“What’s wrong?” she gasps landing on my lap. “Why you so mad? Was it your dad—”
“I’m not mad.”
“If you’re not mad, I need to go back to work. I thought something was wrong.”
Pops don’t even know when I’m fucking mad but somehow this girl that I’msoobsessed with thinks she knows. She can’t even tell another man that she’s taken, but she thinks she knows when I’m mad.
Mom would tell me it was my ego that had me tripping. I hear her clapping and laughing in the back of my head when our lips collide and telling me thatallformer little ladies thought they knew everything just because they weren’t little anymore.
I yank at the string dangling in the back of her smock and rip through the knot because it’s just another thing in the way of me getting back to the one place I need to be. I pull it over her head, taking her t-shirt with it. All her breaths and complaints run together while I stare at her breasts spilling out of her bra.
“I’m being for real. Your lil’ girlfriend is nosey as hell. If I’m not back in five minutes, she gon' tell our manager, Kelvin, I left and then I’ll get written up. I’m already halfway employed.”
Womp. Womp. Womp.
Why didn’t Mom tell me that little lady’s complaints sounded like nails on a fucking chalkboard when I wasn’t floating from 1942? I don’t even have any clever comebacks.
“Ason?”
I swallow at her cheeks jumping up and the way she’s straddling my lap. She even has the audacity to throw her arms around my neck like everything is cool, like I wasn’t pressing dudes over her, like I’m not going fucking insane with a bunch of feelings and nothing to numb them with, like I wasn’t experiencing a day I would remember from beginning to end for the first time in so long.
“Baby...” she mutters, tilting her head. “See, you ain’t even arguing with me right now. Man, what you so mad about?”
“Baby?” I frown, pushing my nose against hers.
Of all the things my brain wants to push out, that’s all it can produce because she had the nerve to call methat. I ain’t been that since I came out the womb.
“That’s what I said...” She closes her eyes when I nuzzle my nose against hers. “Baby.”
“I ain’t your baby.”
Her eyes spring open and I know this isn’t some shit I can take away from her. It’s an essential in her eyes.
“You ain’t grown,” I mutter, taking her bottom lip between my teeth. “Why you always wanna be so grown? You supposed to staymybaby forever. Why you don’t want that?”
A low whimper crawls from the back of her throat, making my body surge forward.
I guess the one good thing about going without 1942 is being able to feel every part of home, like the lacy fabric of Phat’s bra digging into my angry fingers, her pert nipple gliding across my tongue and her fingernails digging into my neck while she gasps for air. All of it blends together in a nice sensation that makes me think I took that shot of 1942 after all.
“Hey...” she squeals as I yank the rest of her dangling bra down her stomach. “That’s new. I bought it for you and you ain’t even look at it.”
“I’ll buy you another one,” I mutter, pulling her into my chest and reaching for her backpack in the front seat.
“What you looking for?”
“Condoms.”
She buries her head in my neck, laughing, while I unzip it and rifle past packs of bubblegum and notebooks.
“I don’t think I’m experienced enough to be carrying around condoms for spontaneous, angry after-practice love-making.”
After a long, hard blink, I let out a snort, pulling my hand out of her backpack. I collapse into the backseat, bringing her with me. It’s a mistake because she’s revved up and brave today, so she pulls my hand on top of the button on her jeans.
“But I want you to figure this shit out,” she says. “Because I wanna experience spontaneous, angry after-practice love-making for the first time.”
That’s all it takes for me to yank at the button and unfasten it. We work together, peeling the jeans off her legs, rolling my shorts down, and I can’t believe she let me talk her into my world so easily. I can’t believe she trusts methis much,but then again, it was what I wanted all along and like she said—I always got what I wanted.
I twist her body around in my lap and pull another pair of new lacy panties to the side, plunging inside of her. She takes me with her legs spread over my thighs like she’s had me a thousand times before. I bury my face in her neck while she pushes out high-pitched groans until she belts out the new word she associates with me now.
