Chapter eleven
Day eleven
Sky
I woke up abruptly. If I were writing this scene, I’d probably say something like my head felt like construction hammers were swinging against my temples with every pulse of my heart. But I wasn’t writing, so I’ll leave it at this...my head fucking hurt.
I slammed my hand over my mouth and mock-screamed, kicking my feet under the covers.
God, I was a mess. A magnificent, walking, talking catastrophe.
I shifted, and the scent of laundry detergent and man hit me. Zio wasn’t in the bed, but his side was still warm. I sat up, clutching the blue comforter to my chest. I was still in that lace slip dress. It was twisted, wrinkled, and smelled like Sunday night mistakes and expensive bourbon.
Where was Zio? He was either downstairs or, worse, he’d left me there to face the firing squad alone. My eyes darted around the room. There were two escapes... the bedroom door and the window. It was only two floors; I could probably jump and only break an ankle.
A limp was a small price to pay for avoiding the walk of shame through a kitchen full of his relatives.
I groaned, burying my face in my hands.
I needed to talk to my momma.
I sat on the edge of the blue comforter and dialed. My hands were shaking. I called and she didn’t answer, so I called again, then again until she did—because if I was dealing with this, she was too. She was part of the reason I was like I was.
“Sky? Why are you calling me back-to-back? I’m in the middle of my stories.”
“Mama,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I was on the verge of crying.
I could feel the tears coming on. “You have to come get me. Please. I’m at his mother’s house.
I’m in his childhood bed. I… I argued with a random woman over him in front of his whole family, Mama.
I was drunk. I was high. I’m wearing a dress that shows my soul.
I don’t have my car. I can’t go out there.
I’mma climb out the window and you pull up. ”
There was a beat of silence. I expected comfort. I expected her to tell me she was grabbing her keys.
Then came the laugh. It started as a chuckle and turned into that deep, soul-cleansing belly laugh that always made me feel small.
“Mama, please stop! It’s not funny. I’m trapped! I’m in the belly of the beast!”
“Sky,” she said, catching her breath. “You are a grown woman. A little bit of embarrassment and your first instinct is to jump out a window? Girl, stay there and eat some breakfast and explain yourself.”
I wasn’t trying to hear the logical shit she was saying. “You aren’t coming? You gotta come get me!”
“Hell no. I’m about to go to lunch with your daddy. You need to face that boy and stop acting like a character in one of your books. Life is messy, Sky. Get used to it.”
“You are a bad mother!” I hissed. “A truly terrible, unsupportive mother! I’m going to write you into my next book and kill you off in chapter two!”
She laughed at me again. “Goodbye, Sky.”
The line went dead. I stared at the screen, betrayed. My own flesh and blood had abandoned me to the aunties.
I stood up and started pacing. On the dresser, I spotted a note. It was sitting on top of a set of clothes—a T-shirt and brand-new leggings.
Shower. Put this on. Come downstairs when you’re ready. I got you. – Z.
Without thinking, I did as he said and left the room. I’d faced critics on Goodreads who were less terrifying than the people I heard laughing in the kitchen downstairs.
I crept down the hallway, my bare feet silent on the wood. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and froze.
I expected to find Zio, maybe his momma but It was like a summit of the aunties waiting. Mrs. Brenda was at the stove. Two other women I vaguely remembered as “Auntie Clara” and “Tasha” were at the table. It was a Monday morning—nobody had a job?
“Look who’s joined the living,” Tasha chirped, not even looking up from her plate.
Mrs. Brenda turned, a spatula in one hand and a mug in the other. She didn’t look at my face; she looked straight at my hips. “Well, I see the clothes fit.” She didn’t sound mad or happy about it—it was just a comment.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brenda,” I croaked, my voice sounding like I’d swallowed a handful of gravel.
“Sit down, baby,” Auntie Clara said, sliding a plate of grits and eggs toward an empty chair. “You looked like you were having a hard time yesterday and woke up still having one. Zio carried you up those stairs like a sack of potatoes.”
I felt the heat crawl up my neck.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I started, the words tumbling out like a landslide.
“It’s just… my momma and daddy ruined me.
They’ve been married thirty-seven years and they make it look like a Hallmark movie, so I thought if it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t worth it.
But now my momma says it was all a delusion on my part because they aren’t perfect.
So I… and then Zio started talking about love, and I acted like a fool because I was terrified he was going to wake up and realize I wasn’t ‘wife material.’ I’m a writer.
I’m overly dramatic and scatterbrained. I’m a mess.
I write about this stuff because I can control the ending, but I don’t know what I’m doing. ”
I stopped to breathe, my face burning. I waited for judgment. I was judging myself.
Mrs. Brenda turned from the stove, her expression softening for the first time. “I been with Zio’s daddy since I was nineteen. You think I didn’t want to pack my bags when he spent our mortgage money on a car that didn’t even run? Or when I felt like I was losing myself in those kitchen walls?”
She walked over and sat down heavily in the chair next to me, taking my hand in hers. Her palm was warm and calloused.
