When he drops his hand, his touch lingers with the only words I held onto—the ones about Phat being mine while I’m home.
* * *
CeCe looks like Mom.
Her head is bald like Mom’s was the summer she stopped leaving the house. I make sure my eyes don’t widen at her clavicles jutting from her thin skin.
“You look just like your mama.” She smiles, reaching up and smashing her hands against my cheeks as I stand in the front doorway.
I smile back because she sounds better in person than she ever did booming from the speaker on Mom’s phone when Mom needed a pick-me-up from “CeCe back home.” She has the same drawl as Phat and Mom, and I think I’m obsessed with it.
I close my eyes, inhaling the cognac from her breath. The smell makes my mouth water.
“I know,” I reply.
The last time somebody told me I looked like Mom was on a yacht in Malibu, where we celebrated her forty-first birthday. I can’t remember who said the words. I just remember feeling as good as CeCe after I heard it.
“Mama, you can’t just be grabbing that boy face like that.”
My dick jumps and my eyes pop back open.
“Oh hush, Phat,” CeCe replies, pulling me into their house by my cheeks.
When she releases me from the shackles of her moist hands, my eyes find who they’ve been searching for since she ran out of practice to take care of that “something” Marcus was talking about. My chest has been as empty as those bleachers ever since.
Phat stares at me from the entryway in their tiny living room with her hands behind her back, like CeCe is conspiring with the enemy. She doesn’t know whether she likes me or hates me and I ain’t do shit to her, but Mom said that’s how it’d be for the rest of my life.
“People who don’t know you from a can of paint gon' hate you for whatever they think you did or didn’t do,”she said.“Your response to that hate dictates the type of man you are.”
I don’t know how to respond to a perfect girl that hates me and is curious about me though.
She rolls her eyes and my stomach jumps like my dick. She’s not even dressed in anything exciting—just a black tank that shows the little curve at the bottom of her stomach and grey leggings.
“Ason, Phat in a mood ‘cause she got another mouth to cook for.”
It’s been a while since anybody in Houston called me Ason just like it’s been a while since anybody called meThe Kid. Mom and Granny were the only ones that called me Ason here and when they left, I never thought I’d hear it in Houston again.
“Whatever,” Phat replies. “I ain’t in no mood.”
I raise my eyebrow and stumble behind CeCe as she pulls me past Phat and deeper into their house. “If I knew I was gon' cause all this drama, I would’ve bought us dinner.”
CeCe whips around with a grin and slaps my wrist. “You smooth like yo daddy, ain’t it?”
“Nah… just trying not to cause more trouble.” I chuckle. “Marcus here?”
“He ain’t been here all day.” CeCe grunts out a laugh and leads me into their galley kitchen while Phat’s bare feet patter behind us, making Marcus’ absence sting less.
The evidence of her cooking is spread around their kitchen—grease splatters on the stovetop, smoke floating from a skillet, and half-chopped vegetables. It don’t look shit like the “something good” Marcus promised me because I don’t think Phat knows what she’s doing.
Mom would’ve called her a little lady. She used to tell me that little ladies weren’t grown; they were trying to be, but that’s what made them perfect. She swore I’d fall in love with one, just like she swore I’d fall in love with a girl with a name as pretty as Lourdes. Pops always told me not to believe her because she was a lame, hopeless romantic—especially when she got some wine in her system.
Phat shuffles in front of me and CeCe, easing back in front of the stove.
There’s a wet spot on the back of her ass. It seeps through her leggings and shows the flower printed underwear she’s wearing.
“C’mere, Ason. I wanna show you something.” CeCe yanks my arm and pulls me toward their round dining table before I can get to know their house.
There was no gentle nudging to toe my shoes off at the front door or the courtesy tour showing me the bathroom for guests, so I’m fumbling around like I been here before. It smells like a house that’s raised generations and looks like the one Mom told me she grew up in.
