Chapter 19 #2
I don’t know where the revelation came from, but it fell out without a stutter and made me feel rejuvenated rather than depleted.
It’s only the second revelation I’ve ever had about a man.
The first one was when I figured out AJ probably only knew how to love me in the same way his daddy loved his mama.
Rich lets out a low hum that makes me squirm. “You think I’m an inherently good man?”
“Yes,” I whisper, tracing that gash along his stomach with my eyes. “Smitty said you were a hell-raiser, but I don’t believe him. I’ve loved a hell-raiser, and there were times I couldn’t even look at him without feeling like I needed to run away, but I can’t run away from you.”
He reaches out, pushing at my wild baby hair with the back of his finger before snorting. “A’ight, that’s enough. Time to eat.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Drink this.” He pushes his glass toward me.
“But I don’t want that.”
I want him.
He pushes the glass to my lips. “It’ll make the food go down easier.”
The tart smell makes my nostrils flare, and I choke out a dry heave. “I hate brown liquor.”
“What you drink then? Cosmos?”
I laugh. “Cosmos? This isn’t some early 2000s rom-com. I like French 75s.”
“And this ain’t New York. You gotta drink something that’ll put hair on your chest—not that soft shit.” He smiles at me. “Now drink.”
“I need a chaser.”
“You tough. You don’t need no damn chaser.”
“I do.” I whine, eyeing the rim where his mouth had been.
“Stop being difficult. Let me show you something.”
He taps the glass against my lips until they open and I finally accept the drink. The warm liquor flows down my throat, settling at the very bottom of my mostly empty stomach. It tastes as bitter as it smells, and my upper lip curls.
“Don’t make that face. It’s good,” he mutters, reaching down and flaking off a forkful of fish before pushing it toward my mouth. “Now open back up.”
This time, my mouth falls open without hesitation, and he shoves the food inside it.
He didn’t even give the bitter liquor time to settle and mingle with the few pieces of Texas toast I forced myself to eat while I cooked.
The zesty taste of the salmon vibrates against my tastebuds and cleanses my palate, making a quiet hum dance out of my mouth.
The sharp pain in my side still lingers, but for the first time, I’m okay with it being there while I eat.
“See, that’s all the chaser you need,” he says, stabbing the fork through an asparagus spear. “The Jack will get rid of that nasty pain, and before you know it, you’ll have a full stomach.”
He tweaks my nose until I smile.
I can see in his eyes that he’s had to feed himself this same way more times than I can count.
He takes an easy toke from his blunt while he waits for me to finish chewing. Smoke billows out of his nose and floats above his head.
I smirk, swallowing. “Funny how you’re eating like a boxer, but you don’t actually want to be one.”
“I’m eating the same dinner I eat every other night. I can’t win shit at Lucky’s with a stomach full of fried chicken and Honey Buns.”
“So why don’t you want to be a boxer? You’re already doing boxer things.”
“What I want is to eat dinner with you.” He pushes the piece of asparagus toward my mouth. “Hm…open.”
“Just answer my question,” I reply teasingly, pulling away.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I want to know.” I toss my arms up, looking around his small house as Uncle Kenny’s words replay in my head about him not wanting anything outside the Bottoms. “Have you ever wanted anything outside of here? You’ve never wanted to live somewhere else…or to be something else?”
He smiles, eyeing my arms and face. “The only thing I ever wanted was to live to see thirty…and I did that.”
“But…but what about traveling at least? You ever fantasized about going away?”
He belts out a low chuckle. “That part of my brain don’t even work, mama. I ain’t no spring chicken. So I ain’t fantasizing about much but some peace and quiet after a long day. Now open up for me.”
I open my mouth and he pushes the asparagus inside while my stomach plummets in a way that hurts. Aunt Faye really sat in our living room and lied again, but deep down I already knew she was lying.
“That’s it?” I ask between chews. “That’s all you wanted out of life was to make it to thirty?”
“Most of us down at Lucky’s don’t even make it to twenty…” He brushes a scabbed knuckle against my cheek. “Senior says if you make it to thirty, then you might make it to fifty and have a bed waiting for you at B’s. Thirty is usually the pinnacle of a fighter’s life.”
All the blood drains from my face.
No matter how many times I try to understand a fighter’s life like Senior says I should, I just can’t grasp it. I can’t picture the inside of the garage bays at Lucky’s, the smells, or Rich’s life ending before it even starts.
