“So he’s a junior?”I thought as little Darnell started using his hands to explain, “Mommy got me a dog, and I took it with me to Daddy’s house cause he’s my best friend. And then when I was sleepin’, the dog ate up both of Daddy’s shoes cause he was hungry, I guess.”
“Both of them?”
“Girl, both of them,” his mother answered, shaking her head like she still couldn’t believe it as I commented, “Considering how much these go for nowadays, I can imagine he was pretty upset.”
“Pretty upset?More like, hot as fish grease,” she confirmed with a laugh as she stuck her credit card in the machine to complete the transaction without even waiting for me to give her the total. “But since I was the one who bought D.J. the dog that caused the damage, I figured the least I could do was offer to replace them.”
With a nod, I casually got the shoe box bagged up as I responded, “Well that’s very nice of you. I’m sure Darnell will appreciate it.”
“Wait. How do you know Darnell?”
“Hm?”
“Darnell,” she repeated with a frown. “How’d you know these shoes were for him?”
My heart immediately started pounding once I realized my slip, my eyes going wide when I rattled, “I didn’t. I mean, I don’t.” But it wasn’t until I saw a name tag hanging off of little buddy’s shirt that I had an actual explanation, legitimately feeling relieved once I told his mother, “When you called your son D.J, I just assumed he was a junior. And since the name tag on his shirt says Darnell…”
“Oh.Right. My bad,” she sighed, giggling a bit as she explained, “I thought you might’ve been one of his little girlfriends or somethin’.”
“One of?”I thought, trying not to react outwardly as she continued, “Not like his father is some kinda player or anything like that. He’s actually a really good guy. And we’re not even together, so if you were one of his girlfriends, it wouldn’t matter.But…”
Before she could say anything more, I interrupted, “I’m so sorry for the confusion,” moving from behind the checkout counter so that I could hand the bag to little D.J. And with a smile, his mother replied, “Thanks for all your help, Briyana,” the fact that she knew my name startling me until she gave a little nod towards my name tag and then winked before the two of them left the store.
Once they were gone, breathing a sigh of relief was the first thing on my agenda. But after that tension was released, I realized she’d given me something to consider since not only had she cleared the air on her and Darnell no longer being involved, but she’d also spoken very highly of him like he was worth getting in touch with.
So that was exactly what I did, retrieving my phone and using the Instagram handle that was still in my recent searches to find his page before clicking to follow him. And to no surprise, it wasn’t long before I received both a follow request and a DM, grinning to myself as I clicked to accept and then read the message he’d sent me.
@TrillNell: “Been waiting to hear from you, love. I see my patience paid off.”
@BriBriTheeStallion: “You could say that ;).”
@TrillNell: “So what we doin’, Ms. Bri? Dinner? Movies? Shopping?”
His last suggestion made my head snap back a little, my eyebrows furrowed as I typed out,“Shopping? Who said I had extra money to be spending with you for fun?”
@TrillNell: “Lol I ain’t ask you if you had money. If I’m making it an option, that means I got you.”
“Okayyy, Darnell,” I said out loud, gnawing at the corner of my lip as I thought about what to respond just as the bell over the door chimed with the arrival of another customer. But since my co-worker, Aubrey, had finally made it back from her break, I let her take care of whoever it was, still thinking about what I wanted to reply to Darnell when I heard a familiar say, “Nah, she got me.”
Peeking up from my phone, I had to do a double take when I saw who was approaching me, his cool and confident stride making me grin as I came from behind the checkout counter and asked, “Shouldn’t you be in training camp or something?”
“Nah, we’ve been done with that,” Lance answered with a smirk as he slipped his hands in the front pockets of his jeans before giving me a once-over that, for whatever reason, had me doing the same thing with the back pockets of mine.
“So… what’s up?”
Amusedly, he responded, “What you mean, what’s up? A nigga can’t come browse for some new kicks on his day off?”
“Of course you can,” I answered, slowly moving towards the display wall as I tossed over my shoulder, “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“Nah, but you know what I like,” he responded, his word choice, or maybe his tone, or shit, maybe just him period making my cheeks warm as I turned back around to ask, “Are you still a size twelve?”
Biting into his bottom lip like he just couldn’t help himself, Lance proudly replied, “Twelve and a half now actually.”
With a subtle eye roll, I gave a nod towards a nearby bench as I told him, “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.” And once I made it to the stockroom, it was easy to pull a few different styles for Lance to check out because,well,I really did know what he liked; especially after being introduced to his shoe cave not too long ago.
The trickier part was finding colorways he didn’t already own. And since there was really no way for me to know for sure, I decided to pull the ones I thought were most unique, returning to the store floor with a tall stack of heavy ass size twelve and a halves in my hand that I sat down on the ground while telling him, “So I wasn’t sure if you already owned any of these, but here’s a couple to get you started.”
Leaning forward to grab the top box, Lance took a quick peek at my first selection before setting it to the side so that he could do the same thing with each of the other boxes. But the fact that he wasn’t saying anything as he did it left me a bit unsettled, a frown on my face when I crossed my arms over my chest and asked, “What’s wrong? You hate them?”