Chapter 23
My MAN
Iwas bored.
Not the kind of bored where I needed something to watch or somewhere to go, the kind of bored that came from not knowing what I was supposed to be doing.
For years, I always had something to do, dealing with Gio and the block, then moving to Atlanta and working. Not now. I am in a big house with nothing on my schedule.
The house was the way I wanted. I had no more wedding planning I needed to do; Amir was at school, and Love had fixed himself an office and was working hard.
I ended up in the kitchen. That seemed to be the place I went when I had nothing else to do. I opened the fridge, looked around in that shit for a minute, and decided to make Love some lunch.
I pan-fried my man some chicken and a lil’ side salad and took it up to his office.
When I walked in, that man had his music playin’ and his head nodding along to it and was busy adding diamonds to a bracelet when he looked at me with a smile, turning his music down.
He leaned back in his chair a lil’ like he had been waiting for me without sayin’ it.
“What you got there?” he asked.
I lifted the plate slightly.
“Lunch for my hard-working man.”
His eyebrow went up.
“Dammnn, this is what it’s like to have a stay-at-home wife. I like that shit.”
I walked over and placed the plate on his desk in front of him.
He looked at the plate, then back at me.
“You bored ain’t it?”
I laughed. “Stop, how do you know?”
He shook his head. “Cause I never seen anybody make something like this for lunch.”
I walked over to the window and looked out of it.
“Yeahh…I’m bored as hell. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“You don’t have to do shit,” Love said through bites of food. “That’s the point of having a provider.”
I tried not to smile, but that shit was so sexy.
“Look, go get dressed, and lemme finish work, and I’ll take you out.”
“Take me out where?” I asked softly.
“Girl, just go get dressed.”
I laughed while walking over and giving him a kiss before walking out the door.
I threw on some jeans and a pink top to match some sneakers, did my hair quick, then went back into his office.
“I’ll be done in just a second,” He responded while still looking down, his face studying whatever he was working on.
I took a seat on the corner of his desk, watching him move with precision on a necklace now.
Love was nice with what he did. I could tell he really loved what he did and the pieces he created.
He placed one more diamond on one side of the necklace, then he placed it down and looked up at me.
“Come on, beautiful.”
Love stood up and grabbed my hand before pulling me out of his office and upstairs, and out of the house.
We walked out to his truck, still not knowing where we were going.
“You gonna tell when we headed?” I asked once I got in.
“No.”
I rolled my eyes. “You get on my nerves.’
“Just ride with me, baby, mams.”
I smiled while he pulled out of the driveway.
The ride was easy. He wasn’t rushing, no phone calls, just us.
The music was playing low while Love drove with one hand on the wheel, the other rubbing my thigh.
For a while, we didn’t even talk. We were just riding, looking out the window. I realized this was something I hadn’t done in a long time.
The buildings slowly started disappearing the farther we got from the city. Before long, there were more trees than stores, more open land than traffic, and I found myself sitting up a lil’ straighter trying to figure out where he was taking me.
I looked over at him, and he laughed at me.
“You know I haven’t seen this side of Atlanta yet.”
“I know,” he responded. “It’s something different.”
About twenty minutes later, he turned on a narrow road that looked like it barely belonged on a map. Trees lined both sides of it, and after another few minutes he pulled into a gravel lot.
I looked around, confused. I didn’t see shit out there.
I looked over at Love rolling up the windows and turning the truck off.
“You brought me somewhere to kill me?!” I asked.
That nigga laughed at me. “Girl, get yo ass out the truck.”
We hopped out, I walked over to grab his hand, and he took me walking through the grass.
“This is somewhere I never brought anybody to,” he said softly.
After what felt like a few minutes of walking, we walked up to a lake that was surrounded by some rocks and open land. A few horses were grazing farther off behind a fence, and everything was so…peaceful.
The wind blew through the trees. The air felt fresher out there. It almost felt strange that we were still in Atlanta.
Love grabbed my hand and walked me toward the rocks, feeling the water splash against them.
“How did you find this place?”
“I own it,” he said, like that wasn’t shit.
I backed up and dropped my mouth. He stood back, smiling at me.
“Nigga! You own all of this?!” I questioned. “Since when?”
“I’ve owned this for a few years now. My grandma had a house out here that was fucked up, I tore it down, and this became my lil’ thinking place, when I need to duck off from the city for a lil’ bit.”
I nodded, looking around. “Why haven’t you rebuilt?”
“I said I would…” he said softly. “When I got married.”
Love pulled me into his arms and stared into my eyes before kissing me.
“I love the fuck outta you.”
