Chapter 19
VASIAH
“Did you fuck that girl?” LaReina asked once I got her buckled in, and we started driving from my Pops’ crib.
I looked over at her and then back at the road.
With LaReina, you truly never knew what was gonna come out of her mouth, but I should’ve known that the interaction with Mykita was going to leave her with questions.
“Before I answer that, what makes you want to know that?”
“Just answer the question and make sure you don’t lie or withhold information from me.”
I sighed. It’s not that I planned to lie to her; it’s just that I didn’t want her to interpret our interaction as more than what it was. I wasn’t interested in that damn girl, despite our past.
“I… yeah. We fucked. Once.”
“When?”
“In college.”
“Hmm. Okay.” Silence filled the car again as I moved from lane to lane.
“Hayami? That’s all? Why’d you ask that?”
“Because…she was a ‘lil too eager to be in your face at the barbecue and looked like I had stolen her man when you introduced us. She also randomly asked about whatever the fuck Comic Con is, trying to temp check us.”
I chuckled in disbelief. “And you got all that just from that one interaction?” Don’t get me wrong, Mykita revealed that when we had sex, she always liked me and had a crush on me, but I wasn’t interested in having her be my girlfriend.
I thought she took it well, but apparently not if she was still pining after me years later.
“You a lil slow, ain’t it?”
“What?!”
“Vasiah. You are handsome, okay? I don’t know if you realize it, but you are.
If I see it, unfortunately, these other bitches see it too.
And now that I know exactly what that dick, tongue, and those fingers do, I’m sure any bitch you had the nerve to fuck before me probably misses it.
That being said, please make sure she stays on the side of formerly fucked, and that’s it.
I’d hate to introduce you and her to what I keep in my purse,” she snapped.
And dammit, if my sick ass ain’t grin and feel my dick harden. Did she just threaten to shoot me?
Yes.
Was I turned on? Hell yes.
“And another thing, actually two things. One, why you ain’t tell me today was yo mama's birthday? And that’s why ya’ll have the cookout every year?”
Shit. Grief is so funny because the older I got, the less I remembered my mom, and I felt shitty about it.
I watched my Pop mourn her day in and day out over the years, but I…
unfortunately did not share that same experience.
Some years I remembered her birthday, and other years I didn’t.
“This is gonna sound so fucked up of me… but honestly, I forgot. I was five when she died, and sometimes I feel like I got robbed of knowing her. I rely on my Pop’s memory to get me by, but sometimes that feels like it’s not enough.
” It had been years since I visited her gravesite or even talked about her openly.
I was angry that a pulmonary embolism had taken her out. I just wish I had more time with her.
“It doesn’t make you fucked up,” she whispered.
“I don’t know how it feels to lose a mama, but I know how it feels to lose a father, one you barely knew because you didn’t have enough time with them.
It sucks because when grief hits, or you find yourself in mourning, it almost feels like a displaced emotion.
Like, you shouldn’t be feeling that way.
But… you deserve to feel what you feel and be honest about it, Vasiah. ”
“You deserve the same, Hayami.”
She waved me off. “Yeah… I’m coming to terms with some shit in therapy about that. Feels like I’m beating a dead horse… but like I’ve been saying, it's hard to mourn a man who ignored your entire existence when he was alive just because you weren’t a boy.”
I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t right of her dad to do that, but I imagined that the reasoning was that he wanted to keep her safe and as uninvolved in the streets as possible.
“What was the second thing, Hayami?”
“Oh yeah! So you’ve been introducing me as your lady and whatnot, but I don’t recall you asking me to be your girlfriend.”
“Is that something you require?”
She paused for a bit, then nodded.
“Why’d you hesitate?”
“Because I never considered being asked. But the more I think about it, yes, I want to be asked.”
“Well, LaReina Daeyonna King… will you be my lady?”
She paused. “You don’t think it's too soon? It’s only been two months.”
I parked in front of my house and turned to look at her. “This, coming from the same lady who told me that I had three business days to tie up any loose ends I had with anyone… sounds like you wanted to be my girlfriend right then and there.”
“Mind you, your tongue was touching my heart through my asshole, and that’s what made me say that.”
I snorted. “I don’t care if my tongue touched your brain; you said it. Come on, LaReina, you wanna be my girl just as much as you want me to be your man; otherwise you wouldn’t have said it.”
“Yeah, but you still didn’t ask.”
I paused. “My apologies, love, I didn’t think I had to ask for something that was clearly understood between us.”
She was silent.
“LaReina.” I leaned in and kissed her lips, my hand collaring her throat as I did so. “You’re my woman. I’m your man. I think we’re moving at our own pace. Fuck all the rules, we can write new ones or choose not to follow any at all. Just give this your best shot because I plan to, okay, Hayami?”
She nodded. “Okay, baby.” She kissed me again. And right on my mother’s birthday, I made the most amazing woman I’d ever met my girl – officially.
I just hoped that I wouldn’t fuck this up.