Depends on the breakfast.
Her answer came right back.
It was a delicious one from what I heard.
My dick washers. That was a fact. This fucking woman.
Marcus looked at me over his plate and shook his head. “You one of them now.”
“One of who?”
“One of them men who can’t eat in peace because a woman got him typing under the table.”
Ciara snapped her fingers. “Exactly.”
Mama kept eating.
That silence said enough.
My phone buzzed again.
Talia: Your family still got you hostage?
Me: You say hostage like I don’t come here on purpose.
Talia: You texting too fast for a free man.
I laughed softly under my breath.
“She funny?” Ciara asked without missing a beat.
I looked up slow. “Who.”
“The woman in your phone.”
That should’ve felt like a setup.
Instead, I answered honestly because I was getting tired of running from them. “Yeah. She is.”
That quieted the room for half a second.
Later, while Mama and Ciara cleaned up and Marcus got drafted into some nonsense involving crayons and a toy dinosaur, I drifted into the den where my father now slept, with my phone in one hand, and sat at the end of the couch while the television talked to itself.
I opened Instagram.
Talia had posted a story. Low light. A wineglass on her coffee table. One bare knee crossed over the other at the bottom edge of the frame. Maxwell in the background like she had personally decided to make my night less stable.
I reacted before I could stop myself.
You’re annoying.
Her reply came fast.
You like me though.
My mouth went soft on its own.
Me: That wasn’t the question.