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  “You haven’t gotten an eviction notice yet?” Kiesha asked in disbelief.

  “Hell no,” I sulked as I pouted on the couch next to her.

  It was Thursday evening. The kids had come home from summer camp. I had waited in the window, staring, as they filed out of Dame’s car. It broke my heart to see him reaching out for their attention as he said goodbye. Faye was the only one too young to feed into the negativity I had filled their heads with about Dame and his new life with his new woman.

  Just a few months ago, I had despised Dame’s very presence. Now, I wished to God that he would bless me with it long enough for me to regain his attention.

  I had totally taken advantage of what was right in front of me. I had been so infatuated with the glitz and glam that G was offering me that I totally forgot the sincerity and importance of what Dame had given me for years.

  Yet, now, I knew. My stomach bubbled every time I thought about potentially never getting Dame back because he was now with another woman.

  He looked happy with her as well. In that picture, he was wearing a smile that I hadn’t seen on his face in years. It was glee; pure, genuine joy. His eyes were even sparkling.

  He had moved on, but I was desperate to make him revert right on back to his family.

  I hadn’t paid my rent in three months. My landlord had been stalking me for the rent and had threatened me with eviction but had yet to do so. I assumed he was stalling in hopes that he would get his money. That would have been better than going through a long eviction process with the courts. Yet, I had no intentions of paying. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Keisha asked.

  I grimaced. I was so sick of that bitch asking me that shit.

  My pout increased as I shrugged. “I don’t have any more weeks to wait. He says he isn’t engaged to this bitch, but I know he’s lying.”

  “Have you looked on her page?”

  Shit, have I? Just call me Joe Goldberg because I had become a straight-up obsessed stalker. I stayed on that girl’s social media pages. However, everything was private. I couldn’t see anything.

  “Yea, but everything is private. I just need to make this shit happen faster.”

  Keisha’s eyes brightened. “I got this,” she smiled. She looked like the deviousness was making her salivate as she stood up and walked towards the stairs. “Joziah and Brea!” she yelled for the kids.

  I wasn’t even paying her any attention. Too deep in my feelings, I couldn’t lift my head as they came trotting down the stairs.

  “Y’all need to start packing up your shit,” I heard her tell the kids.

  Stunned, I looked up at her just as Joziah and Brea appeared on the stairs.

  “What? Why?” Brea asked, confused.

  “Yo’ mama is getting kicked out. Y’all gotta be outta here in a few days before the sheriff come put everything on the front yard.”

  My eyes bucked as the children stared at me, completely petrified.

  “Where are we going to live?” Joziah asked.

  “You… Um…” I struggled to come up with a quick lie. “We’re going to have to just move in with Auntie.”

  I knew the kids would hate that. “Auntie” was my mother’s only sister and sibling, Mary. She was damn near seventy. She lived in a two-bedroom house that smelled like mothballs and cigarettes. The kids hated when Mary would babysit because she didn’t have any Wi-Fi, cable, or snacks, they were always forced to sleep in the same room, and she took them to church, where she went at least four times a week.

  “Ma!” Joziah gasped. “Nooooo!”

  “I’m running away,” Brea insisted as she shook her head vigorously.

  I laid it on thick. “Look, it's what we gotta do.”

  Joziah whined, “Why can’t we move back in with Daddy?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Ask him.”

  This was a low, ratchet blow, but it was genius. As the kids stormed up the stairs, Keisha smiled ear to ear as she pranced back towards the couch.

  Faye’s birthday was coming up, so the kids would be spending the day with Dame soon. I knew that they would be so upset that they would beg him to move back in. He loved them too much to see them homeless, hurting or take them from me, so he would invite us to move back in.

  It was heartbreaking that I couldn’t say that he loved me too much. Regardless, I needed him.

  Tempest Murphy

  “I like it.”

  As a matter of fact, I was in love.

  I gazed upwards at Dame, as he stood before me in a casual, street-style fitted suit. The black shirt with matching pants paired with oxford shoes and red blazer made his large, towering frame impeccable. The diamond earrings in his ears were the perfect accessory. The non-prescription frames were the icing on the cake. He also had on a nice chunky watch to add the oomph factor.

  He looked like a GQ ad brought to life right in front of me.

  However, I had grown an infatuation for who Dame was in real life, not the man he had been pretending to be for my family. I had learned so much about his story, his life, his soul that he no longer needed to strip himself of the urban wear to impress me. I yearned for him to be simply him because the real him was a dream.

