Page 139 of 10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace

He laughed. “He helped you sneak out and helped me sneak in here.”

I folded my arms. “That traitor.”

“He loyal to the family and you are the family. Come home with me, Wonder. I fucking miss you.”

I put my glasses down and picked up my Telfar bag that I started to paint and had given up sometime last year. Wrapping the straps around my hand, I beat him with the bag as he held his arms up.

“You got me fucking arrested, Maverick! Do you think I want to go home with you?” I slapped him once more with the bag.

“You done?”

“No. You think you can tell me what you’re going to do when it comes toAngie, and it doesn’t work like that. If you want to delete numbers out my phone and crash out if someoneeven looks my way, then I have the right to demand you cease communication with her. If you don’t want to do that, then you need to call the lawyers back so we can get divorced, and I can start my life on one of my islands.”

“Alright, come home.”

“Maverick, I’m not going home with you. You are used to always getting your way and I’m not giving you that… you got me arrested. Fucking arrested because I used free will and left.”

He looked down at me with the cigarette still tucked between his lips. “You said you wouldn’t leave me, Wonder.”

“No, you don’t get to use that. I left because of you, so before you start saying I left you… think about why I left.” I snatched the cigarette and put it in my glass of water. “When did you start smoking?”

“Since you left me… go through a pack a day.”

“Maverick, stop smoking cigarettes. I didn’t like that you shut me down. You made it seem like I had no choice and that was how things would be. You want to fix this, then prove it to me… now leave before I getyouarrested.”

I thought he was going to leave out my bedroom door, but he pulled another cigarette out and headed toward the window, climbing on the fire escape. “I ain’t going home until you come home.”

“Do what you gotta do… giving yourself lung cancer isn’t going to help me get there quicker.”

“Let me smell it,” he asked, while he was on the fire escape.

“Nope… ask Angie.”

“I don’t want her old ass pussy, Wonder, damn.”

I slammed the window down and locked it before closing my curtains and storming out the room. “When I have the proper thoughts, I will debrief because, Stevie, your husband is certified.”

I grabbed the Lysol to get the smoke smell out of my room, then climbed into bed to get some sleep. As much as I wanted to go with him, he needed to end things with that woman. I couldn’t compete with his first.

The difference was he was my first, and there was an attachment that came with that. I knew the same existed for him, and knowing she was the last person he had given his heart to added more layers to the situation. He had to cut things off with her, or we couldn’t be.

“Haveyou gotten the messages from the group chat that Menace made?” Skyler asked, as we were heading to the club.

We were in the back of an Uber as she continued to scroll through her phone. I hadn’t been on my phone much because it had been a few weeks since Maverick was under my bed. While he still called in hopes to talk to me, he hadn’t made a move to show me that he was fixing the issue. Maybe I thought that he would jump to end things with her because he said he loved me so much.

“I haven’t been on my phone much. Other than when Kora called to check in on me.” I sighed, not wanting to go to the party anymore.

In my defense, we bought the tickets when I was talking to Cornell. The red flag should have been that he allowed me to buy tickets instead of getting us in because he knew Zay. Skyler was excited to get out the house, so that was the only reason that I was going.

“Well, apparently we are all going to the Amalfi coast for Thanksgiving on his yacht… now Stevie, I know I was against this at first but taking my baby out the country and having her on a yacht… these are the things I can get with.”

“You’ve been on a yacht and a jet, Skyler.”

“Not enough to not be excited about it. I already spoke to my lawyer about it, and I can bring Estella, as long as we have a return date which we do.”

“Cool.”

“Why are you so shitty today?” Skyler turned to face me.

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