Page 29 of When a Soul Cries

Boom.

Problem solved.

At least for me.

“What you getting up for?” the woman asked when I threw my legs over the side of the bed.

“Gotta go.”

“Already?”

I looked back at her and smiled, mostly because I still couldn’t remember her fucking name and smiling seemed safer than accidentally calling her the wrong one.

“I got shit to do.”

Her face told me she knew that was bullshit, but thankfully, she didn’t press me.

Women had always been easy for me. Getting them was easy. Keeping them probably would've been easy too if I ever cared enough to try.

I didn’t.

I liked shit simple. Have fun, enjoy each other, then go back to our separate lives before somebody started asking what we were doing, where this was going, or why I hadn’t called.

Feelings complicated shit.

And I’d already had enough complications to last me a lifetime.

People saw the jokes, the money, the women, the smile always sitting somewhere on my face and assumed I didn’t take anything seriously. I preferred it that way. While everybody else was laughing, I was watching.

Always.

Prison did that to me.

Almost spending the rest of my natural fucking life behind a wall did even more.

You got that close to losing everything, you stopped moving through the world like nothing could happen to you. I noticed exits. Cars that stayed parked too long. Niggas who reached toward their waistbands too often. People who smiled with their mouths but never their eyes.

I got lucky.

I never forgot that.

So now that I was free, I made my money, enjoyed my life, took care of the people I loved, and did whatever the fuck I wanted.

Mama and Rome were my people.

Everybody else had to earn their spot.

By the time I showered, got dressed, and left ol’ girl’s place, my stomach was growling and my gas light was glowing. I pulled into the first station I saw, already preparing myself for the ass-chewing waiting for me at Mama’s house.

I was supposed to get gas and leave.

Then I saw her.

She stood beside a car at the pump across from mine, one hand gripping the nozzle while the other held her phone. Every few seconds, she glanced from the numbers on the pump to the backseat, then checked the time again.

She looked irritated as fuck.

And fine as hell.