Page 34 of IRL: In Real Life
“Good. Go home. Eat something. Put on some old R&B and stop acting surprised you like a woman.”
That got a laugh out of me in spite of my better judgment.
“You are very irritating.”
“I’m also right.”
He was still grinning when I walked out.
Outside,the city met me in stages. Glass. Headlights. Warm restaurant windows. The evening crowd moving with more life in it than the morning one ever did. I got in the Benz and sat there for a second before starting it, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the phone in the console like I had lost some private argument with myself and was waiting to see how bad the damage was.
No new message from Talia.
I started my Benz and pulled out of the garage into traffic that moved just slow enough to make a man think too much.
On the drive home, I told myself to leave the thread alone.
That had become a habit quickly, which was its own problem.
I didn’t need to reread what she said. I knew it already. The rhythm of it. The little intelligence tucked into the lines. The way she could flirt and still sound like a woman with something real behind the face she brought to a room.
That was the thing. The app had gone from being a place where I read her to a place where I remembered her.
There was a difference.
I stopped to get some gas, so by the time I got to my condo, the sky had gone deeper and the city lights had taken over. I let myself in, dropped my keys in the black tray by the door, and stood there for a second with my jacket still on, the room opening around me in low lamp light and evening quiet.
My place usually settled me the minute I got inside.
Dark wood. Leather. Glass. Art I’d bought on purpose. Music that lived in the walls when I wanted it to. A kitchen I actually used. Sheets worth touching. The kind of space that said a man lived there intentionally and had no interest in apologizing for comfort.
Tonight it almost worked.
Almost.
I shrugged out of the jacket, hung it over the back of a chair, and walked to the kitchen more from habit than hunger. The fridge offered salmon, leftover rice, asparagus, and a container of something I had every intention of throwing away tomorrow and not tonight. I stood there holding the door open, staring into it like the answer to something might’ve been hiding behind the lemon vinaigrette.
It wasn’t.
I was reaching for the salmon when my phone rang.
I smiled before I answered, which was already a bad sign.
“What.”
“You always answer the phone like somebody interrupted a hostage negotiation?”
Ciara and I were more than a few years apart, but closer than most people ever got. That was my ace, my alibi, and the keeper of enough of my business to bury me twice if she ever got bored.
I put her on speaker and set the phone on the counter while I slid the plate into the microwave. “What you want?”
“See? That. That attitude. Mama said call your brother and make sure he remember Sunday exists.”
I laughed under my breath. “Mama can call me.”
“No. Because she wants me to ease into it before she starts asking if you coming alone and whether she should make enough mac and cheese for sadness.”
The microwave hummed softly.
