Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Blinders

Rock Chick Rewind

Still some time ago, but now even less…

Toni threw herself in the lawn chair beside me, doing this without sloshing even a drop out of her mojito.

The girl was good.

“I am not feeling this,” she declared, gaze aimed across my parents’ backyard to Lena and her new fiancé, Kenneth.

“Hmm…” I replied.

She turned her head to me, lifting her drink to her mouth, but before taking a sip, said under her breath, “Darius get the skinny on him yet?”

“He’s not a fan,” I said under mine.

“Is that an understatement?” she asked.

I gave her big eyes.

“Shit,” she said, turning back to Lena draped on Kenneth. “He got anything like those photos he got on Michael?”

“He’s working on it.”

“You know, Tony is a construction foreman,” she told me something I did, indeed, know.

I confirmed I knew it and drew it out. “Yeeessss.”

“He’s not a master sleuth. He can’t keep coming up with the dirty on Lena’s boys. She’s gonna start thinking it’s weird.”

“It only happened that once.”

“We pinned nasty pictures on him knowing someone who knew someone who could look into things, which wasn’t a total lie, since he knows you, and you know Darius. And you know, Denver’s a big city, but it’s also a small town. To her, Darius was your past, but everyone knows Eddie Chavez is a cop, now he’s made detective, and it wouldn’t be hard to put those two together to get what you need to keep your sister from making shit decisions about the men she lets in her bed.”

Uh-oh.

She’d been keeping my secret for a long time now.

Years.

And I had a feeling she was getting fed up with it.

“I won’t pin this one on Tony.”

“You need to tell Lena what’s going on with Darius.”

“Are you high?” I screeched.

Everyone looked at me.

I hid behind my mojito.

Toni let it die down before she said low, “I think more, you need to figure out what’s going on with you and Darius.”

I hated to admit it.

But she wasn’t wrong.

I knew it’d take patience, but this was crazy.

And nothing I was doing was working.

Sure, we had great sex that never got old because it could be a month, even two, between times we could get together.

And no, it wasn’t just sex. We talked. He ate up everything I could tell him about Liam like my words were mana from heaven. He asked about my new job at the law firm now that I’d finished my degree and landed a position as a paralegal. He asked about Mom, Dad, Lena, Toni.

He did not talk about himself.

He was a master at avoiding it.

Half the time, I was kissing him goodbye before I realized I’d had him again and gotten nowhere.

Liam was now nine. Toni and Tony had gotten pregnant and had a baby girl. Lena had been through five new guys before she latched onto this one.

And although I had Darius’s number, and I texted him every day, and spoke to him just because on occasion, and he always took my calls and never left my texts hanging, we were no closer to the important things.

Like telling his family he had a child.

Like telling my family he was in my life.

Like introducing him to his son.

Oh sure, I had excuses.

First, it was having a kid and studying for my degree and having a full-time job, and those were all good excuses.

Then, it was my kid growing up and getting into activities, while I was still studying for my degree and having a full-time job while shuffling him to peewee football and junior basketball and piano lessons (don’t ask me, my mom made us do it, Liam hated it, but we both promised her two years, and he was closing in on the end of year two, so we just had stick it out).

Then it was interning, and a full-time job, and a kid, and activities. Then having a new job and needing to put in the hours, which were extensive, to make myself part of the team.

In the mix of all that was keeping a house, groceries in the cupboards, good, cooked food on the table, time with my boy and his homework, laundry, the oil needing changed on the car, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I mean, life was life. It was full. Things got away from you.

But this was getting ridiculous.

“They’re worried,” Toni said.

I mentally shook myself out of my thoughts and asked, “Who’s worried?”

“Your mom and dad,” she said, eyes across the way on her hubby, who had little Talia on his hip.

“Worried about what?”

She looked to me. “That you don’t date. That you work and hang with Liam. Hang with Tony and me. Hang with Lena. And go home alone. And you do it like it’s all good for you, when they don’t know it is all good, because the man you love is in your life in a super weird way, but still, he’s in it. And I gotta say, they know you took a big pay bump when you got your new job, but you were living pretty large on a court reporter’s salary, and they aren’t dumb.”

