“Sky? It’s five in the morning, baby. Is everything okay?”
“Mama,” I choked out. “Zio… he’s changing the rules.”
I told her everything. I told her about the oxtails he had cooked me, the "I love you," My thank you. the ultimatum, and the dinner he wanted me to go to. I told her how terrified I was that he wouldn’t be like Daddy.
My momma was quiet for a long minute. She looked like Nia Long, but taller and thicker. She didn’t do anything quietly—not even pause. She liked to be seen, so I was worried about what she was about to say. Then she laughed. It wasn’t a comforting giggle; it was a deep, belly laugh that made my stomach drop.
“Dearly beloved,” she said, “you’re a grown-ass woman, so I’m going to stop protecting your childhood and tell you the truth.”
My heart sped up. “What truth, momma?”
“You think your daddy and I just fell into the life we now share? Girl, I broke the windows out of that man’s car. I chased him down the street. I even beat up the women he cheated on me with back in the day. Hell, I got pregnant with you just to trap him because I wasn’t ready to let him go.”
My heart damn near stopped. “Mama, what? No. You guys are… you’re perfect.”
She scoffed. “The first ten years of these nearly thirty were rough, Sky. We were toxic before there was a word for it. We had to choose to be better.”
I heard a muffled voice in the background—my father. “Rose! Don’t just tell her what I did. Tell her you were fucked up too!”
Mama laughed into the phone. “That’s not important. Don’t listen to him. Just know we both did wrong. We were messy. But that young man you’re running from? From everything you’ve told me over these last four years, Zio has done nothing but right by you, even when y’all weren’t ‘official.’ You need to grow up and tell him how you feel.”
She sighed, her tone softening. “You’ve spent your whole life writing fiction or reading it, Sky. Maybe it’s time you lived in the real world. You better hold onto that man before someone else realizes his worth.”
The line went dead.
I sat there, my worldview shattered. My parents weren’t a fairy tale; they were a battlefield. And yet, they had endured. I didn’t even think about it. I grabbed the phone and dialed Zio. Heanswered on the second ring. His voice was deep, raspy with sleep, but steady.
“Yeah?” he said, and the sound of his voice settled right under my ribs.
“What did you mean?” I asked. My voice was thin. “When you said you love me. What does that actually mean to you?”
“Sky…” I heard him rolling over. He exhaled a long, tired breath into the receiver. “Is this necessary this early in the morning?”
“My brain works in author mode, Zio. I need… I need the subtext. I need to know if you’re talking about the kind of love that’s just a mood, or the kind that causes yearning. Do you yearn for me?”
There was a beat of silence. I could almost picture him sitting up, rubbing a hand over that fresh fade and dragging his finger through his bear, his face all serious in the dark.
“I don’t write stories like you, Sky. I’m not good with words and prose. I know what yearn means, but I don’t really know. I don’t have a thesaurus for this,” he said, his voice dropping into that tone that always made me listen. “To me, it means I’m done looking. It means I told my mother your name because I want her to get used to saying my daughter-in-law, Sky. It means I’m willing to be the person who deals with your ‘funny’ acting ass forever.”
I felt the heat of a blush crawling up my neck. I was biting my lip so hard I tasted copper. I really wanted to giggle and kick my feet, but I remained calm—as if he could see me.
“I’ll go,” I said, the words rushing out before I could stop myself. I sounded too eager.
“Say it again,” he said, and I could hear him smiling through the phone.
“I’m going to meet your friends today.”
“Six o’clock, Sky,” he said. “Be ready. I’mma pick you up.”
I hung up. I had told him I was going, and I planned to, but now I was panicking.
Chapter four
February Second
Zio
I stood in front of the jewelry case for at least ten minutes, not even really seeing the sparkle of the diamonds. Instead, I was seeing Sky’s face right after I had said those words to her.Because I love you now.She had looked at me like I’d pulled a knife on her instead of offering up my heart. It had caused me to spend most of the morning wondering if I was rushing things, pushing a woman who clearly wasn't ready to be pushed.
