“You’re scared,” he finished her sentence, “I know. Shhh, shhh. You don’t have any reason to be, you hear me. I’m here. I always will be.”
Just listening to how he was soothing my baby girl made me feel like I could be a little less hard on his ass. I walked to the hallway closet and pulled a pillow and blanket from it.
“What are you doing, Mr. Browne?”
I jumped at Eternity’s voice. She startled me a bit.
“The little boy brought her home safe. He could sleep on her floor for the night.”
I answered without turning around because I was grabbing the things out of the closet. When I turned around, she was standing behind me with her hand on her hip. She had this smirk on her face.
“What?” I questioned.
“You’re going to end up liking him.” She walked over to me and gently kissed me on the lips. “See you in bed.”
I watched as she walked down the hall, and I had to shake my head at the sight. Her ass was jiggling in her house gown. I sighed and then headed back to Maliah’s room. When I made mypresence known in the doorway, Tahari took a step away from her bed. He was standing beside it, leaning down, wiping the tears off her face.
“Here, little nigga,” I tossed the pillow and blanket his way, “you can make up a space on the floor and leave this door open.”
I walked out without saying another word.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
I heard Maliah say on my way out.
MALIAH
Tahari and I stayed up all night talking. He had caught me up on everything I had missed in the last two months, but somehow none of it felt as important as the fact that he was there… with me. At some point, the conversation slowed. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. When I woke up, the door to my room was still wide open, just like my dad had said it needed to be. Morning light slipped in from the hallway, mixing with the soft sunlight peeking through my curtains. For a second, I just laid there, listening. The house was calm. Too calm for everything that had happened just hours before. Then I heard it.
A soft, uneven snore. I turned my head slightly, and there he was. Still on the floor, the blanket halfway covered him like he had been fighting to sleep before it finally took him out. The pillow was barely under his head, and his arm was thrown across his chest like he didn’t even realize when he knocked out. I smiled slightly before I could stop it. Last night tried to break me. Cornelius tried to take something from me that I didn’t give him… something he had no right to even reach for. Just thinkingabout it made my stomach twist, but when my eyes stayed on Tahari, that feeling didn’t take over.
Being in the same place as me at the right time had to be God’s plan. If that wasn’t a time telling us both that we were meant to be together, then I don’t know what could be.
“Thank you…” I whispered so lowly because my voice was barely there.
He didn’t move. He just kept sleeping like the weight of the night had finally caught up to him. My gaze drifted toward my open door again, and for the first time since everything happened, I let myself really feel it. My family didn’t play when it came to me. It was the way my dad didn’t even question letting Tahari stay. The way my mom moved without panic, but still made everything feel handled. And then the way MJ reacted.
A sigh left my lips as I leaned back against my headboard. My brother was going to take this hard. I already knew it. He wasn’t the type to let something like that go. Not when it came to me. And even though a part of me understood it… another part of me didn’t want things to spiral because of what Cornelius did. I didn’t want this to turn into something bigger than it already was. My eyes fell back on Tahari. Everything between us had been complicated before last night. His need for space was so messy and unclear to me. It’s crazy how the drama from last night had shifted things between us. Like whatever space he had needed away from me was gone.
Still, I didn’t know if he still felt the same when it came to us, although his reaction had to come from a different place. From a place of love. Love for me and for what we had. I studied his face, trying to find answers in a place that probably didn’t have any yet. I was trying to picture what “us” even looked like after this. A light knock at my already open door pulled me out of my thoughts. Dad’s presence filled the space before he stepped in.His eyes moved around the room once before landing on Tahari. Without a word, he walked over and nudged him with his foot.
“Wake up, little nigga.”
Tahari stirred, then jerked awake slightly. Slowly, he sat up as he tried to catch up to where he was. His eyes flicked from me to my dad, and then he straightened up a little more.
“Oh, good morning, Mr. Browne,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
My dad looked down at him, unreadable as ever.
“We’re going to the gun range,” he said. “Brush ya teeth. Eternity left a brand-new one in the hall bathroom for you.”
Tahari blinked, clearly caught off guard, but he nodded anyway.
“Yes, sir.”
I watched them quietly as my fingers tightened slightly in my blanket. Dad cut eyes at me before he made his exit. When I looked down, Tahari was looking at me with a smirk on his face.
“Guess he fuck with me a little.”
