Chapter 8 #2
“Nah, it was just a quick job,” Ro says, conveniently leaving out that the “job” was a thirty-minute charge I should’ve done myself.
“Yeah. No, everything’s good Mr…. ?”
“Jackson,” he says. “Or you can call me Pops. Everyone else does.” He laughs as he holds his hands out to his namesake garage. “Still blame Ro for that one. Had all his little friends calling me that so long, it stuck.”
“Don’t act like you don’t love it, PJ,” Ro says, catching the towel his dad throws in his direction this time.
My head volleys between their broad smiles, equally bright against their smooth skin.
Each of their brown eyes so dark they’d be black if not for the tiniest hint of gold at their edges.
Crinkling into crescent moons when they laugh their same easy laugh.
His dad really said copy & paste. The only notable difference is Mr. Jackson’s dimple is on his right cheek, where Ro’s digs into the left—two sides of the same face.
“Mr. Jackson,” I decide. “I just came by to drop something off. For Ro.”
Ro raises an eyebrow in my direction again, surprised by the news.
But Mr. Jackson’s attention is elsewhere. “Boy, you got about thirty seconds left on this song before you gotta write my name on that winner’s board again. I know you don’t think distracting me with this young lady’s gonna save you.”
“I already got this one and you know it.”
“There you go, tryin’ to change the rules on me,” Mr. Jackson says, laughing. “Kaia, I’m sorry you have to see this. I promise you never met a man worse at losing than my boy.”
And there it is, like clockwork. Any time I see dads with their kids, dads who stayed, there’s always a moment. A moment I get a glimpse of what life could be like. A moment I have to force a smile as I swallow heavy past a familiar pang in my chest.
Ro’s laugh puts a welcome end to that moment. “Man, don’t do me like that, Pops!”
“Okay,” I say, raising my hand. “I think I’m a little lost.”
Mr. Jackson walks out from behind the car and turns up the music. “It’s how we pass the time out here. Gotta name every artist and song before it ends. Till one of us don’t know,” he says through a smirk that reminds me so much of his son.
“…And this man knows I know this song,” Ro finishes.
“I don’t need your outta tune self serenading me like you’re finna ask me to go steady. I need a name,” Mr. Jackson says, clapping his hands together to drive it home. “You ain’t got that, take your L like a man and stop embarrassing yourself in front of Kaia here.”
That shuts Ro up quick. His arms cross above his head and his eyes dart back and forth as he racks his brain.
The notes are fading out. There are only a few seconds left, and at this point we all know Ro’s not getting it.
Mr. Jackson’s already doing a celebratory dance that ages him by about a decade, while Ro looks like he could flip the Beamer with his bare hands.
“Have You Seen Her,” I must say out loud, because both their heads whip around to me. Since they’re still waiting, I follow it up with the winning answer. “The Chi-Lites.”
“The Chi-Lites!” Ro echoes, walking over to high-five me. He’s still clasping my hand in the air when he turns toward Mr. Jackson. “We’re taking that point. Kaia’s on my team now.”
“Oh, it’s like that,” his dad says, laughing.
“It’s just like that.”
“Okay, I see you,” Mr. Jackson says. “I’m gonna give y’all that one, but next time I’m bringing your mother. Then you know it’s over.”
Ro flinches. “Damn. If you thought my dad was bad…”
“Chi-Lites,” Mr. Jackson says as he adds my K to Ro’s R on the leader board, like it’s nothing. “Your parents did all right with you.”
“My mom,” I say, correcting him. “Breakup songs are our unofficial family anthem.”
“I hear that,” he says, even though he can’t possibly know the half of it. “Now if you two will excuse me, somebody’s gotta do some work around here. Y’all can go do your victory lap inside.”
—
“Your dad’s great,” I say as soon as the lobby door closes behind us.
Ro smiles. “He’s a piece of work.” But behind the jab, all I hear is love. “So, what’s up? You said you have something for me?”
“Yeah, I was out and remembered I had this on me.” I reach into my pocket for the questionnaire. “I think you mentioned wanting to see it, so I figured…”
Ro’s eyes light up like a kid on Christmas, but as he reads it, the humor on his face morphs into something else.
“Shit, this is intense. I thought it’d ask favorite movies or something. Not ‘Describe your childhood trauma and how it fucked you up.’ ”
“It does not say that,” I say, laughing. “But it is a lot. Zola’s a lot. She swears if two people compare their answers to these questions they’ll—”
“Lose their will to live?” Ro says, looking either terrified or impressed. It’s too soon to say which.
My laughs comes out like a bark, but Ro’s reaction to the sound looks like pride.
“I think in therapy that’s called a breakthrough,” I say, still smiling.
Ro moves behind the register. “I didn’t realize therapy and matchmaking had so much in common,” he says, fishing a pen from between the rows of the keyboard. “But I’m down.”
He’s folded over the counter as he scribbles words onto the questionnaire that was meant to be mine. I don’t stop him. For some reason nothing feels as important as reading Ro’s answers to these questions I’ve been mocking all day.
“How many guys are filling this out for you?” he asks, without looking up from his work.
“Three. But they’re not doing it for me. They don’t even know me.”
His head snaps up, eyes locking with mine. “Then why are they doing it?”
He asks it so earnestly, like it’s the most obvious question in the world, but I don’t have an answer.
Unless you count figuring out ways to blow them off, I haven’t spent much time thinking about these guys at all.
Let alone trying to determine their motivations for agreeing to this.
So I say something I do know to be true.
“My sister can be pretty convincing.”
The rolling timbre of Ro’s laugh is like a lazy Sunday morning. “Say no more. She damn near had me introducing her to every skeleton in my closet too.”
“She’s got a gift,” I tell him, attempting a not-so-subtle peek at his paper. “And embarrassing me is her lifeblood. So whyever the guys do it, I promise that’s a major part of her motivation.”
“I don’t think it’s embarrassing,” he says easily. Like maybe he means it. “I think it’s dope. Not too many people would do something like this. I’m impressed, E.”
“Can we negotiate my nickname before you commit to calling me Empty?”
“Only if you show me yours. The questionnaire you filled out.”
It doesn’t matter that I haven’t yet filled mine out. My answer will always be the same: “Absolutely not.”
“Aw, come on. I thought we were a team!”
“For musical trivia? Sure. For baring the inner workings of my cold black heart? No.”
“Fair enough,” he says, laughing. “But you don’t get to see mine either.”
I’m watching him tuck it under the cash drawer so intently that I jump a little when he slams the register shut. “Not until you’re ready to swap.”
“Well, your secrets are safe then,” I say. “Because I’m not swapping.”
That’s what my mouth says, but my eyes are still zeroed in on Ro’s hiding spot. When I look back to him, Ro’s eyes are even brighter than usual, and when the corners of his lips quirk, I know it’s not just ’cause he’s caught me—he’s fucking with me.