“I love you too, baby,” I said back.
Love took me to a huge rock, took a seat, and sat me on his lap. We watched the water move.
“You came here to think?”
“Yeah,” he responded. “Whenever I was doing some crazy shit, or was about to do some crazy shit, I would come out here, think, and apologize to my grandma for whatever I was about to do.”
We laughed.
It was something comforting about knowing he had somewhere he could go when the world got heavy before me, before Amir.
We sat there talking about random shit. Nothing really important. One conversation rolled into the other.
We laughed, talked about Amir, Keith, and his niggas trying on suits. At some point, Love got quiet, and I felt his body change in a way that I can’t even explain, but it made me turn and look at him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I sucked my teeth. “Don’t play with me, Love, what is wrong?”
I turned to face him a lil’ bit, he looked at me like he was trying to look inside of me and moved a piece of hair outta my face.
“We gotta leave all that shit behind us.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about.
He wasn’t talking about the city. He was talking about Gio and the drama and stress that came with him.
Love looked back out at the lake.
“That chapter is over with.”
I sat there for a second, letting those words settle because, for the first time, I actually believed him. Not only because he said it, but because I could feel it.
The fear I had wasn’t there anymore. The constant waiting for the other shoe to drop, the feeling that somebody could have been watching. I felt like I could breathe again when he handed me them bullet shells.
Love tapped me on my ass, having me stand up.
He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I felt him take a deep breath with his body pressed against.
“Could you see yourself living out here?” he asked.
I looked off in the distance at all the land, the lake, the horses, and a smile came over my face.
“I could, I actually could.”
Love pulled away from me and took my hand, walking me back to the car.
We headed back to the city and went to get Amir from ball practice. We got there a lil’ before it was done and went inside to watch him.
We were only sitting down with the other parent for a few minutes before Love was on the court taking shots with Amir.
I love the smile Love had on his face. It felt like since we got together, he had been smiling more and more.
By the time we got home, I was actually tired, but in a good way. Love went upstairs with Amir and made sure he got in the shower, then went down to his office to finish up his work while I hopped in the kitchen and cooked dinner.
I made some chicken Alfredo with some broccoli and garlic bread. Once it was all done, I made everybody plates, set them on the table, then called everyone up to eat.
Love came running up the steps while I heard Amir coming from upstairs, both getting to the table at the same time.
“This looks good as hell,” Love said, scratching his head.
“Yeah, and it smells so good, Islah,” Amir said as he sat down.
I smiled at my men.
“Come on, let’s eat.”
We sat around the table as normal, letting Amir lead the conversation as we talked back and laughed at all the crazy random shit that boy would bring up.
They both finished their plates fast and got up for a second plate around the same time.
“You okay?” Love asked.
“Yeah baby,” I am more than okay. “I said, leaving my thoughts to myself.”
After I was done eating, Love and Amir cleaned the kitchen up for me, putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and the lil’ bit of leftovers in the fridge.
I finally made it up to our room and took a long, hot shower, letting the water massage my back.
I felt so relaxed when I was done. I took my time to oil my body, do my skincare routine, and when I came outta the bathroom, ready to lay in bed and watch a movie, I found Love sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Hey mamas, you can oil my scalp?” he asked, still scratching his shit.
I smiled, walked back into the bathroom, grabbed some things, and walked back out and walked over to him.
“No, I can’t. I can do more,” I responded.
I took Love by his hand and he let me led him downstairs with my tote bag in my hand. We went to the living room, I sat down, threw one of the couch pillows on the floor, and opened my legs. Love smiled big as fuck.
“Mamas… you know Amir upstairs?” he voiced.
“Nigga!” I said, laughing. “I’ma do your hair.”
We laughed together as he sat down. He found a movie for us to watch while I started to unbraid his hair and detangle it.
Once I was done, we walked into the kitchen. Love put some R&B music on the Alexa, and we danced. I had my head laying against Love’s chest, listening to him hum along to the song that was playin’ when I looked up at him.
“Thank you…”
He looked at me, confused. “Thank me for what?”
“Thank you for showing me what real love is.”
Love pushed me back against him, holding me tighter.
After the song was finished, I took Love to the sink and took my time watching his hair, with him rubbing my leg the whole time.
When that was done, Love went and grabbed his weed, and I popped us some popcorn. When he sat back down, I got to work on his head with him rubbing my feet and smoking the whole time.
As I parted and braided, I kept smiling to myself, thinking everything that was happening in my life was too good to be true, and the reality of it was, it wasn’t.
It was the difference between a nigga that talks good and took peace and a man that was a provider and wanted nothing more for me to be at peace.