The Rhyme of Love (Love in Rhythm & Blues Book 2) Read online

  “For you, too, Gee-Gee. She’s your wife,” his tone was accusatory, more than he knew.

  “I know, man. For me, too. I got—” Another flare of pain struck my chest. “I gotta go now. Okay, bruh-bruh?”

  “Okay. Bye-Bye.” He hung up the phone right away like he always did.

  Before I could lay mine down, it pinged.

  Tori McNabb: You need me to warm that right cross for you?

  There was the fist punch emoji icon and underneath, a link. My heart fell from my fucking chest on sight. Lately, when links came, my anxiety shot to heaven levels because I’d finally had something out there I actually cared about and didn’t want exposed. Wynter. She was attached to me and now known and out there by herself.

  The link was to Teke’s Twitter page where he recorded a video of himself in the studio. I could see a few heads around, all seemed to be working, and some oblivious to his recording. Then he walked up on a woman who was at the mixing board with her head down. I could see a piece of a leather portfolio sticking out from under her arm. Slowly, Teke lifted the ends of her hair to his nose and sniffed it. His eyes closed as though he was in heaven from the scent. Someone near him snickered and that had him opening his eyes and laughing, too, after he dropped it and stood up straight. Then he turned the camera a new angle, and Wynter’s head was up and searching for the reason of the giggling around her. It was then her leather writing portfolio I’d seen so many times was clear. She was the woman with her head down.

  The woman’s hair he fucking sniffed.

  Fucking Teke and his bum ass…

  I could kill him. Put a bullet in his fucking head. He’d done this before. Posted innocent-appearing shit and included Wynter. The first one was Jemah, a producer out of Chi-Town, Diane Roberts, and Wynter posing for a picture. He put the thumbs up emoji icon over Jemah and Diane’s heads. But over Wynter’s was a heart icon. Subtle, but a clear message that Teke still had a beef with me after all these years. His brother, Sean, seemed to be cool with me when I ran into him at Checkerboard after its grand opening a few years ago. Right now was not the right time for Teke to be seeking revenge on some old bullshit that happened fifteen years ago.

  Or is it?

  Without thought, I tossed the phone to the wall and watched it shatter into pieces. Fuck. I was out of breath and needed to do something. Hit something. Fuck up something. I stood, glancing around. My life was fucked. Mike was dead. He’d betrayed me in his last days. Myisha fucked me over, threatening my freedom, my damn livelihood. I fucked around and caught something beautiful from this chick I fake married. I couldn’t keep it to explore it because like a fucking sucker, I let her walk out of my life and supplied the transportation to do so. Pretty soon, I’d have to answer publicly for the lies. I’d lose my relationships in Hollywood, could forget about getting a decent role for years. And most of all, I could forget about her.

  I felt lightheaded. Hot. Armpits wet. My eyes closed from the dizziness I suddenly felt. Faintly, I could hear footsteps nearing the studio. My hands began to tingle, jaw locked and lips went tight. Air was coming in and leaving out in short spurts as I glanced over my shoulder to see who was coming in. I swear if it was little Carl coming back, I was ready to body his fat ass.

  But it wasn’t.

  I was fighting to breathe and regain my body, but through blurred eyes, I recognized him. My friend, mentor, and pastor.

  Ezra stood in the wide doorway with his hands gripping his waist. Lil Bruh was behind him, flexing and confused. Someone else was with them, I could tell, but not see clear enough to know. Right now… It was not a good time. But I knew Ezra. Knew he ain’t give a solitary fuck about my convenience.

  “Kindly ask your security to stand down,” his voice—deeper than mine at the moment—rasped.

  My eyes swept over to Danny G walking up on the scene. All eyes on me. My chest pounding and tender from pain. My shoulders heaving and my face hard and aching. I needed a minute to myself. To clear my head. I felt like I was about to break down. I’d never felt this shit before. I couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe.

  Ezra turned around. “Thaddeus, please call Geoffrey at the lab and ask him to cancel the staff meeting this afternoon. Then call my wife and tell her I will not be in for dinner tonight, I’m with Ragee.”

