Page 35

NO GOODBYE… (MONTHS LATER)

It was the first week of summer in Starlight Hills. The air was thick and hot, the sun barely starting to rise, and I was watching.

I knew Mula was leaving. I felt it in my chest before I even saw it. I was parked down the street, tucked low in the cut, eyes locked on the Maybach parked in front of his little hotel he made home. The driver was loading bags into the trunk, moving quick with no words.

Mula stepped out next, fresh as hell, with dark shades on even though the sun wasn’t up yet. He looked the same way he did the first time I saw him—chocolate skin glistening in the heat, chain heavy on his chest, like the world couldn’t touch him.

I knew the truth now. I knew Mula wasn’t just some smooth nigga from Southwave. He was hiding from the world that almost touched him. He was hiding from a body. I found out a lot over the past few months, mostly from playing my position. Quiet. Watching. Waiting.

He hadn’t touched me in a month, not since the last time he let me turn my face into a fucking cum rag. I told myself it was enough, but it wasn’t. I wanted more. So, I started digging.

I searched forYummi—the name he whispered in his sleep sometimes, the name that made his eyes glaze over when he thought I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t find no socials, no profiles, no trace... just a phone number. I kept it tucked away, waiting for the right time.

But it wasn’t just her. I linked up with some girls I met when I was down in Southwave last summer. We swapped stories, gossip, and secrets they thought I couldn’t handle.

That’s when I heard the name. Hurricane . They told me Mula had been in the wind ever since his right-hand man, Hurricane, got dropped. Mula killed him—that was the word floating through their streets.

So all these months, he had been hiding, and he thought I wasn’t going to find out. Nigga, please. There was no way a nigga as laying up with a female he no longer wanted to fuck, just because.

I sat in my car, engine off, AC low, watching the Maybach pull off slow. I gripped the steering wheel tight, my nails digging into the leather. Mula was leaving without telling me. I wasn’t mad. Not all the way. I had a plan.

Mula couldn’t stop me from being in his space. Soon, I’d be visiting Southwave. Real soon.

I had my eyes on somebody else, too... somebody I met online after one of the girls said his name, too. Mula thought his coast was clear, but he was going back home to a warzone still.

Funny how shit circles back around, huh?

I watched the Maybach fade into the distance, the taillights blurring into the early morning haze. I started my engine, lips curling into a slow, dark smile.

Let the games begin.