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NEW WIP ALERT + Short

  • Writer: thejsingraham
    thejsingraham
  • Jul 4
  • 7 min read

Updated: Jul 17

My latest idea for a book project takes me to a place I haven't been to date with any of my MMCs. I'm not ready to put this WIP in ink on my list of upcoming works, but I'm excited by the idea.

To date, I, Jsin Graham, have yet to write a cinnamon roll hero in a #romance/romance-adjacent work.


Will I ever? Eh.


Do I have the ability to? Eh.


Now, have I ever written an unapologetically aggressive MMC? No.


Will I ever? Well, if my current idea makes it off the whiteboard and onto the page...


My current untitled (I don't even have a placeholder title) idea is a Black romance centered around the prodigal son of a retired shot caller named Cain. In his former life, pops was an intelligent, hyperstrategic leader of a criminal enterprise, headquartered in the D.C. area.


His success was rooted in championing diplomacy above all to keep the money pipeline running smoothly. His ability to retain unchecked power was steeped in his willingness to personally put a bullet in anyone who dared threaten the pipeline. Regardless of their position or affiliation.


Fast forward a couple of decades, and we find a retired Cain, now a married family man and grandfather. However, when a random act of aggression hits too close to home, the ghosts of a buried past are agitated. And the sins of a father force a reunion, originally planned to never occur.

Sounds like a solid premise, right? Now for the story idea in question, Cain is not the MMC. That distinction is left for someone who appears because of the old man's actions.

With that said, let's see how we get from Cain to this future untitled WIP.

A #shortstory prelude is loading...below! This short is NOT a romance.

(not professionally edited)

Father's Day


The faintest blow back of a breeze sent the mist I showered over my azaleas, hydrangeas, and butterfly bushes, back onto me. I smiled at the cool sensation of millions of microscopic droplets of water teasing my arms and legs. It triggered a perpetual core memory and an appreciated reality, thanks to the current temps. It was a typical summer in this part of the country, and even though I had long since lived in D.C. proper, you couldn’t tell the weather that.

Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers were blasting through my backyard speakers while I strode between the flowers under the pergola and over to the vegetable boxes. Tending to this part of the yard had been a piece of my regular routine for decades. What started as a means to slow down my mind and regulate my stress was now something I looked forward to.

On the way back to the grill, my eyes fell on my daughter, Carina’s old playhouse. For the second time in the last twenty minutes, I felt myself smiling. It was a sixteen-by-ten-foot shed, she saw one day on a trip to the hardware store. At the time, babygirl was six, maybe seven, and she swore she just had to have her own house. So I bought it, and had it turned into a damn house.

Yeah, I was absolutely that dad.

She musta used that thing until she graduated high school. And even though she had been out of the house for a few years now, I couldn’t bring myself to tear it down. Which was a good thing, since she brought my little buddy, my grandson Darrin, into the world two years ago. Looking at him was like staring at the ghost of past indiscretions. He possessed my eyes and a smile that haunted and healed me. And I thanked him for that. Because I deserved it. More the sorrow, than the joy.

Speaking of those two, they should’ve been here by now.

I checked the burning coals in the grill, then glanced at my watch. It was babygirl’s twenty-fourth birthday, and we had convinced her to come by for an early cookout to celebrate. Unbeknownst to her, her little boyfriend had plans to propose at the Capital Wheel this evening, at the National Harbor.

Kevon was a solid dude, who my wife hated at first. But I liked his energy and the way he evened Carina out. He treated my daughter like a queen and my grandson like he was his own. So together, he and I worked on the misses until she saw the vision.

I felt in my pocket for my phone and realized I left it over near the vegetable boxes. As I headed toward the side of the house, I heard the front door open. The problem was, I didn’t hear a car engine.

“Cain Jaron!”

