Free The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil by Victoria Christopher Murray Page A

hour, I mourned for Big Mama. Not only because I wouldn’t see her again in this life, but now that she was gone, there would be no one left on earth who loved me like she did.
    Every time I said that, though, I had a feeling that I was breaking Adam’s heart.
    “I will,” Adam told me over and over when I asked him who would love me now. “It’s different from Big Mama’s love, but I will love you more. I’ll love you always. I’ll love you best.”
    It was because of my grief and because of his love that rightafter we left my grandmother in Holy Grounds cemetery, I ended up back at Adam’s apartment.
    While his mother worked her second job on the janitorial staff at Georgetown University, I curled up on the sofa, thought about how I’d watched my grandmother’s casket be lowered into the earth, and wondered what it was going to be like to never hear her voice or feel her love again … and I cried. I cried so much that I could see the fear in Adam’s eyes, as if he wondered if someone could die from an overdose of crying.
    He held me, consoled me, kissed me. But it wasn’t until his hands began to explore my body that my tears subsided. Instead of crying, I held him back. And kissed him back. And fondled him back.
    This time, we didn’t stop with just our hands. We kept going all the way until neither one of us could ever claim virgin status again.
    I may not have been crying when I finally sat up on that couch, but I was scared enough to cry. “We didn’t use anything,” I whispered to Adam as I pulled down my skirt; we hadn’t bothered to take off anything except for my panties. “You think we’re gonna be all right?”
    “Yeah.” He tossed me my panties from the foot of the couch. “We’re cool.” Putting his arms around me, he added, “It’s okay anyway, because we’re gonna get married, and you’re the only girl I’ll ever be with … anyway … so …”
    His words were so sweet, but I’d never heard his voice tremble until then. That was when I started praying the way Big Mama had taught me.
    A couple of months later, I learned two things: that with prayer, God’s answers don’t always match our requests, and yes, you could get pregnant the first time.
    We’d been so afraid when we’d borrowed money from fivedifferent friends to purchase all those pregnancy tests and found out that we were going to be parents before we’d even be seniors in high school.
    But although Adam wouldn’t let me even consider getting an abortion, our new reality didn’t kill our dreams. It was way tougher than we’d planned—school, kids, work, kids, college, kids, graduate school for Adam, kids. But just like he’d predicted, we got out—with our children and all.

Chapter 10
    “Y OU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD and evil,” Bishop Cash Supreme bellowed from the pulpit. “You know the difference between right and wrong—don’t try to make this all complicated. When evil comes to your door, kick it out. When you have to make a decision, choose right!” he shouted. “I said, choose right.”
    Brent Lamar, the musical director, hit the keyboard and Bishop Cash did his little jig, his signal that the sermon was coming to an end.
    The congregation was on their feet—and that included Adam and me. I clapped with the rest of the parishioners, then the Holy Deliverance award-winning, seven-piece band did their thing and rocked the church. Church members were in the aisles, dancing, praising, all with their arms lifted.
    To an outsider, we had to look some kind of crazy. But to us, the members, this was just a regular ole Sunday.
    Even though Adam and I had been coming to Holy Deliverance for the almost eight years that it had been in existence, it still amazed me that Cash Supreme was the minister. I never thought Cash would leave the street game, because he was a smart-street cat who thrived as a drug entrepreneur. He rose in Duke’s hierarchy to the number two position. That distinction,