No More Tears In The End

death, the question now was, what the fuck was I gonna do about?

I had no idea.

When I got to JR’s it was still early, too early for the club to be open. I went around back and knocked on the door. A short time later a woman came to the door.

“I’m looking for Miles Robinson. Is he here?”

The woman took a closer look at me. “You were here with Rain yesterday, weren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“No, he’s not,” she said. “He won’t be back until Monday.”

“Thanks.”

I went back around to the front of the building, thinking that now I had some time to decide what I was going to do about Miles. I was about to get in my car, when Rain pulled up in her BMW.

“Lookin’ for me?” Rain asked as she pulled up alongside of me.

“No.”

“Liar.”

“No, I was looking for your brother, Miles.”

“He ain’t here.”

“Yeah, I know. Some woman just told me that at the back door; said he won’t be back until Monday.”

“He dropped the kids off and took his wife out of town for the weekend, which ain’t a bad idea. Why don’t we go to AC for the weekend?”

“Not happenin’, not this weekend, anyway.” But it did sound good.

Rain put the car in park. “Since Miles ain’t here, why don’t you come ride with me for a minute?”

“Where you goin’?”

“Just ridin’.”

I walked around to the other side of her car and got in. We drove around goin’ nowhere fast, talkin’ about nothing in particular. “There is something I always wanted to know,” Rain said.

“What’s that?”

“Did you and Freeze really set a nigga on fire?”

“What?”

“I heard that you and Freeze burned some nigga to death.”

“We didn’t burn him to death.”

“So what happened?” Rain asked as she drove.

“The guy’s name was Floyd Green. He worked at a garage and was runnin’ a little numbers, but he made his money sellin’ heroin. He owed Andre money, Black sent me and Freeze to get it.”

“So far, that’s how the story go.”

“As soon as he sees us, Floyd tries to run out the back door.”

“But he trips on some tires. Y’all catch him, kick his ass, and set him on fire.

“That’s not exactly what happened.”

“I’m just sayin’ that’s how the story goes.”

“Okay, here’s what happened. Floyd trips on the tires and we started kickin’ him. We’re askin’ him where the money is and he swears he ain’t got it; he’ll have it in a couple of days. Freeze picks up a tire and starts hitting him in the head with it. I pulled him up and tell Freeze to put the tire around him.”

“That’s when y’all set him on fire.”

“You gonna let me tell this?”

“Go ahead. But I’m still waitin’ for this to be any different from what I heard,” Rain laughed.

“You wanna hear this or not?”

“Go on. You know you wanna tell me,” Rain said in a voice that made me want to be inside her.

“After Freeze put the tire around him, we took our time and worked him over. He still kept sayin’ that he would have the money in a couple of days. I was ready to leave it at that, but to make sure he understood that I was serious, I told Freeze to find me some gasoline. I poured it around the tire and asked Freeze for a lighter. Before I lit it, Floyd tells me the money is in the safe. He took us to the safe, told me the combination and got us our money.”

Rain laughed. “Right. That’s when y’all niggas set his ass on fire and he burned to death.”

“No, we didn’t set him on fire. After that Floyd left the city. I heard he moved to Philly, but we didn’t set him on fire,” I said as Rain pulled into the motel she’d been staying at.

Rain unlocked the door and we went inside. Apparently, she had gone by her apartment after I left her. She had clothes everywhere, some were hung up, and some were on the second bed in the room.

“Planning on being here for awhile?”

“No, I just ain’t goin’ back to my apartment. I need to be findin’ a place, but I ain’t feelin’ it right now.”

“What you feelin’ like right now.”

Rain pulled her top over head and unbuttoned her pants. I figured out the rest.

Before too long I was naked and laying across the bed. Rain straddled me and eased herself down on me. She rode me slowly while she sucked her nipple. I began to feel her legs trembling on my thighs and I pumped a little harder. Rain reached out and touched my face with her hands and kissed me.

Rain stood up and then kneeled down on the edge of the bed. I put hands on her hips and entered her slowly. No matter how hard I tried, he couldn’t get the image of Wanda out of my mind. What was I doing? I thought while I continued to slide in and out of her.

Her cell rang, but she didn’t choose to answer it.

Rain rolled over and I eased her on her back and entered her. Her body began to quiver as she stretched out her legs.

The cell ran again, but this time as soon as it stopped the room phone started ringing. “Shit!” Rain yelled and pushed me off of her. “This better be important,” she said and answered the phone. “This better be fuckin’ important!” Rain yelled into the phone.

“What?” She said and stood up. “When?” I sat and watched as Rain held the phone and listened. I watched her facial expression change from anger to pain. A look of panic washed over her face and she looked around the room. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Rain said and hung up the phone.

“What?”

“That was Jeff Ritchie. Pops had a heart attack.”

Chapter 35

Rain was too shook-up to do anything, so I drove her to the hospital. When we got there, Jeff Ritchie told her that JR was in his office at the club, having a steak, and he suddenly grabbed his chest and fell to his knees. “He’s in intensive care. They don’t know if he’s gonna make it. You can go in,” he told her.

“You call Miles?”

“He’s on his way back. He’ll be here in a few hours.”

Good. Now I don’t have to wait until Monday.

Rain turned to me. “I’m gonna go in and see my father. Don’t leave me, Nick, okay. Don’t leave.”

Rain grabbed the first nurse she could find and they took her to the intensive care unit. Jeff Ritchie looked at me and I looked at him with a yeah, I fucked her, look on my face. He shook his head and walked away. I went in the waiting room and sat down.

I had been sitting there people-watching, ’cause it was more entertaining than television, for over an hour before Rain came back and sat down next to me. It was obvious that she had been crying, so I put my arm around her. I held her for awhile before she spoke.

“The doctor said his main coronary artery was completely blocked and the other two was just about blocked. They did bypass surgery on him.”

“Is he gonna be all right?”

“They don’t know. Said we just have to wait and see. Look, I’m gonna go back in there. You can go if you