Blue skies stretch across the city, and white clouds float above Nevada’s mountains. Smitty said they looked like somebody painted them when I texted him a picture while we stopped for gas as soon as we made it to Vegas, because we ain’t actually get on a plane and fly anywhere. We loaded up my truck with all the shit that mattered to us and drove all twenty-one hours to Nevada because Slim is obsessed with the little things, like making sure I saw the Rio Grande, and making sure we made love at least once in the backseat of my truck when the sun rose over the mountains in Tucson.
She picked out a high-rise condo near the Strip because she said I deserved to wake up and see the city every morning, but Vegas’ skyline ain’t nothing like Houston’s, and the air ain’t the same either. Sometimes I open up the windows to taste it on days like this, where the wind shakes our condo and makes my stomach flip-flop.
Slim says I’ll get used to the building’s swaying eventually.
“That’s how it’s designed,” she muttered one stormy night between yawns after waking up to me sitting with my back against the headboard. “It’s absorbing the wind. It’s keeping the building from falling over.”
Afterward, she climbed on top of me and held me like she said she wanted to do during that one and only time we broke up.
This fancy condo she likes ain’t our forever home. It’s just where God told me we needed to land in the meantime. He ain’t talk to me in the way I always imagined Him talking when Faye would take us to church, though. Instead, His goodness came through the day after I delivered Melo’s money. It happened in the Whole Foods parking lot where Chico opened his car door from the parking spot next to ours at the same time Slim opened the passenger door to my truck. Then, God’s mercy came in the first words that came out of Chico’s mouth when his eyes trailed from my hand on Lovie’s thigh to my face.
“Faye said she been wanting to talk to me in private about you maybe going up to Vegas to work with my buddy, Roberto,” he said. “I planned to call him and vouch for you because I owe your daddy. He paid a debt or two for me down at Lucky’s back in the day. I just wanted to check in with you before I did it. I been tryna call Faye to get your number to connect with you, but I ain’t been able to get in touch with her since her and Kenny, you know…”
Me and Slim had nodded at the same time in response. I tried to think of something to say, but I couldn’t. The whole neighborhood knew what that “you know” meant.
Kenny and Faye’s breakup was ugly. She showed back up on Joliet the same way she showed up all those years ago—with a duffel bag over her shoulder and tears in her eyes.
“I chose,” she whispered as soon as I opened the door. “Now what, Rich?”
Now her address is 2308 Joliet Street again, and her name is on the deed where it always belonged.
The familiarclink,clink,clinkof Slim’s heels makes me look away from the window.
“Uh-huh. Well, we won’t be able to fly in until the fifteenth. Can you schedule his neurologist appointment for thatMonday?” Her soft murmurs get closer to our bedroom as I put on my other loafer.
She lets out a giggle that only comes out when Senior calls her “sweet pea.” “Yeah…I’ll let him know. Uh-huh. I love y’all too. You guys enjoy church. Pray for us?—”
The clinking of her heels gets louder, cutting between her words and the sounds from my phone until she’s gliding right in front of me with her hand on her hip.
“Breaking news on this New Year’s Eve—several residents of the Bayou Crest community are voicing their concerns about newly elected District D councilman, Melo?—”
She walks up to our dresser, turns my phone off, then turns around with her eyebrow raised.
“I just wanted to know what the weather was like back home,” I mutter.
“Uh-huh.” She crosses her arms, smirking. “I asked Faye for you. She said, it’s sixty-two there…and there’s always the weather app on your phone too.”
Her sparkling minidress hugs her curvier body that I stare at in awe when she gets dressed because one crazy ass part of being domesticated is constantly imagining what it’d be like if I gave in and gave my baby that son she’s always begging me for.
“And the Knights lostagainon Sunday. So no need to check the scores tonight at dinner.”
I chuckle, standing up straight and tugging at the bottom of the most expensive white t-shirt I’ve ever worn because Slim shops like a motherfucka, and when she’s not shopping, she’s sewing or imagining something she can sew.
“Am I in trouble?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “No…not when you look like this, you’re not.”
I snort. “What I look like, baby?”
Her nostrils flare, and she walks up to me, dusting off my shoulders and pulling my necklace out of my shirt. Even with heels on, she only comes up to my chin.
She eyes my slacks and loafers and the leather jacket she left for me on the bed.
“I’m not letting my intrusive thoughts win…” her voice trails off while she picks up the jacket. “But you know exactlywhatyou look like right now. Don’t start with me.”
I snicker as she shakes the jacket out and slides it onto my arm with a smile that doesn’t light up her eyes, despite it being New Year’s Eve.
Something’s wrong.