  Yet, I had been forcing myself not to dream for the past two weeks. Self-sabotage had been in full effect. I couldn’t wrap my head around the way that man handled me. Nor could I understand why two strangers did not have to put much effort into pretending to be in love. The passion oozed from us effortlessly. So much so that he made me speechless. But when we finally made love, I knew it was real. So, I ran from him. I belittled our hours of lovemaking and pushed him away. For every reason that we felt right, there were two more proving that we were wrong. I wasn’t emotionally stable enough to be with a man of his caliber. Years of rejection had beat me into an insecure pulp. Dame deserved a perfect queen by his side, not some flawed, peasant beast.

  “You sure?” He stared down on me, immersing himself in the magnetic energy pulsating between us. His eyes were like candles that brought light to my dimly lit living room. They sparkled luminously with desire. As a small, teasing smile crept through his oiled beard, goosebumps lined my already raised skin. They weren’t the kind of chills that you get in a frosty Chicago winter, either. They were the kind that you get when nothing else matters except right here… right now.

  “Okay, it's time for a test.” I tore my eyes away, ending our visual lovemaking. I couldn't think or breathe while wrapped up in his essence. I religiously rejected this man, and he kept coming back, begging for more, and I couldn’t understand why. He had seen me, the real me, and, still, he wanted me. His attraction to me felt like a cruel joke.

  “A test? For what?”

  Keeping my eyes off of him, I put my attention on my phone. Looking at the time, I saw that we had another hour before we needed to head to my mother’s house for the engagement party.

  My mother had gone over and beyond planning this party. There would be an open bar, live band, and waterfalls. It was to be catered by Jontavius Booker, a Black chef from Chicago who had gone viral for his Caribbean cuisine. She had invited all of her friends and my line and sorority sisters. This woman was all in. But I had let her because clearly, she was so happy to plan a wedding since she hadn’t been able to plan her own.

  “To make sure that you know the important things about me and ‘us’. I don’t want you to be caught off guard at the engagement party.”

  As he chuckled, I could feel him walking towards me. I stood, unable to sit within inches of him without being distracted about the memories of what he could do to my body.

  As I stood in front of him, I could see the disappointed smirk on his soft lips. Then he sat back on the couch, arms resting across the back of it. His wingspan was like that of a large jet. The thin material of the black dress pants that he had on was leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

  “Ah ight. Shoot,” he told
me.

  “When did we meet?”

  “Two years ago in Miami. You were on your annual trip with your sorority sisters. I was there alone for work. We met at the Clevelander during a day party.”

  “Good job,” I smiled. “Where did you propose?”

  “On our one-year anniversary trip in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower.”

  “What’s my favorite color?” I asked, now pacing the carpeted floor.

  “Blue. Same as your dad’s. But you like how the color olive looks on you.”

  “My middle name?”

  “Amor, which means love because your father knew you were conceived with love because he was so in love with your mother.”

  I was impressed, and it showed as I stood there stuck at how many details he knew without me asking. I had told him these answers, but the details behind them were things that I had told him in general conversation, not in preparation for this wedding. I was touched at how much had soaked in by simply listening to me.

  I had opened my mouth, ready to fire the next question, but he cut me off.

  “You like to wear your nails medium-length in a slight coffin shape, because you think the points would make you look like a witch, but you hate how bulky square-shaped nails are.” His eyes were fixated on me. His stare was so demanding that I couldn’t look away, though I longed to run my eyes away from the tension in his. “You always have French tips but full white polish on your toenails because you can never get your toenails to grow long enough for the French tips to look right.” I was frozen, stuck in a state of awe as he went on. “You’re the most educated woman I have ever met, and it's not just the textbook education that I am impressed with. Despite you having gone to a college out of state and gotten a master’s, you still have a street sense and hustle that makes my dick hard as fuck. You aren’t some weak chick. You’ve survived what most would allow them to fold. You come back swinging, even though I can sometimes see in your eyes how tired you are of fighting. But no matter how tired you are, you are still so loving and caring to others. And all of those things, in addition to how fucking gorgeous you are and how perfect your body is, is why I fell in love with you.”

  I stood there, speechless, like an idiot as I blinked slowly. My mouth lay agape, as I fought to find the words to say. I wanted to question what he’d just said. This was supposed to be pretend, but his eyes had so much sincerity in them as he looked up at me.

  “That was perfect,” I forced as I turned my back on the passion bubbling between us. “I have to go get dressed. Keep that same energy, though. Your acting is superb.”

  I scurried away. Running from what I knew was real. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to thank him for reminding me of what butterflies felt like.

  Chapter 13

  Tempest Murphy

  I had had to drink a lot the rest of the night to be able to deal with all of the lies, the passionate tension between me and Dame, and the stress of pulling all of this off. It was all suffocating me.

  Everything had been a blur since the party started. Dame and I were constantly being pulled in one direction and then the next. There had been so many pictures taken of us that my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

  “You look beautiful, Tempest.”

