XV

“So are any of you handsome fellas gonna show me the way to the kitchen?” I ask flirtatiously at the group of guys standing at the foot of the stairs. A large smile plastered on my face. “My stomach is about to eat itself out.” Right on time, the sound of my stomach grumbling resonates throughout the foyer.

“I do love a girl that can eat.” One of the guys says. He is the typical tall, dark and handsome. His chocolate brown skin is so vibrant, which just tells me that he takes good care of himself. His hair has a neat fade on the sides of his scalp. His angular face beautifully frames his facial features and the smile that is hanging loosely on his lips…let’s just say that if I wasn’t wearing any pants, my underwear would have already dropped to the floor. I like what I see. “Come on down gorgeous and I will lead you to the kitchen.” He says, holding his arm out for me to take.

Shit! This nigga is out for my heart! Full of excitement, I skip down the few step and energetically cling onto Mr Sweet Talker’s arm. I have a stupid grin as we walk arm in arm out of the foyer and through the formal living room, headed to the kitchen.

“So what is your name Casanova?” I ask, while trying to inconspicuously catch whiffs of his cologne. He smells like pure masculinity and I’m loving it. “You can call me Travis sweetheart.”

“You better be careful with all that name calling,” I say while giggling like a maniac. “You might just wake up to find out that we are married.” At my words, Travis bursts out laughing. His manly laugh vibrating through the extravagant walls of the formal living room. He thinks I’m joking…I’m not.

“I like you.” He says when his laughing fit ends. As he says this we step into an amazing kitchen. The kitchen is every chef’s wet dream, with its top of the line stainless steel appliances, marble counters and white cabinetry. What catches my eye though is the array of delectables that are on the counters.

“I think I’m in love.” I announce as I slowly, almost carefully, walk to the display of red velvet cupcakes that are set up on a stand, covered by a crystal clear glass cover. Lifting the lid, I reach out for one of the vibrant red coloured mini cakes. Within a second, the whole cupcake is devoured. I literally vacuumed the whole thing down my throat. Without a second thought, I reach out for my second one. It meets the same fate as the first one.

“Damn girl.” I hear from behind me. I turn around to find Travis staring at me with wide eyes. “What?” I begin to defend myself, “They’re delicious and a girl can never have too many cupcakes.” I end off smugly.

“Thank you for the compliment; they are my mother’s recipe.” Someone says from the entrance of the kitchen. I squint my eyes, in an effort to get a good look at whoever is talking. It only takes me a short while to recognize the man at the doorway. “Ronin?!? Is thatchu?”

Mr Extra Small/Ronin’s does a double take as he finally realises who I am. “Crazy girl?” he walks closer to me, “How are you still alive? I was sure you’d be dead by now.” He is genuinely surprised to see me alive and kicking. What the hell did he think was going to happen to me?

“I was this close,” I bring my thumb and forefinger closely together till there is a miniscule space in between them, “to getting my ass shot and getting killed. I have brushed hands with death my friend.” I say with a proud expression on my face. I mean who wouldn’t be proud, I escaped a dingy basement just to get thrown into the clutches of a trigger happy assassin, but I still survived.  I then tried to escape, though I failed miserably, I still managed to come out of Demon’s wrath unscathed. And then when professionally trained killers tried to take us out, I still went out of that apartment breathing. I am so fuckin proud of myself.

“Well I’m glad you still alive.” Ronin says out shyly. As soon as the words leave his mouth, his face instantly becomes red. He is too cute for his own good. Unable to help myself, I walk over to him and engulf in a warm hug. A big sisterly love washes over me, causing me to squeeze him closer to my body. Our hug is broken up when Travis comes to separate us, I completely forgot that he was also in the room.

“Be careful now Ronin, that’s my wife you clinging onto there.” He says jokingly. I release a short laugh while I walk back to the cupcake stand. I really like this guy, but he is playing with fire. I am crazy enough to get married to someone without their consent of or knowledge.

“I actually have something of yours; just wait here for a second.” Without waiting to see whether I had heard him or not, Ronin hurriedly rushes out of the kitchen to disappear around a corner. Both I and Travis watch Ronin’s departure with curious gazes. I wonder what he has of mine.

“He is a weird little guy that one.” Travis says while grabbing out a bottle of water from the large two door stainless steel sub-zero fridge. I opening the bottle I watch as he gulps down half the bottle in one go. The up and down bobbing of his adam’s apple hypnotizes me for a short second, but I quickly break out of it when he removes the bottle from his soft, pink lips. Damn! I need to get laid; I can’t believe watching someone drink water is getting me excited.

“Yeah, but he really cool though. I like him.” I say while I absentmindedly use my finger to lick away the icing of my third cupcake. These are really good; I need to make a mental note to ask Ronin for the recipe.

Before me and Travis can continue our mini conversation, Ronin comes rushing back in and what is in his hand causes me to start choking on the bit of icing that was in my mouth. I make a grab for the half full bottle of water in Travis’ hand and down the rest of the liquid. When I no longer feel like I’m about to die, I turn to look at the black lace bra in Ronin’s smooth hand. It’s the same bra that I used as collateral during the card game. I can’t believe he kept it!

