by Kelly, Marie
“Kanada, I can explain about Brit—”
A simple flick of her hand stopped my explanation, and she shook her head.
“It’s okay, Alvaro. You don’t need to explain. It was only a kiss. One I had no business doing. I’m sorry about that.”
“What? No, Kanada. Kanada.”
She was out of my arms and kitchen before I could grab her again.
Still wanting to explain, I rushed out after her and almost ran Brittany over.
“Oh shit, my fault,” I said and looked around for Kanada.
Brittany looked around too and then faced me.
“Um, I’m ready to go home now, Wrath.”
“Already?” I rubbed a hand over my waves.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, cool. I will take you now.”
I stepped around her and went into the dining room, but as I looked around, I realized that Kanada had gone to her room.
“Alright, y’all, I’m going to take Brittany back home now,” I announced, and my family all nodded. “Ma, can you watch KeKe for me?”
“You already know I will.”
I nodded, said bye to my parents and Guns, who said they were all leaving too.
“Are you in a rush, Wrath?” Brittany called out behind me because I was almost running to my car, wanting to take her home so I could come back to talk to Kanada.
“Oh, I didn’t want to leave Ma with KeKe too long.”
Brittany’s face changed. “When was Ma watching KeKe ever a problem?”
“It’s Christmas, Brittany. I’m sure Ma has some people she wants to go see.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
We both climbed into my car, and I was out of the gate before she could finish putting on her seat belt. I didn’t ease up off the gas until I was at her door.
Brittany took off her seat belt and went to climb out of the car but stopped when she realized that I wasn’t coming out too.
“Wrath, are you not going to come in? I thought we could spend some time together.”
Which was code for fuck.
“Nah, Brittany, I wanna get back to KeKe.”
“I bet you do!” She sighed. “I’m not sure what’s going on, Wrath, but I’m not happy with how we are anymore. I want us to be a family now. I’m ready to settle down.”
She would want to settle down now!
I looked out of the window and ran a hand down my face.
“Brittany, I will always have love for you, but we can’t be together, ma.”
“Is it because of that bitch at your house?! You think I didn’t see you looking at her!”
“Watch your fucking mouth!”
“Wooooow,” she dragged out while shaking her head.
“And why the hell is that little boy calling you daddy all of a sudden? You fucking his mama now?”
“I told TJ that he could call me daddy, Brittany. He’s a good kid, and I’ve grown to love him.”
Her eyes watered as she looked at me, and I let out a long breath.
“I’m not sleeping with Kanada, but I’m going to keep it real with you, I do like her a lot… enough to see what could happen between us,” I spoke honestly.
Fighting with Brittany was the last thing I wanted to do, but I wasn’t going to lie to her.
She surprised me when she fell out laughing.
“You’re joking, right? Alvaro, you can’t be faithful to anyone.”
I thought the same thing, but Kanada made me see the real reason.
“It was because I never found anyone to be faithful for.”
The gasp that left her mouth was so sharp, and her eyes watered again.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Brittany, but it’s the truth.”
Her eyes jumped back and forth as she stared into my eyes, and then an angry scowl replaced the one of shock and hurt.
“Fine! And since you got yourself another family, you can forget about Keyanna because you will never see her again!” She started to climb out of the car, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her.
“Brittany, do not fuck with me unless you want to see Wrath and not Alvaro,” I said behind clenched teeth. “You’re living in a house that I fucking bought and paid for. You have no fucking job or money. You don’t pay for shit! If we went to court, who the fuck do you think they would put KeKe with?”
Her eyes slightly widened.
“Don’t you ever threaten me about my daughter, Brittany, or I promise that you won’t ever see her again. Now take your ass into my motherfucking house, get your shit together, and don’t try me because you won’t win.”
She could be mad all she wanted, but she wasn’t about to play with my daughter. I would fuck around and take my daughter faster than she could blink.
Knowing that I meant every word I spat, she climbed out of my car without another word, and I sped off before she could step into the house.
Brittany may have believed that I was playing around, but I wasn’t. Not about KeKe, and not about Kanada.
This whole time, I thought I couldn’t be a faithful nigga, but like I told Brittany, that was because I never found any worth trying for, except Kanada. Even Brittany didn’t want to settle down at first and fucked other niggas, so if anything, she allowed me to be the way that I was.
But shit was different with Kanada. I thought about her only, I wanted to be near her only, and whenever I thought about sex, it was her face that I had started to see lately. Everything I wanted, needed, and thought about was Kanada.
Now, all I could do was hope that she wanted me too!
A’Moya Morse
Legion was unlike any guy I had ever encountered. He was rough around the edges, spoke the first thing that came to mind, acted first and thought later, and didn’t spare people’s feelings when he did speak. But, despite that, there were other parts about him, and as the days went by, and the more time we spent together, the more I was privileged to see the caring, charming, funny, intelligent, thoughtful and honest side of him. He was more than Legion; he was just Pharaoh to me.
