Ante Up #2
“I mean it.” She leaned back on my bed with a slow smile. “Come back to bed.”
“I have an early morning.”
“You always have an early morning.” She stood up, still wearing very little.
She crossed to me, set one hand on my chest, and looked up.
“Do you know how rare this actually is? A man who knows what he’s doing.
” Her hand traced the side of my face. “You ruin a woman for ordinary, Julian. You know that?”
I did know. Not with vanity but as a matter of fact, the same way I knew I was good at business or at reading a room. I was precise in bed for the same reason I was precise everywhere. I paid attention. I read what was needed before it was asked for. Made sure she got there first.
“I'm glad we worked well together,” I said.
She laughed softly, not deterred. “Worked well together. Mhmmm. One more round. Then you can go be responsible and I'll forgive you for that sentence.”
“Can’t.”
“You're really gonna end it? As good as we are together?”
“We’ve discussed this, Sabrina.”
“You’ve said this before.”
“It’s final this time.”
She was quiet, pulling her dress on. “You're going to die alone,” she said.
“I’m not alone. I have my family.”
“That's not the same as romantic love. Companionship. Someone who chooses you every day.”
“I don't need that.”
She stared at me, searching for the lie. When she didn't find one, her expression shifted to pity.
“You really believe that, don't you?”
I didn't respond.
“God, Julian,” she said finally. “You're so locked up you don't even know what you really need or what you're missing. I keep thinking that one of these times you'll see it.”
And that was it. That's what I missed. She'd been carrying the theory that a different version of me existed that she could reach.
I should have seen it. Should have closed the door the first time and kept it closed.
Instead I'd opened it multiple times, and now I was standing in my condo with a woman who had invested in waiting me out.
“You know what I've never asked you?” Her voice was more careful. “Why you won't kiss me.”
I kept my face even. “I’ve kissed you.”
“During sex,” she said. “You'll do that. Foreplay, during, you're present, you're…” She made a small gesture that meant thorough. “I mean after. Or just because. In three years you have never once kissed me that way.”
She was right. I didn't. My parents had kissed the way people drink water.
Like it was a necessity and an alternative hadn't occurred to them.
My father couldn't get enough of my mother.
Walking past her in the hallway, he kissed her.
Coming home, going out, he kissed her. When she said something that made him laugh, and even when she frustrated him, he kissed her.
Every morning before either of them had said a word to each other, they kissed.
That was what kissing meant to me. The declaration underneath it.
A thing you only did when you meant it in that particular way.
I had never meant it with anyone, and I didn't make promises I couldn't keep.
“It's just not something I do,” I answered.
She considered this for a long time. “So it means something to you.”
“Yes.”
“And I don’t mean something?”
“What we had meant what it was. Which I was always honest about.”
She nodded slowly. She didn't look wounded exactly. She looked like someone who had just received the final piece of information they needed to understand a thing.
“You need a wife,” she said plainly, like a diagnosis. “A man like you. You need someone who wakes up with you. Takes care of you. You need to be loved, Julian, really loved, and taken care of by somebody who shows up.” She shook her head. “You need love.”
“I have love.”
“Not like that.”
She didn't know about Sunday dinners with twenty people crowded around Simone's table.
About coaching kids who called me Coach Wade with reverence.
About my nephew Zhaire falling asleep on my shoulder during movie nights, or my niece Zaria reaching for me when she cried.
She didn't know because I hadn't let her close enough to see that part of my life.
“Julian. You fall asleep alone. You wake up alone. You have convinced yourself that is okay.” She looked at me the way people look at things they find sad without knowing what to do about it.
“I think you're capable of it,” she said quietly.
“That's what's going to drive me crazy when I walk out of here. I actually think the man you'd be if you let someone love you would be even more extraordinary. I think whoever gets that from you is going to be completely undone.” She paused. “And I’m not gonna lie. I want it to be me. I understand you, Julian.”
I stayed quiet. There was nothing to be gained from trying to convince her of something I’d already been abundantly clear about. So I just let her talk. Get it out of her system.
“When you figure it out… don't take too long. Because I'm not going to wait forever.” She stared at me. “I mean that. I will move on. I will find what I'm looking for. And the day you decide you're ready for something real… I might not be available.”
She said it like a warning. A woman who had made up her mind that she had read me correctly and was giving me a reasonable amount of time to arrive at the same conclusion she had.
I thought of a dozen things and said none of them. Because the kindest thing I had to give Sabrina West was clarity. She should not wait. She had my genuine wish that she wouldn't.
“Don’t wait, Sabrina. I’ve never asked you to. I don’t have what you need. Take care of yourself,” I said.
She sighed and shook her head. “You too,” she said. Then she left.
Saturday mornings had a rhythm. I threw on a black Wade Athletics Youth League tee, hopped in my car and drove the ten minutes to Tre’s building, parked in the loading zone outside, and headed inside.
Tre’s penthouse door swung open before I knocked. He stood there barefoot, shirtless, and grinning. Behind him, two women scrambled to collect their things.
“You’re early, Jules.”
“I’m on time.”
I stepped inside as the first woman groaned, “Damn, Tre, you really kicking us out? Not even breakfast?”
He snatched a banana off the counter and handed it to her, then grabbed a chocolate-chip muffin from an open bakery box and gave it to the second. “Continental breakfast. Don’t say I never fed you.”
They laughed, half-offended, and shuffled past me to the door. One paused in front of me on her way out, and smiled. “Mmm. There’s two of y’all? Damn. You the big brother?”
She reached for my chest but I caught her hand gently and lowered it. “Sweetheart. Enjoy your muffin.”
Tre howled with laughter as they left. “You always so damn polite with your rejections.”
“And you’re always reckless with your invitations,” I shot back, looking around at the mess.
Empty bottles littered his counter. A half-eaten burger sat abandoned on a plate. I shook my head. “You know, if you keep running through women like that, one of these days you’re gonna catch a scandal.”
“Come on, Jules,” he groaned, rubbing his head. “Don’t start.”
“Then don’t give me material. These girls out here chasing Instagram clout and baby daddies. I bet you don’t even know their last names.”
He smiled. “Don’t front like you don’t cycle through ‘em. Let’s not act brand new.”
I folded my arms. “I don’t pick mine up from a club at two in the morning. I don’t bring them to my home. And I don’t keep two and three at a time.”
“You keep it clean and classy, I keep it fun and nasty. Same game, different jersey, Jules.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Go wash the pussy off so we can get to practice.”
He saluted, and jogged toward his room. I grabbed the empty bottles off the counter, and dumped them in his recycling. Dumped the abandoned burger in the trash and loaded his dishwasher.
Saturday morning youth practice had been a ritual ever since our nephew Zhaire was old enough to play sports.
The Isaiah & Niecy Wade Foundation, named after our parents, funded youth programs across Lennox Falls for sports and the arts.
Football, basketball, and soccer. That was us.
My lane during football season was head coach.
Zion on defense. Tre on offense. Raschad and our cousins Khairos and Khaz on skills and conditioning.
Twenty minutes later Tre came back out, showered and ready to go.
“Aight, Coach. Let’s go get these babies right.”
We headed out together. In the car, I queued up my playlist and let the beat drop. M.O.P.’s Ante Up rattled the speakers.
Tre laughed. “Man, you and this throwback hip-hop obsession. One of these days you gon' leave the ‘90s.”
“One of these days you gon' stop making mediocre sex tapes. We’ve all got our flaws.”
“Ain’t nothing mediocre about my stroke.”
We both laughed, and I pulled off toward the football field.