I glanced back at him and let out a light breath through my nose. “I’m leaving.”
He walked up beside me, looking at the bag on my shoulder before looking back at my face. “Just makin’ sure. You look like you thinkin’ too hard.”
I shrugged a little. “Comes with it.”
He smirked. “Yeah, well, don’t get yo’ ass ate up out there messin’ around in them mountains. You the type to go out there and forget you human.”
I let out a laugh, shakin’ my head. “I’ll be alright. I got what I need.”
“I know you do,” he replied, nodding once.
We stood there for a second after that, not talking, but just letting the moment sit without feeling like we had to fill it with anything extra.
Then, he stepped in and pulled me into a hug that was solid.
“I’m gon’ miss you,” he said low. “You part of this shit now whether you like it or not.”
I nodded once, patting his back before pulling away. “Same here. Y’all been more of a family to me than anything I came from.”
He didn’t argue it because he already knew.
We dapped each other up after that, our grip tight for a second before we let go, and right on time, the driver pulled through the gates.
I grabbed the rest of my bags, loaded up, and slid into the backseat without looking back too long.
As the car pulled off, I leaned back and let my head rest against the seat, my eyes moving toward the window while everything I had been keeping in started coming up without me trying to push it down this time.
I had spent months showing up for Kay’Lo, for his family, and for everything that needed to be handled without really taking a second to check in with myself. And, somewhere in themiddle of all that, I stopped giving myself the same attention I had been giving everybody else.
That’s what this was for me… just stepping away long enough to clear my head and figure out where I was without all the noise around me, because I knew if I stayed in the middle of everything, I was gon’ keep pushing my own shit aside like it didn’t matter.
The road stretched out in front of me while the car kept moving, and for once, I wasn’t thinking about nobody else’s situation or what needed to be handled next.
I was thinking about what I needed, and I knew I wasn’t wrong for that.
A couple weeks later…
For the past couple weeks, shit had been real good between me and Reni, and I ain’t even gon’ lie, I ain’t expect it to smooth out the way it did after how we went at each other that night.
That whole club shit could’ve went left in a real way, and I knew that, but she knew that shit too.
Reni thought she was doin’ something’ by steppin’ out in them little ass shorts with her whole ass out and postin’ that shit like she ain’t know I was gon’ see it.
I remember sittin’ there watchin’ her stories with my jaw tight as hell, already knowin’ I was finna pull up before I even grabbed my keys. And when I got there and saw her all in some nigga’s face, laughin’ and leanin’ in like she ain’t have no damn sense, I ain’t even waste time talkin’. I handled that shit the onlyway I knew how, and next thing I knew, I had that nigga laid out and everybody in the club scatterin’ like roaches.
After that, I took her home, still heated, and feelin’ that shit all in my chest. We argued all the way there. But that argument turned into somethin’ else soon as we got inside.
I ain’t gon’ dress it up like it was soft or sweet, ’cause it wasn’t. I had her bent, stretched, and cryin’ my name, hands grabbin’ at me, her nails diggin’ into my skin, tappin’ on my leg like she ain’t know if she could take it or not. And I ain’t let up either ’cause she had been playin’ with me too long like she forgot who the fuck I was.
By the time I was done with her, all that attitude she walked in with was gone, and she was layin’ there breathin’ hard and lookin’ at me different, like that shit finally clicked for her.
After that, she got her shit together.
Of course, she was still Reni. She still had her mouthpiece and was gon’ pop it when she felt like it. But all that extra shit she was doin’ before; all that pushin’ and testin’ me just to see what I would do… that stopped. She wasn’t out here movin’ wild or tryna get a reaction outta me no more.
It was like she remembered who she was dealin’ with, and I ain’t have to keep remindin’ her after that.
It felt like she was actually tryna meet me halfway. And the more I was around her without all that tension sittin’ between us, the more I became a part of the shit she did when she wasn’t bein’ hard.
