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fifty-seven

. . .

“Yo, E,” Brody called from his posted position on the side of the sprinter van. “You good?”

Eden rubbed her wrist and nodded. “Where’s Max?”

“He hasn’t come out yet,” Keon grumbled after finalizing his inspection of Staysha. “You good?”

“You know if you have so much as a scratch on you, he’s going to flip his shit,” Brody stated.

“I’m fine. Is he coming home or what?” Eden couldn’t focus on the last four hours.

How she was pulled from a space of peace, pushed against the wall, and roughly placed in cuffs – all after hitting the wrong record button on the app.

She couldn’t even focus on how the officers handling her taunted her as she was marched up the stairs like a criminal – “You’ll have that baby in prison” – her concern was fully on Maximus.

Him being torn from her wasn’t sitting well with her spirit at all. Maximus was like the air she breathed – without him, she didn’t know how her day-to-day, week to week, month to month would shape out. What was life without the one who’d given her life?

Neither Keon or Brody could answer, and neither were going to discuss the bullshit they were presented with while in custody. Before Eden’s mouth could form a word, a calmness washed over her – Maximus. The closer he got, the more her spirit settled back into its home. Back into its sanctuary.

A subtle touch to the small of her back and a rumble from Max. “Let’s go.”

One by one, they filed into the sprinter. Eden rested on Maximus. “Want to talk about it when we get home?”

He swayed his head. “We’re going to dinner. I got the crew at the house putting it back together.”

Eden allowed him the response without rebuttal. Soon, they were in a private room of Cashmere Carve, a steakhouse within the town limits of Cashmere Lakes. No one was going to bother them, record them, eavesdrop, or otherwise.

Everyone left their phones in the sprinter, not wanting to take any chances, especially because today’s raid came out of nowhere.

Staysha was the first to break the silence. “Would anyone like to tell me why I was thrown to the floor, carted off to jail, and accused of being an accessory to a crime I know, without question, I didn’t commit? And I’ve done some shit.”

Keon slid his hand down his face and huffed. He shared a look with Maximus. “Mama.”

Staysha huffed and rolled her eyes. “The bitch can’t just lay down and do her time, she has to flex one last time to let us know who she is.”

“She can never go down alone or without some bullshit. Had us in shootouts with EWG because she sent niggas to steal their product,” Keon replied.

Eden said nothing. It wasn’t necessary. While everyone spoke amongst themselves, she was trying to put together the pieces.

If she didn’t know anything before, she knew now that there was always a reason to her mother’s and Mama’s madness and typically, they were always at the center of the bullshit.

Feeling Maximus’ arm over her shoulder, she ended her mulling to gaze into his eyes.

“You’re too quiet, and I can feel your thoughts goin’ a mile a minute. What’s going on?”

Eden offered him that doe-eyed gaze. What she was piecing together, she wouldn’t allow him to know. He already had enough weight on his shoulders. “Upset that I left that camera recording for nothing.”

He scratched his chin through his beard and smirked. “That camera and all the other cameras you insisted we put in saved my ass.”

“So, I’ve heard. You know what all of this means, right?”

“That every time I take two steps forward, I get knocked back ten?”

Eden hummed and swayed her head. “No, my love, you are exactly who the fuck you think you are and you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.

Two weeks before your tour, no album out, and it sold out while we're trapped inside that jail with those idiots. All they did was propel you forward because nothing can fuckin’ stop you. ”

Maximus hooked her chin and kissed her lips. “You want to take this shit to go?”

“The house clean?”

“They just sent me the invoice.”

“Where’s the puppy?” she muttered against his lips.

“In its little house I had made for it. I had to pay that nigga extra for getting’ thrown to the ground and harassed. What dog you finna play with? It or me?”

Eden smirked against his lips. “The one that’s about to leave me.”

“Heard you,” he grumbled.

Eden pressed her lips against his and pulled away. “Enjoy family time, I can wait.”

“Y’all want a room?” Brody asked.

For emphasis, she slid her hand under the table, massaging his erection through the sweats he’d worn. Leaning forward, Maximus played cool. “Don’t worry about it, nigga.”

“Y’all nasty as hell,” Brody grumbled, and Eden shrugged smugly in response.

The group fell back into their usual banter until parting ways.

Brody to his apartment in Midtown, Staysha and Keon to their spot, and Eden and Maximus fumbling out of the JoyRide, hands all over each other.

From the hallway through the kitchen and up the stairs.

