Page 200 of ClickBack

He gestures toward me. “He has time right now. By fall, he’ll have a season. Road trips. Women in every city. You think he’s going to spend years trying to get close every time you pull away?”

“Don’t put my name on your shit,” I tell him.

He turns toward me, but Giselle is already standing.

“That’s enough.”

We both look at her.

“You think eventually he’ll understand why you cheated,” she says to Byron. “That’s what you came here to tell me.”

“That is not what I said.”

“You’ve used a lot of words to say it.”

He stands more slowly. She walks toward the foyer, and he follows her. I get up but stay beside the chair.

“Rae is your daughter,” Giselle says. “Zion is your grandson. You don’t need my permission to love them, and they don’t need mine to love you. None of that is in question.”

“Then why does it feel like I’m being pushed out?”

“Because you’re trying to stay somewhere you don’t belong anymore.”

She puts her hand on the door, but doesn’t open it yet.

“You can call me about something that concerns the family. You cannot use them to question who I’m with. You cannot come here because you’ve seen a picture and decided I need correcting. We can sit through a game for Zion without you making me pay for having somebody beside me.”

Byron looks at me over her shoulder.

“You enjoying this?”

“She asked me to be here.”

“That all you have?”

“For now.”

Giselle opens the door. Byron looks back at her.

“I was good to Rae.”

Her face changes. There is love in it, old and tired, and I look away long enough to let them have it.

“You still are,” she says. “Being good to my daughter doesn’t make me your wife forever.”

He looks down at the threshold. Then he steps outside.

“Walk him out, J.”

I follow him and close the door behind us.

He gets halfway across the porch before turning.

“You think you’re better than me.”

“I think you need to get in your car.”

He laughs without amusement. “You’ve known her a few months.”