I bust out laughing as I take the bra from Ronin’s hand, “I can’t believe you actually have it. Scratch that, I can’t believe that I went through all this shit without a bra on.” At my words both the men’s eyes drift towards my chest. Ronin averts his eyes almost immediately but Travis’ gaze lingers for longer.

“I ended up winning the final game, and that was part of the loot.” He says bashfully, “I kept it for just in case I ever saw you again.” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly.

“Well thank you either way,” I say with a teasing smile plastered on my face. Just as I am about to tease Ronin some more, Demon walks into the kitchen. We all look at him as he exudes an aura of anger. He ignores everyone in the room and just looks straight at me.

“Of course you would be in the kitchen.” He says while eyeing the cupcake still clutched in my hand with a look of disgust. The disgusted expression quickly morphs into one of confusion when he notices the bra in my other hand. He opens his mouth as if to question why I am holding my bra, but he shakes his head and quickly closes his mouth.

“Don’t start with me Demon, I’m in a very good mood right now so don’t ruin it for me.” I take a huge bite of the cupcake and chew away happily. Demon’s face scrunches up as he watches me chew my food.

“Maybe you should consider healthy foods,” he says while eyeing my figure, from the top of my head all the way to my feet. If this nigga wasn’t insinuating that I was fat, I would have felt some typa way about him looking at me like that. Just as I am about to jump into my defense, I hear Travis speak up from behind me.

“Well for what it’s worth, I think you look perfect wifey.” He says all this while looking directly into Demon’s eyes, as if challenging him. I don’t know what is going on but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realises that the two don’t like each other. I see Ronin nodding in agreement at Travis’ comment.

“Why thank you hubby.” I say, playing along with Travis. I do really appreciate them telling me that my body is perfect. I’m not insecure about my body, but it’s nice for people to defend you when haters like Demon come along.

As soon as the word ‘hubby’ leaves my mouth, Demon’s eyes snap to my face. He flares his nostrils in anger and without a warning grabs my wrist and drags me out of the kitchen.

What the hell has gotten into the fool?

He forcefully drags me to the foyer and up the grand staircase. When we reach the landing for the second floor, I try to pry my wrist out of his hand, but he has an iron grip on it. “Demon let go, you’re hurting me!” he doesn’t seem to hear me, as he continues to drag me to a door at the end of the hallway where he finally releases my wrist.

At the door, he swings it open and steps into the room. Hesitantly, I follow in behind him. The room we have just entered is an expansive one, with a king sized bed situated in the middle. The colour scheme of the bedroom is dark grey and black. The walls are grey while the carpet is midnight black. There are large abstract paintings hanging on the wall. The scenarios depicted on the paintings are very morbid and are ridiculed with pain.

After doing a small 360 degree turn of the room, I turn to face Demon. “What the hell was that back there Demon?” I ask, referring to him dragging me out the kitchen as if I was some kind of rag doll.

“I want you to stay away from Travis.” Is his only explanation, if you can call what he said an explanation.

“And why should I do that?” I stuff my bra into one of the pockets, then take my now free hand to place it on my hip.

“Because I said so.” Demon says frustratedly. This nigga!

“Demon stop bullshitting me right now, Travis seems like a good guy and I’m not going to stay away from him just because you said so.”

“But he is not a good guy! He is bad for you Amandla!” demon yells out at me, “Just trust me on that.” I’ve never seen Demon get emotional over something like this, so maybe Travis might not be the good guy that I thought he was.

“Okay fine Demon, I can’t promise to stay away from him or completely ignore him when he talks to me but I will however promise to not actively go looking for him.” I say trying to appease Demon, “Is that okay?”

“Yeah its fine.” I see Demon visibly relax at my words. He must really believe that Travis is a bad guy for him to go overreacting like this.

“Okay so what am I doing here?” I ask, motioning to the room. “This is where you are going to be sleeping for the meantime while we are here.” Is Demon’s answer. At his words, my jaw drops. No fuckin way, this room is so luxurious, I’m not even tired but I am so excited to go to bed now. After weeks of sleeping in a bathroom, sleeping here will be like sleeping in Heaven.

“Oh man this is so dope!” I exclaim out unrestrained. “Where will you be sleeping so I know where to go if I need anything?” I ask while walking around the room to go to one of the paintings to examine it properly.

“You won’t have to go far because I will also be sleeping here.”

I instantly swirl around to look at Demon, “Wait I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you properly, did you just say that me and you are going to be sharing a room?”

“Yeah that’s what I said, do we have a problem?”

“Oh no, not at all” I say sarcastically, “But just out of curiosity, why can’t I get my own room?”

“There are no vacant rooms in the house.” Is all Demon says as he casually walks to the bed and sits comfortably at the edge of the bed.

“So you tellin me,” I begin pacing around, “that in this big ass house, there isn’t even one room that is available.” I ask disbelievingly.

“Yep.” Demon looks at the wristwatch on his arm then gets up again. “Go and take a shower, dinner will be served in 40 minutes and we all need to be downstairs.” With that he walks past me and out the bedroom door, making sure to close it behind him.

I swear that this nigga will be the death of me .