Page 59 of Another Constant

Sora laughed. “Yeah right.”

“I’m serious. I don’t make money when I’m beefing with random motherfuckers about bullshit.”

“I hear you, but bro, it seems like you enjoy this shit.”

“I do but I also know when to stop myself. I’m getting older, so I have less time to be out here reckless in the streets.”

“I hear you. I’m glad you are saying that. I’d love to stay here and talk to your grumpy ass but I can’t. Blaze is on her shit, talking about ordering food. I hate that shit with a passion and she knows it. When her and Aja get to talking about pizza and shit, it’s a done deal for me. I gotta head out. Be easy.” He was gone seconds later.

I laughed because he sounded like a man being bullied in his own home. I couldn’t laugh alone because that was exactly what I was going through on the days when Aja wasn’t helping bully him in his own home. At this point I realized shorty was a lil opportunist. I was getting back into removing the excess fluid from a fucked up job my customer called himself doing. He was liable to have fucked up his whole motor had he not brought this shit to me when he did. The fucked up thing was even though he’d brought it to me, I still had to not only drain it but also bleed his brakes. It was almost like this fool was trying to down his fucking car.

I was about thirty minutes into that when my cousin came to mind. Nine was the only person I could not only talk shop with but who, most of the time, understood when my brain went into its darkest corners. Well maybe not only him these days, because Harlem had become a safe space for me, even when I didn’t explicitly tell her about things. Though she assured me she would never look at me in a different way, I still kept shit PG for her, only speaking on business and obvious shit. I wasn’t giving her a reason to leave me alone other than the obvious. I had a lot with me, and truthfully I was a hood dude. With who she was, she could have done a lot better than me, but I was also selfish and not letting her go. Instead, I found myself looking for ways to make sure she never felt the desire to go. I’d never admit it aloud, but that would fuck me up, and any nigga she tried to entertain wouldn’t make it past the greeting.All forehead vents.

I pulled out my phone and called Blaze, since she was lowkey the closest thing I had to a sister. Out of nowhere I wanted to do something special for Harlem. She was the type of woman who deserved random moments like that.

“Good afternoon, Kinga. To what do I owe the pleasure?” she answered, her usual chipper self.

“Shit. I’m thinking about planning something special for Harlem. Need your input.”

In true female fashion, she gushed on the phone. Gushed as in made a squealing sound followed by a whole bunch of dramatics.Gushed as in a word I’d learned from Harlem and saw the definition of when she physically showed me in an excited moment.

“Of course! Yes!” She was excited, so damn excited I should have known she’d have me running all over the damn world for two hours then bossing me around for the next three like I worked for her.

“This is so sweet. When did you have the time to plan this?” Harlem gushed when she got home. She was looking around the yard at my handiwork with the help of Blaze. Before she was stationary and pregnant, she did her thing in the realm of party planning. Though it wasn’t a party, it was something. She had me prop my phone up on the patio while I put all of the shit out. I had never done anything like this in my life for anybody but when it came to Harlem a lot of things were first nature. They required no thought, just deliberate action on my part. That type of shit she could get out of me because she always deserved it. I wanted her to know I saw her and regardless of anything I was here and would do the necessary to ensure her world remained perfect. After everything transpired at her crib, she was a lil fucked up, but I wasn’t about to let her stay that way. I meant what I said, none of that belonged on her mind.

“It’s just pillows and lights, Harlem.”

“No, it’s more than that. It’s the act and the fact that you thought about me.” She turned around and hugged me. “This means more to me than you know.”

“Good, ’cause the way Blaze was talking crazy to me while I set this shit up had me second guessing.” I led her over to the white picnic blanket. On it sat a wooden coffee table that held our dinner for the night. Baby girl might’ve hated eating out most nights but she loved a good deep dish, so I grabbed that and hot wings.

She giggled. “This is really beautiful.”

I sat down on the blanket and pulled her down with me. I moved the pillows so they were positioned behind me.

“You do this relationship thing well for someone who doesn’t do relationships.”

“This ain’t relationship stuff. This is just me seeing you and appreciating what I see.”

She nodded. “Well thank you for that but speaking of seeing each other. I saw you earlier. You wanna tell me why you baked early this morning?”

“Nothing for you to be worried about.” I shrugged it off.

“Nope. I’m not worried. I want you to talk to me. What’s on your mind?”

I looked at her for a moment. I had never given a fuck about how anybody looked at me but the way she looked at me mattered. I never wanted her to see me the way the streets did. “I start telling you this type of shit, you gonna look at me differently.”

“Not possible.”

“It is. I’m a dark nigga and I already told you what you are to me.”

“You’re not that dark. You care about people and you go the extra mile for those you love. You carry more than most.” Those big ass eyes of hers were on me, urging me to spill my mind.

“But shouldn’t I? I’ve done a lot in this world. Some shit I’ll never utter. I put too much bad shit out there to not d?—”

“Life is about choices. Nobody is perfect or without flaws. Maybe you have done some bad but I refuse to believe you did so out of malice or some evil heart. You don’t have that. You are a good man, Kinga. You may have a few YN tendencies, even though your age is spilling into big bro territory. I choose to believe your heart is in the right place with your actions.”

My eyes loved on her for a moment while silence filled the space around us. With her words and the way she looked at me, one thing was evident. “I’on believe in magic and all that other stuff, but you were sent to me. Had to have been because I’on think I ever had anybody look at me like you do.”

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