“Oh shit – he was trying to bluff you?!”
“Apparently so,” I chuckled. “But I’m not… I don’t know. I’m just not that girl anymore. At first I was so caught in what things were supposed to be, according to my family, and now I’m just… over it. I called his bluff, and we went through the divorce despite him trying to drag it out. I quit my job at Kimble, and came to be with my cousins. It’s really bittersweet, honestly, but now… it finally feels like how it’s supposed to be. It feels like I’m settling into… me.”
This ain’t you, and you ain’t been you, and you not gone be you until you take a good look at yourself.
Unbidden, the strangers’ words played in my head again, pulling a little smile to my face.
“Well…if I ever run into the man, I’m telling him thank you,” Derrick said. “His loss was my gain.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How you figure that?”
“I got my baby back,” he said, giving me a look like it should’ve been obvious. “This is fate, girl.”
“Fate? Seriously?” I laughed as his phone went off. I took another sip from my glass as he checked it, then gestured for me to wait a moment as he stood to go off toward the front of the restaurant.
While he was gone, I looked around – Ascension was all packed up for the night – chairs tucked away, all the tables wiped clean. It didn’t occur to me until then that there weren’t any sounds from the kitchen either, so how…
“Dinner is served.”
When I looked up, Derrick was headed back to me, with a bag of takeout in his hands.
“Really?” I giggled. “You invited me to your restaurant to eat somebody else’s food?”
“I considered that,” he said, “but in my defense…” he turned the bag so I could see the logo. “I thought nostalgia might make actually make the best impression.”
He… wasn’t wrong.
I actually had to swallow a bit of emotion at the sight of the Battered Birds logo – the same little spot we’d frequented so often during that fateful summer.
“You know… this reminds me – how are your friends?” I asked. “Kyle and Rob, right?”
“They’re good – great, actually,” Derrick said as he took his seat again. “Both married, actually. Rob married a woman named Iris, had a couple of kids. He’s a principal now. Kyle left the league, started a business, got married. Him and Brandi actually just had a baby. A little girl. First girl for both of them.”
“That’s amazing, good for them,” I mused. “And… what about you?” I asked, trying to keep my tone as casual as possible as I helped unpack the food – wings and fries and waffle sticks and Styrofoam cups of greens and macaroni. “Did you ever get married, have kids?”
“Nah,” he admitted. “I was waiting for somebody.”
“Stop it.”
“No, for real,” he insisted. “I’m not saying that I consciously knew that’s what I was doing, but as I got older, I had to really look at the shit I was doing and wonder… was I purposely seeking temporary situations so I could be available when someone permanent came along?”
“Were you?”
He shrugged. “I can’t call it. I just know that whenever I thought about it, about someone permanent… the only person who ever came to mind… was you.”
“Wow. This is platinum level caking,” I laughed, and he shook his head.
“Is it caking if I’m just telling you my truth?”
I bit down on my lip, chewing at it a bit before I shrugged. “I… I don’t know,” I told him. “And I don’t mean to… I guess downplay your feelings. It’s just… I feel very… uncomfortable.”
“I’m making you feel uncomfortable?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “But not in a bad way. I’m just processing.”
“What are you processing?”
“The realization that I hadn’t really been myself for a long time. And now that I’m back in Blackwood, now that… I’ve run into you. It’s just… all these feelings, memories, that were faded and gray, and buried under the heaviness of this person I was “supposed” to be… it’s all rushing back. Like I’m rushing back. Getting back my color, like the old folks say.”
“I have never heard a Black person say that shit in my whole life,” Derrick laughed, and… I laughed too, and it just felt so damn… vibrant.
All of it.
Eating the same food we used to eat, and talking like we used to talk, and not worrying about if it could stay this way… it was just good.
Fantastic.
The best damn Christmas in a long time.
After we’d eaten our fill, Derrick walked me back to Night Shift, but didn’t come inside – a decision I wrestled with in my head for a while.
Did I want to see what the dick was hitting for ten years later?
Of course I did.
But I also wasn’t about to get into a repeat performance of my same mistakes.
“This was fun. A lot of fun,” he said, squeezing my hand as we stopped beside the door.
“I agree.”
He nodded, then dipped his head in toward me. “Fun enough that you’ll be my New Years’ date as well?”
An instant smile bloomed across my face. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“Good. Consider it settled,” he said, then shifted just enough that it only took a slight movement for his lips to press against mine.
Immediately, I was flooded with warmth – all over, but especially between my legs – in a sharp divergence from how freezing cold it was outside.
When we parted ways, I was still smiling – even when a customer on their way out shoulder checked me as I was stepping inside.
I was on too much of a high to be angry, but as I glanced back to at least catch a glimpse of who it was… my eyes went wide.
“Merry Christmas, cher,” the stranger said, his ring-covered fingers glittering as he waved.
And then… he was gone.
The end.