Page 3

She smiled. “That was then. This is now.”

That was one of my favorite things about Lakelyn: she could be mad at me, cussing me out, threatening to block my number and never speak to me again, swearing she was done with my shit forever, and if I got close enough, if I pushed just right, eventually that mouth would twitch.

Every. Single. Time.

I stood and reached for her.

She stepped back, holding the sheet tighter around her body like that would stop me.

It wouldn’t.

I caught her around the waist and pulled her against me.

Lakelyn fit perfectly, always had, like she was made specifically to be right here in my arms.

I buried my face in her hair, breathed her in. “Move in with me.”

She pulled back enough to look at me, her expression already guarded. “Here you go.”

“I’m serious.”

“And so am I. Caspian, we’ve had this conversation.”

Lakelyn tried to step away, but I kept my hands firm on her hips, holding her there long enough to keep her from slipping away from the conversation.

“Then let’s have it again for the hundredth damn time. Lakelyn, we’ve been together four years. I’m tired of watching you pack a damn bag after spending half the week at my crib. Real talk.” I looked around her bedroom, then back at her. “Baby, yo’ bed cool and all, but yo’ nigga is tall.”

She playfully smacked my chest. “Don’t start talking about my bed. This bed has been handling you just fine for four years.”

“Handling me?” I gestured toward the full-size mattress. “Baby, I’m six-four laying on this little-ass bed with you wrapped around me like an octopus, my legs hanging off the end and yo’ ass somehow still claiming eighty percent of the mattress. Make that shit make sense.”

“Then go home and sleep in your big-ass bed.”

I pulled her closer. “A big-ass bed don’t mean shit if you ain’t in it. And you know mine better anyway. Don’t even sit here and front like it ain’t.”

“And what makes you so sure that it is?”

“Because every time you stay here without me, you call me the next morning talking about how you slept terrible because yo’ mattress ain’t as comfortable as mine.”

She giggled. “I do not call you every time and say that. Besides, that doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves you already know where you sleep the best. Shit, you might as well come stay with a nigga. You practically live at my place already.”

“I do not.”

“Shitting me. You stay yo’ ass over there more than you do here, you got your side of my bed, and you got shit all over my house, including that damn mug in my cabinet that says Nurses Call the Shots. At this point, baby, you fighting the obvious. The only thing you haven’t done is forward your mail.”

Her lips twitched, but she fought the smile. “Hush. Okay… I visit often. Yeah. But need I remind you all that majority of my shit at your house are things that you bought me. So I just keep it there.”

“Because you wanted it. But what exactly is the difference between all that shit you already doing and actually admitting you live there?”

Lakelyn’s amusement faded just enough for me to know I had finally reached the real part of the conversation.

Lakelyn pulled away from me, and that time I let her go.

She walked over to her dresser, started fidgeting with things that didn’t need to be touched, avoiding looking at me directly.

“The difference is, when you piss me off, I can come home.”