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“For as long as I want. Maybe even forever.” She teased, “I beat you. I beat you. I beat you.”
The taunting continued all the way to the restaurant. However, when she saw the restaurant he’d picked out, it was replaced by disbelief. “We can’t go in there. Their menus don’t even have the price listed, which, in case you didn’t know, means they’re ridiculously expensive.”
“I’m the one who’s paying,” he reminded her. “So why are you the one who’s worried about the price?”
“You’re my baby’s daddy.” With a chuckle, she added, “I don’t want you to go bankrupt over one dinner. I still need that child support.”
“Is that all I am?” He met her eyes. “Your baby’s daddy?”
“What?” She jokingly countered, “Are you trying to be more?”
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a joking matter for him because he was indeed trying to be more than just her son’s father. However, he didn’t bring the topic up right then. He waited until they’d been served dinner before saying what was on his mind.
“This isn’t working for me,” he offered quietly.
“Huh?” Her eyebrows shot up and her fork paused over her steak. “What isn’t working for you?”
“This! Our relationship!” He paused a beat before explaining, “I want more than what we have now.”
“Oh!” The word emerged from her lips in a breathless gasp. She carefully set her fork on her plate before asking, “When you say more, what exactly does that entail?”
If he were still young, he would’ve beat around the bush and coaxed her with sweet words before stating what he wanted. But they weren’t kids anymore, and with maturity came a low tolerance for time-wasting antics. So he just put it out there.
“Right now what we are is just people who share a kid and sometimes have sex.” He paused a beat then said, “But I’d like for us to be something more. I’m talking about being in a real relationship… dating.”
“Um…” She was stunned. “I see.”
Tazeem didn’t know what reaction he expected from her, but this wasn’t it. There was no glee in her expression, just wariness. Whatever confidence he’d come with into the conversation fizzled into nervousness and a sinking feeling that he had just set himself up for disappointment.
Already feeling miserable, he said, “You don’t want more?”
“No, no, no,” she rushed to correct him. “It’s not that I don’t want more. I do. How could I not want more? But historically, we haven’t made for the best romantic partners. We’ve been down this path before and it didn’t work out. I’m not sure doing it again is wise.”
Tazeem was relieved that her reluctance had nothing to do with not wanting more. “I think you’re missing something. What we had back then was just sex. What we can have now is a relationship – a real relationship.”
“See, that’s where our wires cross.” She met his eyes boldly. “We went on dates. We slept in the same bed more than we slept apart. We listened to each other’s problems. I was there for you when your grandpa died. You hang out with me during my mom’s death anniversary. We shared our problems and helped each other solve them. To me, that’s a relationship. But to you, it was just sex.”
“Hanging out and helping each other out does not necessarily make you a couple.” He hadn’t brought her to dinner to rehash their past but now that they were deep in it, he couldn’t back out. “You have to both agree that you’re a couple. And I never agreed. Right from the start, you knew that all I was looking for was a friend with benefits. And that’s what I thought we were. You never asked for the status of our situationship to change.”
Irritation flashed in her expression. “I thought I didn’t need to say it.”
“I’m not a mind-reader, Chess.” His tone softened, “You had to say it.”
She watched him keenly. “If I had, would you have agreed?”
“Probably.” He added, “With Jay on the way, it was definitely on my mind. I just never got the chance to bring it up.”
“Oh, that’s convenient.” Sarcasm dripped from her every word as she added, “Now that it’s been years, you can claim to have been thinking of making us official when back then we both know you would’ve dropped me like a stone if I pushed you too hard.”
Her tone was enough to annoy him, so he went low. “Let me remind you, you were already pushing me hard back then, and yet, I’m not the one who walked away. You’re the one who walked away from us.”
“I was pushing you hard?” Her face contorted in disbelief. “How?”
“You really don’t remember how hard you were on me? Chess, I could never do anything right in your eyes. I wasn’t being supportive enough. I wasn’t spending enough time with you. There was always something that I wasn’t doing enough.” Feeling his irritation transform into real anger, he suggested, “I don’t want to talk about this. It was eight years ago. Can’t we just put it behind us?”
“Uh-uh. No putting anything behind us.” She reached across the table to grab his hand. “If we’re going to start something new, then we need to know and accept the mistakes we made, so we don’t do it again. I don’t want us to fail because there’s still unresolved stuff lingering in our past.”
Her taking his hand abruptly put out the angry fire that had started in the pit of his belly. In that moment, he realized that if they were to move on, this talk was indeed necessary.