I clear my throat and try to blink away the wetness in my eyes while I swallow the tangy pieces of asparagus. “Your dad has a way with words, huh?”
He swipes his knuckle back across my cheek. “Well, ain’t no use in pouring sugar—”
“Over shit.” I snort, looking away. “I know.”
He feeds me another piece of asparagus and I try to swallow any thoughts I have of him no longer existing along with the spear.
Another quiet lull envelopes us before I blurt, “They were arguing about you before I left—Uncle Kenny and Aunt Faye.”
“They were arguing in front of you?”
I nod.
He drops the fork, dragging me closer by my belt loop again. “They shouldn’t do that. I don’t like that.”
“They were arguing about what you wanted…and Aunt Faye told Uncle Kenny you wanted it. She said you wanted a boxing career.” Our eyes meet, and he gives my body another tug. “She was lying, though.”
He looks away from me.
“She does that a lot now.”
“Does what?”
“Lies.”
He lets go of my belt loop and picks the fork back up. “C’mere. Come, finish eat—”
“Her and Senior had a life together before me and Uncle Kenny, huh?” I glance around his kitchen. “He called her Faye-baby. I’ve never heard anybody call her that.”
“Slim…”
“Uncle Kenny brought him up when they were arguing and I thought she was gonna lose her shit. I’ve only ever seen her get that crazy about me and Mama.”
I look back at him and the deep gash I’ve been eyeing. This time I reach out, dragging my fingers across the raised flesh. Its roughness helps quell a tiny part of my yearning.
He follows my finger and swallows. I see the answer to my question in his red-rimmed eyes while he lets me put the pieces together myself.
“They were never random classmates like she told me. They dated before me and Uncle Kenny came along.”
“Yeah…and then he made her leave him and settle down with Kenny.”
A faint grunt climbs up my throat. “Why would he do that?”
He reaches down, pulling an ashtray out of a drawer, sitting it on the island, then dropping his blunt in it.
He crooks his finger. “C’mere.”
I scoot closer and he lays his hands on my thighs. “You know, once we teach you baby birds how to fly, we gotta make sure you end up with a decent mate—a safe, easy, slow one that’s gonna want you more than you want him.”
“Shouldn’t both people want each other equally, though?”
He shakes his head, chuckling. “That’s some fairytale-type shit, and ain’t no such thing as fairytale-type love.
In the real world, if a man who claims to love you even breathes wrong, you shouldn’t feel an ounce of regret for getting up and walking away because he was always just an option.
He was never the end for you. You can have whoever and whatever you want in life. ”
“I should be selfish, right?”
“Always be selfish, baby—never polite. Especially when a man you barely even know is smiling at you.”
That soft “baby” comes out in a rasp that makes me scoot closer to him, but he grabs my waist and holds me at arms length like he knows I’m dying to crawl into his arms one more time to make sense of everything I just learned—about him, about myself as a woman and about Aunt Faye.
I swallow a choke. “You think Uncle Kenny loves Aunt Faye more than she loves him?”
“I don’t know. I know she hated Senior for a while after what happened between them—for a long time she wouldn’t even bring him up when we ran into each other. It ain’t no room in a fighter’s life for love, anyway.”
“But there’s room for kids? Aren’t kids the epitome of love? Senior has kids.”
He swipes his hand across my forehead while smiling. “Your head don’t hurt from all of this deep thinking you doing?”
I shake my head, staring at his plump lips, waiting for whatever comes out next.
“He says Arnez was his best mistake. That’s his babygirl.”
“And you?”
He picks the blunt up, taking another pull while smiling. “He needed a boy to carry on his legacy. You can’t do shit with a girl at Lucky’s. So LaTanya promised him she could give him a boy as soon as she got out of rehab as long as he took care of her after she gave birth. So here I am—”
“With all your fingers, all your toes, and hands you can ball into fists. You’re perfect.”
He reaches out, running a finger along my cheek. “No more visits with Senior, no more deep thinking, and for damn sure no more questions about Faye and Senior’s business. Finish eat—”
“But if you don’t want it, then why’re you going along with Aunt Faye and this boxing dream?”
A ghost of a smile coats his face because he’s floating again. This time it’s in his dilated pupils and fluttering eyelashes.