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“Yup.”
I’d started spending time with Dale. We’d speak damn near every day. We hung out a few times a week. In between drinks, appreciating tunes by other artists and musicians—old and new—I observed him. I listened to the shit he said and the important details he didn’t. Dale told me he’d shot his first gun down here, caught fish, hunted deer, and lost his innocence. He didn’t term it virginity, or making love, or fucking for the first time. So, when I inquired about his first love, he mentioned “the wrong woman from the wrong generation.” That, and his body language, told me there was more to the story.
“I know what you do when creating a body of work, as opposed to just two or three songs.” Lennox covered her mouth to yawn. “And yet, you find the time to have an attitude with me for not calling you.”
I shrugged with my head. “It’s been fuckin’ disrespectful.”
Her little hand covered my heart. “I’ve been working through things.”
“I know. But I’m here. I can help.”
With a soft expression, she shook her head. “You’ve helped all you can these past three years. You’ve proven to be a trusted friend. One who does not judge and one who can be patient. You’ve respected my vows until I broke them.”
In Jersey. Nah. I wasn’t expecting to make love to Lennox last month, and now that I had, I couldn’t stop wanting more and more of it.
My heart flashed open for a moment when I shared, “You’re my love song on repeat. The one that makes me weak. You’re the one powering my hunger, the only one who makes my heart thunder.”
“That’s so beautiful. Is that for Dale’s project?”
I nodded. “By way of my heart.”
Sharing personal shit like this with her wasn’t hard for me. But I did struggle with putting too much stress on Lennox. When it came to who she wanted to be with in a relationship, I could never forget how I’d lost her all those years ago. More than I wanted her—and I wanted her bad as hell—I needed Lennox to choose me. So, expressing my true feelings for her had to be measured.
She reached over and kissed me. “I don’t know what inspired the words, but your heart is so pure, everything pouring from it is perfection.”
Again, no need to clarify she inspired the words. I didn’t want to be that guy.
“What was the conversation like with the divorce lawyer?”
“Scary.” She exhaled, shifted onto her back, and fingered her curls. “I walked in there like a big girl and walked out like a child. It reminded me of what I walked into my marriage as. I was a child, thinking I was growing up when, in fact, I was being herded by my grandmother and Kelvin. Don’t get me wrong; I was in full capacity of my mind, but it wasn’t quite developed for me to understand the weight of joining lives with a man.”
With my “clean” hand, I fingered through her tiny ones over the comforter. “I can dig it.”
“And my conversation before that with my therapist didn’t help. I’ve been so busy planning my getaway that I haven’t been looking ahead: what my life will look like as a single woman.”
“You’ll figure it out. You always do. I don’t get what you mean.”
She pulled in a deep breath through her nostrils, turning onto her side to face me again. “When I was in Jersey, atCrystal K’s, the girls were all talking about their statuses as women almost thirty years old. You know everyone’s married except for Nisha, and even she’s not settled. None of us were satisfied. None of the married ones deeply in love with who we vowed to share our lives with.”
I couldn’t help a soft chuckle. “Not even Mya’s ‘everything’s rosy’ ass?”
She shook her head, a grin brightening her face. “Mya wants people to believe she is, but some of us can see through her BS. My point is, this fact didn’t hit me right away. It hit me the other day when I told my therapist I was going to finally take the first steps to leave Kelvin.” She shook her head, eyes in the distance. “I have no plan beyond that. These past few years, when I knew leaving him was best, it was my only focus. Now that I’m here, prepared to execute, the shit looks scarier than ever.”
“Why?”
“Because my whole world is centered around him. Like I said earlier; I have to think about everyone I live with. I own the home.”
“That shit’ll work itself out. I promise.”
She nodded, eyes squinting as though Lennox was in deep thought. “It will, but what about after? What will I do? Will I stay in that house, live with the memories ghosting in there? Will I continue to work and come home to an empty home? As much as I’ve fantasized about that over the years, the visual now seems so…blue. Will I stay down here without family? What does family mean? I don’t even have a support system now.”
“I wouldn’t want you tostay—I mean...” I caught myself. “I know your life is yours to do whatever you want to do with it. But I wanna be in yourlife—stay in your life.” Forever.
Her eyes were on me, but in a way I didn’t understand. Then Lennox’s gaze rolled down the bed. “When the girls were talking that night at the spa, Nisha mentioned still being single at almost thirty years old. She said it’s scary out there for people who want something real and monogamous.”
“I can be monogamous. Shit, I’ve been monogamous for yo ass for a while now, and for all intents and purposes, I’m single.” She fell out laughing, body falling to her side of the bed. That shit made me crack the fuck up, too. “Word. My ass committed to you without the pussy or a damn divorce certificate.”
Lennox couldn’t stop laughing.
