Fee raised a brow. “And you let him?”
“I didn’t ‘let’ him,” I said. “He just… appeared. Like a demon.”
April laughed. “A fine ass demon.”
“He not that fine,” I lied.
All three of them looked at me like,bitch please.
I sighed. “Okay, he fine. That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” Fee asked. “‘Cause from where I’m sittin’, you got a man who checks on you, makes sure you get home, ain’t scared to pop up, and clearly got you in a chokehold, and you still actin’ like you single-for-life.”
“I am single,” I argued. “I keep tellin’ y’all that. Me and Roman not a thing.”
Charlee leaned on her elbow. “So you just out here lettin’ random dick stay over?”
I smacked my lips. “Don’t say it like that.”
“How you want me to say it?” she asked. “You woke up in his bed in Saint Lucia. You woke up in your bed with him this mornin’. That’s not ‘we had sex once and moved on’ energy. That’s ‘we fake live together on accident’ energy.”
The waitress came back with our drinks, savin’ me for a second.
We all thanked her, and clinked our glasses, and took sips.
“I’m just sayin’,” Charlee continued, unfazed, “you might as well stop lyin’ to us and yourself. You like that man.”
I stared into my mimosa. “Likin’ somebody and trustin’ ‘em is two different things.”
The table got quiet for a second.
Fee glanced at me. “You still thinkin’ ‘bout Jordan?” she asked softly.
I shrugged one shoulder, eyes still on my drink. “I think about all that shit. Jordan. My daddy. Trend. Every time I thought I had somethin’ solid and it wasn’t what I thought it was. Yeah, Roman different, I’m not gon’ lie. But different don’t mean safe.”
April nodded slow. “That’s real.”
“But you also can’t keep punishin’ yourself for what them niggas did,” Fee said. “Or punish the next man, either.”
“I’m not punishin’ him,” I argued. “I’m protectin’ me.”
“Sometimes that look the same from the outside,” she said gently.
That sat on my chest.
“I just don’t wanna lose myself again,” I admitted, my voice low. “I spent too long tryna make men feel comfortable. Shrinkin’ myself. Buildin’ them up while they tore me down. I promised myself I was done with that. Now here come Roman, actin’ like he see straight through me and don’t give a fuck about my walls.”
“That’s what got you scared,” April said quietly.
“Exactly,” I said. “He don’t back off when I push. He come harder. And I don’t know if that mean he really in this with me or he just like the chase. I can’t afford to get that wrong again.”
Charlee took a sip, lookin’ at me over the rim. “Do you feel like he usin’ you?”
I thought about it.
The way he stayed with me when that shit happened on the island.
The way he sat up in that chair all night instead of leavin’.