“Fear is just a sign that you’re paying attention, baby.
You think you’re ‘not wife material’ because you don’t fit some mold?
Zio don’t want a mold. He’s a chef—he wants something with flavor.
He wants someone who’s going to stand on their square even when the kitchen is on fire.
Yesterday you were messy and you were loud, but he didn’t care. ”
“But I was so embarrassing,” I whispered.
“Honey,” Tasha said, finally looking up with a smirk, “I once caught the bus across town to catch my man cheating, found him drinking beers with a buddy after work, turned around and blamed it on him, and made him drive me home. We’ve been married twelve years since then.
Life can be embarrassing sometimes. You stop worrying about being perfect and start focusing on being present. Zio’s already all in. Just say yes.”
I looked at the three of them. Before I could figure out anything to say, Mrs. Brenda chimed in.
“Now eat those eggs,” she commanded, patting my hand. “Zio will be back in a minute. I had him go pick up some things at the store for me.”
I picked up my fork, the silence in the kitchen feeling less judgmental. I shoveled a forkful of grits into my mouth to keep from having to respond.
Zio walked in about fifteen minutes later with a bag of groceries, looking fresh, showered, and entirely too handsome for a man who wanted me.
He saw me, and that smug, slow-burn smile spread across his face.
He put the groceries down, didn’t care who was watching, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
The three women awwed in unison.
I ducked my head. He leaned down.
“Ready?” he asked.
“More than ready,” I whispered.
We made our exit through a chorus of “Don’t be a stranger!” and “Bring her back for the fish fry!”
“You okay?” Zio asked, unlocking the truck. He helped me in.
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I was drunk and high.”
Zio laughed, a deep, vibrating sound that usually made me want to climb him like a tree, but that day I just leaned my head back against the headrest.
“You want to talk about Willow?”
“No.” I hoped he never brought that up again.
“Okay.” He said simple. “And by the way. We aren’t going to your place,” he informed me as he pulled out of the driveway.
I opened one eye. “Zio, where are we going? I need my bed. I need my laptop. I have three chapters due for the Patreon, and my brain is currently fried.”
He reached into the backseat and pulled out my laptop bag. “I grabbed it while you were passed out. Clothes, your tea, your ‘World’s Okayest Author’ mug—everything you need is in the back except the bed and mine is better.”
I stared at the bag, then at him. “Why?”
“Because we’re going to my place,” he said, his voice dropping into that authoritative tone he’d been using all week.
“And before you start—it’s been four years, Sky.
Four years of me coming to you. Four years of me being a guest in your space, leaving when you’re tired of me or staying until you decide you’ve had enough. ”
He made a turn, heading into a gentrified part of town.
“Today. You’re going to see where I sleep, where I think, and where I’ve been wanting you to be a permanent part of for years.”
My heart did that stupid, involuntary skip. In four years, I’d never asked where he lived. I’d told myself it was because I didn’t want the baggage, but the truth was, about two years in, I started feeling scared that if I saw his life, I’d want to make myself a permanent fixture in it.
He pulled into the gate of a modern industrial loft building overlooking the water. It was all glass, steel, and “I’m a successful man” energy.
“We’re here,” he said, killing the engine.
I looked at the building, how much money did he make as a chef? This place was nice.
I looked back at my laptop bag in the seat. For an author who wrote about fearless women falling for the perfect man, I was terrified to get out of the car.
If I had been one of my characters, I would have reached for the door handle, but Zio’s hand would have caught mine—his palm hot, his grip light. He would have devoured me with his eyes and growled.
“Sky,” his voice would have dropped to that register that made my thighs ache. “Once you cross this threshold, the old rules are dead. You aren’t just a guest. You’re the reason I built this.”
I would have stepped out of the truck, my heels clicking a rhythmic beat against the pavement.
The lobby would have been all cold marble and dim lights, the perfect stage for the heat rolling off us.
In the elevator, he wouldn’t have touched me—not yet.
He would have just stood there, taking up all the space.
I would be filled with lust and anticipation.
The doors would have slid open to the loft, but I wouldn’t have seen the view. I would have only seen him.
He would have dropped the keys on the counter, the sound echoing in the silence. Then he would have been behind me, his chest against my back, his breath hot against the shell of my ear making my pussy quiver.
“Four years,” he would have whispered, his hands sliding under the hem of that borrowed T-shirt, finding the bare skin of my waist. “Four years of wondering what you’d look like in my light.”
He would have turned me around, his mouth crashing onto mine. It wouldn’t have been gentle. It would have been a claim. I would have jumped and wrapped my legs around his waist, and the laptop bag would have hit the floor, forgotten. He would have had enough money to buy me another.
But that wasn’t what happened.
I called his name. “Zio,” I said softly sounding terrified.
“Don’t,” he interrupted, reaching over to cup the back of my neck. “Don’t think too hard, Sky. Don’t try to talk yourself out of this. Just walk through the door, Sky, and be with me.”