Page 44 of Divine

“You got to know that. Grab me some Pepto or Tums on your way up. You know I’m good for it,” he said as he stood and counted out three hundred dollars before dropping it on the table. “See you in a minute, mama.”

“Right.” I nodded, knowing damn well I wasn’t going anywhere near that room. Hopefully, it would be the last time I saw him.

I watched as he left the restaurant and strolled over to the elevator. As soon as he stepped on, I made my exit. As I sped walked out of the restaurant, I kicked myself for not driving my own damn car. There was no way I was letting Sherrod take me home. I’d already shook my detail and had him pick me up at Divine Smoothies.

I wasn’t prepared to let him know where I lived let alone have my nosy cousins or my brothers see him anywhere near me. I knew better than to call Bobby who was on duty tonight. He’d already called me three times. He was probably already trying to figure out how to tell on me without implicating himself for letting me trick him into staying at my house while I ran out to grab a few things from my store. If I had to get a ride from him, he would call Syre before I could even make it home. I didn’t need them poking their noses into my business, which was precisely why I was crossing my fingers and hoping that this stupid rideshare app was able to find me a car.

After her mom’s death,it took four whole months for the light to return to my baby’s eyes. I didn’t think it would ever return. Then one day, I showed up for my shift, and she was out of bed cooking. For the first couple of days after Divine lost her mother, I had to literally spoon feed her. I used my bare hands to help dig her out of the darkness. I refused to let anything send her back. I hated that she was back out on the town, but at the same time, I was grateful that she felt good enough to go out.

The clanking of the weights as I released the lateral pull-down bar sounded as I stood and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. It was close to midnight, which was prime time for me to get a little work in. I chose to work overnight due to my insomnia, but I had the night off. Most nights until midnight, I was on call or on duty. My call status changed to off an hour ago, but that didn’t mean my job was done. Protecting Divine had become my life’s mission.

Satisfied with my last set, I moved from the pull-down machine to the free weights to do some curls. Since I was working on upper body strength, I didn’t have to worry about being sore as hell for the next three days like I usually was after leg days. As I wrapped up my first set, my phone vibrated against my thigh. I kept my phone on vibrate because I couldn’t stand all that hollering and screaming. The only reason that the phone wasn’t on silent was due to my on-call status.

Even on the days when I wasn’t on call, I liked to be accessible. Seeing the capital letterDand a cookie emoji displayed on my phone screen was confirmation that I needed to keep my phone turned on outside of work hours. I placed the dumbbell on the floor next to the bench before hitting the button to answer the call.

“Hey. What’s up, Divine?” I asked.

“Lee, please tell me you’re available,” she whined.

For her, I was always available. The need in her voice only drove that point home.

“What’s up?” I quizzed, trying not to sound panicked as I picked up the weight and put it back into the designated slot on the rack.

“You remember me telling you that Sherrod was coming to town?” she asked.

How could I forget?

“Yeah. What’s up?” I asked again, trying to lead her to the point of her late-night distress call.

“We had a date tonight or whatever,” she revealed as if her late-night excursion wasn’t the sole reason I was up pumping iron in the middle of the damn night.

Divine’s antics were half the reason I couldn’t sleep. I did a good job of helping her keep her dates and secrets away from her brothers, but I was twice as pissed as any of them would be when it came to her dating choices.

Baby had horrible taste in men. It seemed like she picked the worst guys just to spite her brothers. She claimed she was just having fun for the time being, so I tried to keep my mouth shut. Since more than anything I wanted to be a good friend, I would have to bite the bullet and deal with it for now.

The nigga she had been running around with lately was a subpar rapper that liked to flaunt his wealth by taking her to expensive restaurants and buying her jewelry. I really thought I was rid of this bitch until he rematerialized seemingly out of thin air.

He was worse than the basketball player she was so into before he started moving funny. She really thought this one might be the one because he told her that he wanted to spoil her worse than her brothers, so they didn’t have to worry about taking care of her anymore. I did everything Divine’s brothers didn’t do for her. There was no room in her life for Sherrod’s none rapping ass or his empty promises.

I bit my tongue when I had the urge to remind her that it was the same thing she had said about at least two other dudes that she’d wasted her time entertaining. Divine was a lover girl. I couldn’t blame her for falling for the dreams these niggas sold because some of them were actually good manipulators. I was a cynic, so I easily saw through them, but I wouldn’t expect a woman seeking genuine love and companionship to.

I didn’t subscribe to nor sell that bullshit, but to each his own. That love shit was for the birds. It had gotten too many niggas killed and still had more lives to claim. I liked to keep things simple. After exhausting my muscles in the gym, I initially planned to make sure that Divine made it home safely before sliding into something warm and wet. Once we were satisfied, I would send the owner of that wet and warm something home and then call it a night alone in bed.

“And?” I quizzed, pressing her to continue.

It really didn’t matter what she said, I was already moving toward the door. The distress in her voice wasn’t sitting right with me.

“I was out with him tonight, and things just started to go left. Can you come pick me up? It’s been a bitch trying to get an Uber this late at night.”

“Where are you, Divine, and why the fuck isn’t he taking you home?”

“I’m leaving his drunk ass here. I would have taken his keys and drove myself home, but I can’t drive a stick shift. I would tear it up trying to get out of the parking lot,” she explained.

“Why the hell did he get too drunk to drive you home?”

“He was determined for us to get a room here at the hotel. He’s been pissing me off all night, so he should have known I wasn’t going for it. I didn’t even let him pick me up at home.”

“Why the hell you even at a hotel with him, Divine?” I asked, growing more and more irritated.

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