Skye #3
“Ducane, who said I wanted to move forward? I had a whole life going before you turned up fifteen hours ago. I was good. Minding my business, existing. Then here you come.”
I kept my eyes on his with a smirk. I was hoping to cave his chest in tonight at every turn.
“You want to try that again?”
“Ducane.”
“I’m just asking you to be honest with me. That’s all I’m asking for tonight.” He reached into his pocket and set his phone on the table face up, screenshot already pulled up and waiting. “Because I’ve been honest with you.”
I looked at the screen, and my stomach dropped straight through the sand.
It was the text. The one I sent in the middle of the night five years ago, the wine talking louder than my sense did, my thumbs moving before my brain caught up to stop them.
Spot: I don't miss you. I just hate you so much sometimes; maybe myself a little too. But Happy birthday, Sugar Cane.
I stared at the screen, then back up at him, and for a second neither of us said anything.
“Honest? You haven’t been honest. Because I know you, Ducane. We are here because you wanted us here. Just stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes. What is this really?”
He didn’t flinch. “I thought we weren’t talking about the past.”
“Touché.” I pointed my fork at him. “But that’s not the past. That’s current events.”
He considered that for a second and nodded like I had made a fair argument, which I had. “I won a big case. Mudd, he’s a—”
“I know who Mudd is.”
He smiled. “Right. It was a long case, high profile, and it took everything I had for about a year. When it was done, I looked up and realized I hadn’t taken a real break in four years.
” He turned his wine glass slowly in his hand.
“I’ve been thinking about branching out.
Taking Simmons into entertainment. Mudd was the first step, so I needed somewhere to come and sit with what that means. ”
“You’re serious about it this time?”
“Dead serious.” He held my gaze. “I spent a long time doing what I was supposed to do. I’m done with that bullshit.”
I heard what he wasn’t saying, and I set it aside because I wasn’t ready to pick it up yet. Ducane would have to show me.
“Mudd, though,” I said.
“Chill, that’s the homie. That crazy nigga made me a rich motherfucka.”
“Ducane Simmons representing Mudd. Your grandfather would be proud. But ole dear dad probably can’t stand it.”
He laughed. I pressed my lips together and looked away because his laugh had always been my favorite thing about him. The absence had not changed that by a single degree.
“He would,” he said. “But he’s gone now. We lost him about three years ago.”
I froze in place, my eyes landing on his. “I’m sorry, Ducane. I didn’t know.”
I’d met his grandfather, Dexter Shane, once, over Christmas dinner. Ducane had stolen his whole face, his size, all of it. I hated that I hadn’t been there to comfort him. I knew the grief had been hard on him. His granddad was his favorite person.
He stood, came around the table, and extended his hand.
Sadly, I didn’t hesitate. On my feet, he pulled me in close, and we swayed to Maxwell as if no time had passed at all. My face settled near his neck.
His cologne settled over me and pulled the ground from under me. I couldn’t believe he still wore it.
“How?” I murmured.
“How what?”
“How do you smell the same, Sugar Cane?” I inhaled again, and there it was, the same pull I got the day I made it.
Sharp up top, what everybody else smelled and thought was the whole story.
This close, the sweet sat underneath, right where I’d buried it on purpose.
Everybody got the sharp. I built the sugar just for me.
“I got more made. It was what I had left of you.”
My hand slid up the back of his neck before I told it not to. The island air was warm giving us a sticky feel. The candles flickered around us. I let myself have this moment even if I didn’t know what it meant.
“I fucked up, Skye.” His voice was so low I wondered if I was even supposed to hear it; he might as well have been writing on my skin. “I can’t say it enough. If I had it my way, I wouldn't be on a comeback tour to begin with but–”
“No, don’t do that. They made sure...” I shook my head before he could pick it up. “Not tonight, Ducane.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
“Give me another chance to show you that I’ve never stopped loving you, wanting you.
I don’t know what that looks like. I can’t even front like I have it all figured out, but I need a do-over, baby.
And I know I don’t deserve it. I ain’t earned that shit either… Stay with me tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
I stepped back and picked up the wine bottle off the table before looking at him and his full lips and bushy eyebrows.
Walking away was the last thing my body wanted and the only thing keeping me safe.
He had no idea what he was really asking for.
A do-over meant the whole truth, and I wasn’t drunk enough or brave enough to put that on the table tonight.
“Goodnight, Sugar Cane.”