Sexual Healing (8 page)

“Yes, you are,” Arabia said forlornly. “I'm reminded of that every time your name and number flashes across my caller ID.”

Claudia's jaws clenched. “Arabia, what is going on with you? Can you for one moment have an ounce of decency and not be so damn obnoxiously rude?”

Arabia rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I've already told you,
Mother
, that I'm tired from traveling. It's late. I've had a long, grueling day. So what is it you want? You already know I have no problem hanging up on you.”

Heat flashed through Claudia. Arabia had been nothing but difficult since the day she was born. Always testing her, always challenging her, always pushing the envelope.

“Why you disrespectful
little bitch,”
her mother hissed. “Your sisters would never think to talk to me in this manner.”

“Maybe because you'd been a mother to them, which is more than I can say for me.”

Claudia recoiled. Her pregnancy with Arabia had been an unwanted surprise. She hadn't wanted any more children, and thought she was done with diapers and bottles. Sadly, she was already in her second trimester when she'd learned of the pregnancy. Still, had it been up to her, she would have terminated the pregnancy right there on the spot, but her husband Phillip wouldn't hear of it. He even threatened to divorce her. So grudgingly, she carried the baby to full-term. Seething. Resenting her unborn child.

And then came the postpartum depression that ate away at Claudia for almost two years. It had incapacitated her. Phillip had to hire a nanny to care for Arabia and her three sisters. Soon enough Claudia had to be hospitalized for her psychotic thoughts, for wanting to smother her infant daughter to death, for trying to drown her in her own bathwater.

“Why you, you ingrate!” Claudia snapped. “I provided you a good life. The very best of everything.”

Arabia scowled. “And that's supposed to earn you a Mother of
the Year award? No, Mother. You don't get accolades for
not
raising me, or for shipping me off the first chance you got. You didn't provide me
anything
. Daddy did. And after his death,
his
money—
not
yours—did. So let's be clear,
you
never wanted me, or have you forgotten that piece of truth.”

“How dare you speak to me this way? I've done nothing but loved you . . .”

Arabia let out a harsh laugh. “Lady, bye. Get off your soapbox. You've
loathed
me from the moment you laid eyes on me. Admit it, Mother. For once in your pathetic life, admit that you hate me. That you've always hated me.” Arabia felt her cheeks heat. “I'm a big girl, Mother. Trust me. I can handle what I've known all along. I just want to hear it from you. So say it. Let's finally get it out in the open. Tell me you hate me . . .”

Arabia hadn't even noticed she'd been crying until the line went dead.

Eight

H
is heart pounded in his ears and his body was soaked with sweat. Eyes wide and wild, he searched the darkness with extended arms and with both hands wrapped around his gun. His trigger finger worked frantically as he shot at any damn thing that moved. Out of ammo, he lowered his arms to reload, and then it hit him . . .

There was nothing to reload. His hands were empty.

Emitting a groan of anguish, Cruze clicked on the lamp and flinched when he saw his Glock on the nightstand, untouched and in the exact position he'd left it.

Another fuckin' nightmare.

And this one was more realistic than any of the others. It had been months since the last one, and he wished he knew what had triggered it. Was it the R
é
my Martin he'd drunk at the charity dinner? That was a possibility since Remy wasn't his usual libation. He should have stuck with Henny.

Or maybe it was that greasy-ass Philly cheesesteak he'd eaten earlier in the day. That joint was piled sky-high with fried onions, loaded with three kinds of cheese, and was smothered with heaping portions of mayonnaise and ketchup. His system wasn't accustomed to eating that kind of shit. But then again, maybe it wasn't food or drink; maybe the nightmare was brought on by his own guilty conscience.

He was dead wrong for the way he'd mind-fucked that brainiac chick in her hotel room. That Harvard degree she was so proud of was of no use while he was up in her guts, knocking her organs around.

Cruze swung his legs off the bed and took his weed paraphernalia out of the nightstand drawer and began rolling a blunt. As he tucked, licked, and rolled the tobacco paper, he wondered if there was some kind of medication that would rid him of the nightmares.

He'd thought that giving back to the community would earn him some cosmic points and allow him to sleep like a baby. Yet, despite all the good deeds he'd done, he was still being fucked with during the night.

Weary and frustrated, he gripped his head. “This bullshit is sickening,” he muttered aloud, as the gruesome images that had been haunting him for over a year began to flood his mind . . .

Blood was everywhere. Bodies were sprawled all over the house.

Reliving the tragedy was overwhelming, and Cruze took another deep puff on the blunt before pulling up more ghoulish memories.

He saw himself stepping over eleven bodies downstairs. He'd found the twelfth victim upstairs—in bed. The only satisfaction he'd gotten that bloody night was when he'd taken out the two gunmen, adding to the body count. The shooters turned out to be members of the crew. Two greedy and disloyal muthafuckas that were in cahoots with a rival drug cartel.

