“You good?” Sha’Nelle asked from behind me.
I lit the cigarette and took a pull before I answered, then nodded like it wasn’t nothin’.
“Yeah.”
She stepped closer, setting her bowl down on the table before she leaned her hip against it and looked at me.
“It don’t sound like it,” she said. “Whoever that was, though… they deserved that shit. I don’t never hear you go off like that.”
I let out a low laugh and leaned back in the chair.
“Just an ex,” I said. “It ain’t nothin’.”
She picked up her fork and took a bite of her salad while she watched me.
“She Black?” she asked, casual as hell.
I shook my head. “Nah. White. Blonde hair, blue eyes.”
She raised her brows a lil’.
“I ain’t surprised,” she said, then took another bite. “But… I’m surprised.”
That made me smirk. “I get that a lot.”
“What?” she asked.
“That people expect me to be with a Black woman,” I said, taking another pull from my cigarette. “Like it matter.”
She snorted softly and shook her head.
“Bein’ white don’t mean shit,” she said. “All I ever see you around is niggas anyway.”
I laughed under my breath. “Yeah, I hear that too.”
She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal and kept eating, but I kept my eyes on her a second longer than I needed to, watching the way she moved, and the way she sat in her body like she was comfortable in it.
I guess she felt my gaze. I saw it in the way her hand paused just a lil’ before she took another bite, and then she looked off to the side like she wasn’t about to give that attention too much space.
I leaned forward, restin’ my forearms on my knees.
“That look good,” I said, noddin’ toward her bowl.
She looked back at me and raised a brow.
“You want some?” she asked.
I tilted my head a lil’.
“You mind if I eat off your fork?”
That made her pause, and I watched the way her lips pressed together for a second before she lifted her eyes to mine and gave me a look that sat somewhere between playful and serious, likeshe was testing how far I’d take it. “It depends,” she said. “Where your mouth been?”
I smirked while I held her gaze.
“Nowhere that should make you second guess handing me that fork,” I said, my voice low and easy. “You safe.”
She held that look on me a second longer like she was weighing it, then her eyes dipped.
