Page 44 of Tangled Hearts

“Let me see, then.” She walked towards the refrigerator.

“This big ass refrigerator, you better have more than juice, eggs, and milk.” She nodded in approval when she saw Hov had a fully stocked kitchen.

Grabbing everything she needed to make a bomb ass sandwich, she looked in the cabinets, equally as impressed that he had dishes.

Hov’s lips curved at the shocked look on her face. “Stop playin’ with me… you see all that. But don’t act like you ain’t used to making magic outta nothin’.”

Her face heated at the small compliment.

It was true. Life hadn’t always kept her kitchen with food so she grew up knowing how to make something shake with nothing. “I see you Quameek.”

He tucked his lip into his mouth hearing his name on her lips.

Loving Knycole came too easy for him. It went beyond a trauma bond that some would surmise their love story to be.

Their shit was fluid, raw, real, full. Love .

One word, four letters. In his heart it was just as pure as the love his son gave him.

Even if she wanted to downplay it, Hov knew what it was.

She rolled her eyes but started cutting the sub bread she saw on the counter.

The weight in her chest eased just a little, replaced by the rhythm of movement—onions on the counter, meat to the left and all the condiments she knew he liked on his sandwich.

Hov leaned against the counter. His arms folded across his chest, just watching her without saying anything.

He had that way about him—making silence thick, but not uncomfortable.

He was observant, always watching and waiting. Maybe that was what life with his mama and his life on the block had taught him—always be on edge.

“Why you looking at me like that?” Knycole asked, spreading mustard over the bread.

“Cause you look good in my kitchen.” The corner of his lips tugged upwards.

Rolling her eyes, Knycole shook her head. “It just comes easy to you, don’t it?”

“What?”

“Making girls weak in the knees.”

He laughed. “I don’t be doing all that.” His smile was perfect against his brown skin.

Every time Hov talked, Knycole watched the tatt on his neck bob. “You really do.”

Rubbing his hands together, Hov wondered if he should let his intrusive thoughts spill out. He knew they were always safe with Knycole yet hesitation still lingered in the space between them.

“Why you pick him?” Hov finally found his words.

Knycole kept making their subs. She took her time, searching for the perfect response, because he deserved that. She knew they’d never really talked about it. “I feel like I owed him a chance… you know, since Nick did that to him.”

“Nah.” Hov shook his head, eyes pinned on her. “I ain’t talkin’ about that. I mean when y’all first met… I been here, before you even knew he existed. What made you say yea, you’ll be his lil girlfriend?”

The knife stilled in her hand. She pressed her lips together, the silence dragging long enough to hurt.

Finally, she exhaled, shoulders slumping.

“It wasn’t ‘cause I didn’t already love you,” she hummed.

“That was my secret. My only one. All them nights sneaking you in my window after your mama beat you down, wiping your face, holding you ‘til you knocked out? Hov, I already knew then. I loved you before I even knew what love was. I just wanted to keep you to myself and I know that wasn’t fair to you but look at it like this,” she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“My life has always been put on display for the whole hood to see. Everybody knew I was the smart girl with a cracked out ass daddy. I looked weak and I was weak—but think about how I smiled at night knowing there was a piece of me no one else got to have a front row seat to? Even saying it out loud… it doesn’t make sense. But yea.”

Hov didn’t move. He just stood there, the weight of her words sinking in.

Knycole kept going, the confession burning her throat.

“But nobody could know that. Not you, not the block, not even me if I wanted to keep my sanity. Loving you felt dangerous. It felt like if I said it out loud, I’d lose you.

So when Rock came around… he was easy. He was loud and bold.

Choosing him was safer than admitting my heart was already yours. ”

Her glassy eyes found his, searching his eyes for grace. “Rock made sense. You didn’t. You were quiet storms and scars I couldn’t heal. You didn’t have time to deal with me. Two broken people don’t have no business trying to love each other. Now, I see Rock’s just as fucked up as us. But still.”

She swallowed her irrational guilt. “So I picked him. Not ‘cause he was what I wanted, but ‘cause he was what I could live with.”

Hov dragged a hand down his face, shaking his head slowly, trying to understand. There was so much of the story that needed more details. “And then?” Hov leaned in, hanging on to her words.

“I fell in love with him.” Knycole looked away unable to look at her son’s father while she confessed to loving another man.

