Page 13 of Can I?

Milana looked so good in those tight ass jeans. She wore some strappy heels with them and a graphic tee. It looked to have something about the Hendersons on it. Her braids were gorgeous. I wished I would have said more to her, but she looked to be on a mission to get out of there. When a man, Asad informed me was her uncle, walked out not long after her, I had to assume there was something going on.

Maybe it was best that I didn’t go after her. She seemed to have a lot of drama, . . . family drama.Why was I still thinking about her then?After getting my stuffed fried chicken, we sat near her cousins that were with her at the rodeo. Ashanni was staring at us for a while when she finally stood and came to our table.

“Hey, y’all,” she said.

“What’s up,” I said.

Asad looked to be in a damn trance. He scanned her from her head to her feet and back up. “How you doing, Ashanni?”

She gave him a slight smile. “I’m good.”

She sat and stared at me for a moment. “You still feeling her?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Give me your number, and I’ll get it to her.”

I frowned slightly. “Why you getting my number for her? Why couldn’t she get it for herself?”

“Because Uncle Storm was being a jackass. Milana doesn’t like confrontation.”

He walked back inside right after she said that with a slight frown on his face. He rubbed his hand down his face then sat at the table with three other men. Giving my attention back to Ashanni, I took a deep breath and said, “Okay.”

She smiled. “She has a rodeo in Birmingham this weekend, so she’s digging out tomorrow morning. She probably won’t be back until Sunday night. So don’t think she’s being funny by not calling until she gets back. When she has a rodeo, she likes to stay clearheaded, . . . more of a reason she needed to get out of here.”

I saw her uncle glance at us. He’d heard her. That nigga was ear hustling hard. I gave her my number, and she saved it in her cell phone, then winked and smiled. “I think the two of you look great together. I noticed at the rodeo. Once y’all talk, hopefully you’ll find that your personalities are compatible too.”

She smiled at Asad and grabbed his hand as she stood. He stood, too, as he glanced back at me. I gave him a head nod, and he walked away with her. Maybe those years between them wouldn’t matter after their talk. I bit into my chicken to find what I was used to. She stuffed it with mac and cheese and greens this time. This woman was a beast with this shit. It had definitely gotten even better over the years. It was good when I tasted it five years ago, and now it was amazing.

Bringing my thoughts back to Milana, I could only hope that I wasn’t about to get myself into some shit that would be hard to get out of. She was so beautiful though. I had to at least try.

When I got to my parents’house, I huffed. I knew I was about to hear my mama’s mouth. I hadn’t talked to her in a few days. I was trying to get some work done so I would have the weekend off. It would be a three-day weekend for me. I needed that shit too. Although it seemed playing a game couldn’t be tiring, that assumption would definitely make an ass out of you. I literally played for hours a day. I loved video games, but some days, I wished I had a regular job.

Being that I was sitting for hours at a time, analyzing and paying extremely close attention to details, it made it that much more taxing. I had to be sure to make it to the gym and to eat healthy most days. If I didn’t, I would be inviting shit to my body that would take extreme effort to get rid of. I would rather engage in preventative maintenance than to be dealing with the effects of high blood pressure and/or diabetes. It didn’t help that those things ran in our family.

My mama had high blood pressure. But hell, dealing with my daddy over the years, I could see why. That nigga was something else sometimes. It was like he expected my mama to do everything. She had to work, cook at least two meals a day, take care of the dog that he bought and wanted, and clean the house. That nigga did nothing, other than cut grass. He had to be told to take the trash out. It was like he was a fucking kid.

Seeing her so worn some days was why I usually made sure to talk to her at least every other day. My brother was closer to my dad, and I noticed he somewhat treated his wife the same way. The only difference was he was still working. My dad had retired from the State of Texas a couple of years ago, and he seemed tobe even lazier now. My mama still worked sometimes just to give herself time away from the house.

She signed up with a home health agency part-time. Still, she’d cook breakfast before she left in the morning and would be home by two or three to cook dinner. I didn’t know how she did it. However, she seemed to be able to tolerate him better by having that four- to five-hour break from him. I honestly didn’t expect them to make it much longer that way.

She said that she had to tell that nigga he wasn’t on vacation, and she wasn’t fucking room service. I could only shake my head. She tried to talk to me about sex, but I had to draw the damn line at that. We were close, but the last thing I wanted to hear about was their sex life. She could talk to my sister about that.

When I walked inside, Dad was on the couch watching TV. That was where he was most days, unless he was outside cutting grass. “What’s up, old man?”

He smiled and stretched out his hand. I shook it as he said, “Same ol’, same ol’. How was your day? You know yo’ mama gon’ beat yo’ ass, right?”

I chuckled. “My day was cool. Where is she?”

“Lucky for you, I’m in the kitchen cooking!” she yelled.

I gave my dad a one-sided smile and made my way to the kitchen. When I walked in, she was at the stove, stirring something. I approached her from behind and began massaging her shoulders. “Hey, Mama.”

“Don’t be tryna butter me up, Ferris. Move a little to the right.”

I chuckled, but I knew she needed this. Mother’s Day was coming up, so I knew I would have to do something really special for her this year. She deserved the world, and unfortunately, my dad only thought about the things he wanted that would most likely require work from her. It was truly pathetic how it hadgotten to this. He was the one who taught me how to treat a woman, but it seemed over the past few years, he’d forgotten his own lessons.

“Okay. Thank you, baby. Where you been? Why haven’t I heard from you?”

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