Page 54 of Rah

He tipped my chin, pulling me back from the spin of my thoughts. “Stay with me,” he said softly. “Right here.”

“I’m trying,” I whispered.

“Let me help.” He leaned in with his lips a breath from mine. “Tell me to stop.”

I didn’t.

The kiss was soft at first. Then it deepened. His hand slid to the small of my back, and I arched without thinking, meeting him. He tasted like whiskey, mint, and want.

When we finally broke, I pressed my forehead to his, greedy for the quiet we’d made in the middle of all this noise.

I said breathlessly, “You keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna start believing you.”

“Good,” he murmured, mouth curving upward. “Believe me.”

He finally gave me permission to breathe when he broke eye contact and started eating his wings. To give my trembling body something to do, I started searching my purse for my phone. I was a bit intoxicated, and the bar was dark, so I had to fight to see my phone inside of the bag.

Once I found my phone, I unlocked it, hoping that I hadn’t missed any calls from my mom.

I had several missed calls. But as I scrolled the call log, I saw that they were all from Kahlani.

Inside of the dark bar, I squinted my eyes to ensure that I was reading her message correctly.

Kahlani:I’m at the University of Chicago. It’s Moses. Please answer the phone!

Myeyes bulged, as I started to panic.

Priest saw the sudden change in my mood and lay a comforting hand on my thigh. “You okay?”

“I gotta go!”

He started to panic as well. “What’s wrong?”

“I gotta go,” I repeated as I began to walk towards the door.

I didn’t even know where I was going. Priest had driven. I realized that when I walked out of the door and he was behind me, guiding me towards the curb by the small of my back, because I was walking aimlessly in the wrong direction.

“The car is over here.”

“My cousin. Something happened to her boyfriend, I think,” I tried to explain as he unlocked the door.

“You think?”

“She just said that she is at the University of Chicago. Will you take me, please?”

Priest looked at me as if I were ridiculous for asking. “Of course.”

He opened the door and helped me inside of the car, even reaching down to push the hem of my knee length coat into the car. I was frantically dialing Kahlani’s number over and over again. She wouldn’t answer, so I would text her. Despite my anger, I even called Rah.

As usual, he didn’t answer.

Priest’s hand on my thigh brought me out of my panicked trance. He was pulling off while giving me quick sympathetic glances. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I just want to know what’s going on,” I said as I fought the anxiety.

I continued to blow up everyone’s phone during the ride to the hospital. The entire way, Priest held my hand, only steering with the other. I had been so wrapped up in my drama that Ididn’t realize how much he had been there for me over the past few days until right at that moment.

Unfortunately, there was too much drama still going on for me to thank him properly. When he pulled up in front of Cook County, the first face that I saw was Rah’s.