I roll my eyes toward the ceiling, taking another sip out of his cup as he hovers over my ribs without touching them.
I glance at the meager piece of fish and two spears of asparagus that’s left on our plate. “You still haven’t eaten. We’re supposed to be eating together, remember?”
“Mhmm,” he hums, tilting his head with his eyebrows furrowed. “I’m gon’ eat. Don’t worry.”
He’s going to touch it again. It’s in the way his eyes volley from the bruise to me like he’s waiting for the moment I’m drunk enough to let him do it.
He lifts his hand and I lift mine too, pushing it between him and my abdomen as the liquor gurgles up my throat.
“You still feel it, even after drinking the liquor, huh?” he whispers with his hand hovering in the air.
I nod slowly.
I felt it with each chew and subsequent swallow. I felt it so much that I was starting to question his initial assessment of it just like he was, but I wouldn’t dare question him out loud.
“Why you ain’t say nothing?” he asks.
“I didn’t want to insinuate that you were wrong.”
He shakes his head, then nods toward my hand where the blunt dangles between my fingers. “Take a hit.”
I furrow my eyebrows at the blunt. “Of this?”
“Yeah…just a lil’ one, though. Nothing crazy. It ain’t gonna hurt you.”
I sit the glass down and lift the blunt, staring at the end he’d been wrapping his lips around while I ate. It looks nothing like the pathetic cigarillo Terrica and Meechie rolled the first andonlytime I smoked with them at Barnes-Blank Park.
I slowly bring it to my lips, but he snatches it from between my fingers before they can touch it and takes a long pull from it. His nostrils flare as he holds in the cloud of smoke and crooks his finger at me.
Moisture builds in my mouth as I follow that finger I know all too well now.
The Jack Daniel’s had made my brain a fuzzy mess of obsessive thoughts about him, his body, and his moist lips, so I lean forward, hovering above them, and he blows out a thick white cloud of smoke that I inhale with ease. It’s less harsh than the hits I took that time in the park and so smooth that I want to chase after it to swallow every morsel of himself he blew my way. Maybe smoking isn’t such a disgusting habit after all?
My shoulders droop.
God, I miss his taste.
I lean in and try to press my lips against his, but he wraps his hand around my throat, gently pushing me back because he’ssodamn strict.
I whine.
“What’s wrong?” he murmurs.
“You said you weren’t strict.”
“With Rasheeda, baby. I said I wasn’t strict withRasheeda. But with you…” His thumb grazes over my Adam’s apple as heshakes his head. “I gotta be or you’ll eat me alive. I told you I’m scared of you.”
I’m so wet now that I think I can feel every dribble leak into the seat of my panties, but I also inhaled the biggest cloud of smoke I’ve ever had in my life. The light, hazy feeling attacks my limbs and makes me curl my hand around his wrist as he holds me back from him. Next, it attacks my legs and makes them wrap around his tapered waist.
“Slim…” he warns, uncurling them from his waist with his other hand.
“Rich…”
The shitty weed Meechie stole from her brother had only left me with a headache and a bad cough, but Rich’s makes me beg for him while my body floats somewhere above my head.
“Lemme touch it so I can take care of it,” he utters.
“I can take care of it myself.”
