believed in his mandates, I still do. And I trust my instincts when I say that your father would have found another deterrent with dealing with Carver. Did the Circle consider using the Peacekeepers to blockade the projects? After a few months the isolation would have isolated The Choir Boys and starved their ability to make money.”
“Yes, we considered many options—“
“I just find it hard to believe that your father would have approved of a full scale assault on lowly drug dealers and thugs when you have a probable conflict with Pandora hovering over the horizon.”
Xavier rose abruptly, shook Ms. Jackson’s hand and thanked her for her hospitality. He turned for the front door needing some air, not waiting on her to respond. He excused himself but not before he heard the final words she said to him before the screen door closed behind him.
These other two boys awaken nearly every night with nightmares about dying in this Whirlwind that Serena Tennyson keeps spewing about. She had said. They love their brother; they miss him…but they are more afraid for themselves than they are for him.
He stood outside and let the brushfire smell fill his lungs. He was about damned tired of people doubting his decisions and doubting his ability to get his people through this. Still, Isaac Prince’s voice said to him. Go back in there right now, son…and apologize to that woman. Remember what you told the Circle about Senator Lavelle’s brash behavior.
He opened the screened door, calmed his nerves with some considerable effort, and found Ms. Jackson in the same spot where he had found her. “You have been loyal to my father, to me and to our House. I have disrespected your home and I know he wouldn’t have approved of that.”
30 minutes later the sun had nearly retired in the western sky and had taken both all the warmth and some of Xavier’s faith with it. Worse, the stench of the burning wildfires had become almost unbearable as the smoke seemed to sit on top of this specific spot where he was standing. The crowd had dispersed somewhat because of it, but mostly, he knew, in anticipation of another night of sporadic gunfire that plagued neighborhoods like this one all over Atlanta and urban America. There were little Carvers everywhere.
Grace had found her way to the other side of the Jackson’s wooden fence.
“Hi,” She said.
“Hey.”
She updated him on what she knew about Pandora, the missing children, any and everything that he could possibly need to know. Afterwards they both allowed the silence to breath even if they struggled to.
“Thank you for your words back at Morehouse.”
Grace shook her braids and smiled. “There is no need for thanks, Xavier. I told you then…I’m telling you again now, I am here for you. I am here for our house.”
Xavier nodded. He needed a cigarette but Tracy Jackson still had his lighter. He wouldn’t insult this woman who had been so good to him by asking her for something he knew she wouldn’t be carrying on her.
Intelligence was Grace Edwards business…it was her life. He was sure that she knew his life story as well, the real reason he was so uncomfortable about building true relationships beyond physicality with women. She had to know that his father had left Chris’ mother…abandoned her, even after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, for love and affections of his mom.
And though he had forgiven them both…until both of them were taken from him, he had never allowed himself to become emotionally attached to any woman…ever. “I don’t think I ever came to terms with relationships in general after I learned about my parent’s affair.” He said to Grace Edwards aloud as if his previous thoughts had been aloud as well. “It’s torn at everything I’ve believed in about family. My boys are my family. Chris is my family. I have no one else except this House that my father built. It is like whispers in the dark. God, I can’t believe that I still struggle to talk about this after all of these years.”
She nearly grabbed his arm, thought the better of it. Xavier lowered his head, his heart aching.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about this anymore today.” She suggested instead.
“My mother broke up a marriage.” There. He had said it aloud for Grace…and the whole damned world to hear if they already didn’t know. “I loved my father. I love my brother, Chris. I loved…yes, I still I believed I loved my mother as well. I honored her memory when I took those lashes for each year she lived on this earth when James Carter desecrated my back with his whip back in school. I just don’t think I’ve been completely able to forgive her for her role in what the two of them did to a dying woman. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a woman…or myself completely to remain monogamous in any relationship.”
And if I required further proof, then all I needed was to watch what Denise Prince enabled her daughter Erica Lovings almost to do to Chris when she supported her lies. He needed to see his brother’s face again. But how, what circumstance will allow the time or space for us to pull it off; I can only see an act of God allowing us to.
