Page 22 of Love You Like That

“You wanna hear the one I spit the other night?”

She slapped my chest lightly. “You know I do. Don’t play with me.” And I did. Spit that shit from the heart and then she was quiet for a beat. Then, she kissed the center of my chest and propped herself up on one elbow. “So… New York, huh?” she asked, voice soft.

I nodded, my hand sliding down her back. “The scout, Nina, been hittin’ me up. She wants to set up a lil’ meetin’ or whatever wit' a couple publishers. Some showcase producers too.”

“That’s… amazing,” she said, but her voice dipped just slightly.

“I ain’t never thought past East Hollis,” I admitted. “I like performin’ here. I know this city.”

“But?” she asked, eyes studying mine.

“But somethin’ 'bout what she said… makes me feel like maybe I could stretch. Do a lil' more.” I looked at her then, really looked at the woman who pulled me out of hiding with just a smile and a pair of bamboos. “I just don’t know what that means for us,” I said, my voice lower now. “For this.”

She looked down, then slid her hand over my heart. “I’ve been thinking about that too,” she said. “My world is getting heavier. Graduation’s around the corner.My exam. My parents are expecting me to apply to every fancy hospital in a thirty-mile radius.”

“Youwant that?”

She hesitated. “Some days, yeah. But other days? I just want peace. I want mornings like the ones we have and nights like tonight. I want something that doesn’t require a performance.”

My chest got tight again. “What if we both chasin’ dreams that take us in different directions?” I asked. “What if timin’ don’t line up, Yaya?”

She looked up at me, eyes glinting in the low light. “Then wemakeit line up or we hold each other down while we figure it out.”

I swallowed, throat dry. “You really see me doin’ this shit big, huh?”

She nodded. “You were never meant to be small. Not with the way you write. The way you feel.”

And just like that, something cracked open in me again. “Whatever happens,” I said, pulling her closer, “I don’t wanna lose this.”

“You won’t,” she whispered. “But we gotta promise to talk through it. No disappearing. No shutting down.”

“Aight,” I said, kissing her forehead. “And if I end up in Brooklyn readin’ poems to rooms full of white women who don’t know what the hell I’m talkin’ 'bout, you better be in the front row.”

“Oh, I will be,” she smirked. “With a sign that says, ‘His poems sound better when I’m naked.’”

I burst out laughing, rolling her onto her back and kissing her hard. That light feeling came back for a moment. But underneath it? That truth. We were two people trying to buildsomething real in a world that demanded we stretch in two different directions.

“There’s a block party in my neck of the woods tomorrow night.”

She lifted a brow, amused. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Every summer, one of my OG's throw one at the end of the summer. Same block, same energy. Grillin’, spades tables, somebody drunk off brown liquor way too early… whole scene.”

She smiled, that slow, dimpled one that crawled under my skin. “You're trying to bring me to your roots?” she teased.

I reached over, brushing a loc behind her ear. “Somethin’ like that. I wanna show you off.”

Her smile softened. “I’d love that,” she said, voice tender.

“You sure?” I asked, even though I was already picturing her in the middle of it with the sunlight on her skin, her laugh cutting through the smoke and old-school music. “It’s not gon’ be glitz and glam. It’s real out there. Loud as fuck and messy. But it’s all love.”

She leaned in, kissed me slowly, then whispered, “Sounds like my kinda party.”

T h en e x te v e n i n g, the block was alive by the time my Uber pulled up. Smoke from two grills floated into the sky like incense. Somebody’s uncle had the whole side of a car cracked open, blastingCandyby Cameo like it just dropped. Card tables were set up at both ends of the street with one for spades and the other one for dominoes. Of course, there was already tension rising at both. Weed smoke in the air.

Kids ran barefoot between folding chairs, squirt guns in hand, their screams layered over the deep laughter of aunties passing aluminum pans of ribs and beans from porch to porch. Two dudes argued over dice money near the curb. Somebody else passed around a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. It had been a minute since I came through but I couldn’t miss the block party.

I dapped up folks all the way down the block. Every few steps, somebody pulled me in for a hug, a handshake, or a “Damn, that you Ezra?”

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