Page 40 of Adonis Gates

The three dots popped up again letting me know that she was going to continue, so I hurried to text back.

Me: Okay, sis, I get it lol. YES! I’m with Adonis.

Geri: I hope you know I just screamed.

Geri: I know my neighbors are pissed lmaooo.

Me: You’re annoying lmao.

“I hope you not about to make me nut up on you on our first date.” Adonis’s voice sounded, tearing me away from my messages with my sister.

He was standing on the other side of the table holding the small tray of flights in one hand and two pagers for our food in the other. I locked my phone without bothering to see if my sister had responded and slid it into my purse.

“Thank you,” I said, reaching for my flight. “What did you get?”

Instead of sitting across from me, he descended onto the cushioned seat right next to me.

“Smash Bros,” he answered. “I’m in the mood for a burger.”

“Ou, I love their secret sauce. I might have some of yours.”

He grinned. “Typical woman.”

“Shut up. You know people don’t want something until they see someone else with it.”

“Yeah, I do,” he dropped his head briefly then his eyes returned to mine. “You know, I thought about you all the time over the years. When I would see you out, I wanted to holla at you and shit, but I was tryna respect you.”

“I thought about you a lot too,” I admitted. “I know losing your mom was hard, and I’m sorry for not reaching out.”

“You don’t owe me an apology about that shit,” he waved me off. “She was my mother, feel me? And people got they own shit goin’ on.”

“No,” I shook my head and touched his hand. “If nothing else, you’ve always been a great friend to me, Adonis, so the least that I could have done was reach out to you, but…” I paused thinking about me finding out I had endometriosis around thatsame time. “Life was lifing for me too, plus Derrick was around. But still, the least I could have done was reach out to you.”

“It’s straight. You was with a hoe ass nigga that I knew for a fact would have felt a way about you hitting me up, so I’m not tripping.”

“Okay.” I nodded, taking a sip from one of my drinks then asking, “how have you and Apollo been doing though?”

He shrugged. “We good. Taking shit one day at a time.”

I studied his face before nodding and changing the subject. I asked him about his barbershop and when he got into cutting hair. To my knowledge, he was still knee deep in the streets. I had no idea that he took a liking to that or even gone to barber school.

He gave me the rundown on how and when he got into it before the pagers for our food went off. He left me at the table to go get it as well as a drink for himself. I was glad that he’d gotten a beer because I hated drinking alone.

Once he returned, we fell into more conversation. He was more interested in talking about me than he was about divulging information about himself, so I filled him in on my time in college and life after. I told him that I got into social work, working with children and families, because of my own background. If I could save children from being hurt or growing up as lonely and empty as I did, then I would.

Part of the reason was me possibly not being able to have my own kids but I kept that part to myself. I knew that if I ever wanted to pursue something real with him, I’d have to tell him my whole truth one day, but for the moment I kept it to myself.

After telling him all that I could about myself, I was able to squeeze some stuff about him out. He told me that he wanted to look into buying some box trucks and flatbed trailers. It was so interesting because the Adonis I knew in high school didn’t want to do anything but go to the NBA. He talked about it allthe time, so seeing him go in a different direction was pleasantly surprising.

Out of our entire conversation, my favorite part was listening to him talk about his brother. The way his eyes lit up with his wide smile was adorable. The two of them had a very special bond and I knew his mother was proud of the man, protector, and provider that he’d grown to be.

I ended up eating all of my food as well as his. I usually didn’t eat much, but he made his look so good that I couldn’t resist. I was full and ready for bed by the time we left.

“Damn, a nigga done bored the fuck out of you or some shit?”

I peeled my eyes open and glanced his way. He was stealing glances and smiling as he drove toward my parents’ house.

“No.” I giggled. “I’m just thinking about what kind of car you should get Apollo.”