Page 27 of Love me Like XO

“Veto.”

“Huh?” I barely heard what he said.

“I vetoed that shit. You’re in a relationship with me now, which means if you wanna learn to be alone, you’ll fuck around and learn how to be alone with me. We’ll learn that shit together, bae.”

“Malik!”

“What? Why the fuck are you yelling? It’s too early for this shit.”

“Because you’re not listening to me.”

“I am listening. I’m just choosing what I wanna let in my eardrums and what I’on feel like hearing. Dinner at my place tonight at eight. You want me to pick you up, or you pulling up? I got some shit to handle before that though.” This nigga went on like I just didn’t tell him that I needed time to myself. Like he really didn’t give a freak that I needed space and had just not too long ago gotten out of a relationship.

“Are you hear?—”

“Don’t ask me that shit no more. I’ll be there to pick you up no later than eight-fifteen.” Then like the true asshole he was, he hung up on me. I knew one thing for certain though, I was for sure not going to be here. I knew what he wanted, and I loved his energy, but I really just needed a minute to catch my breath to really contemplate over what this meant.

EMPRESS

This morning when I woke up, I had a message from Khalil telling me to give him my schedule for the week. I felt weird as fuck doing it since I had been spending so much time with Zero these last few weeks. We ate, chilled, and fucked so much that it was a routine that I found myself completely enthralled with. He was sweet, sexy and the best way to spend my down time, and yes, I meant down time. However, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I was the only female he was giving his time to, because I knew men and how they could be. Though I liked him, I couldn’t get too caught up in us or what we weren’t. I just didn’t allow myself to get too caught up in the thought of it, because I’d be a lie to say I didn’t feel him. The problem is I feared relationship’s and their effects on people… on me to be exact. Unfortunately,none of that mattered though because I already liked him but that was just it. So, yeah, I got a twinge of jealousy when he wasn’t in my face, but I busied myself and focused on what I had going on rather than whatever he was up to.

This morning when I left his place, I had to rush home to get myself dressed and ready for the two appointments I had, then he wanted me to stop by the bar around three. He said he had something he wanted to talk to me about. That gave me the necessary time to do a few of the things I needed to be doing in my shop and catch up with my brother who needed a lineup. What I didn’t expect was for both of my appointments to reschedule. Instead of staying at the shop, I ended up just going by my brother’s place to get him together.

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Taree walked back into the room with her phone in her hand.

“Don’t nobody think you stupid, shorty. However I do think that this type of shit only happens in books and movies.” Irish couldn’t hold back the laughter. After the initial shock had worn off, he couldn’t hold it together or be serious for anything. He was gonna have jokes about this for a pretty long time.

“I just never saw this coming, no matter how much time we didn’t spend together. Then crazy enough I’m not hurt about it or anything, it just feels like I should’ve seen this coming.”

“That he was fucking his mama?” I tilted my head to the side.

“No, that he was doing something. That the comfort I had with this situation was false. That I didn’t belong with him.”

Irish shrugged. “I mean it is what it is. His shortcomings or like for old pussy ain’t your problem. All you can do is keep it moving and focus on you. Just don’t get stuck in the fuck and duck ‘em game like old girl behind me.”

“Speaking of. I’m spending the night at your house tonight, Em,” my sister said not giving a hell if I said yes or no, because it wasn’t a request.

I nodded in her direction, before slapping Irish upside his head with my free hand. “Asshole. Um first of all I have only been fucking one person these last few weeks and we might be about to have that talk when I go see him after I finish this.”

Taree looked shocked before her sarcastic ass started clapping. “Oh! Now that’s a big dea?—”

“Fuck that! What about what we talked about? Super Bowl, Em.”

Taree and I both laughed at the seriousness in Irish’s tone. After I finished cutting his hair, I chilled with them for a while longer before I headed to the bar to see what Zero was talking about. I guess curiosity had gotten the best of me because I was almost an hour early.

When I walked in, I spotted what looked like his sister standing at the bar wiping the wooden surface with a gripe on her pretty face.

“Hey, is he back there?” I asked as I approached the bar.

She looked up at me and gave me one of those giddy smiles, before nodding her head. She was too giddy, different from how she was before I walked up. “Yeah, but he isn’t alone.”

Her sentence ended as his office door opened and a trashy female walked out with a smirk fixing the Flashy red lipstick on her lips. Just from the look of her being I knew what was up, but I had no right to be mad or feel any type of way because I was just somebody he was fucking, like apparently, he was.

Seconds later he walked out of his office with a crooked smirk that quickly disappeared upon seeing me.

“I thou—thought you’d be this way at three, shorty.” He was taken aback by my presence.

“I see you were busy, I came early. Too early.” It took everything in me to stand there and not burst into tears or destroy this man’s property. Everything in me to remain calm and still when everything in me was burning. This was my faultfor catching feelings for a nigga that I was just having sex with. My fucking fault.

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