“You’re right, I just feel like I wasn’t paying attention enough. She had to have been showing signs. There are always signs,” I cried out. My chest rose and fell as I tried to get myself to calm down.
“Or sometimes shit just happens, and we have no control over it.” Silence enveloped us as we continued our ride. My sniffles slowly calmed down and faded away. I could still see PJ and Zoo a few cars ahead of us. They had on their emergency lights and still wasn’t moving through the thick line of cars ahead of us.
“How’s your dad?”
For a moment, my eyes hung on Brooklyn, in shock at the fact he actually remembered what I told him that night we bumped into each other at the hospital. ‘Til this day, Teddy hadn’t even asked if my father was doing ok, and he was my damn man then. For Brooklyn to remember, really struck a nerve in my heart.In a good way.
“He’s doing better now. My mom stays on him about eating healthy and putting those damn pork rinds down but he’s old and set in his ways. He’s not stopping anything, not even with a scare like that. That reminds me, I owe you a shirt and your girlfriend a plate.”
“I’m good on the shirt, and that wasn’t my girl then and she’s not my girl now. I was being nice, not knowing she lied and said she didn’t have food and couldn’t leave work because they were short-handed. I ain’t fucked with her lying ass since. Then, the way she came at you pissed me off because she tried to make it like we were more than what we were. She was just something to do until I found someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
“How old are you? Aren’t you a little too young to be looking for someone to spend the rest of your life with?”
“I’m twenty-five, and I’m never too young for that. Not in my eyes. I just don’t want to settle down with any ol’ body, and Emily was just that.”
“But she was good enough to fuck?” I retorted, causing him to grumble.
“Yea. Her attitude and her pussy are two different things. It’s not like I was just out here fucking her daily and feeding her lies about us being together. She knew what it was, and she was ok with what it was until she wasn’t. I fell back, and she pushed harder. I’m usually at my studio working. Shit, ninety-seven percent of the time, that’s where I am. I’on have time for shit but money. If we kicked it, we kicked it. If we didn’t, then…” He shrugged off the rest of the sentence.
“Don’t sit over there and look at me like I’m some fuck boy, Bri.”
“You are, Brooklyn.”
“You don’t know that.” His eyes darted towards me, then back to the road.
“I know what you just said, and it screams I’ma fuck boy.”
“Aight. I won’t try to convince you that I’m not.”
“Why not? You don’t care about what people think of you?” Brooklyn had me turning in my seat to get a better view of him.
“It’s their opinion and it’s what I know. Usually, what I know overpowers what someone else thinks about me. The truth is, I’m twenty-five years old and in my eyes, I’m already halfway dead. I wasn’t raised to be with this woman and that woman. None of us were. Sin is only a year older than I am and you see the way he’s going hard for yo’ girl.
When I find that one woman that I can’t breathe without, then I know I’ve found my person. The one who will have me changing from being in the studio ninety-seven percent of the time to me giving her that time instead. I’ll still get money, but making sure my woman is good and we are happy would be my main concern. The girls I’ve been meeting haven’t been that, so I don’t waste their time or mine. I let them know and I move around. Simple as that. It’s someone that I’m interested in, I guess I gotta physically bump… into her again. Maybe the second time’s the charm.”
Realizing what he was saying, I fought back the smile that tried to come forth.
“You don’t have to run game on me.”
“I’m not. I’ll never do that. How do you think we’ve been ending up around each other lately? I found myself asking Zoo and Sin what’s the move and if they said they were going somewhere with y’all, I was leaving the studio on two wheels. Tonight, I made sure I left the studio in time to make it to tonight's game. Zoo and Sin dragged my ass about them having to beg me to get out of the studio, and now all of a sudden, I wanna go to the game with them.”
“Why did you come to the game?” I asked him, anxiously waiting on his reply.
“It’s because I had my eyes on someone. I watched you command attention as you strutted back and forth in your heels like they were some tennis shoes, not missing a beat. That shit was sexy as fuck to me. Each time I saw you, I thought you were beautiful, passionate about what you loved, beautiful, and a boss.”
“You already said beautiful.”
“The last beautiful was directed towards your body, the first one was for your face.” He smiled a lopsided grin at me. “Tell me something about you, though. While we have this little time together.”
“Not you acting like a reporter. I get enough of questions after the games.” I laughed then thought of something simple to tell him. “Umm my name is Brianna Bronx Kincade; I’ll be twenty-six in a few months and—”
“Back it up to that middle name,” he interrupted. “Where did Bronx come from? Because now I’m feeling like we were really meant to collide that night in the hospital. Brooklyn and Bronx sound good as hell together.”
“Oh gosh. My mom is from Brooklyn, New York and hated that my dad talked her into moving to Florida. She wanted to keep a part of that with her so, Brianna Bronx was born.” The way he smiled at me had me trying to hold my own damn smile in. I was trying not to do this childish school girl giggle but he had me blushing just from the way he looked at me.
“It’s beautiful, just like you so it fits.”
Before I could speak, my phone went off.
