts of Malibu would make her feel guilty. She never talked to Jax about it because it didn’t really involve him. All he was doing was being exactly what she needed in that moment. It was up to her to give herself the time needed to adjust.
“How’s that working out anyway?” Porsha held her coffee cup with both hands in front of her mouth, but Maria could still see her smile. Even if she couldn’t, her lifted cheeks gave her away. “That young man was ready to go to war over you while you were in the hospital. I was expecting Pressure to be giving them the most hell, but it was him. Y’all in a relationship?”
Blushing, Maria absently pressed the home button on her iPhone to see if he’d replied to her text.
“We’re not in a relationship but we’re talking.”
“Talking? What is that?”
Chuckling, Maria lifted her eyes to her mother. “We’re kicking it.”
“Kicking it?”
“Ma!”
“I’m sorry but y’all be doing too much in this new age. In my day, we were friends, then we courted, then we got married. Wasn’t no talking and kicking it and all that other bullshit.”
Growling softly with a grin, Maria kicked the air underneath the table.
“Well, by your definition, we’re courting I guess but not really. We’re not committedly courting. Is that a thing?”
Porsha chuckled quietly. “I guess, Maria. Do you really like him?”
Releasing a sigh, Maria nodded. “I do, and that is so freaking scary. You know I haven’t really liked someone since Bu. That’s what’s really making this so hard for me. I feel like I’m cheating on him for some reason.”
“That’s understandable. Even after the bullshit your father put me through, I still loved him so much and was so loyal to him that the first few men that pursued me got the worst of me. I felt like I was dishonoring him. That’s why I stayed single for as long as I did.”
Porsha paused and took a sip of her coffee. “That’s natural, it only means you still love him and are attached to him.”
“Then what do I do? Because I want to be with Jax eventually, and I don’t want my past to ruin our future.”
Smiling softly, Porsha set her cup on the table. “You first have to accept that he is gone and will never come back. Then, you have to examine and figure out why you are still attached to him. After that, you have to completely remove him from your life. So, anything of his you still own needs to be discarded of or packed away until you’re completely over him. No more visiting his gravesite until you’re completely over him.
“Actually grieve the loss of him, and completely cut his family and friends off. You want to allow yourself to feel the pain because it’s temporary as you detach from him. But if you continue to go to his grave and talk to his family when you’re in pain to feel closer to him, you will never release him. I would recommend, too, that you at least find one person to talk to that has grieved the loss of a partner, so you can see that it’s possible to heal and move on. And you want to find a new focus. A new love. A new man to cover that hole in your heart.
“Not in the sense of a rebound replacement, but more in the sense of filling the void of Malibu with someone new. It’s kind of like a cracked, empty cup. That’s the state of your heart right now. Your heart has been broken for years, and you keep refilling it with love for Malibu that is spilling out. The steps are going to help you seal those cracks, but then, you have to fill your cup and your heart with love for someone else. It’s okay if there is still love for Malibu there, but you have to accept the fact that he’s gone and incapable of loving you back.”
That wasn’t the first time someone had said that to her, but it was the first time it seemed doable and made sense. Maria wasn’t sure if it was because her mother was the one saying it or if it was because she was finally opening up to receive it. Whatever the case, she thanked her mother and gave her a hug and kiss before helping her fix the casserole.
Jax
Jax was nervous as fuck. Maria had finally pulled up, and he had no idea how she would react to everything that he’d done. Because of her lack of experience in the dating department, Maria made it clear that she wasn’t used to all that romantic, girly shit as she would say. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it; she just hadn’t allowed a man to give it to her. Since Jax was the first, he wanted everything he ever did for her to be perfect. So he spared no expenses for what he put together at his home for their date night.
When she knocked on his door, Jax moved from the window to the door to let her in. She stepped in, wearing a smile that was shy and coy and cute as fuck. “Hey,” she almost whispered, pushing her freshly flat ironed hair off her back. This was the second time he’d seen it flat ironed, and Jax was sure it was because of him. She never flat ironed her hair until he took her out for her birthday and he consistently complimented her on it.
Even though he loved her hair in its natural state, it was something about the switch up that did something to him. It was the same way when she wore a different style of clothing or makeup. Today, she was dressed in her usual style of a tight fitting baby tee, loose fitting joggers, and Chucks.
“How you feel?”
“Good,” she answered, stepping into his arms and inhaling his scent. “How you doing?”
“I’m great now.”
Maria smiled as he released her. Jax led her into the living room, wher
e the personal chef he’d hired for the evening was popping the cork on a bottle of white wine. Maria gasped and clawed at his wrist, getting a chuckle out of him.
“This is a date date? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have put something else on.”
“What you have on is perfect. I told you to come relaxed so we could chill, didn’t I?” She nodded. “So chill.” She nodded again as he placed a kiss to the center of her forehead.
Taking her hand into his, Jax led her over to the table and pushed her chair up before sitting across from her. He had the chef, Raymond, to prepare some of her favorite Mexican dishes. Maria’s eyes widened as she moaned, “Ooh,” at the sight of the spread.
“This looks so good, Jax. I love Mexican food.”
“I know.”
“What’s your favorite kind of food?”
He shrugged. “Black people food.”
Maria chuckled even though he was dead ass serious. “Black people food, Jax? Really? What does that even mean?”
“Shit, soul food! You know what the fuck I mean. Greens, yams, friend chicken, black people food.”
Her chuckle was louder as she shook her head.
Maria thanked Raymond as he poured her a glass of wine. After asking if they would need anything else with their meal, he let them know that he’d be in the kitchen until they were done.
As they ate dessert, they talked about some of their favorite things, most of which they had in common. They both loved sports, videogames, casinos, cards… anything fun and action based really. Maria was having a good time already, but when he asked her if she wanted to play Call of Duty her entire face lit up. Rushing through dessert, Maria was thrown completely off guard when she realized what Jax had set up for the second half of their date.
He’d scheduled her for an in home full body massage. After reminding the masseuse not to go near her sides, Jax left them alone in his dining room. While she relaxed and enjoyed her massage, Jax made a few phone calls and took care of a little business before putting the final touches on his room. Before they agreed to play Call of Duty, he’d planned for their night to have a bit more of a romantic end. He still wanted to show her that side of him, but knowing Maria, it wouldn’t last long.