Hov snorted. “I mean, I would hope so… but you love him more than me?”

“Is it a competition?”

“Fuck yea!” Hov wasn’t holding back, there was no need to. Their love had already been damaged, tangled so tight, you couldn’t even see the knots anymore.

Knycole sighed, her hand resting on her forehead. The truth felt so ugly when she said it out loud. So flawed it choked her up, thickening her throat.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It shouldn’t be a competition but the same way you feel you deserve all the love, I feel like that shit too. We’re one in the same… shit all of us so needy for love that we’re desperate to do anything for it. I was willing to do anything for you… to have you.”

“I’m not a possession, Hov.”

“You are to me.” He found his way around the island— in her space.

“You’re like a fuckin’ vintage timepiece—the world stops to look at you.

To touch you to make sure you’re real.” His hands landed on the back of her neck.

Always on her neck. “Bid the highest amount for you… rob a bank to afford you.”

“Hov,” she whispered, lips slightly parted, face pushing closer to his.

He shook his head. “I wanted you… no, needed you to be mine.” His plush lips crashed into hers, taking her breath away.

His kiss was angry but still gentle enough for her heart to beat rapidly. His name eased out of her mouth so effortlessly, it was almost missed.

Knycole wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting herself onto him. Hov held her up while keeping a firm grip on her ass.

“Why you can’t just choose me?” Hov was so vulnerable in the moment.

Knycole ran her nose across his ear. “I gotta get my shit in order, Hov. I need to let both of y’all go.”

His hands dug into her ass more while rocking his dick across her middle. “Name a time I didn’t make everything right for you… tell me how I’m a distraction when you know I’m an asset?”

Gulping, she removed her arms from his neck to grab his face. Perfect thick brows, eyes like her son, but the war of his heart was all over him. Knycole’s eyes misted. “You are but I?—”

“Shut the fuck up! I ain’t trying to hear that shit.” His eyes turned into slits, but it didn’t scare Knycole. She knew the heart of the man before her. Hov loved her too much to cause harm. Loved their son too much too. “Just give me what you have. I’ll carry that.”

She wanted to promise him she could change overnight. Wanted to tell him she was ready—that she’d stop not choosing him, stop chasing chaos, stop bleeding for men who only knew how to keep her open and raw. But the truth sat heavy in her throat—an unspoken selfishness she couldn’t say out loud.

Knycole was a young woman carved by flaws that weren’t her own.

Flaws passed down like bad blood. The sins of a father who loved her halfway.

The absence of a mother who died before womanhood could be taught.

A product of a world that let Black children raise themselves, left them wandering through streets and silence, looking for love in places that only taught them how to hurt.

“Knyc,” Hov growled. “I want to promise you I’ll be here when you return but I am a man… pride and ego won’t let me admit some sucka ass shit like that. Listen to me man,” he squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds.

“Shh…” Knycole put her finger to his lips.

“Take your clothes off,” Hov demanded, putting her feet on the ground. He couldn’t find his words so the next best thing was talking through their bodies.

Knycole sucked in a deep breath, slowly peeling her clothes off while keeping precise eye contact on him.

He did the same, dropping his sweats and boxers to his feet before kicking them completely off.

They both removed their shirts at the same time only losing focus for a few seconds while their shirts lifted over their heads.

“Take that off too,” Hov nodded to her bra holding her nice breasts in.

“Hov.”

“Don’t say my name unless my dick is in you, Knyc.”

Swiping her tongue over her lips, she nodded unclasping her bra from the back.

They both stood there naked with their chests heaving from the sexual and heartbreaking tension filling the kitchen.

“Come suck my dick.”

“Hov,” Knycole murmured, choking on lust.

He gripped her chin. “The fuck I just say?”

Her mouth watered in anticipation of his long, veiny dick being back in her mouth.

It had been so long. When Knycole was on her knees and in front of him, eye level with his chocolatey dick, she looked up at him.

Those wide, almond eyes, curved towards her ears.

She always looked so innocent even while on her knees being a dirty girl.

Hov rubbed her cheek lovingly with his rough thumb. “I’ve been too fuckin’ nice to you… been letting you get your way too long, kid. It’s time I remind you who the fuck I am and who the fuck you really belong?—”