Oh boy.

She kept at me.

“Then you put the money down on that new build in Stapleton, whomp! Down payment on a brand-new house in a cushy development, and you didn’t even blink.”

Maybe I hadn’t been as smart as I should have been about using Darius’s support to take care of Liam and me.

On the one hand, if I’d made us go without to keep it from them, Darius would lose his mind.

On the other hand, no way was I going to accumulate tens of thousands of dollars in my panties drawer and make my boy go without.

Okay, so maybe that was the same hand.

But I probably should have pretended I won the lottery or something.

“I think they’ve figured it out,” she muttered.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, horrified. “You think they have?”

Slowly, she turned her head to face me. “I respect them, Malia. And I’ve been lying to them by omission for years.”

I bit my lip.

“I love you,” she went on. “And I gotta trust you know what you’re doing, but something’s going to break on this, and your family is good people. They don’t deserve this deception.”

I felt badly, I truly did.

But I knew what I was doing.

I hoped.

“I bought a nanny cam,” I told her.

“Say again?” she asked.

“I bought a nanny cam. It’s Eddie who breaks in and gives me the money.”

“Whoa,” she said.

“I left a note for him last time and told him to stop breaking in and stay for a beer. He wrote back, ‘We’ll see.’”

Toni’s gaze was far away, keeping company with her thoughts. “Love my man, but I could do a beer with Eddie.”

Yeah, via the nanny cam, I learned he just got better with age.

But we needed to focus.

“I can tell them that,” I suggested. “If I tell them, they’ll know what I know. It’s from Darius. And maybe, when the time comes, they won’t…have a problem with him.”

“When the time comes for what?”

“When the time comes we can be a family.”

A guard slammed down on her face, but her mouth didn’t quit moving.

“Are you holding out for that, sis? Because, sure, I can see that. You love the guy. But also, no. He’s got it made. He comes and gets his business, then he goes, no strings, no commitments.”

Oh no.

Now I was getting mad at Toni.

Or maybe I was getting mad at the situation because it was dragging on forever.

But still, I was getting mad at Toni.

“You don’t know how it is.”

“Do you?”

That was the ten-million-dollar question.

I looked away and took a sip of my mojito.

“Unh-hunh,” she mumbled.

“That envelope I get every month doesn’t say no strings, no commitments,” I sniped.

She got to the meat of it.

“It also doesn’t say Dad,” she told me. “He’s even pulling away from Tony, have you noticed?”

I had.

Liam and Tony were tight, now it was like…not like he didn’t love his Uncle Tony, just like he didn’t need him like he used to.

Like he was getting accustomed to it being him and me and that was going to be all he had.

I looked around the backyard, trying to locate my son.

When I didn’t see him, I knew where he was.

In the front drive, shooting hoops at the basketball goal Dad had mounted for him.

Shooting hoops alone.

I stood, saying, “I need to find my son.”

Toni caught my hand. I looked down at her.

“I’m worried too,” she said. “You were a teen mom, lost, but not alone. You found your way. Now you’re twenty-six, living your life for a man who shows in your bedroom one night every couple of months for nookie with no promises.” She shook her head and squeezed my hand before I could say anything I’d regret. “No, I’m not being cruel, I’m being real, because I’m worried. Don’t say anything and don’t get mad. Just think about what I had to say.”

“I’ll think about what you had to say,” I said between my teeth.

She gave my hand a squeeze and let go. “That’s all I ask.”

I took off, trying not to feel all I was feeling, something that was getting tired.

Because I’d been feeling it now for years, along with putting in the effort not to feel it.

Mom and Dad were worried, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Toni too, also not a surprise.

But I was too.

Because I’d had patience.

And it wasn’t working.

I heard the dribble of the basketball before I made it to the front, the bang of it hitting the backboard, more dribbling.

When I got there, I saw my son setting up for a shot, and even with my thoughts in turmoil, my heart hurting—because if I allowed myself to admit it (and I wasn’t there yet), I knew Toni was right, something had to give with Darius—I loved that even at Lena and Kenneth’s engagement party, Dad wouldn’t let anyone park in the driveway so Liam could shoot hoops.

