Page 20 of Sweet Surrender
8
JUDAH
“Over here, Alex! Over here!” I shouted as she ran down the beach with the ball in her arms. Jonathan was hot on her tail. She was about to lose her footing when, at the last minute, I rushed toward them, and she threw the ball to me.
I fake dodged Jonathan as the rest of his team, which included his groomsmen, came after me. When I spun around, I slammed straight into Issachar, who stole the ball and ran, but not before he grunted, “Not a good look on you, unc,” and then glanced at Alex who was getting up from the sand.
Issachar took off running with the ball, and he scored a point for their team. While the others continued playing our version of sand football, I went to Alex and checked on her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. I hit the sand a little harder than I would have liked, but I’m fine.”
She dusted her ass off, and it took a lot of restraint for me to not reach back and touch her too. I didn’t give a damn who was watching or who said what, but I knew that she did. We hadn’t spoken about her comment yesterday, but the tension was still there.
She had made it clear that she wasn’t looking for anything rather than a good fucking, and that was what I gave her. I wasn’t comfortable with being used for sex, though, but I would let her make it for now.
“You need a minute to regroup?” I asked, gesturing my head back at the game that was still ongoing.
“No. I’m good. I can give just as good as I can take.” She jogged away from me, and I ran a few seconds later to catch up with her.
I faced Issachar with my hands resting on my knees.
“Not a good look on you, son,” I declared.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Jealousy, especially when you got a whole wife in these streets.”
“You’re the one who taught me about the code.”
“When she’s your woman. When you give a damn about her. When you didn’t break her heart over some insecure bullshit, yeah, that applies. Zack, that wasn’t your case.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Issachar sucked his teeth and waved me off.
As much as I wanted to check that nigga, I didn’t want to blow up Jonathan’s event. It wasn’t about my brother and me having a beef over a woman. This week was about a homie who had been our friend for years, more Issachar’s than mine, but still, we were all brothers at the end of the day.
We continued with the game until our team lost by three points.
“Let’s grab something at the pool bar to cool you off,” I suggested when I saw Alex wipe the sweat from her brow.
“No, I’m good. I need to head back to the resort and take a nap.”
“You want me to walk with you?” I asked, looking around at the rest of our crew. Everyone seemed to be going their separate ways.
“Sure, we can walk and talk.”
I extended my hand to grab hers, but she was quick to fold her arms over her chest.
“My bad,” I mumbled.
“It’s all good. I mean, it’s not your fault. It’s just the way things happened, you know? If I had met you before him . . .”
“Then what?”
“Who knows, maybe we might still be together.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
