Chapter 6
I had to count my blessings for everything that happened in my life.
My father was well and would be leaving the hospital soon.
We’d been talking more, and I always wanted that.
I was at the hospital visiting him. It felt strange, getting to know my father all over again.
He wanted to build a relationship with me, so I had to give this all that I had and more.
“Where’s Brenda?” I asked him. It wasn’t like her not to be here.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure.” He ducked his head and sighed deeply.
It sounded like there was a story to that, but it wasn’t my business. I was only here to talk about our relationship and nothing more. I could only hope everything was okay with them.
“Oh. If you see her today, make sure you tell her I asked about her.”
He nodded. “If she decides to stop by. We’ve been having problems in our marriage.”
I shook my head not needing to know that. If my father and I were closer, I’d ask him why, but we weren’t.
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about Brenda or my marriage. This is our time together. A time that should’ve already been established, but I take the blame on that.”
I pressed my lips together, not knowing what to say. Even though I agreed with him because it was his fault, we weren’t close or had a relationship.
“How have you been? Are you still working at Tito’s? Your mother told me you had a job there.”
I folded my hands in my lap. “Yes, I still work there. One of the best bartenders that works there too.” I’d tell anyone that. Many of the other bartenders wanted pointers on how to make their drinks a certain way. I’d give them a few tips, but they couldn’t get all my secrets.
“That’s good to know. I might stop by there one of these days. You know I don’t drink that much.”
I stared at him with my head tilted to the side. “No, I don’t know that, but I guess that’s good to know.”
He dropped his head. “You’re right. You wouldn’t know that since I never made an effort with you in the past. Even when I tried, I always backed off. I have no reasons as to why.”
I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from getting emotional.
“I wish there were more ways to tell you how sorry I am for treating you how I did all these years. The only thing I can do is show you that I’m serious about having a relationship with you.”
“That’s all you can do at this point. Your words means nothing to me. After all the times you’ve let me down, I got to see you change and mean business in getting to know me.”
He nodded. “That’s something I can do. I’m serious about this, Chy.”
“Okay, Dad. I hear you. We can only see how this will change over the next few days, weeks, months, or years.”
I didn’t know what else to say on that matter. The nurse came in and gave him some medicine to take. I knew that was my cue to leave since the medicine made him drowsy.
“Can I get a hug before you go?” he asked.
With a small smile on my face, I went toward the bed to give my father a hug. Hopefully, that was the first of many. The only thing I could do was hold out hope.
I didn’t feel like going home right away, and since I was hungry, I ended up at The Sub’s Inn.
They had the best subs around. They were one of my favorite sub places to visit.
I sat at a table near the window and pulled out my cell phone.
I scrolled on TikTok while I ate my food.
After that talk with my father, the only thing I tried not to do was think the worse.
What if he was only telling me all of that because he was in the hospital?
That would really crush me when I was sincere in wanting to build a relationship with him. Only time would tell.
I felt eyes on me and nearly did a double take when I saw the mystery man from the bar.
I couldn’t keep calling him the mystery man, so I needed to find out what his name was.
Our eyes locked and held, and a feeling came over my body that had me wanting to go to him.
I wanted him to let down his guard around me.
The more I tried to get him to talk to me, he brushed me off.
I hated that and wondered what I had to do to change the way he felt.
He averted his eyes from me and went back to eating his food. There was no way I’d be eating any of my food now. If I did, it would be in front of him. I packed up the stuff and went to sit by him. I had never been as bold as I was now. But with this man I felt like I could be the boldest.
When I sat down in front of him, he scoffed with a shake of his head. The only thing I did was smile at him.
“Hi,” I greeted him, putting my food tray on the table.
“You don’t give up, do you?” he asked.
I chuckled. “Nope. It’s never been in my nature to do so. I’m Chyanne, but I go by Chy.” I guess since I kept running into him, I could give him my name.
“Jamari, but I go by Mari.”
I almost sighed in relief when he spoke his name to me. To me I felt like that was a win. I could remember that was what the little boy called him at the hospital. I wondered how he was doing anyway.
“How’ve you been since the last time we talked?” I asked, opening my sub wrapper.
He shrugged.
I sighed with a shake of my head. “Why do I have the feeling you’ll be giving me a hard time?”
I’d never met anyone like him, but he was very interesting to me.
If I could sit here all day and try to talk to him, I would.
I’d never went after a man the way this way before.
But it was something about Jamari that pulled me in.
I wanted to find out what it was. I wasn’t going to give up until he told me to leave him alone.
Since he had never done that, I’d continue to push until I was in his life.
“You can feel any way you want to,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes skyward. “Of course, you’d say that.”
Without saying anything else to him for a while, I finished off my sub. It had hit the spot too.
I got some words out of Jamari but not a lot. The next time we talked, I’d make sure he said much more to me. He could act like he was unaffected by me all he wanted, but if I felt something, I had a feeling he did too.