Neighborhood Music

Down A** Chick

Cesar woke up at 6 in the morning. His mind was racing with all the things that were haunting him. He lay in bed, with Monse's head on his chest, worrying about what the hell he was going to do.

Then he thought about her. Monse has been his rock through this entire mess. He wasn't sure how he could ever thank her. He knew that he should cut her loose, she wasn't cut out for the life he'd chosen. He thought about Letty and how much she'd given up for his brother, and he wondered if Monse would lose her father, the only family she had left, if he ever found out what Cesar was, and what he and Monse had been doing. Selfishly though, he couldn't let her go.

After about an hour, he accepted that sleep wasn't going to reclaim them, and he really had to pee. So Cesar slid out of bed carefully, making sure that Monse didn't wake up. He smiled to himself as he watched her roll over and curl up into a ball. She really was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Cesar returned to the room a little later and sat at the edge of the bed to contemplate his life. Which is how Monse found him when she woke up several hours later.

The sound of her phone vibrating woke her first. She picked it up to see that Olivia was calling her. Monse felt the weight of the guilt she'd become familiar with around Olivia as she stared at her contact photo and waited for the call to end. When it did, she realized she had a dozen texts from Jamal.

'Shit' she thought, but before she could text him back, a new message rolled in.

Olivia // 10:04am
Do you know where Cesar is?

Monse wanted to cry. She looked over her shoulder for Cesar, but he was gone. For a split second, she panicked until she saw that he was sitting at the foot of the bed, hunched over.

"Hey" she called to him.

Cesar didn't move, "My life is over."

Monse frowned, moving to him, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

"Don't say that." She told him

"It's true," Cesar shook his head, "If I kill Latrell, I'll be dead inside. If I don't kill him. I'll just be dead."

Monse couldn't take it. "What if you disappear?"

Cesar turned to look at her, he was confused, "How?" He asked

"With money." Monse said, she was dead serious, "a lot of money."

Cesar was lost, "What are you even talking about?"

"Do you trust me?" She asked him

He nodded.

Monse hopped off the bed and started throwing clothes on. "I might have a way out of this. I don't know for sure, but I think I can make this work."

"You can't go out there." Cesar argued, grabbing her by the waist

Monse smiled and touched his face, "You can't go out there babe. I can go wherever I want."

He didn't find her funny.

"Latrell knows you were with me." He pressed

Monse nodded, "I know. But Latrell was trying to get at me. He's not going to shoot me. How would that help him?"

Cesar had to admit, he saw her point. But it didn't make him feel better that Latrell was interested in her, even if it was just to smash.

"Are you going to go wherever you're going by yourself?" He asked, Monse knew he'd given up trying to fight her then.