“Hey,” I called.

“Hey,” he called back and let fly.

It whiffed the net.

I winced.

He needed to be taller, stronger, keep practicing, he’d get there.

Liam didn’t show any emotion to the whiff. He just went after the ball and kept dribbling.

“I bet Tony would play horse with you if you asked,” I suggested.

“Nah, he’s got Talia with him,” Liam answered, stopped, planted his feet and let fly.

It hit the hoop and bounced to the side.

Damn.

He went after the ball.

“I could confiscate Talia, no skin off my nose,” I said.

Liam grinned while dribbling. “You spoil her more than her own momma does.”

“That’s what aunties are for,” I said, bending to put my drink in the grass. I straightened. “Throw it here.”

He stopped, tossed the ball to me, and I caught it.

I dribbled twice, set up, then tossed the ball. And in a dress and heels, I didn’t do too badly, though it flew clean over the hoop from side to side, missing it altogether.

Liam chased after it.

“Want it again?” he asked after he nabbed it.

Out here, alone, shooting hoops.

My boy with no daddy.

“Is it upsetting to you?” I asked. “Talia, I mean. That Tony has his little girl now?”

Liam tipped his head to the side. “Naw. Why would it?”

“I think maybe he misses you a little bit,” I shared.

His eyes wandered to the side of the house. “Ya think?”

“Heads up,” I warned, then with two hands, I passed the ball hard. No problems, he caught it. “There are things you can’t do with baby girls.” I jerked my chin to the hoop. “And your granddad didn’t put this up for you to hog it.”

Liam grinned at me.

I then jerked my head to the side yard. “Go, ask one of them to hang with you.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. I know for a fact your grandfather would kill for an excuse to get away from an engagement party he didn’t want to have in the first place. He thinks Kenneth is touched.”

Another grin, this one bigger, because Liam agreed about the touched part, then with ball under his arm, he dashed off.

This spoke volumes.

My boy, he liked his alone times. I’d noticed it more and more when he started to get older. He was just one of those people who were good in their own company. And he was like his mom. A reader.

Even so, he had those times where he wanted to be social.

But what boys liked to do together wasn’t an awful lot like what girls liked to do, especially grown-up girls. I couldn’t mix him a mojito and dish about Lena’s boyfriends with him.

He needed a man in his life.

He needed his father.

And again, that was not for now, and I was getting fed up with the not for nows.

But that wasn’t for now either.

I followed my son, and fast, because I had to be there to take Talia if he picked Tony first, because Tony doted on his daughter, and he loved Liam, but I wasn’t sure he’d give her up for basketball.

Darius had been a great basketball player, though he excelled at football. Got a scholarship to Yale that was academic, but they scouted him for the team, and he’d had a place on it before he turned his back on all that when Mister Morris died.

He should be shooting hoops with his son.

But I couldn’t do anything about that.

For now.

* * * *

I was in my nightie, putting lotion on my elbows, when the screen lit up on my phone sitting on the nightstand.

It said M.M.M. Calling.

When I’d programmed it in, I thought it was cute.

But now, it just reminded me not only that I could not type Darius’s name into my phone, just in case someone saw it who shouldn’t, but also, I couldn’t type in what M.M.M. meant—My Main Man—because he was that, just no one knew it. And if they saw it, I’d have uncomfortable questions to answer that I had no answers I could give.

Questions about Darius.

And maybe among those no ones who didn’t know who My Main Man was, was Darius.

I flipped the phone open and put it to my ear. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby. I got nothing.”

“Sorry?”

“About Lena’s man. That Kenneth guy. White folk would call him a douche, and I gotta say, that works for him, but other than that, he’s got nothing wrong with him.”

I sat on the side of the bed, murmuring, “Damn.”

“At least he’s not a cheater or a low-level dealer,” Darius tried to placate me.

“I guess we can count our blessings,” I replied.

He chuckled.

“Okay, thanks for looking into it,” I said, my tone flat.

He stopped chuckling, because he heard my tone, not that he could miss it.

“You okay?”

