“The fuck you mean where her hair bonnet is? She’s a child. What does she need a hair bonnet for?”
“Reminisce, she’s also a girl. You wanna keep her hair fresh, don’t you?” I turned my face up, looking at him like he had lost his mind.
He shrugged. “She good. She doesn’t have one.”
“Obviously. Good thing I have an extra one in my bag.” I stalked over to my duffle and went into the side pocket, pulling out a blue, silk, butterfly bonnet. It was my spare, even though I had never worn it. I walked over to her and put it on her head, making sure it covered her head and not her eyes.
When I was finished, I ushered her past him toward where her room was. “You know, sometimes I worry about you.”
“Yeah, I bet. Don’t worry too much.” He slapped my ass as I passed.
This wasn’t my first time putting a kid to sleep, as I was an auntie. However, it was my first time putting his child to sleep. Oddly enough, why was I nervous? It wasn’t like I was auditioning for a lead role or something. Or shit, was I?
Despite my overthinking, Romance was tucked in and falling asleep in under fifteen minutes after reminding me to turn on her night light and the rain sounds her daddy played for her every night. It was cute, shit, all so cute, and here I was swooning. Being here with him like this made me see him in a different light.
When I reentered the front room, he had his feet kicked up, comfortably laid out against the pit style sofa in the middle of the room.
“You know, being here with you like this makes me see you in a different light.”
He looked from the sports highlights on TV over at me with those sexy, lazy eyes that let me know he was tired. “You still fucking with that light?”
“I am. It humanizes you and it’s sexy.”
He licked his lips. “I didn’t realize that. Shit, I do realize her little ass stresses me the fuck out.”
I laughed, moving toward him. “In the cutest way possible. She looks just like you.” When I reached the couch, I kicked my slides off and climbed next to where he was sitting.
“How is her stressing me out cute, Rim?”
“Because it is. Plus, not many people challenge you. But her, she looks like you and pushes your buttons.”
“Glad you peep that, and nah. It’s a specific other motherfucker who is just as good at pushing my buttons, if not better.” He winked.
I couldn’t hide my smile nor did I try. “How does your head feel?”
“Better, I was able to catch that motherfucker in the door. She knocked right out, didn’t she?” He turned around, maneuvering his body so that his head was in my lap and he was looking at the TV.
“She did and she made sure to tell me how her daddy had the rain sounds and night lights set up for her.” I looked down at the side of his face, feeling the need to touch him. Even though he was damn near in my lap, something about just being able to touch him always put me on a cloud. Before I knew it, I was tracing the wording on the side of his face.
He chuckled. “Yeah, my baby is a lil high maintenance and she loves her some Alexa.”
“I wonder why. She’s just like her father.”
“Nah baby, she ain’t like me. Trust me.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down at him while he watched TV. I had now moved on to tracing the tattoos on his neck.
“I wasn’t shit like that, but I want that for her. I want her to be high maintenance and joyful. Shit, most of all, happy. I wanna give her the childhood I never had, regardless of the fact that I already fucked up and gave her a mother so like my own it haunts me.”
“Like your own?” I repeated for clarity.
“Fucked up, so stuck in her own ways that she ain’t thought about how her actions affect her kid.”
“You want me to go beat her ass?”
He laughed, about to respond, but the ringing of a phone interrupted whatever he was about to say.
It was my phone, because I felt it vibrating in my pocket before I fetched it. When I saw who was calling, I answered immediately. Even though she called a lot, I tried to answer all of my mama’s calls. It didn’t matter what I was doing, if I heard the phone ring, I answered it.