Foreplay in the shower, intimacy in the grooming, and euphoria pulling their bodies together.

“Shit, E,” Maximus groaned, holding her hair in his fist, toes curling, hips thrusting against her face. “Fuck you tryin’ to do?”

Eden groaned, vibrating her snicker around him. Popping his hardness out of her mouth, she licked his length, then her lips. “Marking my territory while I’m up to it.”

“You ain’t got to mark me, baby. They see me, they see you. You all over me,” he groaned, his reply, thumbing the mess she made of him off of her chin. “Come sit on your shit, baby.”

Maximus sat on the loveseat, arms outstretched over the back of it.

Eden eased down on his length, reverse cowgirl, her hands placed on his knees.

Grinding up and down, gripping and swirling round and round, splashing over his length and covering him with her sacredness, Eden rode until Maximus’ thrusts were erratic and uncontrolled.

He held her close, palming her tender breasts.

Eden welcomed the perfect mix of pleasure and pain. Her hair wild and tousled over her face, she dropped back on him, panting. “You feel that?”

“Mmhmm,” he moaned. “Still drummin’. That shit is going to call me home.”

“You better come running too.” She turned around, straddling him, a sticky mess still between them. “Was that enough to rest your mind?”

“Yeah, you?”

Eden bit her lip. “Mhmm. I’m teetering somewhere between sick in the mornings and wanting you all night. Trying to outrun the tiredness.”

“Let me clean you up.” Maximus kissed her chest before standing with her body wrapped around his.

With softness and precise strokes of the hot towel across her body, Maximus wiped her clean, kissed her face, neck, growing belly and then her ass.

He caressed her until she fell asleep, and then pulled himself to the basement.

Like always, Eden sensed he was gone. Tonight, she was okay.

He was close, his spirit was lightening its load.

Meanwhile, she needed answers. Outside on the veranda, in the same seat she met Maximus in, she dialed Mac'Roy’s number.

Her gut turned with anxiousness as the line trilled, and then his voice flowed through.

“Eden. I didn’t think I’d get this call.”

“Never thought I’d have a reason to call once you dropped my ass like a hot topic.”

Mac'Roy sighed before admitting, “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave you with the burden either, but it needed to be done.”

“For you and your liability?”

He groaned. “No. Eden, you were never supposed to be as big as you were. As you are. You were never-”

Mac'Roy stopped himself.

“You might as well continue. At this point, nothing is going to shake my core.”

“How much do you know about your father?”

“Enough.”

“He and I were…business partners. Moving girls from one point to another.”

“Traffickers.”

“Back then, that’s not what it was called.

Back then there were women gladly giving themselves to niggas with big pockets.

We know how he met his fate. What you don’t know is that the trafficking didn’t stop.

Mama handed you over with your mother’s nod.

You weren’t supposed to be the one that made it.

Neither was your sister. Sacrificial lambs for more power.

“After having daughters of my own, I couldn’t do you how we’d done the other girls that came through the industry or through Midnight. Your father would’ve climbed out of his grave and killed me. So, I tried to protect you and your sister. Take you out of that hell.”

“Sounds noble enough. A fraction. So, let’s fast-forward this story and tell me how I ended up in cuffs today?”

Mac'Roy took a beat. “The detective, Staysha, attempted to trick out his pockets was dirty. Dirty then, dirty now. Mama and Anzel are going away, probably for the rest of their lives, they’re going to take everyone they were tied with down. What happened today was a move to silence them. Unfortunately for you and Staysha, your family is fucked up. The only good thing y’all had was a woman who was a terror.

But you got more of her than you know. More of her good parts.

Eden, you are good. I always said that. And maybe my speaking so highly of you put a target on your back, and I’m sorry for that. I hope this gave you what you needed.”

“The pieces to my origin story have always been unknown. And it’s all coming full circle, but it’s touching people I love.”

“Let me offer you one final piece of advice before I turn myself in – you and everything you cover are untouchable. That is something I know firsthand. You, being a part of MRA – your light – made the darkness stir. Your mother and Mama chose their fate. Me, Natavia, and Rico chose ours. You go forward and don’t ever look back.

I’ll be watching, and whether you want me to or not, I’ll be rooting for you. Goodbye, Eden.”

Mac'Roy didn’t wait for Eden to reply before hanging up and closing all the chapters of her life that had been left open. She never needed to speak to Mama or see her mother again. Now everything was about tomorrow, there were no more yesterdays.