“I’m not surprised,” I said, and I meant it. “You always had more sense than everybody around you. I’m proud of you. Real talk. You went and got it.”
Something in her face softened at that, just briefly, before she pulled it back together.
We stayed at that bar for a while after that. Ordered more drinks, passed conversation back and forth like no time had gone anywhere. She told me about her people back home, who had gotten married, who had kids, who was still doing the same thing they were doing as teenagers. She laughed telling me about her brother getting locked up over something stupid, and I laughedwith her because some things never changed no matter where you came from.
Then she asked about my family.
I felt it coming before she even finished the sentence. And when she asked, I picked up my glass and took a slow drink and just said, “All is well.” Left it right there. Didn’t elaborate, didn’t add anything to it. She looked at me like she knew I was leaving something out, but she was smart enough not to push. She saw how fucked up my family was back then, so she knew things are only worse now.
There was no way that tonight I was going to sit here and tell this woman that my father was in the ground, that my mother had lost herself so completely she didn’t even recognize her own name half the time, and that both my brothers had just become my enemies. I wasn’t built for that kind of conversation. Not with her. Not with anybody.
She reached over and put her hand on top of mine on the bar.
“I can’t believe you’re really sitting here,” she said quietly. “I only ever see you in my dreams.”
I looked down at her hand, then back up at her face. Something moved through my chest that I didn’t have a name for and didn’t want to think about.
“What kind of dreams yo ass be having about me?” I asked, and my voice came out lower than I intended, with something behind it that I hadn’t planned on putting there. I was damn near flirting with her ass. The liquor had kicked in.
She looked at me for a second, held it, then said, “Use your imagination.”
That was it. That was all she said.
And my body responded before my brain could talk it out of it. I knew like hell she’d seen my dick rise in my pants. Just off a conversation. I felt it happen and I wasn’t even embarrassed about it, that’s how far gone I already was just sitting next to her. She looked down at my jeans and when she looked back up she dragged her bottom lip slow between her teeth and didn’t say a word.
And right then I caught myself. Her biting her lips was making me want to see what her mouth did.
I pulled back mentally and felt the irritation rise up in my chest, but it was directed inward. Because I knew this feeling. I’d been here before. Different woman, different city, and I’d let myself get pulled in the same exact way. By a pretty damn face.Tonight I was realizing that I was the kind of nigga that would always let a woman be my distraction. Why was I thinking like this, when I had so much shit on my plate to handle.
I hat let Cherish slide past every wall I had because she was beautiful and I stopped thinking straight. And look where that had landed me. Getting left behind like trash, then tied to a chair in a warehouse while my brother stood over me like a stranger, ready to murk my ass.
I wasn’t doing that again.
“It’s real good seeing you, Ivy,” I said, straightening up. “For real. But I can’t be the nigga for you. My head is in a different place right now. I got things I’m handling and I can’t afford to be distracted.”
She looked at me without blinking. “Who said anything about you being the man I need? Nigga, we at a bar, having drinks.”
I frowned slightly.
“All I need,” she said, calm and unbothered, “is to feel you tonight. That’s it. Then you can go on about your business like none of this happened.” She paused, let that land, then added, “Besides. We’re supposed to be married by now. You owe me that much at least. Give me just this one night.” She said with a straight face. She was so forward that it damn near scared me. Was this a set up?
I laughed before I could stop myself. A real one, deep from the chest. This woman was something else. She was more than I could have imagined.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the Hennessy. Maybe it was the fact that I had almost died today and my body hadn’t fully processed it yet. Maybe it was just her, the way she always had this pull on me since a kid that I never completely understood. But after a while, sitting there with her, I heard myself agree.
I don’t even remember making a conscious decision. It just happened.
Me agreeing to leave wit her ass and I hadn’t seen her in over fifteen years was crazy. Hell, me bumping into her ass was even crazier. But the feeling she gave me wasn’t as if we were strangers. Hell, like she said, she pose to be my wife. With all I had going on, I needed this relief. While Ivy was begging me to leave with her, she didn’t even know that I was about to tear her ass up. There was no way that I wasn’t.She said that she wanted to feel me, and she had no clue what she was even begging for.
We walked out together. She slid her hand into mine in the parking lot and I let her, and I felt it immediately — somethingdifferent. Not like with Cherish, where everything had been heat and chaos from the jump. This was something slower, something that moved in my chest instead of just below the waist. Like something that had been dormant for a long time had just registered a familiar frequency and started waking up. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t pull my hand away either. Hell, I didn’t know what to do with her.
I looked over at her when she stopped at her truck. She had a nice ass baby pink Ford Bronco, sitting on a clean set of rims that had no business on something that color. I shook my head slowly, smiling without meaning to. We came from the same nothing, same broke, same hand-me-down everything, and this woman was out here doing it.
“Get in,” she said, reaching for her door.
“I’ll follow you,” I told her. “We’ll check in together. I ain’t letting you take me nowhere, and I damn sure ain’t leaving my car here,” I pointed to my old school, and she smiled at the sight.
She cut her eyes at me but didn’t argue. I walked to my car and pulled out ahead of her, watching her headlights fall in behind me in the mirror. I decided on the Hilton. I knew that they all had great security and that the hotel wasn’t too far from my crib.
