Chapter 13 #2
“It is a little the same thing.” Nicole turned back to the stove.
“Even with boys back then. Remember that little ninth-grade boy with the braids? Cute little thing. Used to call our house every night. Mama loved him. You stopped talking to him because he thought saying ‘you good?’ counted as a whole conversation.”
I groaned. “Oh, my God.”
“I’m lying?”
“No,” I muttered. “But you do not have to remember it that well.”
Micah often asked if I was good, but I knew it was a real question. Whether I was or not, the answer to it actually mattered to him.
She smiled. “Tal, you’ve never liked a man you had to drag along behind your own mind. Never. The minute he starts feeling like a project, an assignment, a little after-hours internship, you get tired.”
That sat there. Because she was not wrong.
I thought about the way Micah listened. The way he didn’t rush to fill silence with himself. The way he didn’t need a woman to drag depth out of him. The way his attention felt placed, not scattered.
That had gotten to me—probably more than I wanted to say out loud. And there was the other thing too. The thing I had not said to anybody.
He had left. When I didn’t ask him in, he had left.
No sulking. No pressure. No standing there at my door trying to talk me over my own hesitation.
He’d wanted me, I knew that as surely as I knew my own name, but he had let me keep the line where I needed it.
That kind of restraint did something dangerous to a woman who was used to men making their want her problem.
“I don’t know,” I said carefully.
Nicole looked at me like an older sister who knew when not to crowd something honest before it had fully stood up in the room.
Then she said, “You deserve ease too, Tal.”
That hit deeper than it should have for a Monday evening with butter noodles in the air and one child trying to color on the back of a utility bill.
I looked down at my phone again instead of answering her.
Micah had entered the day, and somehow the whole thing had felt a little easier for it, because wanting him had not come with depletion attached to it.
That was new enough to deserve respect.
My phone buzzed again.
Micah: Or I can just hear about it tomorrow. That works too.
I stared at the words, warmth moving low through me again, gentle this time.
Nicole saw the look on my face and made a low sound in her throat.
“Mmhmmmmn.”
“Please hush.”
“No.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“That too.”
I typed back.
That sounds better.
His reply came slower this time.
Good. I’d rather see your pretty eyes anyway.
I did not mean to close my eyes. I definitely did not mean to smile the way I did.
Nicole said my name once.
Loud enough to pull me back.
I opened my eyes and found her standing there with both bowls in hand, watching me like I had momentarily floated three inches off the kitchen tile.
“Do not go all soft in my house over a man while I’m making noodles.”
I laughed hard enough to bend forward.
“That is so rude.”
“It is also timely. Take these bowls.”
I took them and followed her into the dining area while the twins came running because children possessed a sixth sense for buttered carbohydrates.
The rest of the evening settled around small things.
Feeding kids.
Nicole telling me about Jalen’s mother insisting on matching family shirts for the Fourth and the grilling competition and how she had politely declined to be photographed in anything that said Meating with the Parkers.
Noah demanding juice with the full emotional intensity of a union organizer.
Nia ending up in my lap with a little braid half undone while I fixed it with one hand and ate with the other.
And under all of it, Micah lived.
Later, when the twins were in pajamas and the dishwasher was full and Nicole and I were standing shoulder to shoulder wiping down the kitchen, she bumped me lightly with her hip.
“So when do I get to see him?”
I laughed without looking up. “That is a crazy question.”
“It’s not.” She rinsed a cup and set it in the rack. “I didn’t ask when I get to approve him. I asked when I get to see him.”
I dried the counter slowly, buying time.
“That sounds worse somehow.”
“It should.”
I turned and looked at her. “It’s new.”
Nicole’s face softened.
“I know.”
That was the thing with sisters. Sometimes they teased because they saw too much. Sometimes they got gentle for the exact same reason.
I set the towel down.
“I like him,” I admitted, quiet enough that the words felt new even in my own mouth.
Nicole smiled, but not in a messy way.
More like relief.
“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
I picked my bag up a few minutes later and kissed both sleepy children goodnight, promising Nia I would come back with more pink things and promising Noah something with wheels because his standards were simpler and more respectable.
At the door, Nicole hugged me longer than usual.
“Don’t disappear into it,” she murmured near my ear. “Just enjoy it.”
I held her a second tighter before pulling back. “That’s the plan.”
“Mmhmmmmn.”
I gave her a look.
She laughed and shut the door behind me.
By the time I got to the car, my phone was already in my hand.
Me: I survived Nicole, the twins, and Monday. Barely.
I stared at it for exactly one second.
Then sent it.
The reply came before I pulled out of the driveway.
Micah: That sounds like you need a drink and my full attention.
The city lights were just starting to come on as I backed into the street, and somewhere low in me that warm little wanting shifted again, deeper now, more confident in itself than before.