Chapter one
Sky
February first.
The night didn’t start with sex. That was what unsettled me, especially after the way he had acted the night before.
Especially after he woke me up before he left that morning.
He usually just said bye, but earlier he had been like, “I’ll see you later, Love.
” And then I couldn’t go back to sleep. Because what the fuck did that mean?
Later? When had he started reporting to me? And love since when?
I spent all day trying to remember when the just-bye stopped. It had been a while ago, more than a year. Then I ended up thinking about what that meant.
My head throbbed from the effort. I was exhausted from thinking. I didn’t really want to deal with him or any of the emotions last night had stirred up, but I let him in.
It was so hard to say no to him. He had a fresh haircut. Of course. He was offensively handsome, a gallery of ink stretched over clear brown skin that looked expensive without trying. Big in every direction—shoulders, hands, presence. The kind of man who occupied space anywhere he went.
He walked into my house with an armful of groceries and kissed my forehead like I was someone he prayed for. Like I was blood. Like I was his fucking sister. He didn’t even glance at the thin piece of silk clinging to my thick body. I should have sent him home.
He moved through the house like it was his.
He ended up in my kitchen, unpacking groceries and unearthing my pressure cooker from the dark back corner of the cabinet as if I’d invited him to cook for me. Like we shared a lease.
It irked me how competent he looked there, being there. How natural.
We fucked. That was it. It had been that way for four years.
What the fuck was this? I tried to say it out loud, but my mouth wouldn’t work.
He was leaning against the counter, sleeves rolled up, showing off the corded muscles in his forearms, methodically bisecting peppers and onions.
It was too much for me. I was scared of commitment, and I had no trauma to offer as an excuse.
My parents had been married 37 years; they had waited five before they had me.
It was time they spent just liking each other—they didn’t want to share.
To that day, they were stupid in love. Overripe, embarrassing love.
They slow danced in front of company to Anita Baker all the time.
I wrote love stories, but I couldn’t write a single sentence that captured the messy, terrifying reality of what they had.
Was that what Zio was trying to build in my kitchen?
My heart kicked up. I hoped not.
I thought what was worse than being from a dysfunctional family was being from a whole, loving one when it came to romance for the children.
Because I knew what perfect love was supposed to look like.
It was why I could sell it. But it didn’t feel like a reality for me. What if he wasn’t like my daddy?
“Sky,” he said, his voice cutting through my thoughts. He didn’t look up from the onions. “You’ve been staring at me for ten minutes. Come here.”
I didn’t move. My feet felt like they’d been bolted to the hardwood.
“I didn’t ask for dinner, Zio.”
“I know. Come here still.”
He was so fine and had this deep, cavernous voice, and the tone he used made me weak. I hated how easily I obeyed. I sashayed over, intending to use my body as a weapon to get us back to the bedroom, where things made sense.
I got close enough to smell his expensive cologne and inhaled.
There was sweat in the crook of his neck, and I wanted it in my mouth.
I loved the salty taste of him. I stopped right behind him, letting the heat from his body and the stove wrap around me like a blanket.
I reached out, my palms flat against the white cotton of his tee, feeling the hard, rippling muscle.
Before I could wrap my arms around his waist, his hand reached out. He caught me gently by the throat and pulled me into a filthy, soul-searing kiss. His mouth tasted like champagne I couldn’t afford, but he drank for free. I sucked his tongue.
My brain went quiet. This I understood. This, I could work with.
My body answered on instinct. My nipples tightened. My panties turned wet, fast.
But suddenly he let me go.
I almost whined.
He stepped back, sliding the chef’s knife toward me, handle first.
“Take over the vegetables,” he said, his voice steady while mine was still caught in my throat. “I need to start cleaning the oxtails.”
I stared at the knife, then at his dick print in his chinos. “The what?”
“Oxtails and grits,” he said, moving toward the sink with meat wrapped in butcher paper. “You mentioned you wanted them.”
My heart did a slow, painful roll in my chest. Zio was a chef. A damn good one. People waited months for a table to eat his food, but in four years, he had never cooked for me. I never asked. Men cooked for their women. I wasn’t his woman.
Cooking was an act of service. It was an act of love.
“Zio, this is a step too far,” I whispered, gripping the knife tighter. “You don’t cook for me. That’s… that’s not what we do.”
“It’s what I’m doing tonight,” he said over the sound of running water.
And I thought, shit. He was being very authoritative that night. He was usually only that way in bed with me.
He didn’t look back when he continued to speak. “And while we eat, I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something like what?” My heart sped up.
He finally turned, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed. It felt like it was about to get very adult in there.
“Like why you start acting funny every February,” he said.
My grip tightened on the knife. “I don’t. I just write a lot during that time.”
“You do, and you write a lot all the time, you don’t disappear completely.” he replied evenly.
I swallowed. I could hear my own pulse beating ugly. I was exposed. Was it my fault I didn’t want to be around people during this month. It didn’t even make sense that the shit was in February during Black history month.
“Why did it matter? I didn’t understand why this was a conversation we needed to be having. We didn’t check each other’s schedules.”
“I didn’t say need,” he said. “I said want to.”
I forced myself to look at him. His face was so readable. He was in his feelings, though. I could tell by his tone—he got that way sometimes.
“We said no feelings,” I reminded him. “No expectations.”
He nodded once. “We said no promises.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. It’s different now.”
“Different how?” I asked before I could stop myself—I didn’t even want to know. I knew the answer would reveal something I couldn’t unsee. Silence stretched. The faucet ran.
“Because I love you now.”
I felt it in my body before my brain could process it.
I couldn’t describe what I felt, but I felt it.
And I felt a lot. The smell of onions burned my eyes—at least that was what I told myself when the tears started.
I looked down at the cutting board, at the bright red peppers, and realized I was trapped.
“Say something, Sky,” he said.
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that he didn’t love me.
I wanted to tell him he was just caught up in the mood or the month of February.
I wanted to tell him to go back to being the man who just said “bye” and left at 3:00 AM.
Because if I accepted this—if I let those four words settle into my flesh—then the Sky who didn’t need anyone would have to die.
And I wasn’t sure if I was ready to mourn her yet.