Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Reminisce
Spending my entire day with Karim and Romance was the most necessary bliss I could ask for.
It was literally the easiest fucking peace I had ever experienced because it was natural.
For most of the day I played the background, watching how Rim was with Romance and how Romance clung to her.
The corniest things were making a nigga’s heart flutter.
The type of shit that usually made me clown a nigga had me smiling so hard my cheekbones hurt.
After spending over the amount of time intended in the mall, we were headed out when Karim wanted to stop by a shoe store and grab shoes she had been eyeing online. One thing I loved about Rim was she made that tomboy shit sexy as fuck and she wasn’t overdoing it to throw on a pair of heels.
“I want those.” Romance pointed to a pair of hot pink Nikes. The motherfuckers were so bright they made my head hurt. They were neon, bright enough to probably light up a room.
“Those are cute, Ro.”
“No, the fuck they aren’t. Too bright.” I moved toward the children’s clothing, looking for Romance’s size. This was the type of motion I messed with. It was solid grays and blacks, shit maybe even a navy blue.
“They’re girlie, and she’s a little girl, Reminisce.” Karim gave me that look, letting me know I was getting on her nerves.
“So. Those black ones are nice too.” I threw my head in the direction of the less bright, functional looking ones.
“I’m getting her the ones she likes. What are you over there even looking at?” Karim was sitting on the little try-on bench looking at me while Romance played on my phone. I swear I couldn’t win for fucking losing because why was the car iPad dead and the other one at the house.
“These lil sweatsuits.” I held up the gray one I had already found in Ro’s size.
“Reminisce, she is a girl. Not a little boy. Look at that baby blue one right there.”
I shook my head. “Too bright.”
Karim sucked her teeth. “What size is she?”
“Nah, you good. ’Cause yeen about to piss me off in here.” I shook my head.
“Reminisce.”
“Four T and she’s a nine in shoes. Don’t piss me off in here, Karim.”
She waved me off and moved toward the racks. By us being in the children’s shoe store because Rim’s feet were so small, it was easy for me to get Ro together in the same store.
I looked up and Ro hopped off the bench, moving with Karim. Something else that made me smile…that corny shit.
“Romance, you like this?” Karim asked, holding out a cloud blue sweatshirt and pants.
I mugged the fuck out of her as she came around to where I was standing. “Don’t piss me off.”
“It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on, baby.” She smirked, finding her way into the area I was in.
“I mean, considering you be d—”
“Nope, don’t say it. Leave it be. Please.” She interrupted the mannish shit about to flow off my tongue.
I looked around her, my eyes landing on my baby. Whatever she was watching had all of her attention.
“Ma’am, we don’t have the orange shoes in the size you’re looking for.” The employee walked up on the side of me and Karim.
“Dang, okay. Can you get me those pink ones in a nine?” She pointed to the shoes Romance claimed she liked. On a wall full of shoes, why the fuck did she have to like the brightest fucking ones?
We spent another hour in the store before finally leaving. I was true to my word, getting shorty a couple colorless fits while Karim did the complete fucking opposite, throwing all that colorful shit on the counter.
When we finally left the mall, I had Romance in one hand, the bags in the other, and Karim walking next to me. They were indeed turning me into one of those niggas.
“You didn’t get yourself anything. Not even a coat, especially because you keep complaining you’re cold,” Karim said once we were all settled in the car.
“Nah. I don’t do much shopping unless I need it.” I shrugged, sitting there and letting the car warm up. Chicago wasn’t one of those cities where you could just get into the car and pull off.
“Well, you need a coat. You’re not gonna be satisfied until you’re sitting up here sick. That hawk is out here.”
“What hawk? The national reserve will be one less bird fucking with me.” I looked out the window and in front of me before back at her.
“No fool. It’s not a real hawk. When a Chicagoan says that hawk is out there, we mean it’s cold or windy,” she explained, like that shit made any type of sense.
I turned my face up. “That sounds dumb as fuck.”
“It doesn’t, you’re just mad that you don’t understand it.”
“Nah, I understand that it sounds ’bout stupid as hell. Even so, I’ma let you fly with it. Have you thought about what you’re making us for dinner yet?” I cut my eyes between her and the parking lot as I began to ease out.
“Nope, ’cause I told you to tell me what you want. Or it’s simple motions.” Her hand found its way into my face, massaging my temple while I eased into traffic.
