“How you figure?” I shot back.
He took a sip. “Because I go for what I want, I don’t back down, and I lock in.”
“Are you locked in on me?”
“I told you what it was gonna be,” he said quickly. “Once I know what you lied about.”
I laughed, picked my glass up, and took another sip. “I was with the same man for seven years; I held him down; I loved him with everything in me,” I said calmly. “He got locked up, and I was willing to wait, hold everything down for him, until I found out he was fucking somebody else for part of our relationship.”
Love nodded. “That still don’t tell me why you left.”
I chuckled low and exhaled. “I loved him too hard. I wanted kids, a house, marriage with him, and all of that was held up because he was fuckin’ somebody to get cheaper work. He said he cut it off once I was on his back about marriage. I knew that if I stayed, I would probably end up back with him. He was all I knew, all I had there other than my family.”
“Damn, baby girl,” Love said low. “You should be with a nigga that gives you life, not takes it.”
I let his words sit for a second, my fingers still wrapped around my glass while I looked at him.
“That’s easy to say,” I muttered.
Love leaned back a lil’, watching me like I wasn’t about to rush past what I said.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s simple… not easy.”
I glanced down, then back up at him with a smile taken in by everything he was saying, loving the way he talked and carried himself.
Then I thought about it. “If you’re that nigga, why didn’t you and your baby mama work out?”
“She cheated,” shot back. “Got pregnant, had me pay for her to get rid of it, thinking that I would keep her around after that.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing to be sorry about. At the end of the day, she does have my son. I put her in a nice house, gave her a nice car, my son wants for nothing, while she begs me for everything, but she don’t get it.”
“That’s a lot to deal with,” I said.
He shook his head with a smirk. “No, it’s not. At the end of the day, I’m up, and so are you, after that nigga, and now you got a real nigga in your corner.”
I smiled and leaned a lil’ closer to Love. “I do?”
He closed the gap between us.
“You do, mamas,” he said before he kissed me.
Once he pulled away, he smiled as he licked his lips. The conversation continued. Love was funny and smart, but you could see there was another side to him. It started to get later in the night, we got some food, and kept getting to know each other.
After a while, the workers moved some tables, and a DJ came out. Once he started playing the vibe, the rooftop shifted. Some ladies got up with their girls dancing, some girls pulledtheir men on the floor and started twerking on them. We people watched and talked shit, but when the DJ slowed it down, Love stood up, fixed his clothes, and reached out his hand.
With a smile on my face, I took his hand, and he led me to the dance floor. He gave me a slight spin and pulled me into his arms—close, tight.
“What’s wrong, mamas?” he asked. “You never been spun on the floor by a real nigga?”
That real nigga line hit me hard. It was almost like I heard Gio’s voice come out of Love’s mouth for a second.
I pulled myself into him, trying not to think about Gio.
“Nah, I haven’t, but I like it.”
We danced for what seemed like hours. People stared, smiled, and asked us how long we had been together.
