The Game Never Ends. Zaire Crown

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      Chapter Three

      Tuesday entered the family room to find her husband on the sofa and Danielle on the one that sat adjacent. Like most nine-year-olds, Danielle’s attention was consumed by her phone. Tuesday didn’t know if she was texting a friend or playing a game.

      “Dani, I’m so sorry I missed your thing but—”

      The girl just stood up and brushed past Tuesday before she could finish the apology. Danielle left the room without saying a word. She didn’t even throw Tuesday a “fuck-you” glance.

      Whether justified or not, Tuesday felt totally disrespected by that and started to go after her until she was held up by Marcus.

      “You might wanna give that a minute,” he said, never looking up from his book. “After the way you left her hangin’ today, she straight on you right now.”

      “I get she’s mad but damn, to just walk off while I’m trying to talk to her is some other shit! I’m out here running errands and looking at real estate and just got caught up.”

      Marcus knew that Tuesday had been looking to open a boutique that sold fashion-forward clothes for women with her body type, and for six months had been checking out different commercial properties. Lately, however, the store search had just been her cover for spending time with Shaun.

      He turned a page. “Just lost track of time. Happens to the best of us.”

      Tuesday wasn’t sure if he believed her or not. She thought Marcus would make an excellent poker player because the nigga had no tells.

      She asked, “Did her school win?”

      He nodded. “They had a little struggle but baby brought it home for her team. She calculated the square root of a number I couldn’t even fit in my head.”

      He switched gears. “See Brandon before he left?”

      “Yeah, I talked to ’em.” She made a point to add in: “And got cursed out for missing the staff meeting.”

      “Should’ve been there.”

      “I told you I had a crazy day,” she said defensively.

      Marcus was cool. He just continued reading for a while then said, “I see you got your hair and nails done.”

      He stated this as if it were just an observation but Tuesday read an accusation into it. She knew how fucked up this looked: on a day where she bailed on work and missed their daughter’s academic contest, to then stand in front of him with a fresh hairdo. She couldn’t even tell how he noticed, being that he hadn’t turned away from his book since she walked in.

      Tuesday started to craft a lie that would explain it all then thought better of it. Her husband was the sharpest person she had ever met and anything she concocted would only insult his intelligence. Rather than dig a deeper hole, she just let the matter drop.

      Marcus was wearing what had basically become his uniform as of late: a crispy wifebeater, long hoop shorts and ankle socks. He was in the house so much that Tuesday hardly remembered the last time she’d seen him dressed in anything that didn’t have a Jordan logo.

      She took the opposite end of the sofa, kicked off her shoes, put her feet on the cushions and tucked them underneath his thigh for warmth. Marcus just tossed her a side-glance then kept reading.

      “’Nisha sleep?”

      “She crashed around seven thirty.” He consulted a Chrono-swiss timepiece Tuesday bought for him last year. “So she gone be up about two in the morning, full of energy and ready to play. Have fun with that.”

      She rolled her eyes and gave him the finger. When he seemed too consumed with his book to feed into it she asked, “What’cho reading?”

      “Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He was the emperor of Rome in the second century, and one of its most brilliant field generals. He was also last of the great stoic philosophers.”

      “I know who he is,” she lied. Tuesday had practically grown up in the strip club and gained her knowledge from the years spent there and in the stick-up game. On the other hand, Marcus had an intelligence that went beyond the hood. While he obviously had enough street smarts to get heavy in the dope game, her husband had also been to college and was a voracious reader. He was never condescending to Tuesday, but talking to him sometimes highlighted her eighth-grade education, and made her feel inadequate.

      She said, “It ain’t like I don’t read stuff too.”

      “All the time,” he agreed. “You ever finish the book I gave you?”

      Tuesday couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “I’m working through it.”

      “Okay.”

      “I’m gonna finish it.”

      He turned another page. “Okay.”

      She hissed, “With everything I gotta do at Abel, I just don’t get a lotta time to read.”

      He shrugged. “Take your time.”

      It irritated the hell out of Tuesday when he acted like this, nonchalant like nothing she did or didn’t do mattered to him either way.

      She erupted, “I’m not stupid, Marcus. I just got a lot I’m dealing with right now.”

      He finally put down the book to look at her. “Who said you’re stupid? Bae, we both know your head is the main reason I’m with you.”

      Tuesday didn’t miss the joke. He did that goofy little grin that brought out his dimples, and it was that easy for him to defuse her attitude, to make her smile.

      “Oh, so now I’m just a trophy wife who’s only job is to pleasure you?”

      “A trophy?” He laughed. “Winners get trophies—you’re a punishment. What fucked up contest did I lose to deserve you?”

      Tuesday clubbed him with a СКАЧАТЬ