My laughter came from the pit of my stomach.“Nigga, if you want love, stop fucking with hos. You know a ho when you see one, but you still fuck with them. Now you want to complain about it. That’s asinine.”
We would go out, and Grady would meet women. Not even ten minutes after a conversation with them, he would say that they were hos. That didn’t stop him from fucking with them, though. It was crazy that he thought he would get different results while he did the same things.
He huffed.“Man, I know, but damn! Hos are just fun when you want to fuck. I’m gonna get my shit together because this shit is tiring.”The truth in his words was felt.
In the distance, I saw Pop Travis at the hostess stand.“Aye, let me go. He’s here.”
We said a few more words before we disconnected the call. I stood when Pop Travis approached the table. “What’s up, pop?”
We hugged. “What’s up, son? How you doing today?” After I assured him that I was cool, we sat down. “I talked to your dad earlier. He’s gonna be in town next week for some business that we’re thinking about partnering in.”
“Yeah, he told me yesterday when I spoke to him. He mentioned something about buying a house down here. I’m not sure why he’s doing that.” My shoulders lifted toward my ears.
Pop Travis snickered. “You know exactly why your dad is doing that. He’s missed a lot of years. He’s setting himself up to not miss any more if he doesn’t have to.”
It felt good to hear those words. Killian had been down here a few times since Chicago for business with Logan. We’d spent time with each other when he was here. Ace was right . . . Killian was a cool dude overall.
The waitress came over and got our drink orders. We had light conversation while she got them. By the time she brought them, we were ready to order our food.
Fun fact, Pop Travis was a big soccer fan. Why? I wasn’t sure, but that filled the gap of time between when the waitress took our order and when our food arrived. We ate half of our meal before he asked me what was up.
My hands rubbed together before I took a sip of whisky from my glass. When I finally got my nerves together, I spoke. “I wanted to invite you to dinner because I love your daughter, and I want to ask her to marry me. I want to get your blessing.”
He stared at me for what felt like forever before a smile surfaced on his face. “I told Marla when you invited me to dinner that you were going to ask me for my baby’s hand. I knew it.”
When he mumbled that Mama Marla owed him some head, I knew we needed to move the conversation along. That was not a thought I wanted to download in my head. “Do you want to see the ring?”
“Hell yeah, I want to see the ring,” he said enthusiastically. Once he had the ring box in his hand from where I had it in my pocket, he opened it. “Did she tell you that she loved solitaire rings?”
“Nah, Q’amie told me. She helped me pick it out.” I thought that we would go to one jewelry store and be done with it. No! That woman dragged me to five stores before we found the perfect one, according to her.
Pop Travis didn’t take his eyes off the ring. “You know Blake has been through a lot. For a long time, I never thought that I would see her happy again. There was this emptiness behind her eyes that she tried to hide. I worry about her. At least I did, until you came along. Now there’s a light in her eyes that I haven’t seen in more years than I can count.”
His willingness to admit that meant a lot to me. It wasn’t the first time that I heard that. Q’amie and Seneca said it often. According to them, Blake went from a semi-soft life at the beginning of her relationship with her ex-bitch nigga to a hard life after our boy died. She held on to that until I came along, and we solidified our relationship.
“Blake’s happiness is important to me, just like mine is important to her. That’s one of the reasons that I love her—because my love is given back to me. I want to protect and love her for life as well as our future children,” I assured him.
Pop Travis didn’t immediately respond. He stared at me like he wanted to see the future for his daughter and me in my eyes. “Son, I trust my daughter with you as well as my future grandbabies. I take my trust very seriously. Don’t betray it and end up being the reason that I have to take the life of the second man to break my baby girl’s heart.”
The passion and conviction behind his words was strong. It was a father’s love for his daughter. It was the same love that I planned to have for mine if God saw fit to bless me with one.
It had been a little over two weeks since I had the conversation with Pop Travis. Since then, I had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to pop the question. The engagement ring burnt a hole in my pocket every day.
Blake and I had multiple conversations about her dream proposal. In the true fashion of who she was, she didn’t want anything that was too much. She wanted a low-key kind of proposal, as she called it. That was what I planned to give her.
“I got it!” Blake came into the living room in her pajamas with a tray in her hands. She handed me the tray after I stood up.
I chuckled when I noticed what was on it. “You’re serious about sundae night, I see. You have all the toppings.”
“Now, you know I don’t play about my ice cream. I think that we’re at the place in our relationship where I can privy you to this very special night that I have and have you be a part of it.” She plopped down on the couch as I set the tray on the table in front of us.
After I placed the tray down, I turned to look at her with a bucked head. My head slanted to the side before I spoke. “So, you waited until now to let me indulge in your sundae night, but I got in that?—”
Her finger went up, and her face scrunched. “Say the next thing at your own risk. Don’t act like you got this pussy fresh out of the gate, nigga.”
“Let me stop playing with you before you get violent, with your violent ass.” I sat down next to her then kissed her temple. “Why is this sundae night so important to you?”
She slid from the couch seat onto the floor to be closer to the ice cream bowls and toppings. There was already ice cream in the bowls. She asked me what I wanted on mine, and I kept it simple. I wasn’t a man big on sweets, so all I wanted was peanuts, caramel, and a few cherries.
