“Which is normal,” Alicia reassured. “Hell, I have the same feeling every day. I would be more worried about you if you didn’t feel like that.”
“Yeah,” Dacia added. “Even between me and Alicia, I struggle with it too. Don’t beat yourself up over it – we were… traumatized. For years. That conditioning doesn’t magically go away because we want it to.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I get that part, completely, but… how do I get past it?”
“When you find out, spread the word,” Dacia quipped, and we laughed.
“It’s definitely a day to day thing,” Alicia said. “Just take it day by day, and in the meantime… enjoy your honeymoon phase.”
Using honeymoon was a stretch to refer to Tristan and me, but I understood her overall point, and had every intention of adhering to it.
Or at least trying.
I finished talking with Alicia and Dacia, forcing the conversation away from me and onto them. I didn’t want this thing to be one-sided.
After I got off the phone, I grabbed some breakfast and flipped open that magazine, looking through the articles for something that might hold my interest. I smirked when my gaze landed on, “Foolproof Ways to Keep Your Boo”.
My personal relationship experience may have been lacking, but I was well-versed, generally, on what “kept” a man – he had to be obsessed, and even that was fleeting.
They were mine for the rest of their lives, though.
I flipped to the article, curious about what it might say, and had to smile when I saw the first lines.
If you’re reading this, let me be the first to tell you – you can’t keep anybody who doesn’t want to be kept. Relationships are a mutual exchange, that should be based in respect, genuine affection, and enjoyment for all involved.
If you’re feeling like you need to do something outside your sexual comfort, morals, dignity or safety, for the sake of “keeping” someone… reconsider. Love – and damn sure not “like” – should never require that.
But, if you’re in a relationship where you’re respected, cared for, supported, and loved, and feel the need to show some appreciation… we’ve got you! Here are a few moves you can consider:
Cook their favorite meal
Play out their favorite fantasy
Surprise them
Facilitate some self-care time
The list went on for a total of ten items, with each bullet followed by a paragraph of exposition and detailed suggestions.
It actually… wasn’t that bad.
In fact, it was so “not that bad” that I got up and got myself together, to venture to the fresh market I’d come to love in the neighborhood.
grown.
Tristan was free again later this evening, so… maybe it would be a nice surprise to cook for him. I’d bet good money he wouldn’t expect it.
In grown, I got my little basket and started exploring the aisles, trying to decide what I would fix. I kept things simple for myself, but I was willing to put the culinary skills we’d been taught in the Garden to good use. I mean, I was no gourmet chef by any means, but… I could make something happen.
I still hadn’t quite yet decided what that something was gonna be yet when I turned another corner, spotting a familiar face.
“Kiara,” I said, surprised to see Tristan’s barely teenaged daughter out in a store in the middle of what I thought would’ve been a school day. “Why aren’t you at school?”
Her eyes had gone wide behind her hot-pink glasses at the sight of me, and when she opened her mouth to answer, nothing came out.
“Uh, who the fuck are you?” I heard, and shifted my attention to Kiara’s left, as another woman approached, scowling as she left her basket to get between me and Kiara.
I realized very quickly that Kiara and Tristan didn’t look as much alike as I thought.
Because Kiara looked just like her mother.
Von, I remembered him calling her.
Von was… excessively pretty, with big brown eyes and long thick natural lashes, high cheek bones, cute nose. Like Tristan – and Kiara – she had locs, but hers were a pretty copper that contrasted against her deep brown skin.
Perfect skin.
“You hear me talking to you, right?” she asked, snapping her fingers in a sharp pop. “What did you have to say to my child that you couldn’t say in front of me?”
I blinked. “I… um…”
“This is Tempest, mama,” Kiara spoke up. “Daddy’s girlfriend.”
Those big brown eyes went damn near black, flashing in anger as she snapped her head back in my direction. “Excuse me? I don’t know what Tris told you that has you all comfortable addressing my child, but let me tell you something – you don’t know her until you know me, and I don’t fucking know you. And you can tell Tristan I thought he learned his lesson with the last bitch he had around my daughter – don’t let yourself be another lesson he has to learn with me, ‘kay?”
All that came pouring out of her at what felt like lightning speed, and I was still so dazed I could barely process what was happening.
I did hear the menace in her tone, though.
“Who the fuck do your call yourself threatening?” I asked, unable to keep a smirk off my face. “You’re right – you don’t know me, or you’d know better.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, so he got a bitch with some backbone this time, okay, that’s cute. But you’re still trash for being around my kid without even the courtesy of having said hi, bye, kiss my ass, whatever, beforehand.”
“She hasn’t been around me, mama,” Kiara spoke up again, before I could give the ugly response that was right on the tip of my tongue. “We ran into her one day in Urban Grind, and I could tell he liked her, so I made him tell me. That’s all. And she asked why I wasn’t at school,” she explained, clearly trying to diffuse the tense situation. “I had an orthodontist appointment, so I got to skip school.”
“Oh.” That was Von’s dry ass response. “My bad.”
Without anything more, she turned and walked away – not an apology, nothing. Kiara gave me a sympathetic shrug, then ran off to follow her mother, leaving me to wonder what the fuck had just happened.
Well, obviously I knew what had just happened, but damn.
What a mood killer.
I left grown without buying a single grocery, because by mind was reeling now.
Of course this thing between Tristan and I was very new, so it was sensible – smart, even – that he hadn’t had me around his daughter.
But to not have even mentioned me to his child’s mother over the weeks he’d spend working himself into my presence… kinda bothered me.
You’re probably tripping.
Right.
That was probably it.
But… just in case, since I didn’t end up with the things for cooking… I decided to pull something different from the list.
Instead of wallowing in confusion, I set my sights for the tattoo parlor, knowing – hoping – that seeing him in person would cheer me up.
A quick drop in to surprise him could be a perfect midday energy boost for both of us.