Page 10

Twenty-Four Hours After the Meeting with Burner…

Natasha was still asleep in my bed as I watched her fight with her sleep. Every time she found a spot she was comfortable in, she would wrestle with herself until she lost it. Something about the way she struggled told me this wasn’t something new, and I was happy to know it wasn’t my bed that was keeping her up.

She probably never had a good night’s rest at the home she shared with Tyson. The thought of her tossing and turning like that for as long as they’d been together made me feel uneasy. Since she came barging into my clubhouse and forcing her way into my life, I’d found out as much as I could about her.

She was twenty-seven years old and had spent her whole adult life with a bitch ass nigga. She was running from him, which told me he took joy in putting his hands on her. Since she’d been in my home, she’d asked about her brother multiple times, but not once had she asked about the man she married. That alone told me everything I needed to know.

The longer I stared at her, the more my curiosity got the best of me. Hearing Tash’s life story shouldn’t have been on my mind, but it was. I wanted to know everything from her childhood to how she ended up with somebody like Tyson.

I wanted to look away when her eyes opened to mine looking directly back at her, but as if they had their own mind, they stayed right where they were. The expression on my face must have scared the shit out of her because she immediately sat up with her back against the headboard. I could feel my face balling up even more as she stared back at me.

“Why were you running from your husband?” I asked the question I wanted answered more than any other.

Chasing your woman into the arms of another man was every man’s worst nightmare whether is was metaphorically or physically. It was the latter for Tyson, and I needed to know why. What did he do to cause such a beautiful woman to risk her life trying to escape from him?

“Because he hit me.” The way she shifted in the bed let me know it was difficult for her to say the words out loud.

“Was that the first time?”

I knew it wasn’t, but her confirming it would make me want to kill that nigga more than I already did. I knew Tyson was a bitch since the first day I met him, but finding out he was beating his wife only made that hate build more.

“No, but it was the last time I was going to let a man put his hands on me without consequences.”

She held her head in the air, letting me know that statement applied to me as well, but I didn’t fight women.

“You didn’t ask if he was alive or not.”

“What?”

“You asked if your brother was still alive but not your husband. I guess marriage is not that big of a deal to you, huh?”

I wasn’t trying to be to far off in her business, but I did want to know. Honestly, the longer I was around her, the more I wanted to know everything about her. Random questions like her favorite color, food, and other corny shit like that were on my mind, but the bigger topics seemed easier to ask since I wasn’t supposed to be asking anything about her at all.

“Marriage is not always what it’s supposed to be.”

“Nothing is ever what it’s supposed to be. Why should marriage be any different?”

Tash wasn’t too young to understand the way the world worked, and she didn’t look like the type that had been sheltered her whole life. She should have known nothing was ever as it seemed or how it was supposed to be. You have to play cards with the hand you were dealt.

“Because when you promise to love someone until their last breath, you’re not supposed to be the one who takes that breath from them.”

“Is that what you felt like would happen if I didn’t step in at the clubhouse?”

The look of hopelessness in her eyes that night still haunted me. Baby girl was afraid for her life. Any nigga who had her feeling like that didn’t deserve to even speak her name let alone be in her presence. But that was something she had to realize. I’d witnessed a lot of women let men beat them half to death then they’d be right back with them the next day. It was never my business to step in, but I would never let that shit happen in my face.

“If not that night… eventually. Most women end up getting killed by the men that claim to love them.”

“I can’t argue with you on that. Statistics don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but I knew that before even reading the statistics. The fact that men murder women was something I learned far earlier than any girl should have to.”

If curiosity hadn’t completely overtook me, I definitely wanted to know what she meant by that statement. It was too personal to be random.

“How did you learn that?” My eyebrows raised with interest. Tash seemed so sure of everything she said that it was hard not to ask the reasons behind it.

“My father killed my mother when we were kids. I practically had to raise Rebel myself, so yes, I’m a lot more worried about him than I am Tyson. Just tell me if you killed my brother. If you’re going to kill me, at least do me the courtesy of not letting my mind wander.”

“Who said I was going to kill you?”

“Solo, you kidnapped me from a courthouse and have held me captive in your house for days. I’ve seen your face and now know very intimate details of your body. In what world would you just let me walk out of here alive?”

“So, what happened between your parents is what soured you on love.”

I changed the subject back to her love life because I didn’t want to think about anything else. Trying to decide if I was going to end Tash or not was becoming a test in itself. I knew it was what I needed to do, but that didn’t mean I wanted to.

“I don’t know if I ever truly believed love was real. If it was, I wouldn’t have ended up with Tyson, but why does it even matter at this point?”

She was getting irritated by my questions, but I was enjoying the innocent beauty of her face when she was uncomfortable. Love was a touchy subject for her.

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” The room grew quiet for a second before she decided to start the conversation right back up.

“What about you? What soured you on love?”

“I didn’t have to be soured on something I never believed in. I never had a good depiction of romantic love. I never saw it done so correctly that I said to myself, ‘Damn, I want that.’ It was just never something I aspired to have.”

“That’s cold.”

Her lips leveled out and mouth sank into a sad smile like what I’d sad had effected her more than it should have. I was being honest.

“No. That’s real. If love, romance, and all that shit was something worth having, you wouldn’t be here with me instead of the man you promised to love and cherish for the rest of your life.” I could tell that statement made her even more uncomfortable than the last, but instead of replying right away, she stayed quiet for a minute.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Thirsty-three years on this Earth, and you’ve never been in love?”

The question didn’t necessarily catch me off guard, but it did cause me to be the one shifting in my seat. I’d lived more than one life at this point, and I had never been in love.

“What does my age have to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “It’s just most men have their first love in their teens, and you’re telling me you’ve lived through your teens and twenties and never been in love. I don’t know… It just sounds a little sad to me.”

Her words shouldn’t have had me racking my brain so hard, but they did. I tried to search my rolodex of memories for even a small occasion where I felt anything that even resembled love, and I came up with nothing. That didn’t make me sad, though. It made me a realist. I knew that shit was flawed without even having to experience it.

Tash was clearly trying to get in my head, but I didn’t have to experience love to know it was flawed. I’d blurred the lines by having sex with Tash. She thought getting in my head would save her life, but it wouldn’t when the time came. I would do what I had to.