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“I get it. I get it. Have you discussed this stress with her—if you’re still seeing the same one?”
“I am, and I do when applicable. You still see somebody?”
“Her. Not as regularly as I should.” I scraped my bottom teeth over my lips, feeling embarrassed. After an awkward spell, I shared, “She needs a sibling.”
“Who?”
“Chi-Chi. She’s too territorial over you.”
“Chivon needs very little, but I feel you. Now, as a father, I wish I wasn’t the only child for so long. In lots of ways, I still feel I am.”
“You talk to the therapist about that, too?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“And what does she say?”
There was another pause, this one even longer. “I’m working on it.” His answer so cavalier.
“How?”
After a beat, Jas looked my way. “I’m working on it.”
I was crazy curious now, parroting, “How?”
“Can I keep it a buck?” I nodded, jaw relaxed. “I’m back outside…switching gears again in life. To be real, I’m looking for somebody…for me.”
I thought for a minute, stunned by my own words while trying to play it cool because that wasJas’demeanor, “You’re back to your ‘list?’”
His chuckle revealed a bit of embarrassment. “Yeah. I guess.”
The ease of his truth. The delivery of his honesty was so casual. With another man, it would be a clear sign of his pettiness, his contempt. But for Jas, it was his heart. His honesty. It was the man’s promise he made to himself behind prison walls.
“What does that mean for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You made it clear when I was pregnant with Chi-Chi, I can’t be with anyone else. You haven’t touched me or expressed a desire to in eight months.”Hell yeah, I’d been counting. I had my needs, too. “What does that mean, Jas?”
A longer period of silence. “I’ve been thinking of that for a minute. Seems you’ve been doing you.”
“How so?”
“Ya ex back at the show. Costa Rica ain’t a convenient, everyday trip. I know. Been paying a grip for you to be down here for your business. Even flew down today to support you.” He fingered his coils. “Unless he got a gig down this way.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like that. I didn’t know he was coming.” Thoughts of me blowing Austin off tonight so I could be here with Chi-Chi came back to mind. He looked genuinely defeated by my decline to hang out. It just wasn’t a good time. I didn’t even celebrate with my troupe after we debriefed.
“Proverbs chapter four, verse twenty-three. You remember your Word, Ashira?” Without pride, I shook my head, desperate for his next word. “Above all things, guard your heart and everything that flows from it.”
“Does that mean you don’tlove—have love for me? Is there no room in your heart for me, Jas?”
“To keep it a bean? Girl…I’mma love you til my last breath. That don’t mean it’s good for me, though.”
“Then what is?” I demanded as he stood, collecting his laptop.
“My God’s promises. He said he’d keep His promise. Maybe all these years, I thought you were that. I been wrong a few times before. I can be wrong again. But His promises never fail. I gotta be smart about it. I gotta get what’s mine, sweetheart.”
Jas walked off.
