Page 52 of Girl, We Go Together
“Yeah. I hear you.”
My hands jittered with my response, so I clasped them together to calm my nerves.
Chapter 18
Orion
Isat on the couch with Oriana lying across my chest, her little breaths warm against me while the TV played low in the background. Cayla was in the kitchen making all this noise. Pots were clanking, and the smell of garlic and onions crept through the house. It felt… normal. Like the week I was away hadn’t even happened. But my head was still there.
In my absence from Cayla, I had found my way back to what I thought would be normalcy for me. I thought back to Shenell’s spot. For seven days, it was the way her door opened for me. For seven days, I didn’t have Cayla or Oriana in mind. The highlight of those days was when OJ ran up and grabbed me when I walked through that door. For seven days, it was the way Shenell looked at me with soft eyes like she’d been waiting for me to come back around.
I ain’t gonna lie. It felt good being there. Felt good to slide back into that space with no questions asked. To feel wanted. To feel like the old me again. Shenell didn’t press me about Cayla, and on night three, when I vented, she didn’t throw anything in my face. She just let me be. We laughed, we ate, we laid up… and yeah, I got it out of my system. That tension, that anger that had been boiling in me since Christos, she helped me releaseit. Being inside her again? That was familiar. Dangerous, but familiar. Like muscle memory, I was able to hit all her spots that used to be mine. I told myself it wasn’t about her. It was about me. Reminding myself that I was still Orion. Still, that nigga who didn’t need nobody dictating his moves. Being a one-woman man left me vulnerable to heartbreak, and I never wanted to feel that pain again.
I looked down at Oriana. Her tiny hand was gripping my shirt, and for a second, guilt flickered within me, but I pushed it down just as fast. I was here now, wasn’t I? Sitting with my daughter while her mother cooked us dinner, like nothing ever happened. Shenell was the past. Cayla was the present. And me? I was trynna keep both worlds spinning without losing my balance. I leaned back on the couch, rubbed Oriana’s back, and thought,yeah… it felt good being back to the old me.
Cayla moved around the kitchen like she was in better spirits. She was humming softly while tossing vegetables into a pan. The aroma of good cooking filled the house. I watched her from the couch. Oriana had fallen asleep, and it was just about the time we had set for her bedtime, so I didn’t wake her as she lay with her tiny mouth open on my chest.
Cayla peeked out of the kitchen to check on Oriana. It didn’t matter if I had Oriana; her mother still had to check for herself. When our eyes met, she gave me a light smile before heading back into the kitchen. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. The past week flashed behind my eyes. Shenell, OJ, the laughs, the bed… the rush of doing what I wanted without anyone holding me back. It felt damn good, like I’d clawed a piece of myself back. A part of me I’d lost when I decided to do right by Cayla. But now I was here.
Everything was perfect on the surface. And that was all that mattered for now. Once I finished my drink, I took Oriana upstairs to her room. After placing her into her crib, I grabbedthe nearby video monitor and then found my way to the kitchen. Cayla was still at the stove, stirring sauce while humming softly. Her hair was in a messy bun, and that shit was sexy as fuck to me. My chest tightened as I felt that familiar pull. I had butterflies in my stomach. Instantly and at random, I had caught that feeling, the same one that had made her mine from the start. I leaned against the doorway, watching her, just waiting for the moment she noticed me.
“Dinner’s almost ready.”
Without even turning around, she sensed that I was near her, and that spoke volumes. She knew my ass inside and out. I stepped closer, closing the distance between us.
“I can help.”
She spun slightly, and I let a slow smile curl on my lips. One of my hands found her waist, and I pulled her against me. Our bodies pressed together as I leaned in close enough for my lips to graze her ear.
“You smell so good,” I whispered, and she shivered as she pressed her back against the counter.
Her hands went to my chest, but I tugged her forward, causing my lips to crash against hers in a hungry kiss. She melted, and I felt that tension from the week, the anger, the frustration, the old version of me, all roll off. Her fingers tangled in my hair as I pressed her tighter. When she moaned into the kiss, I knew I had her. All of her, in that moment, was under my control and completely mine.
We broke apart for just a second. Our foreheads were pressed together, and I could see the mix of desire and hesitation in her eyes. That hesitation didn’t last long when I pulled her close again, and the kitchen became ours. Every touch, every kiss was claiming her again, reminding her who she belonged to, while the quiet house and the sleeping baby made the moment feel… forbidden. As I rocked in and out of her wet garden, she clung tomy back for dear life. Tossing her frame onto the countertop was nothing.
“My sauce is going to burn,” she said worriedly.
“Then let it,” I whispered into her ear as I dug deep into her honey pot.
Our session ended with me dropping a load of my essence into her. I turned off the stove eye on my way out of the kitchen. Leaving her breathing heavily, with my kids dripping down her inner thighs.
Cayla
I stood there with my hands still braced on the counter. My chest was heaving up and down, and it wasn’t from the way Orion had just knocked the Mario coins out of me. He adjusted his shirt, reached over, and turned off the stove eye with a quick twist. Then he walked off, just like that, leaving me standing in the kitchen alone.
I was left standing by myself in a cold kitchen. The silence that followed was noisy. I stared at the empty doorway through which he had disappeared, and a wave of pure disconnection hit me. That’s the only word I could think of. My body had been with him, but my heart? My mind? They weren’t there. Not fully. How could I feel so distant when we had just been so close?
I swallowed hard and started blinking to get rid of the sting in my eyes. I wanted to shake it off, to tell myself it was nothing, just Orion being Orion. But deep down, the truth sat like a stone in my chest: whatever just happened in this kitchen wasn’t love. It was control. And the emptiness it left behind scared me more than the fight at Christos ever had. I stayed in the kitchen longafter Orion walked off, staring at the pots on the stove like they might give me an answer I didn’t already know. The food was half-cooked, the air still thick with spices and heat, but I didn’t even have the energy to finish.
I pressed my palm flat against the counter, taking deep breaths, forcing myself to swallow down the truth that had been staring me in the face. If I told him how disconnected I felt, how used I felt, he’d flip it back on me. Somehow, it’d be my fault. He’d twist my words until I was the crazy one. That was his specialty. I used to be so communicative, but after each discussion turned argument, the bite in my tongue vanished, and the feeling of wanting to prove my point no longer existed. When the uncomfortable feeling of his finishings started to glide down my thighs, I straightened up, cleaned off the counters, and tossed the food out like nothing happened.
By the time I made it to the bedroom, Orion was already stretched across the bed, phone in his hand, eyes glued to the screen like I didn’t even exist. I slid under the covers beside him, careful not to make a sound. My body lay there, still, but my mind was loud, screaming with the weight of everything I couldn’t say. I pulled the blanket tighter around me, rolled onto my side, and forced myself to close my eyes. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow would be better. But deep down, I already knew tomorrow would look just like tonight.
Orion
Weeks had passed before I slid back over to Shenell’s. It was late, OJ was already knocked out in his room with cartoons still playing low on the TV. Shenell was moving around the kitchenwith her silk robe tied tightly. Her loose hair was wrapped up, just how I liked. I leaned against the counter, sipping on a glass of juice she poured me, and for a second it felt… simple.
I hadn’t been over here in almost two months, and she didn’t ask me any questions. She never did; she always accepted me back with open arms. I stood there watching her clean up the kitchen after cooking, and I wondered why this couldn’t be how she was when we were together. This domesticated. We probably wouldn’t have split if she were. Her walking quickly past me broke me from my thoughts. Then I heard it… her gagging from the bathroom.