A man with a past just like we all had and someone who was running from his past, but that wasn’t all he was.
Over the time we had been spending together, I was at his house most nights, and today was no different.
If we weren’t talking on the phone, we were together. Which was surprising, yet nice.
Upon getting to meet his brothers who told me that Pharaoh didn’t keep many people around him, I was shocked that he did with me, but I was happy about it too. There were so many layers to Pharaoh, and I enjoyed uncovering them. Every day he surprised me. We spent a lot of time talking, and I was teaching him sign language too. The world saw Legion, but I saw Pharaoh, and they were two different people.
I dropped my head to the left and smiled when I saw his sleeping face. We had spent the day together—which my parents weren’t too happy about since it was Christmas—but I had to see him today. After he told me that he usually stayed by himself on Christmas, I knew that I had to see him. He wouldn’t open up to me and tell me why he chose to hide on Christmas day instead of spending it with his cousins, but at least he was allowing me to spend it with him.
All we did was watch movies together, eat a regular meal—since he wouldn’t allow me to cook a traditional Christmas dinner or put up decorations—and then we had the best sex until he fell asleep.
Having sex with Pharaoh wasn’t on my mind, but when he kissed me for the first time, it just felt right, and we had been sleeping together almost daily since then.
Pharaoh had a high sex drive, but I did too. Every time I slept with him, I felt this weird connection between us. I thought it was my imagination at first, but after the second time, I knew that it wasn’t. And from the look in his eyes while he was inside me, I could see that he felt it too. The way he kept eye contact with me the whole time increased whatever it was about him that was drawing me in.
He’s a mystery, but I can’t help liking him. I t
hought as I watched him sleep.
It was still quite early in the evening, so that’s why I was wide awake. But, every time we had sex, Pharaoh would fall asleep right after. My eyes returned to the ceiling, and I smiled, knowing that I had put him to sleep. My sister, Kian, always told me that if a guy fell asleep right after sex, it was because it was good. I thought she was just making it up until Pharaoh admitted it himself.
Another smile spread across my face at the thought. I wasn’t quite sure what we were doing, but I liked it. Suddenly, Pharaoh’s body jumped, scaring me and making me look over at him. His face was contorted, and he was mumbling something that I couldn’t make out.
“Pharaoh, wake up.” I gently shook him and called out to him.
“NO!” I watched the word form on his lips, and then he shot up in the bed, panting and breathing hard.
He told me that he had nightmares every night, but this was the first time I had witnessed one. His eyes were closed as he tried to calm himself down. Sweat ran down his body.
Reaching out, I put a hand on his shoulder but quickly retracted it when he jumped like he didn’t know I was there.
His wide and fear filled hazel eyes burned into mine and his face frowned.
“Are you okay?” I asked as he just continued to pant.
Not responding to me, he climbed off the bed—still naked from our sex session—and I watched as he pulled on his boxers.
I climbed off the bed too and put on the sweater I had worn to his house.
“Pharaoh.” I tapped him again, and he spun around to look at me.
“I’m fine.”
He walked away from me, and I followed him.
“You’re not. You were having a nightmare. What happened? You can tell me.”
He watched my face, and then he backed up from me like I had the plague or something.
“Why are you here?”
Confusion set in when I read his lips.
“What do you mean? You asked me to come here.”
“To fuck, A’Moya, and nothing else! So, you can leave now!”
Thoughts of doing just take played in mind, but I knew that he was just lashing out and trying to push me away.
“No!” I threw back at him, and he turned his nose up at me.
“Get the fuck out, A’Moya.”
“No, Pharaoh, I’m not leaving.”
He rushed over to me, and I cowered a little, not knowing what he was going to do.
“Why? Why the fuck do you stay coming around me?!”
“Because I like you, Pharaoh. There is more to you than you realize. Stop pushing me away!”
I tried to touch his face, but he slapped my hand away.
“If you were smart, you wouldn’t like a nigga like me and you would leave.”
“Why are you pushing me away?”
Tears burned my eyes.
“Because I’m a monster.”
“No, you’re not. Stop saying that!”
Pharaoh dragged a hand down his face and mumbled something.
“Pharaoh.”
“Stop, just leave!”
“Pharaoh, you can trust me. I’m not going to leave you.”
Again, I tried to touch him, and he suddenly grabbed my wrists and pulled me toward him.
“You like me? Huh?” he asked, and I nodded to say that I did.
His naked muscular chest bounced from the laughter that left his throat.
“You have no idea what I’ve done, A’Moya,” he said with a look of defeat and sadness reflecting in his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter, Pharaoh. Nobody is perfect.”
His eyes dropped from my face for a few seconds, and when they returned, I was taken aback to see tears falling from them.
“I killed my mother,” he said, and my mouth dropped.
There were no words to say anything after what he had just confessed to me. I knew everyone had a past, but I wasn’t expecting that. When he told me his mother had died, I thought from an accident or illness, not from his hands!