  My back was turned at this point. I was trying to breathe and could hear footsteps moving away from me.

  “Brother Danny,” Ezra rasped. “Please. You know this isn’t my usual fashion, and you also are aware of the delicate givings of our relationship. Please. Allow me privacy with him.”

  “Raj, man,” Lil Bruh tried.

  “Go now,” Ezra demanded.

  And within seconds, I heard more movements leaving the area. My head rocked back and forth, breathing grew more shallow. I didn’t want to turn around. Wasn’t ready to face the noise. The mirror. I wanted to stay on my bullshit just a little longer.

  Hurt something…

  For a while, all I heard was the ringing in my ears, the sirens in my head, and the wheezing of my lungs. Low key, I was panicking. What the hell was happening to me?

  “You know, in East Asia and some parts of the U.S., there’s this unique flower called Diphylleia grayi. Its white petals are nothing particularly unique in full bloom. In fact, they could resemble those of the white orchid to some. But the astoundingly inimitable trait of the Diphylleia grayi happens when it encounters rain. The petals become transparent. Clear! Its beauty happens when an element of nature meets its petals.”

  I could hear my harsh breaths just as loud as I could his words. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but knew I’d find out. He quieted for a moment, beginning to confuse me. I couldn’t turn to look at him. Hell, I couldn’t control the rapid blinking of my fucking eyes.

  “Christ!” he breathed behind me. “Cry, Ragee! Let them fall naturally. Expressing pain, anger, and hurt is a natural emotion for humans!” he barked.

  And that quickly, feeling something equivalent to a gut blow to my abs, I hurled over and howled louder and harder than I could ever remember being able to do.

  “Thanks, man,” I muttered to Thaddeus as he handed me a bottle of water before leaving back out of the room.

  Ezra peeled off his blazer and hung it on the back of the rolling chair he pulled up to the mixing board, a few feet away from me. He yanked his beard before sitting up straight.

  “This is bigger than you falling for a woman unexpectedly, though that’s a separate issue unto itself,” he began after I’d just spent the past thirty minutes sobbing like crazy then spilling out all of my bullshit over the past seven months. And I mean everything. I told him every detail short of having my asshole rimmed in nifkin play. “I do believe having Wynter enter your life at the capacity she did triggered much of it.”

  After swallowing back a few ounces of water, I closed the bottle. “What do you mean?” I rasped, sounding like him.

  “You asked her to be your wife just on paper when you married in October. However, you had her do it in partial function when Pastor McKinnon came to stay with you. Having her in your bed, in your private quarters, began the clock on the ticking bomb. It forced you two to spend time together in close proximity and you got to know each other: the good, bad, and ugly.” His face lit with half a smile. “I can imagine what it feels like to discover a stranger’s retainers on your bathroom countertop. That and the do rag thing can throw the fantasy of sharing your most intimate space with a woman.”

  We both snorted at that, mine dryer. I mentioned seeing Wynter’s retainers for the first time and believing that’s when I knew I wanted her around for a while. Odd but true.

  “Having her around lowered your guard…knocked off your protective lenses and exposed her beauty, inside and out. It’s human nature. I suspect her experience was the same regarding you. But having her there…your grandmother there triggered the leaking of old, traumatic retentions.”

  “Exactly. Things I thou
ght I’d gotten over.”

  “You don’t necessarily get over trauma, Ragee. You manage it. You process and store it in a place in your brain to help free you of the stressors of it, but it doesn’t always depart. In fact, this could have happened under the normal circumstances of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, marries her, and moves her in. This was likely unavoidable. However, the debris of the trauma is another matter.”

  “Like what?”

  Ezra shrugged by twisting his neck and lifting his brows. “Well, one of many is the Teke—”

  “Nah. I ‘on’t even wanna hear dude’s name.” I wanted to be clear.

  “Okay.” He sat up, lifting his ankle onto his knee. “Myisha. You need to talk to her.”

  “I know.”

  “But you haven’t. You can’t begin to deal with a threat you don’t explore. Patty’s death is an example of debris from the trauma. You carrying the guilt of it is another. Ragee, you didn’t kill Patty. Her addiction did.”

