Chapter 2
TWO
Liora
Dinner with him. I had agreed and now I was overthinking and wondering if I was losing my mind in the process.
He sent his address and I mapped it out to a property in Westvale.
That wasn’t a long drive for me considering I never drove the speed limit.
I only agreed because he was an interesting man, the type who—with everything I had going on in my mind—I should have steered clear of.
Yet here I was, keying in the address, on my way to him.
He too had a lot going on, a lot, but who was I to judge.
I pulled out of the parking lot of the pawn shop. My thoughts ran rampant, wondering if I was being reckless. It was just a meal, right?
My thinking ceased the moment my phone began ringing through my car’s console.
When I glanced down, I saw it was Sissy.
Lil mama called to check in and always wanted to know what I was up to before she tried to make plans I almost always found a way out of.
It was never anything against my sister, but everything against her young ass energy.
I could fuck with a calm dinner and maybe a movie, lil mama wanted to club hop, bar hop, and drink.
I didn’t have that in me and we didn’t think the same.
“What’s up, Sissy?” I greeted after pressing the green circle on the console screen.
“Nothing. I wanted to know what you were doing.” She sounded like she was pouting into the phone. For what, I damn sure didn’t know.
“Headed to meet somebody. Are you good?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to…” Her sentence trailed off.
I immediately picked up on it. Though Sissy was young minded as fuck and worse than me when it came to communication, one thing with her and I was very clear.
Sometimes she called just to hear my voice, others she came by the shop just to see me.
It was like she missed me without saying it.
Lauryn told me that it bothered her when I left and went dead silent when I worked.
With my profession, in order to protect them, I had to have minimal communication with anybody I cared about because it kept them safe.
They understood that, but it didn’t make things any easier for them considering I missed most holidays and only spoke to them maybe twice a month, if that.
This was the longest I had ever been home in ten years.
The last thing I wanted was for them to get used to it.
Because though I loved it here, I had absolutely no intention of staying.
Briar South was and would forever be my home, but I didn’t know how to be still.
My mind wasn’t good at it. Maybe it wasn’t that at all, maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t done it in almost a decade.
“I’m not going anywhere like that, Sissy. I’m here for a minute.”
“Um, okay. Thank you. Can we have dinner this weekend?”
“Yeah, just let me know when,” I replied simply.
“Okay. Well, I’ll let you go. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
When we hung up, I turned the music up and zipped through traffic, playing with the pedal like it was a joystick. I loved speed. It did something for my soul, sure to send convulsions down my spine the faster I went.
I pulled into the little cul-de-sac about fifteen minutes later, then clicked through my phone, looking for the number he’d sent his address from. All these homes looked alike and I didn’t want to pull into the wrong driveway.
I clicked the number and ringing filled the car before he answered.
“Yeah.”
“Which house? All of these single-family homes look alike.”
He laughed. “The one with the garage door open. Pull in and don’t hit my shit.”
I looked around trying to see it. When I spotted the opening garage door, I pulled forward and made a left, then backed into the awaiting garage. The light came on just as the door lowered.
I opened my door to get out when I heard his voice.
“You know what they say about chicks who prefer to back into parks?”
“Nah, what?”
“Real niggas.”
I got out of the car laughing. “Well.”
My eyes landed on the rust bucket on the side of my car. It was an old school that needed a lot. “Is that what you told me not to hit?”
He laughed. “Yeah and?”
“Looks like it’s been hit … a lot.”
He led the way into his place. I smelled the food from the threshold.
Inside we walked past a massive sofa toward what I assumed to be the kitchen.
I was right and in complete awe when I took in the full kitchen.
I was no cook or anything like that, but I knew how to appreciate a good kitchen when I saw one.
I used to help my mother when I was younger.
“Didn’t know what you liked, so I picked up two different types of pizza and wings.”
“I’m basic. Probably would’ve gone for anything as long as you weren’t putting fruit on the pizza.”
His lips turned up. “Hell nah, that ain’t my motion.”
“Good.” I studied the way Iso moved through the kitchen, the way he pulled plates out and set them on the counter right before he pulled out bottled water and that nasty ass coconut water for himself. He was comfortable, unlike on the pier.
