Page 18 of Suleem and Yahzi
“You want me to place an order to go?”
“No, I’m full,” I said and reached for some fries that I dipped in a side of ranch before I shoved them in my mouth.
He lifted his beer and turned the bottle up, keeping his eyes on me. The way he took me in was heavy and possessive, like he needed every detail and wasn’t willing to share any parts of me with anyone else.
“Give me what you owe,” he said smoothly, then leaned back in his chair with those greedy eyes on me.
“You want me to pay for our food?”
He shook his head. “Not the food, Yah. You’ll never have to come out of your pocket for a damn thing in my presence. You know how I come behind you. You owe me three years. I need that.”
“You didn’t miss much.”
“Every layer of your life is a privilege, baby. Your smiles, your tears, your fucked up attitude when shit doesn’t go your way. Tell me about them crybaby sessions you had ’cause your period was kicking your ass and I wasn’t there to fuck them cramps away for you. I want all that. Even if you don’t feel it’s relevant, tell me and let me decide if I want to cherish them details or not. Run that shit.”
The arrogant way his eyes moved over my body had me wanting to groan in approval. My cycles were always hard and my cramps were debilitating. During a doctor’s visit he insisted on going to, Suleem’s no filter ass asked if I couldfuckon my cycle. I was mortified but she smiled politely and answered yes, which she followed up by expressing that the endorphin release could also help with cramps.
I smiled, knowing he wasn’t going to give me a pass. That was how this man was with me. For the next hour I talked and he listened. I told him everything I could think of from the first night I spent in my apartment there to the minute before he came and got me. I gave him every detail and he cataloged everyword, not speaking until I was done. Then he asked a question that had my chest tight.
“Were you happy?”
Without me…
Without the family we could have had but didn’t because of me…
Those silent, unspoken words were loud and I refused to punish him any more than he had punished himself.
“I was okay.” It wasn’t what he asked but it also wasn’t a lie. We never lied to each other.
Suleem nodded then glanced at my purse on the chair between us. In the past hour that we’d been here, calls came back to back. I didn’t have to check the missed calls to know who they were from. I woke up this morning with texts threatening me. ThreateningBank.I wasn’t crazy enough to believe the beating Suleem gave Dex would end there.
When I got the first text and had to use context to realize who it was, I navigated through my phone to see Dex’s number had been blocked. That was intentional and not done by me, which meant Suleem knew the things he was saying to me. Dex’s life was at risk and there wasn’t much I could do to help. I wouldn’t intervene. Defending another man to Suleem was an argument I wouldn’t win and a road I wouldn’t dare travel down.
I knew who this man was and understood the price of being in his life. Three years ago, I ran because I thought I could erase or reverse the way this man imprinted himself on me and through me. I ran to him to protect me from a menace who intended to harm my heart and spirit and there was no turning back. I didn’t want to.
Maybe I could have, if I hadn’t found myself at the center of his orbit again. Now, however, I’d felt him and it mended what was broken in me, so I resigned myself to accepting that he was mine and I was his. That meant accepting who and what he was,but regardless, I wanted to live in this isolated bubble for a little while longer before I had to come face to face with that side of his world.
When my phone worked its way through another call notification, Suleem dropped his eyes to my purse then slowly brought them back up to mine.
“Tell me about your friends.”
The way he looked at me expressed he already knew the details of what he was asking. “I don’t have any.”
“Then who the fuck is blowing you up?”
“Can we not?”
“I don’t ignore problems, Yah. That’s not how I get down and that muthafucker is a problem. Did he put his hands on you?”
“No.” I delivered the answer with confidence. He nodded, removed cash, and placed it on the table.
“Let’s ride. You paid your debt, now I’m about to pay mine.” The way his eyes moved over me and blazed my skin brought a smile to my face. I hurried my ass out of the chair and Suleem rounded the table and reached for my purse before I could get it. Once he had my phone in hand, he dropped it into his pocket, not once looking at the screen.
“You’re taking my phone?” I asked but the answer had been given when it ended up in his pocket.
He nodded and an arm dropped over my shoulders before I was tucked at his side. “You need to make a call, you got mine. I’ll get you a new one.”
That was the final word and I didn’t care enough to challenge it. Right now all I wanted was to be back at his place so I could let him pay what he owed.
