Page 74 of Lyric Squared

“Call me? Yeah? Before or after you had dinner with that nigga?”

“Can we not do this?”

“We’re not,” I assured her and ended the call straightaway.

As I adjusted the temperature for the shower, a sigh escaped my lips. Showing Lyric tough love wasn’t easy and neither was it a preference of mine, but it was necessary. When she rang my line again, I quickly silenced the call and shed the rest of my clothes.

Before stepping into the shower, I accessed the call log and saved her number with a simple black heart. A smile crossed my face as my head fell back in laughter. I’d never been on no cornyshit, ever, but using an emoji for a contact for the first time made a nigga feel good. She was just that… my heart.

“Alexa, playBrain Deadby Moneybagg,” I called out as I stepped into the shower.

The water penetrated my skin, relaxing me instantaneously. A little more stress rolled off with each bead. I quickly washed my body from head to toe and brushed my teeth. With Lyric on the other side of The Hills, that the hot water was the only assistance I’d get for a good night’s rest.

I made it down the stairs for another drink, a towel wrapped around my waist and one in-hand. I patted myself dry with the smaller one. The sound of the beeping microwave caught my attention, reminding me that I had something inside. One bare foot in front of the other, I headed in its direction. When I popped it open and saw the cup of noodles inside, I cringed.

FUCK. The rumbling of my stomach commenced. Simultaneously, my alarm system chirped, notifying me that someone had entered my home. With Kale at school, there could only be three other people bold enough to walk through my door unannounced.

I made my way to the kitchen’s exit and stood. One by one, I counted the footsteps as they neared me. The closer the sound got, the higher my numbers raised. Second after second elapsed before the figure finally rounded the corner. Once she got a glimpse of me, her movements stopped. There was still so much space between us as we both remained quiet, glaring at each other.

This woman, not only did she hold the keys to my home in her perfectly manicured hand, but she held the keys to my heart in them, too. As I stared back at her perfect skin and perfectly contoured frame, there was no denying it. She was the end of the road for me. She was my final destination, and I didn’t give adamn how many detours or other paths I took, I’d always end up here. With her.

It infuriated me, how easily I knew it would be to forgive her in the future. Her innocence as a kid, I’d allowed to follow her up into adulthood and seemingly the relationship we were starting to build. It was Lyric. My Lyric, and she meant no harm. She never had. Her heart was always pure even if it seemed as if her actions weren’t. She always meant well. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that.

“Please don’t be mad with me,” she spoke, dropping her hands at her side and allowing her keys to dangle from her index finger.

Unable to respond, I turned and headed for the stairs, again. I was ready to lay down and didn’t have an ounce of fight in me. If Lyric knew what was best for her, then she’d join me.

When I made it up the stairs without hearing her footsteps behind me, it was to my surprise. When the beeping of my alarm sounded, letting me know that my door had been opened and closed again, my heart sank into the sock that I had just pulled up on my feet. In a haste, I pulled the black briefs over my ass and headed back downstairs.

Lyric leaving wasn’t an option. She’d come and she’d stay. I’d been missing her all fucking day and now that she was here, the thought of going to sleep alone was too much to consider. I didn’t want to do that, wouldn’t, even if I had to pick her ass up and put her in bed myself. She was sleeping beside me. She had to.

When I made it to the front door, fully prepared to run out in the Channing cold to chase her down, it opened again. In walked Lyric with three large bowls stacked on top of each other, balancing them between her chin and two hands. Too relieved to even extend a helping hand, I watched as she kicked the doorclosed behind her. Our eyes met, revealing the thoughts that had crossed my mind without me even saying a word.

For a brief moment, Lyric stood in the same spot with her eyes on mine, reassuring me that she had no plans of going anywhere. For the first time, I knew just how much the validation she sought from the ones she loved meant to her. My troubled heart was finally at peace, lulled by a simple look. A glance.

“Come on so you can eat,” she tossed over her shoulder.

I followed behind her like the lovesick puppy that I was. When she reached the kitchen and saw the microwave was still open with swollen noodles inside, I wanted to run and hide. I was so consumed with thoughts of her that I’d left the noodles in the microwave long after they were done while I was upstairs enjoying a shower and ignoring her calls. Her eyes danced between the noodles and mine.

“Noodles?”

“While you were thinking about stuffing the next nigga, yours was starving. So, yeah. Noodles.” I shrugged.

“Oh, Keanu,” she chastised, stepping closer to me, “I never took you for the jealous type.”

Her index finger grazed my skin as it hooked the waistband of my briefs. The perfume that she wore bounced from her skin and into my nostrils, tickling the hairs inside of them. She smelled like money and rightfully so. Lyric was one of the most high maintenance women I’d ever seen in my days, her mother was the other.

There were literally only two of them. Even with all the money that Luca was stuffing into Ever’s accounts, she still didn’t possess the same aura as the two women she was around most often and it was simply because they weren’t new to money. Their money tree was old and it was deeply rooted.

My dick stiffened as my jaws locked. As much as I’d love to bend Lyric over the table and feast off her for the evening, I knew that explosive sex between us wouldn’t always be the resolution to our problems – no matter how fucking addictive it was.

I swatted at her hand, causing it to fall from my waistband. There wouldn’t be any fucking tonight or the next. She wouldn’t have the pleasure of even seeing my dick until we figured this shit out. Her pussy would only trick me into believing that we were okay when we weren’t.

“What is it, Keanu?” She sighed, making her way back over to the counters were she was preparing a plate for me. I didn’t give a damn what she had cooked, I wanted some of everything. My stomach was touching my back.

“I can fuck any bitch I want to in the streets. If that’s the type of time I was on, then I wouldn’t need you to make that happen for me. Pussy has never been an issue for me. I’ve been fucking since I caught my first body at thirteen. That’s nothing for me, Lyric. Sex. It’s nothing. That’s why we’re not about to use that shit as a means to fix everything that arises between us. It’s not the solution. Love is. And that’s what I’m aiming for. Is the pussy good? Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Best shit I done stuck my dick in but you know why? ‘Cause of the love I’ve invested prior to even taking it there with you. ‘Cause of the mental and emotional connection that we had long before I was bending you over and eating you out. That’s the connection I want to keep building on. That one right there. The mental, emotional one, and the physical will continue to progress. You having that nigga over, that’s not what’s up. You could’ve took that nigga to a fucking park or a bar to break his heart, not on my territory, Lyric.