“Once you get settled into your place, we should get together for drinks. I’d love to continue catching up with you,” she offered, her tone laced with flirtation to let me know she was shooting her shot.
I dipped my chin, not wanting to be rude. Little did she know, my heart was already on reserve for someone else. “Sure. That would be cool.”
She slipped her phone out of her designer bag and handed it to me to plug in my number. “Great. I’ll text you, and we can set something up.”
“Bet. It was good seeing you, Yas.”
She reached out to wrap her arms around me for a hug, holding on a little longer than I anticipated, but she smelled good as hell, so I didn’t stop her. “It was great seeing you too, Oak. Hopefully it won’t be another twelve years until we link up again.”
Yasmine pulled away and turned to head toward her parked vehicle. I watched her hips sway from left to right for a few seconds before unlocking my truck and getting inside with my bags. It was the first time I’d even entertained the thought of another woman since seeing Lex again. And since she seemed to have her heart set on ghosting me, I would’ve been a fool not to explore things with Yas, even if it was only friendship.
I turned up the music, hoping the lyrics would help drown out my thoughts as I punched in the address to the play zone and headed to the birthday party. Spending most of my time away at sea meant I didn’t keep close relationships with all my old friends from back home. The most I did was post a happy birthday message on their Facebook page when I had time. But that shit was always hit-or-miss. Luckily, one of the many people at my welcome home party was Xavier, my childhood friend. Growing up, he lived three houses down from us, so we used to spend a lot of time riding our bikes up and down the street, playing ball in my driveway, or sledding down the small hill berm behind his house when the first snow of the year hit. Now, he was out here being somebody’s father.
Green and brown confetti were scattered across the tables in the reserved room at the indoor adventure park, which featured climbing walls, ball pits, arcade games, and trampolines. I looked around at the oversized balloon garland with lime green, brown, black, and forest green balloons as the backdrop behind the gift table, the brightly wrapped gifts, a two-tier Minecraft cake with AJ on the front and a big number seven as the topper, and streamers taped to the walls.
After dropping off my gift, I spotted Xavier amid the sea of kids running in and out of the play areas, high on sugar and adrenaline while screaming their heads off. Xavier was a few inches shorter than me but had kept himself from getting the typical “dad bod” over the years and was still in shape. The ice around his neck and wrist was shining. I didn’t bother asking him when or where he got it from. It wasn’t none of my business.
I walked over and dapped him up. “Wassup, man?”
He cheesed, showing off his off-white smile. “Wassup, Oak. Thanks for coming, man.”
“Thanks for inviting me. Where’s your lil man?”
Xavier’s chestnut brown eyes darted from left to right until he outstretched his arm and pointed to a young boy standing in line for the rock-climbing wall. “He’s right over there. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
“Bet.”
“AJ, there’s somebody I want you to meet,” he called out as we approached his son.
Xavier’s son was a carbon copy of him. Same tortilla-brown complexion, same crooked bottom tooth, same everything.
“This is my friend, Oakland. We grew up a few houses down from each other.”
“At Abuela’s?”
Xavier and I nodded in unison. “Yeah,” I answered first. “We met when we were around your age. Happy birthday, lil man. It’s nice to meet you.”
I held out my fist to dap him up, and he returned the favor with a smile. The fact that he had a tooth missing made me smile back.
“Thank you.”
“Are you enjoying your birthday party?”
He jerked a nod. “Yeah! It’s the best Minecraft birthday party ever!”
Every muscle in his body was dancing around, itching for his chance to climb the rock wall. I could see the thirst for adventure in his young, brown eyes. He was excited about his party, which made me happy, and I’d only known the kid for ten seconds.
Xavier smirked. “You can play around for a little longer, but your mom said it’ll be time for cake and ice cream soon, and then you can open your presents if you wanna, aight?”
“Okay, Dad!”
We stepped away from AJ, who was with his friends in line. “Wow. Time really does fuckin’ fly.”
Xavier bobbed his head in agreement. “Hell yeah, it does. I still feel like he was born yesterday.”
“Shit, I was standing there proud as a mothafucka just hearing how excited he was about his party, and I ain’t got no seeds runnin’ around out here. I’m proud of you, boy,” I announced, clapping the back of his shoulder.
“Thanks, bro. Just doin’ the best I can with what I got. But when you think that’s gon’ change for you? We ain’t gettin’ no younger,” he said, swatting the back of his hand at my stomach.
