Nouveau

Chapter 34: Turning Point

Tremaine

The warm tap water from the faucet was running as he lathered the liquid soap into his hands.

Sometimes.

That was all he needed to hear. The amount of pressure he was putting on himself trying to figure Laive out wasn't normal. Tremaine wanted more from her. It's what he was used to. Laive was supposed to be head over heels for him by now. She was supposed to do any and everything he wanted her to do. But she wasn't. Laive proved to him time and time again, that he didn't have the right to be possessive of her. That he didn't have the right to try and control her. She always had to throw it in his face that she was NOT his.

And he was starting to get fed up with that shit.

He was moving heaven and earth to make sure L was good, even when she didn't see it. Making sure she was taken care of business wise, making sure she didn't need anything during the tour, making sure her friends had at least heard from her when he didn't...Tremaine knew he was doing the most, but he just felt so protective of Laive. That wasn't something he could force himself to turn off.

The soap on his hands wasn't thick enough for how hard he was scrubbing his skin as he lathered the back of hands and in between his fingers.

Laive hadn't been comfortable trusting him either. It was frustrating as hell that he spent hours a day trying to sort through his own feelings for her on top of dealing with all the other shit he had going on. He wanted to love Laive...but how could that happen if she didn't trust him?

Tremaine had been battling with himself on whether or not he loved her. Did he care about her a lot? Yes. But it was getting to the point where he was trying to decide if he was trying to talk his self out of what he was feeling. He was used to putting his feelings on the back burner for his family and his career. Even when he felt something strongly in the past, he would ignore it. His momma saw it, Mack saw it, hell even Mue told him he saw it. After getting Laive to open up with him, he knew he needed more time with her. Just when he thought he had her figured all out, she would flip the script on him.

Shit.

Rinsing his hands underneath the warm water, he grabbed a paper towel and dried his hands off before he used it to turn off the faucet. Throwing the paper in the trash, he caught himself. He hadn't noticed that some of Laive's habits had been rubbing off on him.

Was he always going to have to push her through arguments or sex to get her to say shit to him? He didn't like that they constantly had to go tit for tat with each other either. Tremaine would push her and she would push back ten times harder. She was brutally honest just like him, but he didn't like that she didn't have any morality about it.

That bothered him. Laive was so used to blatant disrespect that she called it honesty. Even if she did have a point, he would never disrespect her. Ever.

Fuck! This girl here...driving me fucking crazy.

Her phone was still ringing.

The nigga had the nerve to keep calling her. It was his fourth time within the last 20 minutes.

"Don't make me fuck you up Laive," he walked out the restroom. He had to step away from her to calm himself down when he saw that name flash across her screen earlier. "You gone answer it?"

She shook her head no as he walked towards her.

"Yeah, you know better. Turn the shit off or put it on do not disturb." Tremaine swore he was going to break her phone again if it went off one more time. "I'on like that nigga L."

"Are you supposed to?"

"What I tell you about your smart fucking mouth?"

"That you love it."