“I also asked about you, I hear you’re newly divorced.” Her hand literally shook in mine and I thought I heard her breath hitch. I’m not sure if that was because I’d asked or because I knew about her failed marriage.
“Yes I’m divorced, what about it?” I’ma have to get her to calm her little ass down about this shit. It was obvious that she had a chip on her shoulder when it came to that particular issue, but I’m not the one.
“I’m just letting you know that I know, in case it was something you were fighting with sharing.” I kept my tone even and polite unlike her snippy ass. In the off chance that she’d get the hint.
“Why would I care what you think?” What an angry little girl. She might be saying that shit but I felt the truth in the tremble in her hand.
With that said, it looks like she’s the one starting off on the wrong foot. That subdued anger shit is for the birds. Granted I expect her to feel a way because of what she’d been through, but I’ve never been the type to accept blame for someone else’s bullshit. And now is not the time to start.
“I hear you, and I know what place you’re coming from with all that attitude, but let me tell you something. I’m not your ex, so I have no plans whatsoever of paying the price for whatever the fuck it is that he did.”
She tried tugging her hand out of mine. “Don’t do that. There’re two people on this lane.” I pointed at the dirt track we were walking on that led to the little garden gate at the back of the property.
“I understand that you have a past, and so do I. I’m not gonna make you suffer for some of the fucked up shit that was done to me and you’re not about to do it to me. Are we clear?”
I could see that we were gonna have a problem in the future. The wide eyed little girl lost stare she gave me had me wanting to take back the semi harsh words and lay down at her damn feet.
“Answer me!” She nodded her head but that look did not leave her face. It was obvious that no one had ever spoken to her like that before and I’m sure that look of hers had always gotten her-her way in the past. She’s going to be trouble.
A handful of southern beauty, the real deal. Like my mama and grandma and all the other belles I’d grown up around. Strong women who knew their worth and didn’t give a good damn!
My dick was all but genuflecting and doing handsprings like he’d found his soul mate or some shit. I know what that means. Women are fond of saying men think with their dicks, this is true.
But in my case he sometimes makes more sense than my brain. He’s turned up his nose at some fine shit in the past that turned out to be a disaster for someone else.
You know those situations where you thank your lucky stars that you’d missed that bullet? Like when you see a woman you think is hot but you just can’t get it up for her? Then two weeks later you get a call from your buddy who went there and she’s cray? Yeah, my boy’s very fucking discerning that way.
Now the difference between this time and all the others is, he wasn’t just being greedy for some skin to skin, he was fucking elated. Say what you want, I know my dick. We’ve been out here in these streets together for a long fucking time.
Right now he was giving her the side eye, checking shit out, liking what he saw. But what’s surprising is that he’s willing to wait. Now that’s some respect right there. My boy had found his first keeper.
I didn’t let go of her hand as we walked in silence for the next five minutes, both of us apparently lost in our own thoughts. I’m amazed at how comfortable that shit felt. My boy was prodding me to get my shit moving though. He ain’t that patient.
“So what’re your plans?”
“What do you mean?” That voice, damn.
“I mean what are your plans? Are you here for good, you heading back east at some point, what?”
She gave me one of those quick side looks before looking away again. There was something so vulnerable about her that I can’t help but feel shit that I’m not used to. The women I bedded in the past were usually as much of a player as I.
It’s too early to say that she’s not as tough or assertive as the women out west, but I hope she never loses that innocent purity that came off of her in waves.