Page 6

6

Ace

I stand at the edge of the construction site, hard hat tucked under my arm, staring up at the steel skeleton of what’s supposed to be my bridge. My project. It’s my name all over the plans, and my decisions that move the needle. But standing here, I feel like a fucking fraud.

“Yo Ace, we got a problem.” Jamal, one of the younger engineers at the firm, jogs up to me with a clipboard in hand. “The concrete delivery got delayed.”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah. We’re already behind, so…what’s the move?

I exhale sharply, pressing my fingers to my temples. Delays, inspections, budget issues—it’s always something. I shouldn’t take this particular setback personally, but I do.

I should have an answer for this. I’m supposed to have an answer for this. But some days, I blank, and it’s like I never went to school for this shit at all. Then I beat myself up about it and hope nobody notices.

I glance at my team, all scattered across the site—men hauling rebar, supervisors shouting over the noise of the machinery, surveyors taking measurements. They all look to me like I know what I’m doing. Like I got this.

“See if we can reroute some of the labor to prep the eastern span in the meantime,” I say, voice steady. “I’ll call the supplier and see if I can make something shake.”

Jamal nods, already moving. He’s a good kid.

I pull out phone, my thumb hesitating over my call log before I flip to the messages.

Raya.

Again.

My jaw tightens as I stare at the notification. I’m remembering that kiss. That fucking kiss . Her lips . She had me by the throat, and she knew it.

Something about her puts me on edge.

I think it’s the way she looks at me. It’s unsettling how her eyes stay fixed on my face and then don’t fucking move. Like she’s studying me. Figuring me out. That shit makes me uncomfortable.

But it’s also intriguing, I can’t even lie.

I let my phone drop back into my pocket. I got a bridge to build, which means I don’t have time to be obsessing over a woman who knocks me off my square.

“That’s game, nigga!”

“Hold on, hold on.” I tuck the ball under my arm and wipe a hand across my sweaty forehead. “You sure? Seemed like a travel to me.”

Bron laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t start that bullshit. Just take the L.”

I grin as I struggle to catch my breath. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and I’m hooping with my boys in the park. This shit is like therapy. No deadlines and no responsibilities, just sweat, competition, and friendly shit talking.

Titus shouldn’t be playing b-ball. He’s short, broad, and built like a linebacker. That’s my boy, though. Met him in undergrad. He has the kind of warmth that makes people let their guard down. Dayton is tall, but just as broad as Titus. He’s been my right hand man since high school. Jovan, slim and lanky, is Dayton’s cousin, and Bron linked up with us at a pickup game years ago. Bron is small and nerdy, but his aura is unmatched.

After I lose the game, we crash at the picnic table.

“What y’all niggas been up to?” Bron asks us.

I grin in triumph, stretching my legs out in front of me. “I’m lead on the bridge.”

“Oh, shit!” Titus reaches across the picnic table to dap me up. “That’s major.”

Dayton gives me an approving nod, while Jovan slaps me on the back. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he says. “We finna be out here drivin’ across one of them DEI bridges.”

We all laugh at that.

“Yo, I’m about to propose to Shara,” Dayton says, wiping sweat off his face.

“Damn, for real?”

He nods. “It’s time.”

I squint into the sun. “How you know?”

He shrugs, trying to play it cool, but we all know that’s a front. Dayton is head over heels in love with that girl. Been like that for three years.

“Nah, for real. No bullshit,” I say. “You ain’t gotta front for us.”

“I’m saying,” Titus agrees.

Dayton rubs his chin. “Aight. Well…I don’t know. I guess I got to the point where I felt like, if I wake up tomorrow and she ain’t there, could I go on like normal? And when the answer was no, I knew.”

We sit in silence, ruminating on that. I think we all wanna clown him, because that’s what we do when shit feels too deep or too heavy, but what can we really say? The rest of us are sitting around with no hoes, nobody to love us, nobody to give a fuck if we live or die. Niggas don’t say it out loud, but that shit doesn’t feel good.

“Congratulations,” I finally say, and I mean it. “I’m happy for you.”

Dayton looks skeptical, but he relaxes when the other guys chime in with their well wishes.

“When?” Jovan asks.