As far as Cruze was concerned, it was all Moody's fault. The muthafucka let his ego bring the entire organization down. He refused to keep a low profile, always flaunting his shit. He shouldn't have allowed any niggas access to his fly crib out in Long Island, but Moody loved showing off his possessions, and smearing his success in muthafuckas' faces. He stayed throwing get-togethers and inviting members of the crew over.

On the night of the murders, Moody was celebrating his birthday and flashing the gift he'd bought for himself, a Cartier watch encrusted with more than twenty carats of diamonds.

Cruze wasn't supposed to be at the birthday bash. He'd been entrusted with a high-quality shipment and had gone out of town to transact business with a new client. But as he neared the meet-up spot, warning bells started going off in his head. He couldn't put his finger on it, but his instincts told him that something wasn't right with the new client who drove a flashy Lambo. Dude was probably with the Feds.

Moody, who'd been Cruze's mentor since he was eighteen years old, had told him long ago to always follow his gut. So, with a trunk filled with kilos, Cruze turned the car around. He was about to call Moody, but changed his mind, deciding it was best to discuss the situation face-to-face.

No one had expected Cruze to show up at Moody's doorstep that night. And no one . . . not even Moody, was aware that Cruze had a key to the crib. A key that he'd never used until that night of the murders.

Per Moody's orders, Cruze and the rest of the squad always parked several blocks away from the spot to prevent anyone from following them to the sacred place where he and his family rested their heads.

On foot, Cruze had become suspicious when he'd approached the front door. There was no music playing, no loud voices . . . only deadly silence.

Instead of ringing the bell, he pulled his piece from the small of his back and used his key to enter. He stifled a gasp when he stepped over the bullet-ridden body of his boy, Sameer, in the foyer. Blood splattered the walls, and as he inched along, the body count began to mount.

But it felt like all the breath left his body when he came upon Ramona lying facedown on the floor in the family room. He couldn't have screamed if he wanted to because his throat clenched shut and strangled his voice. With tears falling from his eyes, he turned her over and discovered that she'd been trying to shield her baby girl, Niyah.

Cruze doubted if he'd ever forget the sight of little Niyah's blood-soaked, princess-themed pajamas. Shocked and dazed, he stumbled like a drunk as he backed away from Ramona and Niyah. Losing his balance, he collided into the large entertainment center. The sound of the crash alerted the intruders who were in the basement where Moody kept his stash box. As footsteps pounded up the basement steps, Cruze's survival instincts kicked in. He quickly turned out the light and eased behind the entertainment center.

In the dark, he squinted and then recoiled in shock and disbelief when he made out the identities of the two gunmen—Khaliq and Steady Freddie—two of Moody's most trusted soldiers. Outraged, Cruze stepped out of the shadows and opened fire on their treacherous asses, watching them drop to the floor.

Stepping over more bodies, Cruze finally located Moody in the bathroom with his side bitch, Jayda. Both were slumped with their drawers around their ankles. Cruze wasn't surprised that Moody had invited one of his bitches to his little get-together. Moody had always enjoyed flirting with disaster, and it probably gave him a thrill to be able to convince Ramona that Jayda was nothing more than an ordinary worker, and then turn around and fuck the bitch right under his unsuspecting wife's nose.

When it came to getting pussy, Moody had never abided by any codes of conduct. He took what he wanted. Whenever. Wherever. And he didn't give a fuck who got hurt in the process.

Hopeful that Ramona and Moody's son, Chancellor, had slept through the massacre, and was okay, Cruze had crept up the stairs with his heart pounding in his chest. But as soon as he'd reached Chancellor's room, he could tell by how still he lay, that the boy—his godson—wasn't breathing.

“Chance?” he'd whispered, realizing that the eight-year-old kid who was tucked under his
Star Wars
comforter wouldn't answer. “Chance?” he repeated, while staring at the gaping bullethole in the center of his forehead.

Although Chancellor's death was the least bloody, to Cruze, it had been the most coldblooded. How could anyone press a gun up to the head of a sleeping child and pull the trigger?

Groaning and shaking his head, Cruze forced himself to return to the present.

He took several hard pulls on the blunt—holding the smoke in his lungs until it burned, trying to convince himself that if he increased his charitable acts, he'd find redemption, and the nightmares would mercifully stop.

• • •

“The kids today look up to rappers, ballers, and unfortunately, drug dealers. No one needs to know that you used drug money to invest in real estate. That's your business. All I care about is that you turned your life around and became legit and you're ready to be a positive role model to the young kids that I'm placing under your wing,” Bret said, sitting behind his desk. “As their coach, you're going to have a huge impact on their lives, and I hope you won't take that responsibility lightly.”

“I won't take it lightly,” Cruze responded. It still hadn't fully sunk in that he was taking over Coach Sheridan's position. Coaching the youth basketball team was only temporary, until the coach
fully recovered from the pulmonary embolisms that had suddenly landed him in the hospital.

