He actually cracked a little smile. “Can we get pizza?”
“We can get whatever you want, lil man.”
He headed toward the kitchen, already pulling out his phone to look up spots, and I sat back against the couch.
One conversation down.
One more to go.
The shower helped clearmy head.
I stood under the hot water for a minute, letting it beat against my scalp, my shoulders, the tension I’d been carrying in my back all day. The steam filled up the bathroom, fogging the mirrors, and I just breathed.
My locs was heavy with water, hanging past my shoulders. I’d been slacking on the maintenance—too much other shit going on to sit down and handle them proper. They was starting to look rough.
When I finally got out and wrapped a towel around my waist, Zainab was waiting in the hallway.
She’d changed into one of my shirts—an old joint I’d had forever, soft from years of washing. It hung past her thighs, swallowing her thick frame. Hair wrapped up in a silk scarf. Face scrubbed clean, no makeup, and her eyes was red and puffy like she’d been crying in the shower.
Probably had been.
“I was wondering,” she said, her voice soft and uncertain, “if you’d let me retwist your locs.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know how to do that?”
“I used to do my sister’s all the time. Before…” She trailed off, pain flickering across her face. “I’m good at it. And it looks like you could use it.”
“Aight,” I said. “Let me throw some clothes on.”
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on the floor between her legs, my back against the couch, a jar of my loc gel open on the coffee table. Yusef was knocked out in the guest room, pizza demolished, dead to the world.
And Zainab’s fingers was in my hair.
She worked slow. Methodical. Starting at the base of my neck and moving forward, separating each loc, applying the gel, twisting with hands that knew exactly what they was doing. Her touch was gentle but confident. Like she’d done this a thousand times before.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, fingers never stopping. “I know I keep saying it. And I know words don’t mean much after everything. But I am. I’m so sorry, Prime.”
I didn’t say nothing. Just let her work. Let her fingers move through my hair. Let the intimacy of the moment settle over us.
“I know I got a lot of baggage,” she continued. “Drama that would make most niggas run for the hills. And I wouldn’t blame you if you decided I wasn’t worth all this trouble. That’s what I kept telling myself, actually. That’s why I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
Her voice got thick.
“Because I was so sure that once you knew everything—once you saw how fucked up my life really is, how broken I am—you’d bounce. And I couldn’t take that. I couldn’t watch you leave. So I figured if I kept you at a distance, kept hiding behind the lies, at least I could control when the end came.”
Her fingers paused in my hair. I felt her take a shaky breath.
“I was stonewalling because I thought if I pushed you away first, it wouldn’t hurt as bad when you finally realized I wasn’tworth the effort. But I was wrong.” Her voice cracked. “Pushing you away hurt worse than anything. And now…”
She didn’t finish. Didn’t need to.
I reached up and caught her hand. Brought it down where I could see it—her fingers still shiny with loc gel—and pressed my lips against her palm. Soft. Deliberate.
“You know why I call you Goddess?”
She sniffed. “No.”
I shifted around so I was facing her. Her legs was still on either side of me, and I rested my hands on her thighs, looking up into those brown eyes that had been fucking with my head since the first day I saw her.