  “But I could’ve—”

  “You could have jumped out the vehicle, snatched the crack from her hands and she would have done the equivalent of spit on you and got her hit from somewhere else. Hard living catches up to us all. You continue to contravene your state of mind when you saw her receiving the drugs. Your brain didn’t act rapidly because it was busy processing damning information you were just given by her minutes before. Learning you impregnated your aunt influenced your processes. Your faculties were under duress as you witnessed the exchange.”

  If I had a dollar for each time he’d said this to me. We’d been down this road so many times over the years.

  I exhaled. “I get it. I do.”

  He took a deep breath. “How many times must I say this? I can come up with two more variations, but after that, I’ll have to start all over again.”

  I tried to manage a smile. Ezra wasn’t the type for jokes and pleasantries. He was usually intense. Here, I felt he was trying to compose me.

  I shook my head, eyes into the distance. “I just feel like everything’s catching up with me at one time when I finally have one thing I want so damn bad.” I groaned. Then I chuckled, scratched underneath my bottom lip. “Wanna hear something funny?”

  “I think.”

  “Grandmother McKinnon gave me and Wynter a Word before she left. She told me it was time to clean house and I would be dealt with.” My eyes glided up to him. “Said I have to stop thinking it’s on me to clean my life up.”

  His brows lifted again. “Is that all she said?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head softly. “She said a mouthful.”

  “What did she say the Lord would do or allow?”

  I shrugged. “She said I’d be covered.”

  “And there it is. If He’s warning, He’s telling you what will happen. Forgive me for being so aboveboard, but count it all joy. When your entire world is shaken up, it could be a cleansing taking place.”

  “You mean Mike?”

  His chin lifted. “I mean everyone God has not ordained to have a front row seat to the stage that is your life.”

  That hurt.

  “Ezra, man, I know you warned me about Myisha years ago, but for so long, she’s felt like all I had. The only pure thing I brought with me from my childhood. No matter how messed up what she’s doing is, I’m struggling with what to do. She only knows my business. What she gone do without me?”

  He shrugged with his lips, shaking his head back and forth slowly as though in a daze. “I don’t have an answer for that. But I will say, ill-intended or not—genuine when you exchanged those vows or not when it happened—you’re a married man. Do you want to authenticate your marriage?”

  After blinking a few times, I nodded, repositioning myself in my seat.

  “Then you have to ‘leave and cleave’. You cannot have the historical issues you’re bringing to the marriage and have a fully developed adult with the slightest opposition to it in your home. There’s no way Wynter should tolerate that.”

  My forehead stretched. “You got Ms. Remah.”

  “Ms. Remah is on my property. Not in my home.”

  I chuckled at that. Ms. Remah was a mother figure to Ezra’s wife. They came as a full package, he once told me.

  “You’re smiling again.”

  “Nah. I’m laughing. But it feels good. I feel so damn drained, man. Like I just ran a marathon.”

  “You’ve been juggling too many things on your own, and unnecessarily.”

  Shit…

  “I know, man. It’s just that—”

  “I’m not perfect either, Ragee. I can’t begin to share my bed of sins. But I will say the only difference between you and me is our calling. I was born to lead and govern spiritually…whether I like it or not.”

  I nodded, understanding. Ezra just wanted me to respect his role in my life. His responsibility to me.

  “Can’t front.” I scoffed. “Do feel like the pressure on my chest let up a little. But I’m still waiting on the hammer. I ain’t get my lashings yet.” I laughed and he shook his head. “This really it? No hundred Hail Marys for a week? No instructions on how to get my lady back?”

  He sat forward. “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t. Moreover, the longer I’m married, the less confidence I have in painting the world black and white. But I do know I’m ordained to listen to you, to not condemn you when you make a wrong move. Instead of running from what I was born to do in your life, just take advantage of my assignment. Had you reached out to me after Mike Brown’s proposal of this spurious wedlock, I would have advised appropriately.”

  “And I wouldn’t have met Wynter.” My forehead lifted.

  I hated to sound rebellious, but it was true.