He wasn't worried about his ability to coach basketball, but he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't a little nervous about his qualifications to be a positive role model. In the past, Cruze had taught the ropes to plenty of entry-level players of the dope game, but the lessons he'd taught corner boys were mostly about survival. Of course, he'd also pounded into their heads the dire consequences that would befall their asses if they fucked up his money. Taking on the kind of responsibility that Bret was referring to . . . ushering young lives into a future where they would hopefully become upstanding, law-abiding citizens was brand-new territory for him. Although he was both excited and nervous about taking on the responsibility, he had no doubt that he was up for the challenge.

“Teachers would love to get the kind of enthusiasm from students that you'll get from your players,” Bret continued. “You see, kids enjoy being part of a team. And whether you like it or not, you have an obligation to set an example and teach them the right things in both basketball and life. When coaching kids that live in an environment that's loaded with risk factors, including drugs and violent crime, you have the daunting challenge of making them believe that they can grow into competent and productive members of society. ”

“I got you. I can do it,” Cruze said confidently.

After Bret finally finished his long lecture, Cruze left his office and headed for the gym. He spent the first half hour practicing form shooting drills as he tried to place faces with names. Some of the kids had the nerve to catch attitudes when he mispronounced their crazy-ass names.

By the end of practice, he had made sure each player knew his role and that the team had worked on refining their plays.

When Roxanne showed up to pick up Barack, it was on the tip of Cruze's tongue to offer her a ride, but he resisted, knowing it wouldn't look right if he showed favoritism toward one of his players.

“How you feeling, Roxanne?” Cruze asked.

She smiled weakly. “I'm okay . . . a little tired, but I'll be all right.”

He didn't think she looked well at all. It should have been enough that the woman was forcing herself to work an eight-hour job, but to have to come clear across the city on public transportation to pick up her son seemed like too much of a strain. He'd learned from Roxanne that she'd battled ovarian cancer and was now in remission. Maybe if she didn't have to do so much, she'd pick up some weight and start to look a little healthier.

Even though Roxanne was only a couple years older than Cruze, there was something about her that reminded him of his mother. Back when he was Barack's age, all he could do was watch his mother struggle to put food on the table, and it used to make him feel so damn helpless.

When the boys went to the locker room to change, Cruze slid Roxanne a prepaid credit card. “Call Uber so you and Barack can get home quicker. In fact, I want you to use Uber to get around until we can get you some reliable transportation.”

Her eyes widened and the corner of her mouth trembled. “Oh-mygod! You're gonna make me cry.”

He lifted one brow. “Why's that?”

Roxanne hunched her shoulders. “I guess I've been doing bad for so long, I've grown accustomed to struggling. All my life I've had to learn to get by with little to nothing. So, what I'm
not
used to is having someone looking out for me.” She shook her head. “I don't get it. You've done so much for me and Barack already. From where I'm from, kindness doesn't come free. So please . . . make me understand what you're getting out of this, and why're you're being so nice to me.”

Cruze ran a hand over his face. “It's hard to put into words. I really don't know how to express it,” he said, swallowing back a knot of sorrow as he pictured his mother saying she wasn't hungry and offering him the last slice of bread. The average person had no idea what real poverty was like, but Cruze remembered all too well. Growing up dirt-poor and not always knowing when your next meal would come, or what it would be, had a way of carving a man's soul. Cruze had vowed to himself when he was old enough to sling packs that he'd never be broke. And above all, he'd sworn, he'd never,
ever
, be hungry again.

Roxanne gazed at Cruze through suspicious, narrowed eyes. “Nobody does something for nothing. What are you going to want from me when it's time to pay up?”

Cruze frowned. The last thing he wanted was for her to misunderstand his actions. “When it's time to pay up?” he repeated, shaking his head. “Nah, nah. You got it all wrong, ma. I'm not on it like that. Period. You owe me nothing. Everything I'm doing is from the heart.” He put his fist to his chest, up over his heart.

She eyed him closely, curiosity and skepticism flashing in her eyes. “But
why?”

Cruze inhaled deeply. A faraway look entered his eyes. “My mom was a dedicated mother, like you are. She always tried to make a way for us, even though life was beating her down. With so many trifling young mothers out there today, who don't give a shit about their kids, I have a soft spot for the rare ones who bust their asses trying to give their kids a decent life. Like I told you before, I don't want anything from you. Helping you out makes me feel better about myself . . .” He paused and held up his hands. “That's the only way I can explain it, and that's the honest truth.”

Overwhelmed by emotion, Cruze swallowed and dropped his head as he collected himself. After a few moments, he lifted his
gaze back to Roxanne. Although he could feel his eyes becoming a little glossy, Roxanne was blinking and trembling, visibly having a hard time holding back tears.