Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
He needed his father.
And again, that was not for now, and I was getting fed up with the not for nows.
But that wasn’t for now either.
I followed my son, and fast, because I had to be there to take Talia if he picked Tony first, because Tony doted on his daughter, and he loved Liam, but I wasn’t sure he’d give her up for basketball.
Darius had been a great basketball player, though he excelled at football. Got a scholarship to Yale that was academic, but they scouted him for the team, and he’d had a place on it before he turned his back on all that when Mister Morris died.
He should be shooting hoops with his son.
But I couldn’t do anything about that.
For now.
* * * *
I was in my nightie, putting lotion on my elbows, when the screen lit up on my phone sitting on the nightstand.
It said M.M.M. Calling.
When I’d programmed it in, I thought it was cute.
But now, it just reminded me not only that I could not type Darius’s name into my phone, just in case someone saw it who shouldn’t, but also, I couldn’t type in what M.M.M. meant—My Main Man—because he was that, just no one knew it. And if they saw it, I’d have uncomfortable questions to answer that I had no answers I could give.
Questions about Darius.
And maybe among those no ones who didn’t know who My Main Man was, was Darius.
I flipped the phone open and put it to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hey, baby. I got nothing.”
“Sorry?”
“About Lena’s man. That Kenneth guy. White folk would call him a douche, and I gotta say, that works for him, but other than that, he’s got nothing wrong with him.”
I sat on the side of the bed, murmuring, “Damn.”
“At least he’s not a cheater or a low-level dealer,” Darius tried to placate me.
“I guess we can count our blessings,” I replied.
He chuckled.
“Okay, thanks for looking into it,” I said, my tone flat.
He stopped chuckling, because he heard my tone, not that he could miss it.
“You okay?”
No, I’m not! We’re on the phone when you should be here with me and our son, so of course I’m not! I wanted to shout.
“Worried about Lena,” I kind of lied.
“That’s not it.”
When he said that, no clue why, but something broke in me.
“You know, Liam is pulling away from Tony.”
“He is?”
Oh my God.
Was I reading him correctly?
He sounded…happy about that.
“That’s not a good thing, Darius,” I informed him.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You sounded like it was.”
A beat then, “Right. You’re in a mood. Maybe we’ll talk later.”
“Easy for you to just hang up and not have to deal with anything real,” I snapped.
Silence, but he didn’t disconnect.
He got silence from me too, mostly because I was in a mood, and if I spoke, I was afraid of what I’d say.
Darius broke the silence. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About what’s bothering you.”
“How much time you got?”
“All the time you need.”
I closed my eyes, clenched my fist, and dropped my head back, because…why?
Why, why, why did he have to be so good when I was so damned mad at him.
Why did he go out and discover Kenneth was a douche, putting that effort in, and he didn’t play hoops with his son?
“Baby?” he called.
I opened my eyes and went for it.
What the hell, right?
I only had everything to lose.
“I need more from you.”
“What? Money? Is it the new house? Are they screwing you over, pushing upgrades?”
“No, not money. You, Darius. I need more of you.”
“Okay, so how do we manage that?”
I stared at my knees.
“Malia? How do we manage that?”
“I…you…”
I was having trouble speaking, mostly because I was so shocked he was giving in.
“I want more of you too, baby. It’s frustrating as fuck trying to fit everything into a night every few months.”
“I…really?”
Silence again, this loaded, like he was pissed.
I’d know why when he ground out, “You aren’t a booty call, woman.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“So how do we manage that?”
“I don’t know, but when I say I need more, I mean I need more of the important stuff. Not that what we do when we’re together isn’t important, but I need to know about you. Your life. What you spend your time doing. Who you spend it with. And Darius, Liam is going to ask. One day, he’s going to ask. It’s a miracle he hasn’t asked yet. And we need to have that figured out. What we’re going to say when he asks about his father. And he’s got a grandma and two aunties who live in the same town as him, and I think we’re courting some serious future therapy for our son if we don’t let him have all the things he’s entitled to.”
“I’ll tell you, but only if you promise me he’ll never know what I am.”