The pained urgency in my wife Marion’s tone sliced through the humidity of the mid-June day. It had me running out of my sandals and barefoot toward the front of the house at a speed I had not seen in ages. I saw her back as she sprinted across our circular driveway, and was confused until my eyes fell on him. The sight of my little buddy covered in dirt and what looked like, was that blood? I somehow found another gear that had my old ass running on air as I sprinted past her to get to him.

backyard patio with seating

“Paw Pawwwwww!”

It had been four hours since someone dropped off my grandson, and I still couldn’t get his cries out of my head. Marion said it took my boys, Rasheed, and Colin, who came over for the cookout, to pry him out of my arms so the EMTs could look him over. He was fine. Unharmed, physically, but fine.

Carina on the other hand was nowhere to be found. Her phone went straight to voicemail, and with each passing hour, my mind slipped into a darker place. I just knew that was her blood on him. The Lord knew I didn’t want to believe it, but I’d seen too much, and done so, so much more. This shit was my fucking atonement. But after all this time? Why now?

I looked up at the sky from the patio, feeling helpless.

I was out of the way. Had been out of the game. My enemies, I didn’t really have any. And the few I did, had been dead a long time. My life, my past, my family, was completely separate from the man I used to be. I paid good money and went to extreme lengths, to make sure that was the case.

Cain Jaron Darringer was buried decades ago. He, and all the shit I did as him, had to be, or Marion Nicole Hall, wouldn’t give me the damn time of day. She knew who I was then, but never truly saw that version of me. Because of the protection that afforded her, Carina knew of my real last name, but was born far after the life I lived, making it. None of this shit made sense.

The whooshing sound my sliding glass door made behind me snatched my attention. The presence of the large man who appeared to my left, made me anxious as fuck because he showed up to my house in person, instead of calling with the news. Fuck! I couldn’t even look his way.

“We found Carina’s car.”

Douglas was a friend of mine from high school and a detective for DCPD. We bumped heads when we were younger, because in a way, we were a lot alike. At the same time, in my former life, he went right, and I went left when it came to the law. Right now, our similarities won out. That of the no bullshit variety.

“She wasn’t inside, but Kevon was. He’s dead, Cain.”

I turned in his direction and found his face devoid of emotion, as expected. I swear that man was born with a poker face. He held up a glass with a single cube of ice that held a monogrammed Old English letter D. I took it and threw back the Bombay Sapphire Gin, Marion sent him out here with. I didn’t bother to ask if they found anything to help find my baby, because he’da led with that.

God, please, I beg of you. Let my baby still be alive.

“Cain! Cain! It’s Carina!” Marion said frantically as she raced through the door.

Either someone up above took pity on me, or someone down below was preparing to put me through it a little more. I dropped the glass and closed the distance between us. She held out her cellphone to me, as the dried tear streaks on her face welcomed a fresh set of liquid pain.

“Baby, are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you?” I rushed out.

“No, daddy. They killed him. Kevon died trying to protect me.”

Her voice was scratchy, strained, and weak, which caused one side of my brain to war with the other. A feverish desire to know who they were, and what they had done, made my skin hot. The other, calmer side fought for its life to be what she needed right now. Her daddy.

“I know, baby, and I’m so sorry. Are you, physically, okay? Can you, please, tell me where you are?” I offered in the softest voice I could muster.

“I’m at Hinnant Memorial in Alexandria. Please don’t bring Dar–...”

She trailed off, and then there was nothing but the sound of movement and muffled talking in the background. I screamed at the top of my lungs into the phone for someone to tell me what was happening, but instead, the call just ended. The silence on the line hit me like John Henry driving a railroad spike into my eardrum.

When I glanced up, Marion’s hands went to her mouth, and the look of utter fear in her eyes mirrored what I felt in my chest. I wanted to be angry at myself, at whoever was responsible. But an overwhelming sense of failure and inadequacy ratcheted up my anxiety. It demanded its moment in the spotlight, until I could quiet the drumline marching behind my chest cavity.

"Babe, c'mon! We gotta go," I whisper-yelled as I pulled her close to me for a hug. "We can process later, or on the way, or whenever. But we gotta see about our baby now!"


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