“Love me still?”Darius asked, but there was snideness tothat.
Snideness that was hiding fear.
I stared at him.
Then I said, “Yes.”
He shook his head.“You know the man I am.That shit isgonna haunt us for the rest of our lives.”
“It’s gone.Over,” I returned.
“Really?So why, when Liam always wanted to be a lawyer sohe can get into politics, is he nowtalkin’ aboutgoing to work for Lee?”
“He is?”
“Yeah.”
Wow, my boy sure shared a lot with his daddy.
“Well, probably because all you all arebadasses,and he thinks that’s cool.”
“No, it’s because he knows he’ll never become a senator whenhis daddy’s an ex-drug dealer.”
I started toward him.“It’s not that.He’s sixteen.Hedoesn’t really know what he wants to be.But he’ll go through a lot of thingshe’s sure he wants to be before he figures out which path to take.”I stoppedin front of him, but I didn’t touch him.“He’s proud of you.”
“I’m an ex-thug who fucked his momma when he was asleep andhad to sneak around to shoot hoops with him.”
“Stop that,” I hissed.
“It’s true.”
“That’s not who you are.It’s what you had to do.”
“So why didn’t you tell me about Michael?”
“First, how did you know about Michael?”
“You answer.”
“No.”I said firmly, but then shared, “I didn’t keep it fromyou.”I threw both hands out beside me.“You’ve been around the last threeweeks.I’ve been kinda busy.”
“And we’ve beendoin’ a lot ofcatchin’ up, baby, and no mention of Michael.”
“You’re right.Because I didn’t know how to tell you becauseyou’re insanely protective.”
Before he could retort, I held a palm in front of his faceand his head jerked back when I did.
I dropped it and continued.
“And that’s not a complaint.I love that about you.Do Ilove you did what you did?No.Do I love why you felt you had to do it?”It wasme who got in his face then.“Yes.One hundred percent.”I leanedback.“I wish you didn’t carry the burden you carry because you made decisionsat seventeen years old no seventeen-year-old should have to make in order totake care of your family.But you made those decisions.You carried themthrough.They weren’t great, but you are far from the first person to makethose same decisions, and you won’t be the last.But you’re not Tony Soprano,for goodness sakes, and I’m not Carmella.”
“Malia—”
I shook my head again.“Unh-unh.No.I’m glad we’re talking about this because we need to have this conversationso we can be done with it…forever.And I’m glad Liam is out on a dateso we can do it, even though you two arestillganging up on me, and Idon’t think he should date on weekdays.But whatever.That’s obviously going tobe my lot.I’ve decided just to go with it.Like you two shouting at each otherall the time.It drives me nuts.You both have feet.Walk to the other personand say what you have to say like you have manners.You both have phones, ifyou’re being lazy, text.But all this shouting,Lord.It does my headin.”
“As cute as you are, babe, you might wanna stay on target,”he warned.
Good advice.
