“I do.” I exhaled slowly. “I want to take you on real dates. Plan a vacation somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. Do right by you. Earn the pleasure of changing your name.”
A smile tugged at her mouth.
“I’d like that. But right now, go shower. You know the rules.”
I stood and leaned down, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. The slight hum she let out told me I’d surprised her, but she didn’t pull away.
By the time I came back, steam still rising from my skin and a fresh t-shirt and joggers covering the scars and tattoos I’d collected over the years, she had everything ready. Plates steaming with food that smelled like home, wine poured into glasses that caught the candlelight. She sat there with her legs crossed under the table, waiting like the queen she was.
I dropped into the chair across from her, she reached for my hand, and I placed my hands in hers while she said a quick prayer:
“Father, thank you for bringing Lesley home safe tonight. Thank you for this food, for this moment we get to share, and for whatever this is growing between us. I pray you protect him when he’s out there handling business I’m not aware of. Help me be the woman he needs me to be, and help him be the man you called him to be. Bless our hands, bless our hearts, and if this is real—if what we’re feeling is something you want for us—then show us the way forward. Keep us covered under your grace. Amen.”
Her thumb brushed over my knuckles as she spoke, and I felt every word settle into places I didn’t know were empty. She’d prayed for my protection in a world she was still learning, asked for wisdom about our future, and somehow managed to make it sound like she was talking to someone who gave a damn about what happened to people like me.
Picking up my fork, I cut into the steak she’d seared just right, the juice pooling on the plate next to roasted potatoes, crisped at the edges, and grilled zucchini, kissed with garlic and butter. One bite in and I had to shut my eyes, let the flavor sit. She hadn’t just cooked—she’d put herself in this plate. Time. Care. Love.
“You outdid yourself again, Co,” I said, voice low, steady.
She looked up, skeptical. “It’s just dinner.”
“Nah.” I shook my head, chewing slowly. “This is you putting love on a plate. This is the opposite of breakfast. Don’t downplay that.”
Her eyes softened before she caught herself and threw on that little shrug like she didn’t care. But I saw it. I always saw it. And sitting there across from her, candles flickering, her food in my mouth, I knew this was it. Not the streets. Not the money. This.
She smirked, creeping in the sass. “Don’t act like you don’t expect it at this point.”
“I do expect it,” I admitted. “That’s the problem. Shit don’t taste right anywhere else. You spoiled me.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she sipped her wine to hide it. “So, Grim—Lesley. The man who never talks about himself. What are we supposed to talk about? Favorite colors? Basic shit?”
I chuckled, leaned back. “You really wanna know that?”
“I wanna know you,” she said. “Not the boss. Just Lesley.”
I sat with that, chewing slowly, thinking on how to answer. “Not much to tell you ain’t already peeped. Came up fast, made money faster. Pops taught me the game. Mama died when I was two, so the rest was survival. Pops filled the house with women who weren’t her, but it never hit the same. So, I stayed to myself. Learned to build, learned to fight, learned to run shit. That’s me.”
She tilted her head, studying me, trying to see the cracks. “And what does Lesley want now?”
Nobody had asked me that in years.
I set my fork down. “Lesley wants peace. Routine. Wants to walk in the crib and know the same woman’s there every night. Wants dinner, conversation, that laugh you try to hide. Wants lazy mornings. Wants to hear you in the shower like you don’t know I’m listening.”
Her glass froze halfway to her lips before she let out a quiet laugh. “So, you do hear me.”
“Every note,” I said, smirking. “Don’t quit your day job, though.”
She gasped, threw a piece of bread at me, and for a minute, the room filled with the one thing I missed: her joy.
Ididn’t say anything for a moment. Just sat there watching him, blinking slowly, taking inventory of everything he’d just laid bare. He let me sit with it, weigh it, and process the magnitude of what he was offering. Because, to be honest, he hadn’t done right by me and hadn’t been fair. But tonight wasn’t about holding grudges—though I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him exactly how I felt.
“I like that version of you,” I said finally, my voice soft but warm. “Lesley.”
“I plan to give you more of him. I apologize again for disappearing. I had a lot going on, and this—checking in, being accountable to someone—shits new territory for me.”
The honesty in his voice caught me off guard. Here was this powerful man, this king of the city, admitting he didn’t know how to be someone’s person. It should have been a red flag, but instead it made something tender bloom in my heart.
I understood that struggle more than he knew. Connecting was hard when you’d learned how quickly you could lose someone. I’d watched my mother battle cancer alone while trying to raise me to be independent, never to need anyone the way she’d required my father—the man who walked out when things got too real, too hard. She’d taught me to be self-sufficient because she knew she couldn’t promise she’d always be here.
