Page 7 of Sunday

“I thought . . . maybe we could explore that feeling that we felt. Maybe we could talk about it. I mean, what it meant, you know?”

“It meant nothing.”

“Are you sure? Or are you scared?”

“Of what?”

“Feeling something for anyone other than Taylor.”

He sighed and smoothed his hand over his low-cut fade.

“Sunny, don’t do this. I’m not good enough for you. Whatever it is that you’re looking for, I’m not the man to give it to you.”

“How do you know if you don’t even try? How can you say that you can’t give me what you don’t even know I need if you won’t have the conversation?”

“This is what I know. Taylor and I didn’t just break up because we grew apart, like I told you when you asked me that. Taylor cheated on me with Monica. I suspected she’d been cheating for a while, but I thought it was with another nigga. She didn’t even have the decency to come to me and talk about it. I started going through her phone to figure out why my wife didn’t want to have sex anymore.

“Imagine my surprise when I found messages between her and her best friend, Monica, about Taylor divorcing me. I confronted her with that shit, and you know what she told me? The reason she didn’t want sex with me anymore was because dicks just didn’t do it for her. She said that she wanted to find herself and that she wasn’t happy. Then she blamed me for being the one to fuck up our marriage. She said if I hadn’t been snooping through her phone, then I wouldn’t have been hurt. So,I guess I was just supposed to be a fool and stay in the marriage clueless.”

“I’m so sorry, Cedar. I didn’t know. You’re a good man and deserve a lot better than that.”

He scoffed and shook his head.

“Nah. I’m good on that, baby girl. I don’t believe in women.”

“Don’t you ever want a family or kids?”

“I do.”

“Then how are you going to do that unless you move on and find the woman who’s right for you?”

“Guess it just ain’t in the cards for me, Sunny.”

“That’s not true. You need to heal. There’s a good woman out there for you.”

“Nah. Can’t trust ’em, and I’m not trying to get involved like that again. Women are good for two things: fucking and making babies. All that emotional and relationship shit, I don’t believe in it. I ain’t tryna complicate your life or mine beyond what we are, . . . friends and roomies. So, yeah, that kiss was just a kiss.”

My heart broke for him as I watched Cedar storm out of the kitchen and to his bedroom. He slammed the door, locking me out of his head, his heart, and his life, . . . for the moment.

I felt a tiny pinch in my chest and a tightening in my stomach. I knew that it was heartache because the man I wanted didn’t want me back. There was no chance for us, despite the fact that the kiss had opened up a well of feelings inside of me that I didn’t even realize I held for Cedar.

Cedar

Two Weeks Later

“Put that splatter screen over the wings so it doesn’t pop you again,” I instructed and handed Sunday the splatter screen for the frying pan.

“You should’ve let me just fry them in the air fryer or the deep fryer.”

“They don’t have the same crisp, Sunday. It’s a whole different experience when you cook them in the cast iron skillet.”

“Is that right?”

“Damn straight.”

“Since when did you become the expert on fried foods?”

“Never said that I was the expert, but when you raised down south, and ya black mama and grandma and the auntie with them auntie arms get in the kitchen and start cooking shit up . . .” I held my left arm out in the shape of a bowl and used my right hand to make stirring motions. “You can’t help but learn a thing or two.”

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