Grace had regained her resolve…her sense of courage. She ran a finger along his sideburns. “Trust me or not…it doesn’t really matter.” Grace said and entangled herself in his arms. She was soft and hard all at once. “You are loved nonetheless, Xavier Prince.” She said. “I love you, Xavier Prince.”
The proclamation stung him so intently that he went cold all over. He had suspected the attraction of course, perhaps even with her smaller frame, he had even desired a physical relationship…but love? He wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with that possibility right now.
“Grace,” He said slowly. “I don’t think I can—“
She smothered him with kisses to his cheeks, jaws, and chin. It was him who drew her in. She even tried to pull back but he only kissed her harder until she had accepted his full kiss.
He’d fathered two boys and had a multitude of sexual conquest over the years, but had never experienced something this powerful…this wonderful in his entire life.
He felt warm inside.
He felt hard outside.
He felt a…buzzing…
“Sorry,” Grace said and looked at her smart phone, which had been set to silent and buzzed when they were close. “Pepper’s on the move. I have people following him but there is something that I want to see for myself.”
In an instant she’d transferred from a vulnerable woman melting in his arms to Grace Edwards, the Number Three member of the Circle who was the Chief Intelligence Officer with duty calling her.
“I’ll call you later,” She said as a way of departing.
The night turned out clear and the sky was plentiful with stars. For a moment…a small moment maybe, he felt his hope renewing. If Xavier Prince can experience what the earliest feelings of true love is, then all things are truly possible.
He laughed out loud.
Serena Tennyson herself could magically appear inside of this fence and not spoil this moment. He picked out one of his cigarettes and begins his slow, methodical, familiar routine of lighting it when he realizes…that he still doesn’t have his lighter.
Someone cast a small shadow behind him. For a minute he had hoped that Grace Edwards had changed her mind, leaving duty to someone else, but he knew that thought was ludicrous as soon as it jumped off a brain stem. Yet, he is far from alarmed not knowing who is there. The Peacekeepers had every corner within a five mile radius covered and no one would approach him without their knowledge or consent.
Even this crack head named Tracy Jackson who now stood in front of him when he turned around.
“Your lighter,” She handed it to him.
Xavier decided she was just in time. As he went to light his Newport, the flame gives him a clear look into the woman’s eyes across from him. Her pupils have fully diluted. She was perspiring heavily. She was pacing in place. Xavier knew that she was now high as a firecracker. He wanted to chastise her. He wanted to have sympathy for her. How anyone already cursed with her condition could not be more stressed, when one of her children had been ki
dnapped and the fact existed that he could possibly be dead…
He remembered how his own mother stressed about a child that wasn’t biologically hers when Chris disappeared without a trace over those fateful months.
Seeing Tracy Jackson at her worst causes Xavier to lose the taste for his own addiction; He handed her the remainder of his pack and gives the lighter back to her. “Keep these, Tracy.” Xavier said. “If there is anything else that I can do to help ease your pain…do you or your family need any money?”
Tracy shook her head, almost uncontrollably. “I’m not a beggar.” She said, but when she got a peek at the stash of hundred dollar bills in his possession she switched her head into the nodding mode real fast. “Yea, I could use a few bucks.” Xavier handed her two bills…and instantly regretted it. He should have given the cash to Felicia instead. “Yea, I still have two other boys left. I’m just not a beggar.”
“I know that,” Xavier smiled, but he felt his smile…all of his good feeling evaporating away as Tracy went to her knees and attempted to unzip his slacks. “Stop it, Tracy, What in the hell are you doing?” And when she gave it one more effort he pushed her head away. “I said what in the hell are you doing?”
From her knees, Tracy Jackson stopped long enough to gaze up at Xavier as if he were the one stupefied. “I said I’m not a beggar. I pay my debts. You gave me money and cigarettes