“Yep,” I replied, checking my phone again before locking it.
On the screen was a picture of the inside of mine and Dai’s wrists where we had each other’s initials tatted. She’d made the picture my screensaver the day we got the tattoos.
“Pryce.” Alexis called to me.
“Wassup?”
“You know you can talk to me. I know you’re not the talkative type, but maybe I can provide some insight on what has you sitting in my living room in the dark.”
I didn’t reply. There was nothing to say. I damn sure wasn’t about to sit and talk about Dai with a woman I’d just finished fucking. And pushing me to put words to thoughts that had nothing to do with her would only piss me off, so silence was best. Picking up my sneakers, I stepped into them. Out the corner of my eye, I could see her slide down off the arm of the chair and onto the cushion.
“You know,” she started slowly, “for someone so handsome, you sure are mean as hell.”
I glanced up at her with a straight face. She wasn’t wrong, so I wasn’t about to argue with her assessment. I preferred people think of me in that light. This way, they thought twice about playing with me. Dai always said I was too serious. My family seemed to think the same.
“I’m glad you’re not that way in the bedroom,” she added with a giggle.
“Treat the pussy nice so it do what you say,” I simplified while standing up from the couch.
She licked her lips. “And that you do.”
I pulled my car keys from my pocket and looked down at them. “I’ma head out. Come lock up.”
She got up and stood in front of me. I was six foot three, so I towered over her. “Anytime I hit you, you pull up late, and you look tired. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
“Six months ago,” I replied then walked around her to the front door.
She followed behind me and leaned against the doorframe. “You ever gonna spend the night? We both know my bed is comfortable.” She smiled.
“Yeah… to fuck in. But as long as I got a bed to sleep in, I won’t be sleeping in yours.”
She let out a laugh. It was the kind of laugh you released when you’d been rejected, and you made an attempt to hold it down. I didn’t try to clean up what I said either because I meant it.
“You know, soon, that woman you’ve been missing will no longer be a thought. I try not to come on too hard, but I see I’ma have to show you that the grass can be greener if I’m on the other side.”
“If that’ll help you sleep tonight, then I’ll let you have it. Be cool.”
With no further words, I opened the door and walked out into the hallway. Headed for the stairs, my phone vibrated in my hand. My chest jumped. For a split second, I thought it was Dai finally responding. I looked down at the screen, and it was a message from one of my workers. I read it quickly and determined it wasn’t an emergency that I needed to address. Forwarding his message to the manager of my business, I proceeded to take the steps downstairs to my car.
Hopping inside, I thought about what Alexis said about the grass being greener on her side. What she needed to understand was that so long as Adai Heaven Townsend walked this earth, there wasn’t shit that she or any other female could offer me better than her.
“Forty-eight hours,” I muttered to myself.
Adai may have been gone a while, but I was still that nigga that meant what I said. I didn’t mind showing her better than I could tell her.
After an hourof sitting in silence with my thoughts once I got home, I eventually fell asleep in the living room. Out of habit, I was up at eight a.m. when my alarm went off. The first thing I did was check my phone that sat face up on the coffee table. There were text notifications but still nothing from Dai. Locking it, I tossed it back on the table and laid back down on the couch for a few to map out my day. After a few minutes, I got up to shower, change clothes, and tidy up the crib.
That was something that rubbed off on me from Dai. She’d always be around the house cleaning up shit that didn’t need to be cleaned. I guess it was my weird way of connecting with her in her absence. By the time I was done, it was a little after ten. Imade my way to the kitchen to make myself a protein smoothie –– banana, peanut butter, vanilla protein powder, and almond milk. I went to grab the Ninja blender from under the sink and found a note written in her script. It read, USE ME THEN WASH ME. THANK YOU.
Chuckling, I shook my head and set the note aside. After blending the ingredients to my liking, I transferred it to a glass. Before I could try it, my doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting company, so I walked toward it with no sense of urgency.
“Who is it?” I called out once in front of the door.
“It’s Key,” my cousin, Kyiris, replied.
I opened the door, and she stood with her back facing me and her phone pressed to her ear, talking.
“No, no, no, what we’re not gonna do is make y’all problem my problem,” she spoke quickly. “I paid for delivery at a set time and pick up at a set time. There’s no compromising.” Turning toward me, she walked straight past me, into my house, like I was invisible.
