The driver tucked her head slightly, though I could still see most of her face in the rearview mirror. Then suddenly, her identity smacked me in the face.
“Cherry?”
“Hey, Ocean.” Her eyes closed briefly before she gave me a weak smile in the mirror. “Sometimes, people want to pretend they don’t know the drivers if they recognize them. I usually wait until they acknowledge me.”
“Understand.
She glanced at the passenger seat. “I hope you don’t mind riding with my daughter. Need to drop her off at a friend’s house, after I take you where you need to go.”
“Didn’t realize we had company. It’s cool.” I pulled out my cell to check my texts, wondering what I would get into tonight after I get my car back. Maybe meet up with my frat, Romeo and see if we can for the umpteenth time convince Enforcer to join us at the Flight Club and shoot darts. Then again, calling him Enforcer probably wasn’t appropriate anymore. Elijah hadn’t been the same since his wife ghosted him and left him by text. These days, he doesn’t do anything but work and take care of his daughter. Further solidifying my decision to not have children. Parenthood forced you to make sacrifices whether you wanted to do it or not.
Or I could spend time with a woman. Maybe call Tracie who’s been blowing up my cell lately. She’s always down for dinner and smashing. I had options to ease the small sting of Soraya’s rejection, though ironically the woman from my past transporting me to my car wasn’t one.
More out of politeness than genuine interest, I asked without looking up from my phone, “How you been?”
“Okay. I live here now.”
“Everybody is moving here. Traffic is a beast more than ever.” I chuckled, placing my phone face down on my lap. “How long?”
Cherry glanced at me through the mirror and refocused on the road. She seemed different. Quiet and reserved. Not the aggressive, loud, fun woman who kicked it with me while I was in Charlotte at my fraternity conference some years ago. A one-night stand that ended up being a weekend of fucking until we were sore. We both knew what it was and left without sharing contact information. I assumed Cherry wasn’t her real name and she’d only known my line name. She was still an attractive woman, though smaller than what I recalled. Funny how I felt no attraction as I stared at her through her rearview mirror.
“Going on four years. Didn’t really want to come back home.”
“I didn’t know you were from here.” I must have been really drunk that I didn’t even remember we were from the same city. Then again, she might have told me. It had to be eight years ago, given that in two more years we would be celebrating another decade of our regional conference.
“We didn’t do a lot of talking the last time we saw each other.” Our eyes locked in the rearview mirror. She looked away first to pat her daughter’s jean-clad knee.
“No, we didn’t.” I smiled. It was a good weekend of catching up with my brothers and lots of drinking, getting high, and sex. The type of weekend I didn’t do anymore.
“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
A small hand touched Cherry’s thigh, and my heart almost leaped out of my chest.
“The fuck?” I muttered and stared at my left wrist. The café au lait mark shaped like the California coast matched the one on her left wrist.
Cherry’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror at my confused one. “Can you watch your mouth?”
“Yeah…yeah…sorry, Cherry,” I mumbled.
“Mara.”
“Mara.” I amended and leaned forward. “What’s …um…her…your daughter’s name?”
“Jussica. Jessica with a ‘u’. wanted to call her ‘Justice’ but thought that might be too pretentious and a hard name for her to live up to.” She chuckled as she slanted an adoring gaze at her daughter. “But I should have, the way this one argues with me about everything, especially if she feels she’s been wronged.”
My stomach clenched tighter at the description I’d heard my whole life. “How old is she?”
“I’m seven. Eight on July 8. See, I remember,” The little girl replied.
“Shh,” She admonished.
“He asked how old I am,” Jussica retorted.
Explaining myself even after my mother told me to be quiet was definitely something I would do when I was her age. I remember hating when adults talked around me like I wasn’t there. Shit. It had to be a coincidence. Just because we might have had sex eight years ago doesn’t mean that the girl directly in front of me is my blood.
“And I told you to be quiet.”
Jussica sighed loudly.
