“Get girls to do stuff like that for you.” He nods toward Slim ambling our way, holding a full paper plate like it’s fine china. “I bet she didn’t even laugh in your face when you asked her to fix your food, did she?”
I snort. “Why the fuck would she laugh in my face?”
Redness spreads across his cheeks as he shrugs and looks down. “I don’t know. Girls can be…difficult sometimes.”
“Womenare only as difficult as you make ‘em. You looking at it all wrong.”
“How so?”
“You a man, ain’t you?”
He nods. “Yeah, and Dad says as a man I should be more assertive with women. He says I’m too passive.”
I laugh. “I respect Lucky, but I disagree. As a man, you gotta understand that women are born soft, and it’s your job to keep them that way. You ain’t got to walk around holdin your nuts or no shit like that, you know what I’m saying? But you gotta take care of your woman—open doors for her wherever y’all go. If you only got twenty dollars to your name, then you give her fifteen and watch her hold shit down while you go hustle and get that shit back. You hold her when she needs to be held and listen when she’s telling you all the bad shit she went through before she found you. As long as you take care of a woman, you ain’t got to worry about her laughing in your face when you tell her to fix you a plate of food, and you don’t have to change nothing about yourself to make that happen.”
“Wow…” He sighs, staring at Slim as she gets closer to us. “So that’s the cheat code, huh?”
“Yup…that’s it. It’s simple.”
Donovan likes my baby.
He likes herbad. I see it in his eyes.
They’re low and slanted like he took a toke of the dankest weed, but all he’s doing is staring at Slim strut around in a yellow sundress that clings to her ass and waist in a way that I ain’t okay with. She even straightened her hair and pulled it into a half-up, half-down style I’ve never seen her wear, and I think she has on makeup. Her nails and toes are the pale pink color she sent me a picture of from the nail shop this morning because she thinks I care about what she spends my money on. She looks exactly like a woman I shouldn’t have the privilege of touching.
I grab the cup of Jack Lucky poured me at the domino table and take a sip. It’s the only thing that keeps me from telling Donovan to keep his eyes off Slim’s perky nipples that push against her dress while she walks around bra-less.
“You guys aren’t…” He looks away from her nipples to his swinging legs. “You know?”
My stomach cramps at the thought of tellinganotherperson me and Slim’s business.
“Nah…we just friends.”
“Cool.”
He looks back at her, then back at his black and white Dunks. “What do you think she’ll say if I ask her out for drinks?”
I take another sip of the Jack. “I don’t know, man. I never asked a woman out.”
He laughs. “See what I mean? How do I even get to that point? Like what do you mean you’ve never even asked a woman out, but they still do stuff for you?”
“It ain’t what you think. Asking a woman out and planning a date is a luxury—not some lame shit. Real players know that.”
He glances over at me like he can see I’ve spent most of my life training for a lifelong war that happens every Sunday in thegarage bays at his daddy’s gas station instead of living a normal life where I ask out women that look and talk like Slim. He wouldn’t understand that there’s no reason for me to plan a date for a woman when I can’t even see past Sunday most weeks.
He kicks his legs back and forth while a sad silence sits between us.
“You know, me and Pops pray for you,” he mutters. “He says you did what you had to do.”
“‘Preciate it, D.”
“And it’s not like he wanted to give up the place to Mr. Barnes, but…”
“It’s politics. I know.”
He sighs. “Yeah, it was either his family or the business, and Mom would die without him, so…”
I take another sip, letting the burn soothe the fiery ache in my chest while we stare at Slim pointing one of the boys toward the bathroom.
