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Ace

I’m sweating when I wake up. It takes me a minute to remember there’s an extra body in my bed, adding heat, breathing softly against my chest.

Raya’s still here.

Her body’s curled into mine, her fingers tangled in the fabric of my shirt. It feels so natural waking up with her coconut-scented hair in my face. It’s almost too familiar, like we never spent any time apart.

For a second, I just lay there listening to the slow rhythm of her breathing, watching the early morning light shine through the blinds. But with the light comes reality. A cold, hard dose of it.

Raya isn’t my girlfriend anymore.

Whatever this is, it can’t last.

I rub her back to bring her out of her sleep. She stirs, shifting against me, her fingers gripping me tighter before she fully wakes up, blinking up at me with a sleepy, innocent look that makes my chest hurt.

“Morning,” I say, my voice rough with sleep.

She smiles, then clears her throat. “Hey.”

Neither of us moves.

But somebody has to think straight, and move accordingly.

“Go on and get cleaned up in the guest bathroom,” I say. “I’ll make us something to eat.”

She hesitates, her eyes searching my face, looking for something. Then, she gets up and disappears down the hallway.

After my morning routine, I keep myself busy in the kitchen scrambling eggs, frying bacon, making coffee. Familiar things that keep my hands moving and my mind occupied. Anything to block out what happened last night.

The things she told me. Shit I’m still trying to process.

She joins me just as I’m plating the food. She smells like my soap. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts, with a pair of my boxers on underneath. The sight does something to me, but I push that down.

She sits at the counter, pulling her legs up onto the stool and wrapping her arms around them just like she did last night at the bridge. She looks smaller, somehow. I think that’s what she wants, to take up as little space as possible. To look as vulnerable as possible so I’ll forget all the shit I’ve seen her do.

I slide a plate in front of her.

She looks at it, then up at me. “Thank you.”

I nod, sliding in next to her. We eat in silence for a while, then she exhales, setting her fork down.

“I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” I ask around a mouth full of bacon.

She gestures vaguely. “Last night. Last month. Everything. All of it.”

I set my fork down, watching her carefully. “How much of last night can I actually believe?”

She flinches, but she doesn’t look away. “You don’t have a reason to believe any of it, I guess. And that’s on me.”

I nod, my eyes narrowing as I study her face, trying to find a tell, trying to get past the hold she has on me to see the truth.

“The stuff about your pops,” I say slowly. “Is that true?”

She presses her lips together and nods. I take in the way her brows knit together, and the desperate way she’s fighting to keep from crumbling, and something inside me knows it’s true.

And that makes it worse.

I turn on my stool to face her directly, swallowing the anger that’s rising in my throat like bile. “How the fuck do you live in that house with him every day?”

She looks down at her plate. “I can’t say.”

“Try me.” I tap her thigh to get her full attention. “Honestly, at this point, it couldn’t hurt.”

She huffs out a rueful chuckle. “Facts.”

It takes her a few minutes, but she finally speaks. It’s soft, but crystal clear.

“I tried to kill him.”

Somehow, I’m not shocked by this. I’m more curious than anything else.

“How?”

She hesitates. “I got somebody to give me something to slip him. Knocked him out. Then I pushed him down the stairs.”

I swallow hard and wait.

She closes her eyes, shaking her head like she can see it playing out in her mind. “I ended up calling an ambulance. I don’t know why. For some reason, I just couldn’t let him die.” She opens her eyes, bringing them back to me. “I’m so fucked up, I can’t even kill somebody right.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

She clasps her hands together, her grip white-knuckle tight. “I hate him. Every day, I look at him and feel disgusted.”

“Then why—"

“His disability and social security checks come to me,” she says, shrugging a shoulder, and I have to admit, it’s nice to see a glimpse of the Raya I used to know.

Silence stretches between us.

I watch her. She watches me.

We’re sizing each other up. Getting a feel for this new reality. She’s finally showed me what’s in there, what she thought would scare me away. Now, she’s wondering where my head is at.

“What are you thinking?” Her voice is small and timid. “Do you hate me now?”

I scrub a hand down my face, stare into her pretty brown eyes, and tell her my truth.

“I’m sitting here trying to figure out how anybody could ever deliberately hurt you.”

Something flashes in her eyes before she gives me a sad, weary smile. “Apparently, most people find it very easy.”

“It ain’t easy for me.”

She searches my face like she’s trying to find the lie.

There isn’t one.

I wish it was a lie. That would make my life way fucking easier. Wouldn’t be no debating. No conflict. No mental back and forth. That shit I said to her when I was trying to fuck her out of my system? I wish all that was true, too. But the reality is so much more complicated.

I need my boys here to talk me out of this shit. To call me a simp. Say I’m pussy whipped. That I fucked up when I stuck my dick in crazy.

Maybe that’s all true, too.

But it doesn’t matter. Because right now, it’s just me and her in this kitchen, and she needs me.

I’ve been needed before. I’ve been fucking useless before. I’m never gonna be that again for a woman I care about.

Raya’s broken. I can’t fix her, but I can be something that’s solid and safe for her. A resting place.

Because how the fuck did she rest at home, knowing that vile motherfucker was always twenty feet away? How did she stay sane? How did her mind not snap?

I can’t even wrap my head around it.

“So he can be there alone overnight?” I say casually.

Her eyes widen. “My dad?”

I nod.

“Yeah. Faith comes every morning. She has him on a routine. It’s like clockwork.”

I reach across the counter and grab two pieces of bacon off the pan, adding one to my plate and one to hers. “You’re moving in with me.”

She tilts her head. “Ace.”

I quirk an eyebrow.

“I have to be there sometimes .”

“Why?”

“Faith isn’t there round the clock. That’s expensive.”

“So put him in a home and be done with it." I shrug. "Or roll his ass off a cliff.”

She frowns with the top of her face and smiles with the bottom. “Are you serious right now?”

“Am I not supposed to hate that nigga and want him gone?”

She watches me devour my bacon, handing hers over when I’m done. “He’s not a threat. He can’t even walk.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“Besides,” she says softly. “Believe it or not, I’m…traditional.”

“What does that mean?” I say.

“I don’t want to live with a man who’s not my husband. Or at least my fiancé.”

I snicker at that. “So we back lyin’ again?”

Her eyes flash with anger. “I’m serious. It’s just always how I saw things going for me. We’re not even together anymore.”

She lets that hang in the air, and I know her well enough now to know it’s game. But our relationship status isn’t important to me right now. Her safety is.

“How much to have old girl stay around the clock?”

“A lot,” she says. “And I’d have to apply for it. It’s a whole process.”

I blow out a breath, my wheels turning. “Alright, until we figure this out, I want you to stay with me at night. Just so I know you’re safe. So you can sleep easy. You can stay in the guest room if you want.”

She pretends to think about it while I gather up our plates.

“I’ma Uber up to the site to get my car,” I say. “Going forward, you can drive mine when you need it.”

She tilts her head. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

I inhale slowly and blow it out. “I care about you,” I answer. “I think you need somebody in your corner.”

She nods. “Those are the only reasons?”

I rinse off our plates before delivering them to the dishwasher. “We’re not back together, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She says, “Okay,” in a small voice, and I resist the urge to reassure her. Truth is, I don’t even know what this is. I’m operating on pure instinct right now.

“I’ma head out,” I say. “Be back in a few. And don’t be in here snooping through my shit. If there’s something you wanna know, you can just ask me. I’m an open book.”

She chuckles at that, watching me all the way to the door. “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss?” she says.

I turn to her, hiding my amusement. “You still ain’t learn how to read the room, huh?” I shake my head. “Don’t push your luck.”