I chuckled. “Aight fine, I want tacos.”
“Boo, boring. But I guess. You want tacos, you’ll get tacos. Just don’t forget to stop at the store to get the stuff.” She shrugged.
I cut my eyes between her and the road, then in the mirror at my baby. “She’s gonna run my shit dead.”
Karim laughed. “That she is. I thought you bought one of those iPads for the car.”
“I did, but it’s so cold out here I didn’t want to leave it in the car.”
“True.”
A brief silence filled the car while she continued to rub, and like a bitch, I relished in her touch.
“Whenever you get my name tattooed, this is where I want it.” Her finger eased across the arch in my lining, an inch from my forehead.
I looked at her for a moment, then back at the crowded road I’d just turned onto. “See this is where shit gets serious.”
“And that means?” I felt her eyes burning a hole into the side of my face.
“If I get your name on me, all that stressing what we are or your place in my life shit is dead. I’on get nothing removed, Karim, which means be prepared to belong to me in the afterlife too.”
“Don’t be saying that then I look up and you got a bitch name already on you, Reminisce.”
I chuckled. “Ain’t no other name on me because there ain’t never been nobody I deemed mine. So get that shit up outta your head.”
She didn’t respond, which prompted me to look over at her. She had this big, goofy ass smile on her face.
That’s what I thought.
For the rest of the ride, she rubbed the side of my head while I drove to the grocery store the closest to my spot.
I didn’t know what she wanted, so I decided to just take her to a full store and push the cart.
Hopefully this would be a quick trip, because just this fast, I was tired of this fucking cold and ready to be under heat.
Usually around this time I was already in another state, enjoying their weather and all they had to offer.
I couldn’t up and hop a flight anymore though, for many reasons, the two main ones being in this car.
“You can stay in the car if you want. Getting out continuously can’t be good for you. Especially because you are only wearing a damn hoodie.”
“Yeah aight, ain’t no nigga in the fruit aisle buying mangos ’boutta spit game while I’m sitting in this car.
” I found a park near the door and backed right in.
I then turned around and looked at my baby.
She was still bundled up, boots on and all.
I was so grateful because usually she wouldn’t have hesitated to snatch all that shit off. “The fuck you think I am?”
She laughed. “Stop cursing so much around her. And ain’t nobody trying to talk to me. You’re the only person who looks at me in my natural tomboy skin and finds it sexy. Stay in, you don’t need to get sic—”
“If I get sick, you’re going to take care of me. No problem, baby. Now zip your coat up, you can’t be getting sick.” I was out of the car before she could give any rebuttal.
I opened the door for Karim, then went to get Romance out. When I had her in my arms, she held my phone out for me to take. I accepted it, sliding it into my pocket.
“Daddy, it’s cold.” She hugged the side of my face.
“I know. We’ll be quick. Probably get you some cookies or something.”
Karim laughed, standing on the side of me. “You get mad when she bargains with you, yet you bargain with her.”
I shrugged. “It’s the way of the world. I just didn’t expect her to pick up on it so early.
” I grabbed a cart about to put her in it, but Karim stopped me before we could even make it into the store.
We were standing in the middle hall between both sets of sliding doors.
It wasn’t as cold as it was outside, but it was still extremely cold.
“Hold up. You don’t see those wipes. Don’t put her in there. You don’t know what they had in there before her.” She fussed me out then snatched the Clorox wipes near the cart station and began sanitizing the cart before I sat Romance down.
“Yo, you sure you’re not a mama somewhere and I don’t know?”
She laughed. “Reminisce, I have five nieces and nephews between Brysheer and Aroyal. When I’m not busy, I take my tete time very seriously.”
“So, you want kids?” I asked when I finally got Romance into the cart and we were moving through the store.
“Of course I do, but I’m in no rush. I feel like when it’s time it’ll happen.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
“But what I will say, seeing you in daddy mode is different.” She grabbed a plastic bag and began to grab vegetables.
My brows furrowed. “How so?”
“You’re human and you do father shit. You give a fuck and it’s sexy.
” When she cursed, she spoke lowly because she didn’t want Romance to hear her.
“When I was a kid, I could count on one hand how many times my father was present and that wasn’t many.
My mama though, she was always there. Even when she got diagnosed with cancer, to see her face was to know and feel the purest form of love. For kids, that matters.”
I nodded. “Don’t I know. I’m just trying not to fuck this up.”