Vegarro “Vega” Moretti
“How far have you let a man go with you?”
Her body stiffened even with her back turned to me. The spoon paused inside the skillet, and I watched the effect my question had on her before she looked over her shoulder.
Sonnet lifted her chin, trying to appear more confident than enthralled. “I might be a virgin, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never hit all of the other bases. I’ve dealt with a few men.”
“Dealt with them how?”
“Talking stage. A few relationships with men who claimed they could wait until I was ready.”
“But none of them could.”
“No. They all said the right things in the beginning. Then they started pressuring me, getting distant, or acting like I was wasting their time.”
I leaned against the island. “So, you let them run a base or two.”
Her cheeks warmed, but she didn’t look away. “I’ve never had intercourse. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being satisfied.”
My dick reacted before I could stop it. I held her gaze as I licked my lips to taste her. “You taste good.”
And she tasted like mine, like my favorite taste.
Her mouth dropped open. “That’s not fair. You said we can’t do anything right now. You can’t say that and then tease me like that.”
A chuckle escaped me. “My fault.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’re sorry.”
“I’m not.”
She turned back to the stove, shaking her head as she stirred the sauce. I watched her move around my kitchen with the smell of dinner filling the room and the taste of her still on my tongue.
It felt natural. Sonnet standing barefoot at my stove, cooking for me with her hair pulled back should not have settled into my life as easily as it did.
I could already imagine coming home to this every night, her voice filling the house, her glasses left on counters, her books stacked wherever she finished reading them.
“How do you feel about family?” she asked. “You know so much about me. It’s only fair that you tell me some of your business.”
“I don’t have anything against having a wife and kids.”
“That sounded sooo romantic,” she joked.
I chuckled as she lowered the heat under the skillet and faced me.
“My parents have been together my whole life,” I explained. “They love each other, they’re loyal, and they built everything around family. I had a good example.”
“So, you want that?”
“For my children, yeah.”
Her expression softened.
“Maybe that’s why I haven’t had any yet,” I continued. “When I do, I want them raised in something stable. I don’t want children spread across different houses with mothers who hate each other. I want them to see their parents together and know nobody is going anywhere.”
Sonnet studied me like she hadn’t expected that answer. “Are you and Wise mixed with something besides Black?”
“My father is Italian.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“My parents met in Italy. My mother was teaching English there. They moved back to Chicago when I was one.”
The interest that entered her face made me smile.
“Parli italiano? (Do you speak Italian?)” she asked.
I stared at her for a second before answering, “Sì. Lo parlo fluentemente. (Yes. I speak it fluently.)”
I watched her admiration settle over me as if speaking another language had revealed another layer that she hated she liked.
“You’re fluent in Italian?” I asked.
“I took it in college. I’m not fluent, but I know enough to follow a conversation.”
“Why Italian?”
“I thought the language was beautiful.” Her smile turned slightly shy. “And sexy. I visited Italy once too. It was part of a short study-abroad program.”
“Where?”
“Rome and Florence.”
“You liked it?”
“I loved it. The architecture, the food, the history. Everything felt older than anything I had ever seen here.”
“Prodigy’s father is my father’s brother,” I explained. “Our mothers are best friends. That’s why me, Wise, and Prodigy were raised so close. We’re cousins, but that word never felt like enough.”
“And Lux and Lowe?”
“Lux’s mother is my mother’s cousin. They’ve been around us forever too.”
Her brows met together. “Lux’s mother? Aren’t they twins?”
I laughed. “They are ghetto twins. They were born two days apart. Their father raised them together though, since he wasn’t in a relationship with either of their mothers.”
She started laughing. “Oh my God. But they look just alike.”
“That’s why they claim to be twins.”
Her gaze drifted toward the stove, but something in her expression changed.
The admiration remained, mixed with an emptiness I recognized even if I had never experienced it myself.
She was imagining what it would have been like to grow up surrounded by people who stayed.
I wanted to erase that look. More than that, I wanted to give her a table full of people who knew her history, children running through a house that felt lived in, holidays where nobody forgot her, a family she never had to question.
I wanted to give Sonnet everything her eyes admitted she had missed.