“Stay where? In the city?” he asked, his eyes glazing the semi-empty poolhall before they found me.
I nodded. “Yeah.” My eyes lived on him. He looked so good my brain short circuited every time we shared eye contact. I often wondered if he knew his effect on me. I mean, he had to, right? Why else would he act the way he did?
“Honestly, I never thought about anything too far out you know. Always told myself the furthest I’d think ahead was about two weeks because my decisions have always only affected me. Now I got lil mama and the last thing I wanna do is be uprooting her and not providing the stability she deserves. I already fucked that halfway up with her donor being who she is.”
“So, you’re staying for your baby?” I asked. I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t bothered by his only reason for staying being his daughter. Yes, that was a good reason, but hadn’t he just told me he wanted me?
He nodded. “And of course there’s this lil difficult ass woman I want more than a friendship with. When she finally gets it through her thick ass skull, she might want me to stay too.”
I laughed. “Something tells me it’s not about what she may or may not want.”
Reminisce laughed. “I’m not beating around the bush with your fake bashful ass, Karim. What do you want from me?”
I felt put on the spot. “I want what you want to give me, the parts of you that you gave to the wrong one.”
His eyes were serious, so serious it took everything in my being not to squirm. “You sure you can handle that?”
“More than sure.”
He nodded. “Bet.”
Silence filled the table before I decided to change the subject of the conversation. “You still taking jobs?”
He shook his head. “Told myself I’d stack some more then move on, but I ain’t been in the mental state. You?”
“Mind kind of heavy and we both know I don’t have the heart for the jobs.”
He studied me for a moment and was about to speak, but our waitress walked over with the deep-dish pizza he had ordered when we came in. I watched as she placed it on the table before making sure to do too much while she cut it. All the reaching and sound effects weren’t necessary, especially when the pizza wasn’t even that damn big. I hated a disrespectful ass chick.
I shook my head and heard him chuckle from across the table.
“Yo, we’re good, Sam.”
So, he knew this hoe.I narrowed my eyes, ready to slap the shit out of them both. “Full fucking government and please don’t stop her on my account, ’cause her clear volunteering for this ass whooping won’t be stopped on yours.”
She sucked her teeth, but I could tell she wasn’t stupid because instead of staying her disrespectful ass in front of our table she scurried off.
“Even though you finer than a motherfucker when you nut up, you don’t have to.”
I studied him. “Why not?”
“’Cause on my life not a soul will ever have anything over you when it comes to me.”
For a moment after that statement, I just stared at him and he stared back with eyes daring me to challenge what he’d said. I didn’t challenge him though. Instead I allowed the evening to lighten. We settled on eating and talking about surface things. That was fine too. I liked talking to him. He listened to even the most ridiculous things. Reminisce was a man who had been hurt, so he had some trauma, but that never overshadowed who and what he was.
After dinner we got ice cream from this hood spot that was open way too late, but they had security and it was bumping around this time. Then we retreated to my place where we settled in my living room eating and swapping our individualpints every so often because I liked his flavor way more than mine.
“How come I ain’t never heard any of your poetry?”
“Because you’re not the type. And who the hell told you I write it?” Then, as soon as I said that, Jade popped into my head. “Your sister,” I answered before he could.
He nodded. “It ain’t like she blew up your spot or anything. Shit, I was just as thrown off. She told me she was going to some spot named Centuries to listen to you during one of our check-in calls.”
I nodded. “Well yes, but I ju?—”
“What do you mean I’m not the type?” he asked.
“Like I didn’t think you cared about those things or were even into poetry.”
