He rubbed the back of his neck.
“She think I’m gon’ get distant once the twins get here,” he went on. “Like I’m gon’ disappear into work and leave her at the house drownin’ in diapers. I keep tellin’ her I’m grindin’forthem, but all she hear is ‘I’m not there.’”
“Youaregone a lot,” I pointed out.
He shot me a look. “Nigga, you too.”
“I ain’t say I wasn’t,” I said. “I’m just sayin’ from her side, it probably look like what she scared of already.”
Royce nodded. “Have you told her you scared too?”
Trend hesitated. “Not really. I be tryna be solid so she don’t panic more. But then she read it as me not carin’.”
Truce shook his head. “Man, y’all dumb.”
We all looked at him.
“You scared. She scared. She think she alone in it, you think you protectin’ her from yours. Everybody losin’,” he said. “Tell that woman the truth. ‘Babe, I’m terrified too, but I’m still here.’ That mean more than you actin’ fake strong and disappearin’ when your phone ring.”
Trend sat with that, noddin’ slowly.
“I talked to Fee the other day,” I added. “She scared she gon’ be by herself once they come. You gotta show her that’s not the casenow, not after they get here.”
He blew out a breath. “Aight. I’ll talk to her. Forreal this time. Not on some ‘you trippin’ shit. On some ‘I’m scared too’ shit.”
“Good,” Royce said. “Maybe then she’ll stop textin’ April a hundred times a day askin’ if she still wanna do this.”
We all laughed.
I leaned back, lettin’ the sound wash over me.
Different men with the same themes. Fear, love, control, and loss.
I thought about Melissa and Mo.
Thought about all the ways I’d already crossed lines in the name of not losin’ nobody else.
Maybe I was bein’ a creep.
Maybe Truce was right.
But as much as I could see it, I still ain’t know how to turn it off.
All I knew was if I wanted any chance of keepin’ Melissa for real, I was gon’ have to learn how to love her without makin’ her feel hunted.
And that was somethin’ even money couldn’t fix.
Charlie Mac’s house always smelled like barbecue sauce and cigar smoke.
It was weirdly comfortin’.
Since I found out he was my blood daddy he had stepped up in ways I didn’t imagine. So when he called and said, “Come eat, I made ribs,” I showed up.
“Girl, you still skinny,” he said, shakin’ his head as I walked into the kitchen. “You eat?”
“I’m literally standin’ in front of food,” I said, laughin’. “Relax.”
“Relax not in my vocabulary when it come to you,” he said, kissin’ my forehead. “Go fix you a plate.”