  I smiled at Rick’s compliment. He, Nneka, my mother, and Erica had crowded around Dame and I as we took a break from the main gathering that was in the large foyer of the home around the live band.

  “Thank you,” I said. Blushing, I tugged on the Versace Jungle Print Silk-Chiffon Dress. It had been an insane amount of money that I had gotten out of my savings. Yet, it had been worth every penny to see the bothered look on Nneka’s face when I walked into the large foyer in Versace’s remake of the iconic jungle print dress Jennifer Lopez had worn in the 42nd Grammy Award Show.

  Coupled with my big, natural curls popping and a damn good beat to my face, I felt the prettiest I had in a long while.

  Rick’s eyes met Dame’s, who was standing next to me. “You’re a lucky man.”

  Dame grinned with a nod. “I know.”

  Rick, Nneka’s husband, was actually in town. I had been happy to see him. He was married to a bitch, but he had always been so sweet to me.

  You could see the irritation rising to the surface of Nneka’s skin. Her nostrils flared like a little irate Shitzuh. I watched as a conniving grin spread across her face.

  “Are you wearing something like that to the wedding?” she asked me, gesturing towards my dress. “With, ya know, the sleeves and high neck so those scars won’t be in all of the pictures?”

  My eyes instantly narrowed into threatening slits. Standing behind me, my mother inhaled sharply.

  I could hear Erica, who was behind me, next to my mother, groaning under her breath as she silently spewed, “Thiiiis bitch.”

  All three of us were ready to check Nneka until Dame’s dominance took over.

  “She bet’ not,” Dame demanded before I could. “Those scars are what makes her exotic. They are the first thing that attracted me to her. She bet’ not cover them up.”

  As Erica squealed with delight under her breath, Nneka looked even more disgusted with Dame’s overt, public attraction to me. She looped her arm in Rick’s telling him, “Come on. I want another drink.”

  As they pulled away, I heard my mother and Erica snickering behind me.

  “Yaaaaas, son-in-law,” my mother nearly sang.

  I giggled, shaking my head. This woman had truly been letting her hair down since I‘d gotten engaged. The collected persona she had put on once marrying such a successful, prestigious man was slowly vanishing, and the hood chick from the southside that my father had fallen for was making guest appearances.

  I stood there, marinating in the moment of Dame, once again, going over and beyond to play his role so well that I was confused about whether he was indeed acting or not. I finally let my guard down and looked up in his eyes, which were towering over me.

  Before I could fall victim to his commanding and passionate gaze, I tore my eyes away from his.

  “I’m sorry about that, baby,” my mother told me.

  I looked back at her sympathizing eyes. “It's okay.”

  Unfortunately, I was used to Nneka’s hateful comments. They usually came at the moments that were meant to uplift me. Therefore, I had known that I would have to be prepared for them that night.

  Yet, my skin hadn’t grown so thick to them that they didn’t still sting, especially when they came in the presence of a man like Dame.

  “What’s wrong, sis?” Nimah asked me as she walked up.

  I hadn’t even noticed that I was wearing my thoughts on my face.

  I shook my head, waving off the effect that Nneka’s jabs had left on my expression. “Nothing. My dumb ass stepsister is being a bitch, as always.”

  Nimah’s arms folded as all her weight shifted to one hip. “Want me to beat her ass?”

  Erica instantly cackled. “I like her,” she laughed, speaking of Nimah.

  Nimah had been a joy to meet. Dame was right; she was ghetto as fuck, but I loved it. And she was funny as hell to me.

  “Nimah,” Dame quickly warned.

  She only smirked at his warning as she turned her back to him. As she gave me all of her attention, her butt length, knotless braids swung. “I’ll whoop her ass. Drag that bitch all over this nice-ass crib.”

  “Please whoop her ass,” Erica begged.

  I giggled uncontrollably while barely making out, “No. That’s okay,” I told Nimah.

  Nimah shrugged. “Okay, girl. Well, holla at your sis if you need me to put hands on that bitch. I got you. I’m goin’ to the bar. Y’all want some more drinks?”

  “Yea,” Dame told her, still grimacing from her behavior. “Where is Mama?”

  “Over there on the dance floor, dancing with Darcel and Jeffrey.”

  “Reallyyyyy? I’m going to go join them,” my mother exclaimed as she sashayed away.

  My mother ha
d gotten along great with Luella, Dame’s mother, Darcel, and Jeffrey when they’d met a few hours ago.

  I was happy that Dame had been able to invite a number of people. Astonishingly, things were going off without a hitch.

  Or was I speaking too soon?

  DAMIEN COLEMAN