Page 21 of Love At Close Range

The truth was, I had already started pulling away from Dorian before I ever said it out loud. Every unanswered question made me care a little less about what he was doing, and that probably should’ve scared me more than it did. When I loved somebody… I loved hard. When I no longer cared… that was just that. What I had with Dorian had never reached that place, and maybe that was why walking away from him didn’t feel impossible.

Whatever Dorian was hiding would eventually come out. Shit like that always did. The only thing I needed to figure out was whether I still planned on being there when it did.

9

Dorian

sometime later…

Iwoke up with Reiana laying across me, and one of her legs tangled with mine. Her hair was all over me and the pillow, and she was still knocked out like she didn’t have a care in the world. I lay there for a minute before rubbing my hand down her back. She shifted against me but didn’t wake up right away. When she finally did, she groaned and buried her face deeper into my chest.

“I need to get up,” Reiana mumbled as she shifted against my chest.

“I can think of a few reasons why we need to stay right here,” I countered as I let my hands roam over her body.

“Rhyse is probably hungry,” Reiana said as she lifted her head and looked at me with sleepy eyes.

“That little nigga knows how to feed himself,” I joked as I rubbed my hand over her ass.

“Don’t call my baby no little nigga,” Reiana warned with a smirk.

“Aight, go get him together and I’ll take y’all to breakfast,” I offered as I reached down and grabbed my boxers from the floor.

“That’ll be nice. Let me go tell him so he can get dressed,” she offered as she headed to the bathroom.

“Aight,” I agreed as I sat back on the edge of the bed.

The second she disappeared into the hallway, I reached over and grabbed my phone from the nightstand. I had been trying not to check that shit every five minutes, but with everything going on, it was hard not to. When I unlocked it, I had a message from Mello.

Mello: Still nothing new. I’m checking on some shit today.

I stared at the screen for a few seconds before checking everything else. No missed calls. No messages from anybody I needed to worry about. Cyrus was still quiet, and at this point, that shit bothered me more than if he was calling and making threats. A nigga losing that much product and money didn’t just let shit go.

Me: Keep checking. Don’t make it obvious. Hit me when you hear something.

After I sent it, I deleted the messages and locked my phone. Reiana wasn’t the type to go through my shit, but I still wasn’t leaving anything lying around that could lead to questions I didn’t feel like answering. I set my phone down just as I heard her coming back down the hall.

Reiana walked into the bedroom and looked at me before heading toward her dresser. “He said he’ll go, but he wants pancakes.”

“That sounds about right,” I chuckled as I got up to join Reina in the bathroom.

To cut time down, we showered together, with her adamant about only showering since Rhyse was up and waiting. After successfully convincing her, I was able to dick her down in the shower before we got out. Once we were done and dressed, I grabbed my keys, phone, and wallet and followed behind her as she led the way out of her room. When we got downstairs, Rhyse was already dressed and waiting with his tablet on his hands and his eyes glued to it.

“You ready, Boosie?” Reiana asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, side-eyeing me.

After Reiana locked up, we loaded into my truck and headed to Butter & Batter since that was Rhyse’s favorite place for pancakes. It took about twenty minutes to get there, and we were seated as soon as we arrived. We were seated in a booth with Reiana beside me and Rhyse across from us. He had been studying the menu even though we knew he would be getting the pancakes.

“You done figured it out yet?” I asked as I leaned back against the booth and looked across the table at him.

“Yeah,” Rhyse answered without looking up from the menu. “Pancakes, bacon, eggs, and potatoes.”

“That’s a lot of food for somebody your size,” I commented as I reached for my water.

“I can eat it,” Rhyse assured me as he finally looked up. “And if I don’t, I can take it home.”

“Aight, little man.” I nodded.