“Well for one, I haven’t watched a cartoon since I was 10 years old and secondly, I have never brought a woman to this house let alone to my rooms or bed, only you True.’
“Atlas what woman wants to embarrass themselves? I didn’t know that until just now, you haven’t told me anything about your personal life, if you wanted me to claim you don’t you think I should know something about you?”
“I’m so glad you asked, and the answer is no. I claimed you and the only thing I can one hundred percent be sure of is your first name is True. When are you gonna tell me the whole truth? You are in my house with my family and I don’t know what danger you being here could potentially cause. But I know how I feel about you and those feelings are growing. I want to know who you are so I can protect my family, so they can get a chance to get someplace safe because about you I cannot describe the level of fucked up I would unleash to protect you, to keep you. I’ve given you time True, time to trust me but I'm putting you on notice, your time is about up.” She goes to open her mouth but I stop her, “don’t True, just think about what I said and come to me with the whole story and soon, please don’t let me hear the truth from someone else.” I turn over on my stomach and finally go to sleep.
Asher, Uncle Hemi’s house is up the street, I tell my little brother to take Aryan and Anson to them. “Where are you going to go Atlas”, he asks me. “I’m going back to the house to help dad.” “No, you can't, he told you to get us to Uncle Hemi, you can’t leave us.” “And you can get them there from here, dad needs help. I need to go back and help him. You go get Uncle Hemi and get our brothers there safely.” I stand and watch my brothers run as fast as they can towards my uncle’s house as I turn back. I run all the way there and when I sneak in the door and…..
I jerk awake, it takes a second for me to orient myself. I feel a weight on my back and realize it’s True, she has fallen asleep laying across my back. I lay there for a second and get my heartbeat back under control and try to slide out from underneath her gently so I don’t wake her. I head straight to use the bathroom, once I am done I wash my hands and take care of my other morning needs and head down the track to get in a few laps before it’s time to eat. By the time I realize it I have been running around this track for an hour. I turned on the sound system and had Busta Rhymes rapping about partying with him. I have no idea how many miles I have run but I know I am drenched in sweat. I walk for another lap to cool down and go upstairs to take a shower. By the time I make it downstairs, True is already at the island stuffing her face and talking to Savvy and my brothers. She looks up at me as I walk into the kitchen. I go straight to the refrigerator and grab some orange juice. When I turn back around True is up making another plate even though her plate still has food on it, a second later I realize she is fixing my plate. I stand there not quite sure what to do when she looks at me and tells me to sit down. I have never had a woman that wasn’t my mother or Savvy fix me a plate. After I take the seat next to where she was sitting, she sets my plate down in front of me and returns to eating her food.
A few seconds later Josh walks in, “one of you will have to stay in the office today instead of going on-site,” he says.
“Why what’s going on?” Aryan wants to know.
“Jasmine had to call in, she’s sick and it’s too late to call for a temp for the day so one of us will have to stay in the office to answer phones and greet any customers that may wander in” Joshua tells us.
“Josh, we all have teams we are supervising today and there is no one to fill in for us either.”
“Damn, and Savvy has a book signing event she has to go to today, so maybe we’ll just close the office today and the clients....”
But Josh never finishes his statement since True speaks up to say, “I can cover for y’all,” and all eyes fall on her.
“You don’t have to do that, True,” Joshua says.
“I know I don’t and I know you don’t have to trust me but I would like to help you guys and it’s just for the day if I run into anything I can’t handle I will either just take a message or call Atlas.”
“That’s very generous of you True,” Savvy tells her.
“It’s really no problem,” True says.
Joshua looks at me over True’s head, giving me a silent warning. Once we're alone Joshua asks me, “Are you sure about this? We just met her last night and today she’s going to be in the office by herself?
“True, but you wouldn’t know a temp either if you called one in and you’d trust them,” I point out.
“A temp who would have been background checked and drug tested, do you really know anything about her?”
I don’t say anything because no I don’t know anything about True.
“We can rotate coming into the office to keep an eye on her, Josh, besides I don’t think she’d do anything wrong to us.”
“Are you willing to bet our lives and company on that?” he asks and I cannot answer. I just look at him.
“That’s what I thought,” he says and starts to walk away, he turns on his heels “oh and by the way no one is buying that bullshit story of how the two of you met” with that he turns back around and walks out of the room.