Chapter 4 Roman
After walking the two beauties to their car, guarding them as if our lives depended on it and seeing them off safely, Bryce and I headed to the other side of the lot to my truck. I was a Temptation feeling fine on Cloud Nine—no suit, no mic, just a stupid grin I couldn’t wipe off.
I left that arena walking like the floor knew me. I couldn’t help it. The night air hit differently. I didn’t make it ten steps into the lot before Bryce thumped my shoulder.
“Damn, Cousin,” he said, grinning like he’d been waiting his whole life to talk trash. “You act like you hit the game winner or won the lottery or some shit.”
I kept my face neutral because I liked to be a mystery, but my mouth betrayed me and bent. “Might be both,” I said.
He squinted at me. “Oh, yo’ ass is gone. I knew it when you damn near turned into a linebacker behind that seat.”
I side-eyed him. “What are you talking about now?”
“That moment when I said shorty was adorable,” he said, laughing. “You looked at me like you was ’bout to swing on me at center court. I had to tell you, ‘I mean no disrespect to your future wifey, sir,’ in my spirit.”
“You lucky you kept it in your spirit,” I said, chest rumbling. “Don’t be putting adjectives on my woman that sound like you’re shopping. Let compliments be neutral, or shut up.”
He put his hands up like he was being arrested. “Aight, big dog. Message received. For the record, I was talking about the energy. That whole section saw she had you locked in. I would never holla at the new cousin-in-law, even though shorty is finer than a muthafucka. Respectfully.”
I stopped and turned to look at him fully. My ears perked up. “That’s the last time you say ‘finer than a muthafucka’ and ‘cousin-in-law’ in the same sentence, you hear me? That’s your only warning.”
He snorted. “If you don’t get yo’ German shepherd ass, loyal, territorial, whole security team in one body head ass the fuck on somewhere.
I get it. I’m just saying. I know she is off-limits.
Mel’s fine ass is the one who curved me anyway, remember?
She was blitzing out of The Pour House like somebody was chasing her.
I’ve never tried to shoot at your girl. I know boundaries. ”
“Good. Keep it that way. You can joke, but don’t play with what I’m serious about.”
He clutched his chest. “I would like it stated for the record that Bryce DeLane has never disrespected, pursued, or attempted to flirt with your future wifey. I’m Mel only. I know my lane.”
“That’s better,” I said, smirking. “Stay there before I put cones around it.”
He laughed until his shoulders shook. “Oh, you gone, gone.”
I didn’t answer. I was replaying it all—the small of her back in my palm when I stopped her panic, the way those freckles turned the color of a sunrise when she blushed, the calm in her eyes like she’d been steady for people her whole life.
That crazy best friend of hers said it out loud.
She always put everybody ahead of herself.
I felt that sit down in me, a chair I didn’t know I’d been needing to sit in.
I grew up in that posture—head up, hands full, and heart last. Every choice I’d made from the age of seventeen had Reagan’s and Reece’s faces on it.
You learn how to go without and still look full.
“What you call her?” Bryce asked, nudging me like he couldn’t help himself.
He was riding the adrenaline of the interaction as if it was a highlight reel.
“You straight up told shorty she was ya future wifey. You’re insane!
You didn’t ask baby her name or nothing.
No ‘hey, ma’am’ or nothing. She gon’ think yo’ ass don’t have no home training,” he said, laughing hard as hell.
I didn’t argue. I did one better. I pulled my phone out, thumb moving softly, and tilted it so he could see the contact saved. The screen light hit my knuckles. Bryce snorted the second he read it.
“Future Wifey? You corny and bold, but I respect it.”
“It worked, and I mean that shit,” I said, sliding the phone back into my pocket.
The word wifey rolled off my tongue before I could consult the committee in my head.
It fit. It felt as though it was something I’d bought months ago and finally took out of the box.
It wasn’t about claiming she was property but recognizing her.
I was speaking what I felt without trying to dilute it.
Some men were too scared of sounding sure.
I wasn’t built like that. If I saw something rare, I said so.
If I felt something real, I stood on it.
Bryce squinted at me. “You think you know, huh?”
I heard my father’s voice—warm, familiar, a little amused.
You’ll know when you meet her, Son. Don’t force it.