Before he caught me staring at him, I decided to focus on the space around me once more. “It’s nice here.”
He looked up from the pizza box and we locked eyes before he shrugged. “It’s alright."
“Nonsense. This is one of those homes you have when you have your shit together. When you know your end game.”
He looked up at me again, those serious eyes housing a vulnerability I had a feeling he would never utter. “Well, I damn sure ain’t got my shit together. We’re eating outside, if you cool with that.”
I nodded before I responded, “Me neither, even though I told myself for so many years that I did.”
Once he had the boxes stacked in one hand and the drinks in the other, he led the way onto the patio. Out here was just a wooden, bench-style picnic table.
When he set everything down, I watched him take a seat on one side and took a seat on the same side as him. I didn’t like having my back to anything.
“Why don’t you think you have your shit together?” he asked out of nowhere.
“Because I don’t. I’m all over the place. I’ve never known where I belonged because I’m so good at keeping it moving.”
“You ever thought it could just be a phase? That with different phases you belong in different places?”
“I never thought about it that way. Shoot, to be honest, I avoid thinking about it for too long.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
“And you? It’s none of my business, but since we’re becoming friends right now, how does it feel to almost die? Or how do you look at it?”
A chuckle escaped his lips. “We friends” He repeated it instead of questioning my statement.
I looked from him to the food between us. “I mean… yeah, you know my hobbies and I know a little bit of your business. And we’re sharing a meal, we may as well be best friends at this point.”
Another chuckle escaped those sexy ass lips. “Okay, shorty.”
“Now that we have that out of the way, are you gonna answer my question?”
“Keeping it a buck, I don’t know. I feel like there's some symbolism in everything and the way it all happened, but then I wonder if I’m just overthinking.”
I reached into the box for a piece of pizza. “What do you mean?”
“When I got set up, I was behind a church. A Catholic priest found me and sat with me, telling me it wasn’t my time. Things were strange, and even the fact that when I thought things were all over that same ass Catholic priest put a cross in my hands.”
I nodded with nothing to say in response. He was questioning God, a being I had been questioning since a teen. The only difference for me was that I didn’t think of it much. It seemed like he was obsessed with it, but in his current situation, I really couldn’t blame him.
A brief silence brewed between us before he cracked open one of those nasty ass coconut waters and I immediately turned my face up.
“You're still drinking that shit too.”
He laughed. “Shit tastes good after a while.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He and I talked and ate for a while longer, this time keeping the conversation surface level.
The bottom line was that both of us were fighting our own demons, but we didn’t have to obsess about them.
For a minute he talked about his kid and how much he missed him while I thought about how strong that pull was.
To be someone dealt this hand of cards with a little somebody depending on you to figure it all out and come home at some point.
I couldn’t imagine the responsibility. Somehow, with everything I had learned about this man while being here, I found him wildly attractive.
I shouldn’t have though, because one, his life was too much, and two, so was mine.
“I think it’s time I get going.” I stood from the bench we had occupied all night to stretch my bones.
“Nah, don’t. Stay. I ain’t ready to go back to moving silently around here yet.”
“And that means?” I asked, now standing in front of his still seated frame.
“Means I like the company. Fuck with me for a little while longer.”
I grinned at the implication. Shit, maybe I was misreading. “And what shall we do? I’m all talked out, handsome.”
“You tell me. You said we friends, right?”
At this point it was now or never. Mama ain’t raised no punk, pussy bitch. Lee didn’t either.
I stepped closer to him, closing the space between us. “I could think of a few things.” He sat with his back against the wooden table, arms folded and full body stretched in front of it. I opened my legs and slowly eased onto his lap before coming down.
“Like what?”
“Kiss me,” I demanded, like it was an answer.
He grinned, leaning forward, not kissing my awaiting lips but instead my neck and jawline for a few moments before finally connecting to my lips.
After he’d teased my neck enough, he lifted his head and those hooded, heavy eyes were on me, almost nonverbally asking if I was up for what was about to happen next.
I nodded.