“I gotta pick out a ring, first. Her sister’s supposed to be helping me.”

I shake my head. When Dayton notices, he laughs. “Yo, I forgot you and Shayenne messed around.”

“Yeah, that wedding gon’ be interesting, bruh.”

Jovan frowns. “Remind me, what happened?”

“I mean, nothing, really.” I shake my head. “We went out a couple of times, fucked, then I started slow fading because I wasn’t feeling her. The bitch slashed my fuckin’ tires.”

“I remember that shit,” Bron laughs. “I thought y’all both agreed it was just sex.”

“We did! She knew what it was. Day knows.”

Dayton nods vigorously. “Shara was on my ass about that, too. I told her I can’t be responsible for the shit you do, but she was pissed. So thanks for that, bitch ass nigga.”

“It ain’t my fault these hoes get attached,” I say. “Like this one I went out with the other night. She been blowin’ up my phone ever since.”

Titus is interested now. He leans toward me. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“I mean…nothing I can put my finger on. You know sometimes they just feel off.”

“Aww, shit.” Bron shakes his head knowingly. “The crazy ones be havin’ the best pussy, though.”

I incline my head in agreement. “Flames, my nigga.”

“Shit, call her ass back,” Titus says. “I’m in a fuckin’ drought right now. Shit is dryin’ up out there. These hoes want you to wine and dine and pay bills and shit. I don’t know what happened in these last few years, but I think I’m off American women.”

“Here you go.” Day points a finger at Titus. “Don’t get caught up. They be killin’ these passport bros. Ya mama ain’t finna be cryin’ on my shoulder about bringing your body back from Colombia.”

“Shit’s stupid anyway,” I say. “Wherever you go, there you are. If you a lame in America, you gon’ be lame as fuck down there. Get your weight up.”

Titus waves a hand at me. “Easy for you to say. You got ‘em throwin’ it at you.”

It’s a claim I can’t deny.

But see, Titus’ problem is the elephant in the room. He’s a good five inches shorter than he needs to be to get the women he wants. We tell his ass all the time to manage his expectations, but he stays trying to get at the baddest women.

“Anyway, I think old girl is a chop,” I say about Raya. “I gotta focus.”

What I don’t say is that she turned me down after the date.

It’s not the kind of thing I usually lie about, but that’s because I never have to lie. I’m a grown ass man. Handsome. Paid. That usually gets the panties dropping, but this one told me no. That shit pissed me off.

All last night and this morning, I told myself I don’t care. That I got too much shit going on to be worried about a woman, especially a woman who fucked up what should have been a good night.

I told myself I could text any one of the women in my phone right now and have company within the hour, showing up at my door hot and ready like a Little Caesar’s pizza.

But the truth is, none of them would be her .

I’ve had my fair share, and they all followed the same script—date, dinner, sex, maybe a few weeks of playing nice before one of us, usually me, gets bored and fades out. No surprises. No complications, aside from the tire debacle.

But Raya?

She flipped the script on me. Looked me dead in my face and took pleasure in denying me.

Now I’m the one sitting here, checking my phone, rereading her text messages, debating whether I should book that second date. My ego is telling me to let it go, but my dick won’t let me.

As the guys keep talking, I zone out, remembering a moment from dinner when she looked at me over her glass, her eyes searching mine. It was like she had a moment of recognition and discovered something about me that even I hadn’t figured out for myself.

And I hate that I wanna know what it is.

I think it’s that more than anything else…the mystery of her. Women talk so fucking much on the first few dates, it really feels pointless to stick around after we fuck. What else is there to learn? I know your mama’s name, your daddy’s name, where and how you grew up, your zodiac sign—which doesn’t mean shit, and the fact that these chicks think it does is yet another reason I lose interest.

Raya, though…now that I’m thinking on it, I don’t know shit about her. I talked a lot that night. If felt good, too. She was asking some good ass questions. But no answers from her side of the table.

Was I drunk?

Nah.

She really didn’t talk about herself.

So between the lack of pussy and the lack of the usual oversharing, I'm bewildered as fuck. And it’s not like she ghosted. She’s clearly interested.

Alright.

I’ll call her ass back.

Tomorrow.