The Fixer

5.

~Elijah~

I rush over to him and grab him while swiping my key card against the door to unlock it.

"Jabari get in here." I tell him wanting to keep him out of sight. This is not a good look whatsoever especially given he already has a hood nigga persona about him.

He moves closer to me at the door and then sizes Darnell up once again.

"Alright I'll see your bitch ass later." He spits at him.

I gently pull Jabari into the room.

"Darnell go home. You could give the shit I left to your new bitch for all I care. I'm done with it all and I'm done with you. 5 years was good enough let's not cause each other any more pain." I tell him closing the door behind myself as I walk in.

Jabari takes a seat on the couch and shakes his head as if in deep thought.

"Fuck." He whispers. "This is bad right?" He looks up at me.

I don't know what to say. I have so many different thoughts in my head.

And just like that, it's over. My first love is no longer loveable. But I love him still. But he betrayed me.

I have so many questions.

I turn and look toward the door. Darnell knocks a few times yelling.

"Go on and fuck that nigga then, you don't love me. You never did and I see that shit. You want to talk about me and look at you. Just onto the next like a lil' hoe."

"I'm the hoe?" I laugh to myself trying to figure out whether or not I'm dreaming. I can't be the crazy one right?

I shake my head venturing down the rabbit hole of all that's gone unanswered.

"I just, I don't understand. I caught him a week ago but it's just now hitting me?" I catch my tears as they fall. "Like, how long was the shit going on? They were friends before I came into the picture. Did they fuck in the $3000 bed we picked out and bought together? Did he love her first and just fuck on me for fun this whole time? Fuck." I can't keep my composure.

Jabari gets up and comes over to me.

He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to him in a hug.

"I'm sorry momma. You don't deserve that shit. He tried to blame you for his actions. And then he shit on her for sleeping with him. He ain't shit, and I ain't shit so this I know. He's playing both of ya'll, let that nigga walk the plank by himself." He pulls away and looks at me.

"Yeah." I nod and shrug. "We have to fix this though. We need to get you back to Nashville Jabari."

He nods.

"Whatever you say boss."

Maybe this needed to happen. I've acquired the asset and therefore secured my bag.

And no doubt about it, as soon as we reach Jabari's parents' house, we are in for it. I guess a few of the hotel guests complained about the altercation and somehow the footage was leaked to TMZ.

"You were supposed to go get him, not to sleep with him and cause more problems. Who is this guy even? And Jabari the fucking gun, are you kidding me?" His mom goes off.

"Wait a minute, nobody slept with anybody." I tell them.

"Nah, we didn't. Her method for trying to get me on the plane did involve me sleeping with someone else and I got robbed but that wasn't on her. I fired her on the spot and then I was upset about the jewelry and hunted her ass down all day. When I finally caught up to her in the club, I saw her ex handling her the wrong way and went to help. This one is all on me. But she can fix it. Right?" He looks over at me.