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“Yup.” I nodded. “Having girls can be tricky. I’m sure if I had a son, shit wouldn’t be so sweet.”
“Damn sure wouldn’t.” Raj chuckled.
“Yeah. With boys, you gotta prepare them to be providers, not to be tricked on,” Coach L noted.
“Yup.” I agreed.
“You going?” Raj asked aboutDisney.
I shook my head then placed my phone on the table to stretch back in the chair and rub my face. “Not even invited, bruh. Only my wallet.” We all laughed at that. “It’s crazy because she’s already spending Thanksgiving with her moms’ people out in Boston.”
“Damn.” Coach L’s eyes pitied me. “No end-of-the-year holidays with the old man, huhn? Your end-of-the-year in parenting is sounding a lot like my shit all of my kid’s childhood.”
Launz may have delivered it lightly, but it was still fucked up that dude had a son for twenty years before he knew. Lil’ Zo’s mother contacted Launz out of the blue with the news. I knew it had been a hill for father, mother, and son to climb, but they were making it work. I guessed the silver lining in the whole nightmare was that Launz was there when Lil’ Zo’s baby, Alaundria, was born. Baby girl had been the apple of her grandfather’s eye. There could be beauty buried beneath years of pain, I figured. After spending time with his family for over a year now, I could see there was authenticity in their recently-formed unit.
My sad ass wondered if the same could be true for me. But as I scrolled through my text messages, seeing the last correspondence from Lennox had been the night before she left, a week ago, I wondered if miracles of love happened only once every seventy years, or simply to coaches in the footballLeague.
Lennox hadn’t checked in. Typically, we’d speak every day, but my pride flared whenever she left since the first kiss we shared about a year and a half ago. It felt unnatural to let her go after tasting her, exchanging that deep level of intimacy. The more of her time she gave to me, and allowed our affection to grow, the more I weakened as a man. She held all the cards, including my control. I couldn’t lie: the shit fucked me up. I hadn’t eaten much in days, and sleep was a foreign concept. All I’d been able to do since she left was pour my broken emotions into work. I’d written thirteen songs, even some for Raj. And the nigga ain’t have a project rollout in sight.
“You know you can pull up to the crib for the holidays. Wynter loves your Zen ass.” Raj shook his head.
Chuckling, I placed my palm to my chest. “Respect to Mrs. McKinnon.” Then I took a deep breath. “I’ll figure something out.”
Launz took a deep pull from his cigar. “I’m beastin’ to hear this new material. You got some heat, Tobias?”
“Yo,” I exhaled, overwhelmed by exhaustion and passion at the same damn time. “My shit’s heavy,” I muttered. Raj, to the right of me looked up from the device, the motion so damn fast, it had me glancing his way. “What?”
“Your ‘shits’ as in plural or possessive?” Raj wanted to know, and I understood why.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a song for his album coining the phrase “my shit’s heavy” which referenced a man’s balls being full. A man’s balls being full would essentially mean he needed a release to empty them. “Content” men usually kept empty balls, which meant they were getting sexual releases regularly.
The phrase didn’t catch on like “be my whore,” a line Raj riffed at the end of a track, causing a viral moment. But it had been adopted by the culture. So, when I said my “shit’s heavy,” Raj apparently needed clarification.
“Ah, shit!” He reclined in his seat. “You seen her recently—ahh, man!” he groaned, cupping his face. “It all makes sense now!”
“What?” Launz’s forehead wrinkled, eyes swinging between Raj and me.
“Lennox, man,” Raj explained. “The nigga seen Lennox!”
Coach’s eyes blew up. “Oh! Really? Her?”
“Yeah!” Raj answered for me. “It all makes fuckin’ sense now. You calling me the minute I stepped off the damn plane to schedule this session! Yo, now that I think about it, you got my ass in a fucked up space with Blue, man. We’ve been away with the family for a few weeks, but she likes to have ‘mommy and daddy’ time when we get back. But I had to be here.” He stared into space with wide eyes while pulling on his beard. “Yo, how did I miss this?”
“You get like this after seeing a woman?” Launz asked.
“Hell, yeah!” Raj, once again, answered for me. And in that moment, I believed I liked it better when he was closed off and emotionless. The color the nigga was giving now annoyed me. “For like three years, now—no. That’s when y’all started kickin’ it again. I would say…Hmmm…” He stroked his beard again. “Maybe two years. It’s like every time after the nigga sees—smells—her, he’s fucked up for a few days!” Raj turned to me. “When?”
I wanted to say it had only been a year and a half since then. I knew this because I’d never forget that second-first kiss. It was a spring night in Orlando. Lennox had just ended her last day of a conference for work. Of course, my love-sick ass made my way down there just to steal a few hours with her for three days. The resort was mediocre, but I managed, understanding it was where Lennox’s employer arranged for her to stay, all expenses refunded. It was worth it.
In the morning, she’d grab breakfast at the conference hall a couple of miles away. She’d be there all day then join her colleagues for dinner. By eight-fifteen, she was all mine to kick it with in a neutral place. We didn’t go to each other’s room, respecting her situation. But damn, those nighttime conversations were every fucking thing. We were like two kids again, no guards or boundaries—other than sex with each other—to our dialogue. Lennox shared her budding desire to get into the nail industry. She wanted to manage and train Black practitioners to dominate the industry. I’ve wanted that for her since the first time she shared it with me.
That last night in Orlando had a similar natural flow of exchange, only the conversation turned risqué when she asked who I was fucking. That was weird. I knew what I wanted with the girl in the long run, so I set up and stuck to the boundaries needed to make her feel safe with me. So, when the topic went from mattress comfortability to how often the furniture was replaced to the frequency of cleaningmysheets after sex, I fucking fumbled.
As we sat in the cut, at night, beneath an umbrella, I turned to her, confused. Lennox’s expression was determined as she stared me straight in the eye, and asked, “How many women are you sleeping with now?”
I didn’t know how to answer, yet quickly decided on the truth. I told her only one woman. Lennox asked what would it take for me to stop. I shared the answer was simple: her being mine. And that was a gray area. We didn’t discuss the obvious. Since we’d been back in touch, Lennox and I had grown a friendship. Yes, my feelings for her were understood, but not the focus. Her well-being had been my push, not my need to claim her from head to toe.
Then Lennox reached over slowly and leaned her face toward mine. I couldn’t fucking breathe from the proximity. I fucked enough to know the play, but when you mix your fantasy woman with those parameters I’d put into place, the shit was foreign to me in the moment. But when Lennox leaned forward and pushed her pillowy lips to my mouth, the fragrant scent of her sensual needs opened my lungs, and I could breathe again. My hands gripped the sides of the patio chair because if I touched her, I’d kill the very boundaries I set in place in hopes of having her to myself one day.