  “What if you wouldn’t have met Wynter the iniquitous way? There’s a consequence attached to every ill-action.”

  “I know. I lied. Lied about really being in it with her.” My head tossed back and I cracked up, in full on pain. I was sure it sounded like a hybrid of a laugh and cry. “But I was eventually. Fell hard for the girl. Finally get what the old R&B acts sang about love.”

  “But you didn’t do it right. The Bible says, ‘A man who finds a wife, finds a good thing.’ You didn’t find Wynter. Mike Brown brought her to you as a tool to deceive.”

  That brought my head up and spine straight. Ezra’s eyes were hard on me. And I knew that chastisement was here. Knew I wouldn’t get away with my bullshit when he finally caught up with me. I braced myself for it. I was a man of God. Not a boy of the world, no matter how much I acted like one. I’d take my L on the chin. I braced for what was coming next.

  “But because you serve a loving, forgiving, merciful, and provisional God, you’re covered.” Ezra’s rasp was clear and authoritative unlike anyone’s I knew.

  As understanding hit, I closed my eyes and nodded my head. “Like Grandmother McKinnon said.”

  “She’s not perfected, but the woman of God is anointed.” His eyes skirted around the studio, fingers tapped the edge of the mixing board. “So, what have you been working on?”

  I sat up. “So that’s really it?” Ezra’s brows lifted. “That’s all you gotta say after all the stuff I just copped to?”

  This didn’t feel right. The box of autonomy he put me in was too airy. I needed closer parameters. More guidance.

  For a while, Ezra sat frozen in his chair. Then he took a deep breath, scratching his cheek beneath his beard. “Ragee, I have a toddler with a chock full o sass, and a demanding newborn in my house as we speak. I have roughly ten thousand parishioners who do not take turns engaging in quagmires. A lab full of staff, most of which are under thirty-five and like to ‘turn up’ when I’m away. In addition to all of this, my wife is researching a cosmetic surgeon to undergo an abdominoplasty. There’s no way you can expect me to always be up for the hocus pocus.”

  “A tummy tuck? Lex don’t want no more kids?”

  Ezra shook his head. “And neither do I. The well has run d
ry on reproduction for me. Children are draining.”

  “And blessings, man.” I laughed.

  “Undoubtedly. However, not ideal when you’re still trying to extend the honeymoon period which ended when conception decided to happen. Life’s ever challenging.” His eyes swept the studio. “But I do receive gratification being able to hold an honest conversation with a friend.”

  I took a deep breath. “Same here, man. But I can’t lie. I was looking for something else when I finally had to square off with you.” I stomped my foot, messing with him. “No prophetic word on what I need to do to clean my life?”

  “Okay.” Ezra sat up straight, opening himself physically. He breathed out, “Rhema or logos?”

  I laughed. “Man, I’m so desperate at this point, I’ll take whatever you got.”

  “Good. Because I gave a rhema earlier and that’s all I had, so logos it is.”

  Still cracking up, I admitted, “I’ll take it.”

  I was desperate for help.

  “When I woke up this morning, I went about my”—He coughed, glossing over something that took a second for me to get—“ritual as usual. I showered and while I was at it, I heard Amos 9:11-12 echoed in my heart. ‘But also on that Judgment Day I will restore David’s house that has fallen to pieces. I’ll repair the holes in the roof, replace the broken windows, fix it up like new. David’s people will be strong again and seize what’s left of enemy Edom, plus everyone else under my sovereign judgment. God’s Decree. He will do this.’”

  I mouthed the scripture as he spoke it, recalling Amos was the first prophet to have a book in the Bible.

  “And right then, I began to bless God in a boisterous manner, feeling an unexpected sense of relief and gratitude. It was strange yet compelling and I didn’t mind praising, so I went with it. In the car, on my way to work, I blessed God with fervor. In my office, once I logged into my desktop, words of praise fell from my lips. I didn’t get it but didn’t fight it. My day progressed, and it was filled with the usual tasks. It wasn’t until I got the call from Dwayne about Mike Brown that I heard the scripture again—instantly. It was also when I decided to end my quest to give you due space and see about you.”