Instead of responding to her, Moolah gripped her chin and kissed her. The kiss was simple and sweet, but it felt like fireworks shot off around her body.
“Moolah, . . . we shouldn’t. I’m with?—”
Moolah gripped her chin tighter, forcing her gaze to focus on him. His intensity brought tears to her eyes as she listened to what he said.
“Fuck that nigga, Sky. He don’t love you. Do you hear me? You’re young as fuck and have ya whole life ahead of you. Don’t let that nigga fuck ya shit up, you hear me? You need to get away from him and learn what real love is.”
“What you know about real love?” She wasn’t sure why she landed on that to say. She knew she should have defended Charles and her relationship, but then she remembered that Charles had failed to show up for her that night. It wasn’t the first time he let her down, but was Moolah right? Should it be her last? She thought she was in love with Charles, but a part of her understood that the love she had for Charles was limited.
The love she had for Moolah wasn’t. That was a fact.
Instead of responding to her, he asked, “You know I ain’t ever lost my virginity?”
This caused Iskyiah to pull away, but not too far because Moolah wouldn’t allow her.
“Huh?” His words weren’t computing. She assumed he’d lost his virginity long ago. There was no way she lost hers before him.
He chuckled. “You heard me. I always had one girl in mind for my first time.”
The way he looked at her made chills cover her flesh. Nervously, she asked, “Who?”
“We both know the answer to that.” He leaned in and kissed her again, and it was the first time she felt like Moolah was unsure. Although she knew she shouldn’t, she leaned into the kiss and took control, silently coaching Moolah through the kiss.
When they pulled away again, Moolah’s gaze almost knocked all the air out of her lungs. Pure love exuded from him. In her young fifteen years, she never felt anything so powerful.
“Lah . . .” She wanted to tell him they couldn’t do this, but the words got stuck in her throat.
“Be my first, Sky. Before I leave here, be my first. Give me somethin’ to come back to.”
A tear slipped out of her eye as she thought about waking up tomorrow without Moolah there with her. She felt calm as she gazed at him. For a while, she knew Moolah had feelings for her. For a while, she knew she had feelings for Moolah. But she got so good at ignoring them. Tonight, it all seemed to come to a head, and nothing else seemed to matter.
With a slight nod, she let go of everything else, even if it was just for a second.
She knew that what happened in that car that night would be a secret that was safe between them until they day they died.
She knew what happened in that car that night would be sacred.
She knew what happened in that car that night would stay with her forever.
20 years later . . .
“Girl, come get your goddaughter,” Iskyiah said as soon as Sophie answered the phone.
She currently had one hand on the wheel, steering through traffic, and one hand reaching back so her ten-year-old daughter could hold her hand. As much as Iskyiah wanted to roll her eyes toward the sunroof in her car, she didn’t. Instead, she fought a smile.
“Not too much, now. What my baby doing?” Sophie’s raspy voice sounded through the car, and Brooke, her daughter, decided to speak up.
“Nothing, god mom!”
Iskyiah chuckled. “Nah, don’t lie to her. This little girl is doing everything she can to make me miss this flight. She chose today, of all days, to activate her Velcro child syndrome.”
Brooke had always been independent, even when she was a baby, so it confused the hell out of Iskyiah that she suddenly wanted to be up her ass.
“Give the girl a break. She’s going through puberty,” Sophie reasoned.
Iskyiah’s brows pulled in as she looked in the rearview mirror at her daughter. She looked just like her damn daddy with smooth brown skin, not a pimple in sight, and the skinny build.
“No the hell she ain’t, Sophie. Don’t put that on my baby. She’s too young,” Iskyiah argued.
