Page 20 of Overdue Feelings
“Appreciate it,” he said, rubbing a wad of sweat from his forehead.
“Gigi sent it. Said she ain’t about to be using her phone to call the ambulance if you pass out.”
“Tell her thank you.” He laughed a little before taking a sip.
“I will.” The silence stretched, and we both stood there glancing around the yard. “So are you officially our neighbor or what?” I asked.
“Apparently, I never stopped being y’all neighbor.”
“What you mean?”
“My parents never told me… guess it was in the will. She left it to me before she passed.”
“Wait, so all this time you owned the house?”
“Yeah, it’s like she knew I would need a place to come back to.”
I nodded my head. I was happy seeing the place be restored, but having Ares across the street from us again… I ain’t know how to feel about that. I looked down at the patchy lines he’d mowed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I could hear Mrs. Knight’s voice now yelling at me to fix it.
“Go ahead and take a break. I got next.” I pulled my T-shirt over my head and tossed it on the fence.
He glanced at me, his eyebrows wrinkled. He looked like he was waiting for the punch line of the joke… waiting for me to give him the cold shoulder halfway through.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah, man. Go sit down somewhere before you pass out and Gigi blame me.”
He chuckled a little, stepping back, wiping the sweat from his face with the bottom of his shirt before pulling it off completely. I grabbed the mower and got to work, fixing his lines like second nature. Straight, even, clean.
“You still cut like your mama trained you!” he yelled over the lawn mower engine.
I didn’t look up. “She did used to beat me until I got it right.”
He leaned against the fence, quiet for a second. “How is your mom?”
“Good. Living her best life going out of town every other week with her new husband. Barely got time for a nigga, but I love that she’s enjoying her life.”
“That’s what’s up. I love to hear that. Wish my mom would do the same.”
“She still up yo’ ass?” I paused mid-cut, glancing at him.
“Yeah. She not too fond of me returning to this place.”
“I bet. Your moms hated Harvest. As soon as she got your grandma’s insurance policy and you got into Howard, she was out.”
“Faster than the speed of light.”
We both burst into laughter. I was stuck on how easy it felt. How natural it was to fall back into a rhythm with the man I had sworn I’d never talk to again.
“I wasn’t living up there, bro. I was just existing. Woke up every day, did the same shit, felt nothing. I was like a damn zombie.” He looked back at me. “Shit, one day I realized I missed feeling something, and the only place that ever gave me that was here.”
My grip tightened around the rake.
“You think that fixes it? You think a clean fade and a sad story means you get to slide back in our life?”
“No.” He looked me in the eyes. “I don’t expect to be forgiven, Zae. Not by you. Not by her.”
“So what do you want?”
