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“Good, good. I’m glad to hear it,” he responded, the way he continued to linger near the doorway making my eyebrow pique curiously when I questioned, “Is there… something else you wanna talk about?”
Like my question was an invitation, my father approached where I was sitting on the bed, taking a seat at the foot of the mattress before he asked, “You’re not upset with me for making that conversation happen, are you?”
“For making that conversation happen?No.For being so cryptic about me needing to come home ASAP?A little.”
Honestly, I still wasn’t sure what that was all about until he explained, “I’d told your mom she could stop by around this time because I knew that was usually when you got home from work. But when you didn’t come right away, things got a little awkward, so I needed to speed up the process somehow.”
The thought made me chuckle a bit as I asked, “I guess you two haven’t had to share a room in a while, huh?”
“Not since you graduated from high school,” he sighed, his answer making me tense up once I realized it had been even longer than that since the last time my mother and I had had any sort of real conversation.
Damn.
It was tempting to let that fact take me back to exactly where I’d been with her before she’d surprised me today. But instead, I chose to focus on who Ihadstayed in contact with when I told my father, “Thank you for always being there, Dad. I may not have always acted like I appreciated it, but I did. I still do.”
Sure, he might’ve been a shitty husband. But I couldn’t deny that, as a father, he’d done what he needed to do in making sure that I was always taken care of. And even though our dynamic had slightly changed now that I was well into adulthood, I was grateful that he still looked out for me the way he did, the grin on his face when he replied, “You’re welcome, Bri,” telling me he must’ve been just as appreciative of my sentiment as my phone buzzed in my lap with a text.
“But you look best in nothin’ at all.” - Lance
Instinctively, I bit into my smile the second I read Lance’s message, his words lowkey making me forget that I had company until my father groaned, “Better not be no boy making you grin all silly like that.”
“Dad, please,” I giggled, shaking my head amusedly until my father asked, “It’s Hawk, isn’t it?”
When my eyes flashed up to his in surprise, he immediately explained, “Trinity told me she caught you two in quite the compromising position.”
“Of course she did,”I thought as her husband inquired, “Are you two getting pretty serious?”
My attraction to Lance was definitely serious, and my feelings for him only seemed to grow more intense with each moment we shared. But considering the fact that I’d also been out on a whole ass date with someone else just last night, it didn’t feel accurate for me to answer with anything other than what we’d agreed to during our most recent conversation.
“We’re taking it slow.”
With a nod, my father casually mentioned, “Well he wouldn’t be the worst nigga you could bring home.”
“Seriously?” I asked, amused as my father doubled down when he insisted, “I’m just sayin’, Bri. I mean, I always thought you two would end up together at least once anyway.”
Something about his phrasing made me frown as I repeated, “At least once? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The way that boy stayed up your ass when y’all were kids. It was only a matter of time,” he responded with a chuckle, his explanation making it hard for me not to smile even as I defended, “Lance wasn’t up my ass, Dad. We were just really good friends.”
“And now you know just how thin the line between that and something romantic can be,” he replied as he stood up from my bed in response to what sounded like the garage door being opened, getting ready to leave my room so that he could greet the person responsible only to stop at my doorway to say, “Oh, and for the record. That nigga cannotcome upstairs anymore.”
“Oh my God...”I groaned, my father responding with a look that said he wasn’t playing before he finally made his way downstairs. And once he was gone, all I could do was shake my head as I went back to Lance’s text, grateful that I didn’t have to rely on my childhood bedroom to get some action when I responded,“How soon you tryna make that happen? ;)” - Yani
