“Hey, baby.”
I didn’t realize how much I missed him until right then.
He bent down and kissed me softly. His lips was warm and smooth, and the second he kissed me, my body melted before my pride could even stop it. He kissed me slow too, like he knew I needed comfort more than conversation.
I watched him quietly while he kicked his shoes off and pulled his shirt over his head, revealin’ all that smooth chocolate skin, thick muscles, tattoos, and them deep waves that made me feel some type of way. Renza was fine in a way that almost irritated me sometimes, especially when I was already emotional and vulnerable like this.
My eyes then moved toward the bag of food.
“I can’t even eat right now,” I admitted.
He climbed in bed beside me and pulled me against him without hesitatin’. Then he kissed my forehead and rubbed his hand slow down my back.
“You ain’t gotta eat right now,” he murmured. “It’ll be there later.”
I let myself sink into him after that. My head rested against his chest while his arms wrapped around me tight, and honestly, it felt like my body finally relaxed for the first time all day.
Renza didn’t push me to talk or force me to explain every little thing I was feelin’. He didn’t try to throw jokes at me to lighten the mood either. Instead, he just pulled me against him and held me close while I lay there listenin’ to his heartbeat and feelin’ his fingers move slowly up and down my back. Somehow, that always did more for me than a bunch of words ever could.
For all his chaos and stubbornness and freedom lovin’ bullshit, Renza knew exactly how to love me when I needed softness.
The room slowly got dark while the sun went down outside my windows, and I stayed curled against him the whole time, while his fingers moved lazily up and down my arm.
Every now and then, he would kiss the top of my head or rub my back, but mostly, he just stayed quiet and let me feel whatever I needed to feel. Eventually, my eyes started gettin’ heavy.
I felt him look down at me once before kissin’ my forehead again. “Go to sleep, Mama,” he whispered.
Somewhere between the warmth of his chest, the sound of his heartbeat, and the way his arms stayed wrapped around me like nothin’ else mattered, I finally dozed off.
Even though I tried to be done with this nigga, it was times like this that reminded me why lettin’ Renza go never came as easy as I wanted it to.
No matter how frustrated he made me or how many times I questioned where we stood or whether he was really ready for the kind of love I was offerin’, he still knew how to show up for me in the exact way I needed without me even askin’. And as I lay here wrapped in his arms with the sun gone down and his warmth all around me, I couldn’t even pretend that bein’ close to him still didn’t feel like the safest place in the world for me.
Trill-Land, ’LoLux Estate
While Toni was outside in the pool with ’Lo’Lo, I was in my room, stretched across the bed with my phone propped against a pillow, watchin’ my mama oil Grandma Glo’s scalp through FaceTime.
I had been in Trill Land long enough for the luxury to start feelin’ normal in small ways, but then moments like this would hit me and remind me that normal was really just whatever a person got used to.
Back in Greystone City, normal was hearin’ somebody fussin’ outside before the sun even came up. Normal was Grandma Glo yellin’ from the kitchen for somebody to go to the store, somebody else askin’ who touched the last piece of chicken, and somebody’s baby runnin’ through the house with no socks onwhile the TV blasted loud enough for the whole block to hear. Normal was love and bullshit sittin’ in the same room, and half the time you couldn’t tell which one was louder.
Here, in Trill-Land, shit moved real different.
The house Toni lived in with Kay’Lo was so damn big and pretty it still made me pause sometimes, even though I’d been out here for a long time now.
The floors shined like nobody ever walked on them, the windows showed off views that looked fake, and the pool outside looked like the type of shit people saved on Pinterest when they was manifestin’ a better life.
There was staff, security, cars waitin’, food bein’ made, and enough space for everybody to breathe without steppin’ on each other’s nerves. It was soft in a way I wasn’t used to, and sometimes I looked at Toni movin’ through all of it with her baby on her hip and her husband somewhere close by watchin’ her like she was the center of his whole damn world, and I couldn’t do nothin’ but feel proud.
My bitch deserved this, and she deserved all of it too.
My cousin had been through the type of hell and hurt that would’ve made a lot of people turn cold for life, and somehow, she still had love in her. She was loud, crazy, funny, dramatic, and ghetto as hell when she wanted to be, but underneath all that was a woman who had survived too much and still found a way to be somebody’s peace. Seein’ her go from that broken lil’ girl Grandma Glo used to hold close, to a wife, to a mother, to a woman who could stand in a house like this and actually belong here, did somethin’ to me every time I really sat with it.
And My’Love’s lil’ ass had all of us wrapped around her fingers without even tryin’. She was eight months old and already runnin’ and bullyin’ us around. A bitch wasn’t ain’t lyin’ when I said she was Kay’Lo all up and through! She had his whole damn face and attitude.
Toni called her everything but her birth name when she was bein’ sweet on her, and I had my own lil’ names for her, callin’ her my Lil’ Baby, Phat Mama and anything that felt soft comin’ out my mouth. I loved my baby bad. I loved watchin’ Toni love her even more ’cause there was somethin’ healin’ about seein’ my cousin give her daughter the kind of softness we used to pray for without even knowin’ what we was actually askin’ God for.
Still, bein’ here came with its own mess.