She died when he was twelve-years-old! Who kills someone when they’re twelve?
His watery hazel eyes continued to stare in my face as I knew he was waiting for a response from me but what did I say? What could I say?
“Do you still want a nigga like me?” he asked, and still, I was stuck.
“Do you still want this monster?”
Kanada Alton
As I lay on my side, I couldn’t stop the thoughts of Alvaro from entering my mind. Memories of the last few weeks we spent getting to know each other popped into my thoughts too and made my heart heavy with anguish.
When I first arrived, I wasn’t sure about Alvaro and whether I could trust him or not. But, over a period of time, I started to see that he was nothing like I thought he was. Alvaro was kind, sweet, funny, loving, caring, a great father, and generous. TJ loved him, and he was the perfect example of a man compared to TJ’s father. If I could, God knows I would definitely have him in our lives, but I knew now that couldn’t happen.
Alvaro already a family, and I had allowed a moment of lust to blind me to that fact. I let my feelings lead me, and now I was sitting up in my room like Brandy, trying to figure and control the emotions that were still flowing through me. There was no answer or remedy for what I was feeling—there was only one option—and that was for me to move out.
Despite the protests from both Ma and Alvaro, after today, I knew that was the best thing for me to do. I needed to put some distance between me and Alvaro and hoped it would stop the feelings that were trying to control me.
Working with him was enough; I didn’t need to sleep in a room only a few doors away from his. It wasn’t going to help anything. Knowing what I needed to do, I reached over to my nightstand and picked up my cell phone. I pulled up a few websites and started looking at apartments to rent.
Someone knocking on my door caused me to stop and tell them to come in.
I sat up in bed when the door opened, and Alvaro walked in because I thought it was Ma. Usually, if she was eating or drinking something at night—which was often—she would bring me some.
“Hey,” I called out to him as he stepped into my room.
I honestly thought he was gone for the night.
“Hey.”
He stood at the door and just stared at me.
“Are you about to sleep? I was wondering if we could talk.”
“Um, sure. Okay.”
“Come, I don’t want us to wake up TJ.” He waved me over to him, and I nodded.
I put my phone back down, gently climbed out of bed so I wouldn’t wake TJ up, and followed Alvaro out of the room. I expected him to go into the kitchen, living room or another room in the house, but instead, he led me out to the guesthouse that I stayed in when I first came to his home.
“I just thought we would have more privacy out here,” he explained when I gave him a questioning look.
And then he just stood there looking at me, making my body uncontrollably warm up.
“You’re so beautiful, Kanada. I can’t stop looking at you or thinking about you even when I don’t want to,” he said, and his words made me fidget.
“We’ve been connecting on a different level, Kan, that has me curious to explore more.”
“Alvaro.” I put my hand up to stop him, but he continued.
“Tell me that you don’t feel the connection we have, Kanada. Tell me that you don’t find us finishing off each other’s sentences. That we don’t be thinking the same things from time to time. Tell me that you don’t feel the atmosphere shift whenever we’re around each other.”
His eyes bored into mine, almost pleading for me to tell the truth, so I did.
“I do feel it,” I admitted because I had.
It was why I found myself thinking about him all night. Why I found myself yearning to see him or simply hear his voice. Alvaro and I would have conversations and finish off each other’s sentences. Or we would look at each other at the
same time, letting us know that we were thinking the same thing. So many times, we would know what the other was thinking from just one look.
At first, I thought it was just a coincidence and that great minds thought alike, but there was no denying that something in the air would shift too, letting me know it was much more than that. And hearing Alvaro tell me he was experiencing the same things I was further proved that it wasn’t all in my head.
Alvaro sighed with relief and smiled at me.
“I do feel it, Alvaro, but you have your baby mother.”
His smile fell, and he sighed. “Kanada, I was never in a relationship with Brittany. Even while she was pregnant with KeKe, we were never together like that.”
That was news to me.
“But you’re still sleeping with her, Alvaro.”
They may not have been together in a relationship, but from how she was all over him today like they were a couple, it was plain to see that they were still sleeping together. And I wanted no parts of that either.
“I was, Kanada. I’m not going to lie to you.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
He walked over to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pulled me to him.
“But I stopped before you moved in here.”
He kept eye contact with me, and I searched them for any hint of a lie.
“I stopped at first because I was busy, but later it was because of you.”
My heart leaped into my throat, and my mouth went dry, leaving me incapable of answering him.
“I can’t stop what I’m feeling for you, Kanada. I’ve tried, but it just got worse, and I want to see where this can go.”
I looked away from him because although he was telling me everything I had dreamed that he would, I was afraid. I was afraid that I would let myself go with him, and he would go back to his baby mother or decide that he does want to be a family with her. I was afraid to give yet another man my heart after what Terrence did to me.
“I promise that it’s going to be just us, Kan. There’s nothing there love wise between me and Brittany—there never was,” he said as if he could read my thoughts. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
