Mama didn’t blink. She just stared at me and waited for me to elaborate, like she always did. I gave her the short version of events. The Truth or Dare card, Marcus calling me, finding out Simone slept with him and blamed me and Harlowe’s friendship for months, me going up to Simone’s room to confront her, the robe, the candle, the fire, the sprinklers . . . all of it. By the time I finished, Mama’s face was twisted in a hundred different ways.
“I knew I ain’t never liked that damn Simone,” she said, shaking her head. “She always felt off in my spirit. Throwinga robe on a candle in a hotel? That’s just dumb. Trifling and dumb.”
Dumb was a damn understatement. Simone’s bullshit was half the reason I was over here hurting. Mama let out a slow breath. “And what you been doing about it?”
“Giving her space,” I said. “Letting her get her head right. I texted to let her know I was home. She hit me with a thumbs up.” I shrugged. “Every time I ask to see her, she got a deadline or got content to batch or promises to call back, then doesn’t.”
“Damn.” Marcus laughed. “Not a thumbs up.”
“Well, you look miserable,” Ma said, studying my face.
“I am,” I admitted.
“So you just gon’ sit in misery?” she asked. “Let fear control the narrative?”
“She’s the one that is ghosting me, Ma,” I said. “I’m not scared. I’m respecting her no.”
“I did teach you to always respect a woman’s no, but did she say no, or did she say something else?”
I frowned. “What?”
“There’s a difference between disregarding somebody’s no and reminding them about the yes they already gave you.” She moved closer to me like she needed me to hear her words “That girl already told you she loved you,” Mama said. “Already gave you her body. You have her emergency key to her apartment. You’re probably her emergency contact. Harlowe has given you so many yesses over the years. That no is about her fear, fear from trauma that old hurt left behind. You can’t fix it for her, but you can show her you ain’t running just ’cause she got scared.”
“Yeah, you need to apply pressure, Bro.” Marcus nodded. “Respectfully, you know Harlowe is an overthinker. She needs action.”
“Y’all keep saying that like it’s simple.”
“With Harlowe?” he said. “It kinda is. The girl is a hopeless romantic. She reads romance books, and you know her better than anyone else. You know her favorite tropes. You know her favorite authors. You know her brain, and if you don’t”—he pulled out his phone and started scrolling—“she literally has a paper trail for you, dummy.” He turned the screen toward me, and Harlowe’s book socials popped up. I stared down at the videos of her laughing into the camera, ranting about books. Marcus clicked on a video titledBook Boyfriends Who Applied Pressureand then another one that saidGrand Gestures or Go Home.I stared down at the screen, throat tight. Harlowe always left instructions, even when she didn’t know they were for me.
“And for the record,” Mama cut in, pointing a finger between us, “I’m not happy you slept with your brother’s fiancée, and I might not love that you dating your brother’s ex, but I always knew you and that girl were something special, not just cute together. Y’all were friends, real friends. You and Harlowe have the kind of friendship you build a life on. She sees you, and you see her. Don’t lose it.”
Ma’s words landed right where they needed to and I leaned back in the recliner, eyes pointed at the TV. I couldn’t have told you what was on. Maybe I had been giving her too much space, calling it “respecting her boundaries” when really I was just sitting here letting fear and Simone’s old bullshit walk my person right out of my life. An idea started forming, piece by piece, before I could talk myself out of it. I pulled my phone back out, already opening Harlowe’s page, my mind working faster than my fingers.
“Oh, hell,” Mama said, watching me. “He plotting. Lord, be a fence. Don’t get too crazy now, Hasheem.”
I couldn’t promise that, but I knew one thing. I wasn’t about to lose my best friend and my girl and not do shit about it.
I wasn’t usually the park outside a woman’s house type. That was stalker shit, but for Harlowe, my dumb ass was parked right across the street with the engine cut off. I contemplated if I should park a few houses down, but I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to know I was here, choosing her until she chose me back.
