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in closer when she thought she saw a shadow move across the porch.
    â€œYou up?”
    Naeema gasped and whipped around with her hand raised.
    Tank turned up the dimmer switch. He frowned a bit as he eyed her. “You aight?” he asked.
    Naeema made a fist and lowered her arm. If she had a gun in her hand Tank would have been shot. “Did you just get here? Because something woke me up,” she said.
    He nodded and removed the black short-sleeved V-neck T-shirt he wore. “Yeah, I came in the back way,” he said, flexing his toned arms in the black wife-beater he wore before he sat down on the brown leather sectional.
    Naeema came over to sit down beside him. She was a strong woman—a take-no-shit-from-no-one woman—but in that moment as Tank pulled her head down onto his chest she was happy for his strength. His protection. “That robbery really got me fucked up, Tank,” she said.
    He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her thigh just below her ass. “I still got one of my guys patrolling the neighborhood. Whoever it is won’t get in your place again.”
    Naeema nodded and tilted her head back to look up at him. “I want to know who he is. Okay?” she asked softly.
    The one-word question held so many expectations of Tank.
    â€œOkay,” he agreed, shouldering them well.

5
    Two months later
    N aeema looked down at the blunt she was smoking and twisted her mouth upward. She hated it. The high wasn’t the same for her. The cigar paper added another level to the shit that was just unnecessary for her. And just because she knew how to split, fill, and lick a blunt didn’t mean she wanted to. She especially didn’t fuck with it with others. Fuck passing around something somebody else rolled with their spit. Miss me with that germy shit.
    She tapped the ashes into a glass she was using in place of an ashtray. The door to the suite in the Renaissance Hotel opened and Tank paused in the entrance to take in the sight of her sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but a lace strapless bra, matching thong, and black patent leather heels as she smoked. She smiled at him as she released a stream of smoke through her nose. As he shut the door she stood up and offered it to him.
    Tank shook his head. “Not when I’m on duty,” he told her.
    â€œWhere’d you go?” Naeema asked, sitting back down and crossing her legs.
    â€œI have to check in and out with you?”he asked, his tone tinged with sarcasm.
    Naeema made a face. “I don’t shadow you like that so don’t flip on me with no bullshit, Tank,” she said, eyeing him.
    He said nothing.
    The last couple of days his mood swung between short tempered and distant. Both were a hassle to her life. “Come chief wit’ me,” she offered again, holding out the blunt. “You need it.”
    He glanced up at her briefly as he checked his phone.
    She shrugged. “I know Sarge threw my pipe out,” she said. “Probably used it for batting practice or some shit.”
    Tank dropped his iPhone onto the bed beside her and started to undress. His face was pensive as he looked off into the distance.
    â€œTank, yo, you heard me. I said I know Sarge threw my pipe out,” she repeated. “Tank.”
    â€œHuh, bae?” he asked, turning his head to look at her.
    â€œSarge. My missing pipe.”
    He balled up the T-shirt he wore and tossed it into his open leather duffel bag on the luggage rack by the door. “Leaving it in the kitchen was crazy,” he said.
    Naeema nodded. She’d retraced her steps and the last time she could remember seeing her weed pipe was the night of the robbery when she took it into the kitchen just before she let Mya in. She could only imagine what all Sarge had to say when he came upstairs to a ceramic dick sitting on the table. She laughed before she took another toke and held it as she eyed Tank. “Buying an even