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“Voyeurism.”
“Man was bumped for a new model,” Cap said. “He just couldn’t let go.”
“Something you probably cannot relate to at all. You’re undoubtedly always the bumper, not the bumpee.”
He burst out laughing.
I found this surprising.
“You’ve been bumped?” I asked, not hiding the shock in my voice.
My phone binged with a text.
“Sent you a picture,” he told me.
“Hang tight,” I said, pulled the phone from my ear and opened the text, then the picture.
It was of a scrawny, short, acne-ridden kid standing next to a tall, handsome Black kid, who had his arm slung around the scrawny guy’s shoulders.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Who’s that?”
“Me and my brother.”
Say what?
I looked at the picture again.
I didn’t see it.
Okay, maybe around the eyes, and the hair.
But…wow.
I put the phone again to my ear. “Your nickname should be Swan.”
“Why?”
“Ummm….” I drew that out, such was my surprise at the looks he’d grown into, having painted myself into a very unfun corner.
“Babe, I know I was the ugly duckling. I shouldn’t have asked. I get it.”
“Your nickname stems from Captain America, doesn’t it?” I asked for confirmation.
“Not my choice. Some buds in the Army saw a picture of me when I was younger, they came up with it. It stuck.”
“Well, it fits.”
There was humor in his tone when he replied, “If you say so.”
Time to change subjects.
“That’s your brother?”
“Yeah. Roman. He’s called Roam. We’re both adopted. We were foster brothers first. Got adopted as teenagers.”
At this news, my heart lurched for him, and I said softly, “Oh.”
“The mom nature gave me was a piece of shit, babe. The mom I earned is the finest woman on the planet. We made out more than all right in the end.”
