Her throat bobbed, her eyes bouncing around.
“You don’t hide nothin’ from me,” he said. “Even when you try, your face gives you away. You love hard. You fight hard. You’re loyal. You a little crazy…” A small smile tugged his lip. “But it’s the good kind.”
She didn’t laugh with him. Her eyes glossed over instead.
Zaire’s voice softened. “What’s wrong, baby? I hate to see you cry and you’ve been crying all day. Talk to me, cuh.”
Meadow swallowed, blinking fast. “If I put all my tears in a bottle,” she whispered, “I know it’ll be enough to supply a small tribe in Africa for a lifetime.”
Zaire’s chest tightened listening to hear. And it wasn’t the tears that got to him, it was the pain in what she said.
“I cry when Mama don’t know my name,” she counted. “I cry every time Daddy tries to make jokes like he ain’t exhausted. I cry when the bills come. I cry when they don’t come ‘cause that means they ‘bout to cut something off. I cry when I wanna call somebody but I don’t ‘cause I don’t wanna be a burden.” Her voice broke. “And I cry when good things happen too… ‘cause I don’t trust it to last.”
Zaire reached over and cupped her face with both hands. “Com’ere.”
Meadow crawled into his lap unsure, like she was scared her weight would break something fragile inside him. He held her thighs, grounding her, pulling her closer until she settled fully against him. She let out a breath she’d been holding for years.
“This is your time, baby. His time, not yours and not mine. God knows the when, the why, and the how…he knows the right time, the right door, and the right nigga for you. All you gotta dois show up. Even if you’re scared, just show up and I’ll handle the rest…he told me to handle you.”
Meadow’s shoulder shook as her tears fell into his skin, linking them in something so holy, she’d never feel this again.
Zaire looked her in the eyes, daring her to look away. “Give it to me.”
“No,” she cried. “You already have so much.”
“Give it to me, Marai…I will carry you…I will lead you…I will make your life better. Just…” Zaire got choked up wondering if Lesha had had these moments. When raising him all alone felt like too much, did his Mama break in the dark, yet smile like nothing happened in the light. “I’m a Black man… I was created to carry you. Let me do what I was created to do.”
Meadow’s gut bubbled as a cry so ancestral ripped through her. “Oh, Zaire.”
Smoothing her hair from her face, Zaire kissed her everywhere…all over her face, her lashes, her nose, her lips, her chin, her brows…anywhere that was kissable.
“You safe here,” he affirmed. “You can cry. You can break down. I’m not goin’ nowhere.”
Her tears soaked into his shirt, but he didn’t move. He didn’t wipe them or shush her. He just held her. Long enough for her breathing to slow down, long enough for her shoulders to relax.
When she finally lifted her head, their faces were close, lips inches apart.
She whispered, “Why you so good to me?”
Zaire stroked her waist. “Because you deserve somebody to be good to you.”
“Show me how to be good to you too…you need someone in your corner, too.”
“Oh, that’s you?” he asked, amused and turned on because outside of his people, no one wanted to be there for him.
Meadow kissed him first this time. For her, there was no more waiting for him to make a move. Zaire was the kind of man you needed to kiss on whenever he was close.
Her kisses were slow at first, but her need to get into his skin made them speed up the more her lips pressed into his.
Her fingers threaded through the back of his hair.
Zaire let her lead for a moment before he flipped her gently onto her back, stretching over her, kissing her like he was trying to memorize every sound she made.
She wrapped her legs around him instinctively, hips lifting into him.
He groaned into her mouth, pulling back just enough to breathe against her lips. “Don’t start.”
She tugged him closer. “Then don’t stop.”