It’ll stand still for you. My jaw tightened the way it always did when I felt my daddy close.
Grief and love shared space in me, whether I invited them in or not.
I didn’t get to keep him, but I kept his standards, lessons, and his voice living in my decisions.
“Yeah, I know. That’s her. My future wife with her perfect, pretty ass,” I said out loud to myself.
I didn’t say it recklessly, but respectfully. I understood the weight of it. Speaking something into the air meant I had to be prepared to honor it if God gave it to me.
“Lawd. She got freckles like connect the dots, and you already drawing houses and a dog.” Bryce cackled, hands on his knees.
“Stop projecting,” I told him, but I was smiling.
Those freckles of hers, . . . they were something else .
. . They didn’t just sit on her face; they belonged there.
They made her look soft and smart at the same time.
I liked how they got louder when she got shy, like her skin was telling on her sweetness.
She tried to stay composed, and her freckles betrayed her, turning her quiet feelings into visible truths.
My mind gave her a nickname without me even trying. My Constellation. Her freckles sat across her face like a pattern I wanted to memorize. I liked how they sat across her cheekbones like a map. Looking at her made me want to orient myself, straighten up, and move better.
My Constellation, I thought, and it landed perfectly.
That was what I’d call her when it was just her and me.
Connie, or Pretty Little Dipper, if I was feeling playful and wanted to see the corner of her mouth fight a smile.
I went back to my phone and edited her contact’s name to Future Wifey—My Constellation with a star emoji and heart.
“You goin’ back to my spot, or you goin’ home?” Bryce asked as we hit the row with his car.
“Home. I’m finna be on the phone caked up like a teenager,” I said, already knowing.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Say less. Text me when you get home, fam.”
“Bet.” We dapped.
As I turned toward my truck, my chest warmed in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was hope with discipline attached. It made me want to be even better than I already was because I could see somebody worth being better for.
The house was quiet when I pushed the door open.
The lights were low, the living room neat, my girls in their usual spots.
Reagan lay sprawled across the couch, pretending not to stalk Instagram, and Reece was cross-legged on the floor, journal open, headphones around her neck, humming something delicate and in tune.
Reagan popped her head up. “You’re smiling,” she said suspiciously, like joy owed her an explanation.
“Mind your business,” I said, dropping my keys in the bowl and my phone on the counter like I didn’t want to check it yet. I wanted to savor the anticipation for a minute. Then I failed and looked anyway. No text yet. I tucked the phone again like it hadn’t just humbled me.
“What happened? Did your team win?” Reece asked softly, curiously.
“Of course,” I said, peeling my jacket off and draping it over a chair. “And I met somebody,” I said. I tossed Reagan the look that said feet off the couch without saying it. She put them down immediately.
Both of their heads snapped like that creepy little girl in The Exorcist.
Reagan squealed. “Ooooh. A person, person?”
“A person, person,” I said, letting it land where it wanted to land.
Reece’s smile did that barely-there bloom, slow and sincere. “You like her?”
I thought about how she tried to shrink, how I’d refused to let her.
The way her voice dipped when she said, I don’t know you, and the curiosity in her eyes when I said, That’s the point.
She wasn’t rude or cold, but honest, a woman who told the truth and still left room for wonder. That balance was rare.
“I do,” I said simply.
“When can we meet her?” Reagan shot up as if I’d said right now.
“Sit down,” I said, laughing as I walked past them toward the hallway. “Y’all gon’ scare her. Let me do this right.”
“Fine.” Reagan huffed, flopping back with all the drama she could fit in her body. Then her face softened, real and warm. “We happy for you though. For real.”
“Same,” Reece murmured, and I knew she meant it the way a writer means period.
My heart thumped heavily and grateful. My sisters had seen me tired, stretched thin, and choosing responsibility over ease so many times it became routine.
So, for them to be happy for me, genuinely, felt like a blessing I didn’t even know I was waiting for.
They were my heart outside my body. They didn’t know everything I carried, but they knew enough to recognize when something good found its way to me, and that mattered a great deal.
“Don’t stay up late,” I added as I pushed down the hallway. “Don’t open the door. Don’t answer numbers you don’t know. And don’t ask me about that party—”
“What party?” Reagan asked, eyebrows knitted with innocence. “It’s just at Jada’s. Her mama will be home.”