Chapter Six #2
“That’s what aunties are for,” I said, bending to put my
drink in the grass. I straightened. “Throw it here.”
He stopped, tossed the ball to me, and I caught it.
I dribbled twice, set up, then tossed the ball. And in a
dress and heels, I didn’t do too badly, though it flew clean over the hoop from
side to side, missing it altogether.
Liam chased after it.
“Want it again?” he asked after he nabbed it.
Out here, alone, shooting hoops.
My boy with no daddy.
“Is it upsetting to you?” I asked. “Talia, I mean. That Tony
has his little girl now?”
Liam tipped his head to the side. “Naw. Why would it?”
“I think maybe he misses you a little bit,” I shared.
His eyes wandered to the side of the house. “Ya think?”
“Heads up,” I warned, then with two hands, I passed the ball
hard. No problems, he caught it. “There are things you can’t do with baby
girls.” I jerked my chin to the hoop. “And your granddad didn’t put this up for
you to hog it.”
Liam grinned at me.
I then jerked my head to the side yard. “Go, ask one of them
to hang with you.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. I know for a fact your grandfather would kill
for an excuse to get away from an engagement party he didn’t want to have in
the first place. He thinks Kenneth is touched.”
Another grin, this one bigger, because Liam agreed about the
touched part, then with ball under his arm, he dashed off.
This spoke volumes.
My boy, he liked his alone times. I’d noticed it more and
more when he started to get older. He was just one of those people who were
good in their own company. And he was like his mom. A reader.
Even so, he had those times where he wanted to be social.
But what boys liked to do together wasn’t an awful lot like
what girls liked to do, especially grown-up girls. I couldn’t mix him a mojito
and dish about Lena’s boyfriends with him.
He needed a man in his life.
He needed his father.
And again, that was not for now, and I was getting fed up
with the not for nows.
But that wasn’t for now either.
I followed my son, and fast, because I had to be there to
take Talia if he picked Tony first, because Tony doted on his daughter, and he
loved Liam, but I wasn’t sure he’d give her up for basketball.
Darius had been a great basketball player, though he
excelled at football. Got a scholarship to Yale that was academic, but they
scouted him for the team, and he’d had a place on it before he turned his back
on all that when Mister Morris died.
He should be shooting hoops with his son.
But I couldn’t do anything about that.
For now.
I was in my nightie, putting lotion on my elbows,
when the screen lit up on my phone sitting on the nightstand.
It said M.M.M. Calling.
When I’d programmed it in, I thought it was cute.
But now, it just reminded me not only that I could not type
Darius’s name into my phone, just in case someone saw it who shouldn’t, but
also, I couldn’t type in what M.M.M. meant—My Main Man—because he was that,
just no one knew it. And if they saw it, I’d have uncomfortable questions to
answer that I had no answers I could give.
Questions about Darius.
And maybe among those no ones who didn’t know who My Main
Man was, was Darius.
I flipped the phone open and put it to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hey, baby. I got nothing.”
“Sorry?”
“About Lena’s man. That Kenneth guy. White folk would call
him a douche, and I gotta say, that works for him, but other than that, he’s
got nothing wrong with him.”
I sat on the side of the bed, murmuring, “Damn.”
“At least he’s not a cheater or a low-level dealer,” Darius
tried to placate me.
“I guess we can count our blessings,” I replied.
He chuckled.
“Okay, thanks for looking into it,” I said, my tone flat.
He stopped chuckling, because he heard my tone, not that he
could miss it.
“You okay?”
No, I’m not! We’re on the phone when you should be here
with me and our son, so of course I’m not! I wanted to shout.
“Worried about Lena,” I kind of lied.
“That’s not it.”
When he said that, no clue why, but something broke in me.
“You know, Liam is pulling away from Tony.”
“He is?”
Oh my God.
Was I reading him correctly?
He sounded…happy about that.
“That’s not a good thing, Darius,” I informed him.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You sounded like it was.”
A beat then, “Right. You’re in a mood. Maybe we’ll talk
later.”
“Easy for you to just hang up and not have to deal with
anything real,” I snapped.
Silence, but he didn’t disconnect.
He got silence from me too, mostly because I was in
a mood, and if I spoke, I was afraid of what I’d say.
Darius broke the silence. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About what’s bothering you.”
“How much time you got?”
“All the time you need.”
I closed my eyes, clenched my fist, and dropped my head
back, because…why?
Why, why, why did he have to be so good when I was
so damned mad at him.
Why did he go out and discover Kenneth was a douche, putting
that effort in, and he didn’t play hoops with his son?
“Baby?” he called.
I opened my eyes and went for it.
What the hell, right?
I only had everything to lose.
“I need more from you.”
“What? Money? Is it the new house? Are they screwing you
over, pushing upgrades?”
“No, not money. You, Darius. I need more of you.”
“Okay, so how do we manage that?”
I stared at my knees.
“Malia? How do we manage that?”
“I…you…”
I was having trouble speaking, mostly because I was so
shocked he was giving in.
“I want more of you too, baby. It’s frustrating as fuck
trying to fit everything into a night every few months.”
“I…really?”
Silence again, this loaded, like he was pissed.
I’d know why when he ground out, “You aren’t a booty call,
woman.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“So how do we manage that?”
“I don’t know, but when I say I need more, I mean I need
more of the important stuff. Not that what we do when we’re together isn’t
important, but I need to know about you. Your life. What you spend your time
doing. Who you spend it with. And Darius, Liam is going to ask. One day, he’s
going to ask. It’s a miracle he hasn’t asked yet. And we need to have that
figured out. What we’re going to say when he asks about his father. And he’s
got a grandma and two aunties who live in the same town as him, and I think
we’re courting some serious future therapy for our son if we don’t let him have
all the things he’s entitled to.”
“I’ll tell you, but only if you promise me he’ll never know
what I am.”
That made me blink at my knees.
“Sorry?”
“You have to promise me.”
“Darius, I can’t make a promise without knowing what I’m
promising.”
“You’re going to have to think on that, babe. Because this
goes no further until you can give me that.”
Fear was creeping into my veins. “What do you do?”
“Think about it, baby,” he said softly, carefully. “How do I
know Lena’s ex was low-level?”
I turned my head sharply and said, “I’m tired. I don’t want
to talk about this now. We’ll figure out a way we can spend some time together
and talk then.”
“You don’t want me to run away from real, you can’t either,
sweetheart. I’m sorry, but it is what it is. I’ll give you time to think about
it, but I sense shit is coming to a head, and I’ve taken advantage of your
denial too long. You’re right. It’s time to get real. And I’ll make you a
promise right now, when we do, whatever you decide, I’ll honor it.”
There was something wrong with his tone.
It sounded…
Final.
“You’re scaring me,” I whispered.
“I’ve been trying to do that from the beginning. You just
believe in me so much, you wouldn’t let it penetrate. I’ll tell you, I thought
I’d feel relief when you finally got it. But that’s not what I feel. I feel the
same way you feel. Except a lot worse.”
“Darius—”
“Take the blinders off, Malia, think about it and call me.
We’ll talk.”
Oh God.
“I love you,” I blurted.
“I know,” he said softly, gently, and uneasily. “And that
scares me most of all.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“Think, baby, and we’ll talk,” he urged, now it was just
soft and gentle. “Try to sleep good.”
“You too.”
“Later.”
“’Bye, Darius.”
I said it and he disconnected.
I just didn’t know when he disconnected, he was going to
think too.
Think and act on what he thought.
Think and, to protect me, to protect our son, take the
decision out of my hands.
So that goodbye was going to last a whole lot longer than I
could ever imagine.