Page 51 of Into the Blue

“Racquelle,” Blue’s voice calls me from the front room.I didn’t think he’d be home already.

Hurrying into the bedroom, “I’ve gotta go. I’ll text you okay?”

“Okay. I love you! Be safe! Safer than last time,” she scolds.

“I will. Bye,” I say, ending the call and lying on the bed waiting for Blue to come find me.

As usual, his energy reaches me before he does. A shiver rolls down my spine as I recall how I came in this same spot last night with his instruction.

“You didn’t hear me?”

“I was just taking a nap.”A nap? Really?I sigh at the bad lie and ask, “How was your trip back?”

“Too fuckin’ long,” he whines. He drops the designer bag from his shoulder onto the ground and flops onto the bed. His head rests in my lap. It’s not sexual but certainly proprietary.

His long hair fans out onto the covers separating us and I run my fingers through it. He groans and while the sound of his voice at that level is inherently sexy, I don’t get the feeling it was meant to be.

“You’re gonna make me fall asleep,” he comments as I continue playing in his hair.

“Maybe you should sleep.”

“Nah. It’s not sleep on my mind.”

“Tell me what is.” Maybe I’m prying but if I can get any additional information from him while he’s relaxed and unguarded, then I’m going to.

“This trip didn’t go how I expected.”

“You were just visiting your brother…” I hedge. “He wasn’t happy to see you?”

He doesn’t flinch, but there is a moment’s pause where he must have forgotten that’s what he told me he was doing in Colorado. I, of course, know different.

“Nah. He wasn’t. I’m thinking that I shouldn’t have even gone. I’m more pissed than I should be about it.”

“Family is hard.”

His eyes blink open, “Your family is?”

I suck in a breath before blowing it out. “I think that maybe it will get easier over time to acknowledge that my mom is no longer here, but it gets harder I think. I have my club family, but being here it’s not the same.”

“What happened to your Ma?”

“Overdose,” I say simply and then wipe the corner of my eye. “You never really get over the could-haves. She was still so young. I know we joke that even at eighty-two, they’re still a baby. But she really is gone too soon. She wasn’t even graying yet.”

He wipes another tear from my eye. “Mine neither. She was the only good thing about this house. Sometimes I hear her callin’ my name to come inside or to put the dishes away.”

“Is she who gave you the nickname?”

“Blue?” he questions, adjusting himself to be more comfortable in my lap. “Nah. She was the last person to call me by my given name.” He considers that, looking off into the distance. “She hated Blue.”

He chuckles softly, “I remember her sayin’, ‘Spent all this damn time pickin’ out a nice name for my boy and he picks somethin’ dumb. A damn color.’ She didn’t ask if I picked it, but I guess in a way I did.”

I had assumed that it was a family given thing or some story behind it. The turmoil in his eyes suggests that there is much more to it. “If you didn’t pick it, who did?”

He bites his lip before breathing out slowly. “Man, Black people will give you the most crazy nicknames for dumb shit. My friend used to call me that because she gave me a black eye that looked blue. Playin’ ball, being kids, y’know? The teasing, jokes were relentless from the other kids for months. It fucking stuck. Then, I earned it.”

“Earned it?” I ask.

He’s silent for a long time. I try to be patient, twisting his locs into something of a style while he breathes deeply with his eyes closed over whatever memories he’s fighting.