Meadow turned away before her knees betrayed her again. “C’mon,” she muttered. “My room is this way.” She jutted her head toward the stairs that needed a new coat of sealant.
He followed her up the stairs, still watching her with that careful attention he didn’t mean to give.
When she pushed open her door, the lived-in space hit him instantly. Her scent, her energy, her life was all in this room. Clothes were everywhere, shoes kicked off in every direction and he noticed a stripper pole gleaming in the corner like a centerpiece of honesty.
Zaire took it all in, the mess and the beauty of it.
“This you?” his voice and his brows went up in astonishment.
Meadow exhaled, spinning around with her arms wide. “Yeah, it’s not cute right now – I know.”
“Nah,” he countered. “It’s real cute.”
That caught her off guard.
Zaire stepped in further, his brown eyes roaming the room with a warmth that didn’t feel invasive. “You ever notice how people with the biggest hearts always have rooms that look lived in?”
She frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“You love that question, don’t you baby?”
She blushed but shook her head berating herself for sounding so damn ditzy.
“It means your life is full…too full to be neat…too full to be fake.”
Meadow sat on the floor beside the foot of her bed, rubbing her palms over her leggings. “You really don’t know me like that to have come up with that lame ass line.”
“And?” he shrugged. “I know real when I see it.”
She looked up at him, her eyes following the perfectly-lined outline of his low beard. “And what’s the real?”
“That you not the kind of woman who falls apart easily,” he said. “So if you break, even momentarily…it’s bad.”
Zaire’s assessment was of her soul—her aura—the small details the average man wouldn’t notice. But he did. He saw the strong facade, the quick witted words. It was all a part of the wall she’d built because women like her had to have a fortress highly fortified and impenetrable.
Meadow felt that one in her bones. She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t want you to see that.”
Zaire leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes never leaving her. “If I’m gon’ be around you…I’m gon’ see the parts you don’t wanna show.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” he smirked.
She looked away. “Why you wanna be around?”
He hesitated but decided to just say it. “Because my spirit clocked yours from the jump.”
Meadow’s heart flipped like a trained gymnast.
“What does that even mean?”
“I gotta teach you some more questions,” Zaire laughed, dodging the pillow she threw at his head. “Watch out, cuh.”
“Then stop pissing me off!” Meadow snickered too. “But explain anyway…better?”
He nodded, still fucking with her and that redundant question she liked to repeat. “That you move like somebody who’s been carrying everybody,” he continued. “And sometimes people who carry everybody need somebody to hold them for a minute.”
Her eyes stung. That truth hit her in a place she hadn’t touched in a long time.