No, I’m not! We’re on the phone when you should be here with me and our son, so of course I’m not!I wanted to shout.

“Worried about Lena,” I kind of lied.

“That’s not it.”

When he said that, no clue why, but something broke in me.

“You know, Liam is pulling away from Tony.”

“He is?”

Oh my God.

Was I reading him correctly?

He sounded…happy about that.

“That’s not a good thing, Darius,” I informed him.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You sounded like it was.”

A beat then, “Right. You’re in a mood. Maybe we’ll talk later.”

“Easy for you to just hang up and not have to deal with anything real,” I snapped.

Silence, but he didn’t disconnect.

He got silence from me too, mostly because I was in a mood, and if I spoke, I was afraid of what I’d say.

Darius broke the silence. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About what’s bothering you.”

“How much time you got?”

“All the time you need.”

I closed my eyes, clenched my fist, and dropped my head back, because…why?

Why, why, why did he have to be so good when I was so damned mad at him.

Why did he go out and discover Kenneth was a douche, putting that effort in, and he didn’t play hoops with his son?

“Baby?” he called.

I opened my eyes and went for it.

What the hell, right?

I only had everything to lose.

“I need more from you.”

“What? Money? Is it the new house? Are they screwing you over, pushing upgrades?”

“No, not money. You, Darius. I need more of you.”

“Okay, so how do we manage that?”

I stared at my knees.

“Malia? How do we manage that?”

“I…you…”

I was having trouble speaking, mostly because I was so shocked he was giving in.

“I want more of you too, baby. It’s frustrating as fuck trying to fit everything into a night every few months.”

“I…really?”

Silence again, this loaded, like he was pissed.

I’d know why when he ground out, “You aren’t a booty call, woman.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“So how do we manage that?”

“I don’t know, but when I say I need more, I mean I need more of the important stuff. Not that what we do when we’re together isn’t important, but I need to know about you. Your life. What you spend your time doing. Who you spend it with. And Darius, Liam is going to ask. One day, he’s going to ask. It’s a miracle he hasn’t asked yet. And we need to have that figured out. What we’re going to say when he asks about his father. And he’s got a grandma and two aunties who live in the same town as him, and I think we’re courting some serious future therapy for our son if we don’t let him have all the things he’s entitled to.”

“I’ll tell you, but only if you promise me he’ll never know what I am.”

That made me blink at my knees.

“Sorry?”

“You have to promise me.”

“Darius, I can’t make a promise without knowing what I’m promising.”

“You’re going to have to think on that, babe. Because this goes no further until you can give me that.”

Fear was creeping into my veins. “What do you do?”

“Think about it, baby,” he said softly, carefully. “How do I know Lena’s ex was low-level?”

I turned my head sharply and said, “I’m tired. I don’t want to talk about this now. We’ll figure out a way we can spend some time together and talk then.”

“You don’t want me to run away from real, you can’t either, sweetheart. I’m sorry, but it is what it is. I’ll give you time to think about it, but I sense shit is coming to a head, and I’ve taken advantage of your denial too long. You’re right. It’s time to get real. And I’ll make you a promise right now, when we do, whatever you decide, I’ll honor it.”

There was something wrong with his tone.

It sounded…

Final.

“You’re scaring me,” I whispered.

“I’ve been trying to do that from the beginning. You just believe in me so much, you wouldn’t let it penetrate. I’ll tell you, I thought I’d feel relief when you finally got it. But that’s not what I feel. I feel the same way you feel. Except a lot worse.”

“Darius—”

“Take the blinders off, Malia, think about it and call me. We’ll talk.”

Oh God.

“I love you,” I blurted.

“I know,” he said softly, gently, and uneasily. “And that scares me most of all.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

“Think, baby, and we’ll talk,” he urged, now it was just soft and gentle. “Try to sleep good.”

“You too.”

“Later.”

“’Bye, Darius.”

I said it and he disconnected.

I just didn’t know when he disconnected, he was going to think too.

Think and act on what he thought.

Think and, to protect me, to protect our son, take the decision out of my hands.

So that goodbye was going to last a whole lot longer than I could ever imagine.