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“You’re not clumsy, but you move fast and when you do you pay less attention.”
My eyes rolled as I closed the door behind him. His hands were holding food, which made me even happier to see him, though I hated when he got onto me about things.
“Is that what you came over here for, Jeremiah? To yell at me?”
With a sigh, he handed me one of the two bags he was holding and a drink. “Why you ain’t answer my calls?”
My smile returned as I led him through the living room to the bedroom. I hadn’t been giving much attention to my space, but I was tempted to completely redecorate. There were way too many memories of my time with Nova here. There was always something reminding me of him or a conversation we had… a moment we shared… a place we made love. When I was here, I spent the bulk of my time in the guest room because that’s the place Nova and I never were.
“You sound like somebody’s daddy and you ain’t mine.”
Jeremiah sucked his teeth. He was so easily annoyed. We had that in common. That’s why I loved teasing him so much.
“Keep playing with me, Chapel.”
Unable to hold my laugh in, I looked back at him and winked. If I was crazy, I would swear he was looking at my ass.
“Why aren’t you home resting?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. Today was a lot.”
I couldn’t deny that. “Today definitely drained me. I didn’t even get to reach out to any of my old clients. Just reconnecting with our employees was a lot.”
“How are you feeling about how that went?” he asked, eyeing me skeptically when we went to the guest room that was closest to my bedroom. “Chap…”
“I’m fine, Jerry. And I think it went well.” I cut the light on with my elbow. “I’m cool with Tiffany continuing to work with the clients she has now until those projects are complete. Working with retained clients for the upcoming winter season or any new clients we bring in will give me time to settle in. Besides, my biggest priority right now is making Nova and Tiffany pay, so the less I have my hands full with clients the better.”
While I placed the food on the bed, Jeremiah began to undress. He took off his hoodie and kept his crisp white t-shirt on. Underneath the sweatpants he wore was a pair of basketball shorts. I hated when people sat on beds with their outside clothes on, and Jeremiah having half a closet full of clothes at my home was proof of that. I couldn’t count the amount of times I’d made him strip down to his boxers when he wanted to get in bed. Eventually, he started bringing clothes over to keep here and I did the same at his place. All of my friends did, actually. Allegra and Nova had closet space here too.
Nova.
I’d need to get rid of all his things.
I left so fast, the pictures of us were still on the walls.
“I still can’t believe what you’ve set out to do,” Jeremiah said, climbing into bed. As he continued, we split our brown paper bags in half. “I mean, I get you wanting them to pay, but I never thought you’d do something so extreme. It seems against your character to intentionally do something to hurt someone, even if they did hurt you.”
Popping a seasoned fry into my mouth, I considered his statement. He’d gotten us greasy cheeseburgers and fries from a fast-food joint that was kind of like Dixie Queen called Jasper’s. I loved their burgers, but didn’t have them often because of how greasy they were. On a night like tonight, they were perfect, and Jeremiah bringing me one was further proof of why he was my soul mate.
“Honestly, Jerry, I never thought there would come a day where I’d want to hurt Nova. Before he was my man, he was my friend. My best friend, just like you and Lay.”
“So what are you doing, Angel, for real?”
Angel.
He knew what he was doing calling me that.
Every time he called me that, I softened.
Jeremiah started calling me his angel when he went to prison at eighteen. He said it was because I was his angel after everything I’d done for him. I could understand his perspective, but what I did felt like light work because I loved and cared about him so much.
To me, it was nothing.
To him, it was everything.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I grumbled as my eyes watered.
I’d messed myself up not healing while I was gone, because now, it felt like everything was coming back so fresh. The pain felt so raw… so new. I felt just like I felt when I first heard those words come out of Nova’s mouth—maybe worse because they’ve settled so deeply within me.