My hand brushed the copper key on my key ring. It was Harlowe’s emergency key. She’d given it to me a few years ago in case she locked herself out or some shit. I could’ve used it, walked right in, dropped everything on her coffee table, sat my ass on her couch, and waited for her to talk to me. I could’ve shown her ass that I was crazy about her, but the best friend side of me respected her space. I dropped the key amongst the others on my key ring and reached for the white Chanel gift bag sitting in my passenger seat. I got out of the car and walked to her porch. I felt like a damn delivery driver. The motion light flicked on, and I hoped she would just come out and talk to me, but I knew she wouldn’t. I set the Chanel gift bag with the wrapped book and all her favorite snacks in front of her door and laid a small envelope on top. Inside, on a plain white card, I’d handwritten a message.
Lowe,
Since you’re “too busy” to talk to me, I figured we could let somebody else do the talking for a while. Buddy read? Meet underneath the tree at 7pm tomorrow to discuss.
– Hash
I knocked twice loud enough to be heard and then moved fast, jogging back down the steps and across the grass to my car. By the time I slid behind the wheel, a nigga was antsy as hell.For a minute, I thought maybe she wasn’t home, or she’d seen me through the peephole and pretended she wasn’t. I was just about to pick up the phone and call her when the door opened and she stepped onto the porch barefoot in an oversized T-shirt I recognized immediately. It was my fire academy T-shirt she’d stolen from me years ago. I stared at her. The reality of how much I missed her hit me hard. Her extensions were gone and replaced with her natural puff, and she didn’t have on any makeup. Harlowe was always beautiful, butchilling at homeHarlowe was my favorite.
She looked down, saw the bag, and frowned a little. She picked up the envelope first, thumb sliding under the seal. Her lips moved as she read. Then her eyes lifted, automatically scanning the street. When she spotted my car, I lifted my hand and waved. For half a second, her eyes got bright, like she forgot she was mad at me and almost smiled. Then she remembered. Her smile dropped, and her gaze narrowed into a squint. She looked back down, opened the bag, and peeked inside long enough for a little smile to appear on her face. Then she stuffed everything back in like she was scared of letting herself react too much. Without looking up again, she turned, went inside, and shut the door.
I sat there, heart doing the absolute most over a closed door and a few seconds glance at her, then I picked up my own copy ofMaybe I Need Youby Briyanna Michelle from the passenger seat, flipped it open to chapter one, and leaned back. If she tossed it in the donation pile, fine. If she read along and pretended she wasn’t, also fine. If all this did was remind her I was still here, still choosing her, even from outside, it was worth it. Somewhere inside that house, I pictured her curled up in that big cozy chair she had, thumb hovering over that first page, fighting with herself.
“Day one,” I whispered to myself, getting comfortable and propping the book up on the steering wheel. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Hasheem had been puttingbooks on my porch and parking his Dodge Charger across the street from my house for five days now, and I was proud of myself for not folding day one. Best friends didn’t do this. Best friends didn’t camp out on your block like a one man book club. Best friends didn’t leave you five different friends-to-lovers romance novels, five little love notes, five Chanel bags, and five separate invitations to come outside and talk. No, this was boyfriend behavior, and I was still out here acting like choosing us as a couple meant losing us as friends, when clearly that ship had sailed. We’d left Zanzibar good, really good. I was the one that got home, saw a few comments from old classmates online about how trifling I was for dating brothers, and panicked.
On day one, it was just a book I’d never read, a Chanel gift I absolutely did not deserve, and all my favorite snacks. I told myself I wasn’t even going to read it. That was a lie. By that night, I had finished and annotated the entire thing. By day three, I was sure he wouldn’t be out there. He had a full-time job, a whole city to protect, actual fires to put out. There was no way he had time to sit at my curb and read a book. Wrong. When I peeked through the blinds, a whole firetruck was parked on my block, and Hasheem and his crew were posted up on the engine, reading like it was the most regular shit in the world. Today, he was kicked back in a folding chair on the strip of grass across from my house, and I was still hiding behind my blinds, trying to act like I wasn’t swooning and falling deeper in love with this man.
