“Yes…” I blurt. “And I won’t let you make him a man at seven.”
“Him?”
“We both know you’re gonna be a boy-dad. God wouldn’t bless you with anything else.”
He closes his eyes, shaking his head. “What I’mma do with you?”
I cover his hand with mine. “Keep holding me…keep letting me make love to you…keep protecting me. Let me go wherever you’re going. Just let me have you.”
“You supposed to…to be putting yourself back together. I’m supposed to be—fuck.”
“You’re supposed to be what?”
He opens his eyes. “Slim, you don’t make them type of plans with a man like me.”
His terrified eyes are wild now. They’re no longer sleepy slits coated with long lashes. They’re so wide the whites above his pupils show.
God, I’ve really gone and done it.
I poked, prodded, and twisted until I finagled the tiniest crack in his brain big enough for me to squeeze through.
“You need to be out in the ‘burbs in some big-ass house or back in school getting another degree. You need to live life for you right now—not for another stupid man,” he says.
“Damn, this isn’t the type of pillow talk I always fantasize about us having.”
He bangs his head against the headrest with a sad smile. “Why would you even fantasize about us pillow talking?”
I scoff. “How else am I supposed to put myself to sleep at night?”
“Oh, baby…” he coos softly, balling the napkin in his hand. “What I tell you about me and that forever shit, huh? I…I ain’t for?—”
He shakes his head instead of saying it.
“Why not?” I gulp down my impending tears. “Why can’t I have you?”
He drops the soiled napkin in the cupholder and wraps his hand around my cheeks. “Let me finish cleaning you up. You want me to bring you back home and put you in bed before Kenny and Faye get there? I think I been stupid enough tonight?—”
“Tell me.”
“Lovie.”
My breathing grows shallow as that crack in his brain closes, forcing me out.
“We just made love, Rich. I just promised you I’ll never look at another man the way I look at you while you came inside of me, and now you’re pushing me out again.” I ball my fist up,dropping it on his chest and gasping for air. “What the fuck? What the fuck do I have to do to get Senior’s voice out of your head? Huh?”
It grows silent until somebody bumps the side of his truck and makes his eyes veer toward his dark passenger window. They hiss out a “shit” then stumble off and his eyes roam back to me.
“I never even been on a plane before,” he mumbles.
“Ri—”
“I never been out of Texas. I don’t know what it feels like to wanna be something other than what I am. I can’t close my eyes and picture myself living in some other place. I…I don’t even know what the fuck is out there for me…or for us. All I know is survival, and you don’t want that in a man.”
A lump forms in my throat. “You sound like Senior.”
“Because that’s who I came from. That’s…that’s what I am. I don’t know nothing else. I don’t know how tobeanything else but what he taught me to be. I’m his legacy.”
I pick up his limp hands and drop them on my naked waist.
