Pressure must have picked up on how tense I felt because he grinned and leaned back. “Alright, mama, that’s enough of twenty-one questions. Let my girl breathe.”
Abeni’s lips curved into a small smile as Pressure stood, leaning down to kiss her cheek. He shook his father’s hand, and Kojo gave a slow nod like he’d made some silent decision he wasn’t ready to share.
They walked us back toward the main hall, Abeni’s hand lightly resting on her son’s arm. When we stepped outside, the air felt cooler, and the night sky was lit up with stars. Pressure led me back to the car, still holding my hand, but my thoughts were spinning.
The whole day had been incredible, but underneath all that beauty and excitement was this lingering question—could I actually be what he and his family expected? Because standing in front of that mansion, meeting the people who raised him, I felt the weight of those shoes he wanted me to walk in, and they were bigger than I’d ever imagined.
During the ride back to Pressure’s estate, I was quiet most of the time, thinking about how much it had taken just to be in the presence of his family. Everything about them was polished and powerful, and no matter how kind his mama had been, I still felt like I was walking through someone else’s world, as if I was playing dress-up in a life that didn’t belong to me. My mind kept drifting back to home, to the mold-stained bathroom, the peeling paint on the kitchen walls, the way the floors creaked under my feet because the boards were rotted through. I’d gone from scrubbing a rusted tub to soaking in marble ones. From falling asleep to my daddy yelling at my mama to walking through halls where everything smelled like money.
It should have made me feel blessed, but all it did was remind me of the gap between where I came from and where Pressure lived every day. I was falling hard for Pressure, and I wasn’t ready to let him go, but I couldn’t shake the fear that I might not ever measure up to the kind of woman he actually needed. I wanted to be everything for him. I wanted to stand next to him and not feel like people were wondering how the hell I even got there.
His hand slid onto my thigh, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“You have a good time?” he asked, glancing at me with that grin that always made me feel like he saw more than I wanted to show.
“Of course I did,” I said. “It was crazy… just being in a room with the rich and famous like it was nothing.”
He smirked and kept his eyes on the road, one hand still resting on me like he didn’t plan on moving it. I hesitated, then asked the question that had been sitting in my chest since we left his mama’s party.
“Do you feel like… I could really be that woman for you?”
He didn’t even flinch. “I wouldn’t have let you step foot in my mama’s house if I didn’t feel that way.”
Something in the way he said it settled me, but only for a moment. We talked a little more, and before I knew it, we were pulling through the estate gates. I was still thinking about his words when we stepped inside, and that’s when I saw Kashmere.
She was standing in the foyer with her suitcase thrown open on the floor like she had been digging through it in a rush. Clothes were spilling out, her hair was messy, and her hands were trembling as she tried to zip the bag back up. Her voice was loud, shaky, and full of frustration as she argued with the guard.
“I want my muthafuckin’ phone and I want it now! You don’t get to keep my shit. Give me my phone or I’m breakin’ all this shit in here!”
Her face was wet, streaked with fresh tears that kept coming no matter how many times she tried to swipe them away. She looked nothing like the Kashmere I knew—the confident, loud, and playful girl who always had a comeback for everything. This was someone who was falling apart right in front of everybody, and no matter how much she tried to stand her ground, the crack in her voice gave her away.
The guard kept his tone calm, but he was clearly frustrated. “I told you, I called him already. You need to wait until?—”
“I don’t need to wait for shit!” she snapped, stepping forward with her hand out like she was ready to snatch his own phone out of his pocket. “Either you give me my phone, or I’m gone takes yours and order me a fuckin’ Uber!”
“Aye, what the fuck is all this?” Pressure’s voice cut through the room, deep and sharp.
Kashmere froze for a second, then turned toward him. Her eyes moved straight to me, and I knew the second she took me in—my dress, my hair, the fact that I had just spent the entire day with him at his mama’s birthday party. The hurt was right there on her face, raw and impossible to hide. It wasn’t just jealousy, it was the look of somebody who felt replaced.
“She’s trippin’,” the guard said, stepping closer to Pressure. “I been tryna call you. She came down here demanding her phone, sayin’ she’s leavin’.”
Kashmere didn’t deny it. She bent down to grab her bag, her movements jerky, like she was holding herself together by a thread. “I’m not staying here for this shit,” she muttered, her voice cracking.
The other women had gathered around, whispering and watching like they were front row at a show. Some of them looked entertained. Others looked like they were waiting for the drama to get worse.
Kashmere’s hands were shaking as she yanked her suitcase upright. She sniffed hard and bit her lip like she was trying to stop more tears from falling, but they slid down her cheeks anyway. She was unraveling, and everyone could see it. The Kashmere who used to walk into a room and own it didn’t look like she even knew where she was right now.
A part of me wanted to say something, to step in and try to calm her down, because before all this tension, she was my friend. But we weren’t that anymore. Not after the way thingshad changed between us, and not after she made it clear she didn’t see me as someone she could trust.
So, I stayed still…
Pressure was watching her. I stepped closer to him, rested my hands on his chest, and kissed him softly.
“Thank you for today,” I said, my voice low enough for only him to hear.
Kashmere suddenly turned around, keeping her back to us, her shoulders stiff, her head tilted slightly down like it hurt her to see me touch Pressure. I walked past her without saying a word, feeling the weight of everything between us hanging in the air. Whatever we walked into this house with three weeks ago was gone, and I had no idea if either of us had the will to get it back.
Trill-Land, Jungle Estate
