Page 10 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Chapter Two

“You still love this piece-of-shit place,” Tahli teased, glimpsing the half-empty restaurant after they ordered. It was just past the lunch rush, and relatively mild.

“Red Robin, ummm,” Dan hummed the signature song.

“This shit still hits. We ain’t got ‘em out in Osaka. I was gonna ask you to cook, but I ain’t wanna be insensitive.

But before I head back, I’m a need a little jerk chicken, some yams…

a little macaroni and cheese.” Tahli chuckled, taking Dan in.

The similarities and growth. Older and mature, yet still boyish and comical.

“How is Japan?”

“It’s good. Really good.”

“How far are you from Tokyo? You know my sister’s husband is from there? Whenever they’re not in Houston, they’re in Tokyo.”

“Like six hours. You should come visit, Tah. See your sister and niece, then come by and chill with us for a few days.”

“Oh, yeah. Us. There’s an us,” Tahli grinned. “What’s his name again? Jawny?”

“Hawnee,” Dan corrected. “It’s just a nickname. His name is Jonathan.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

“What? That I’m engaged to a nigga?”

“No,” Tahli stressed at his audacity. “That you’re engaged to a toddler! What is he? 25?”

“27,” Dan chuckled back. “Only eight years younger than us. Chill.”

Tahli smirked.

“Besides…you acting like I ain’t always been immature as fuck. And he’s…not.” An enviable smile naturally curved Dan’s lips.

“You guys met in Japan, right?”

“Yeah, when I first got stationed there. He was there for his fashion shit. He’s a buyer. Likes to buy shit even when he’s not working. But his grandmother is also Japanese, so he was staying with her. Me and the guys from my platoon ended up at this bar. He was there. We clicked,” Dan shrugged.

“Finding out we were both from Jersey. Liked the same movies, music, everything… When he came back to the states, I missed him. He felt the same way. It was only a couple of months, but I knew. Neither one of us ever thought we’d want to get married.

Matter of fact, I told him…” Dan scratched at his eyebrow. “Never mind.”

“What?” Tahli implored, invested in someone else’s tale for once.

“Nothing.”

She dropped her jaw. “Daniel Curry. Are you telling me that you are afraid to talk to me? The person that has been your vault for how many years? I mean, need I remind you of the barbecue when I was pregnant with Dali, and I walked into my bedroom only to find–”

“Okay. Okay!” Dan raised his hand. “Yo, you really never told nobody that shit?”

“Why would I?”

“Not even Abs?”

Tahli raised two fingers in the air. “Bad bitch’s honor.”

He snorted. “Alright. Well…” Evident reluctance wet his lips in delay. “When I popped the question to Hawnee, I told him I never really believed in marriage. I always thought it ruined relationships. He said he thought the same and asked could we just fuck and be friends for the rest of our lives…”

“You really did meet your counterpart,” Tahli snickered.

“Nah, for real. But then I told him…” Dan’s face transformed into something grave.

“I told him that one of my best friends met her husband when we were all young. That they got married quickly. And that it’s been mad long, but they make that shit look easy.

Better than easy… You and Vin made that shit look like the dream. ”

Tahli whooshed out a gust, glazed lenses rolling up.

“Yeah, too soon.”

“My bad.”

“It’s cool,” she murmured. “Look…you really want the secret to a perfect marriage?”

She watched Dan tune in, sipping his water. Tahli leaned forward to drop jewels. “One of you…has to make a baby with somebody else. And then hide that mothafucka for 11 years. That’s the only way.”

Dan cackled to the ceiling as Tahli sipped her iced tea. His laughter slackened.

“You strong as shit, Tah-Tah. He’d be really proud of you, you know?”

That boosted her brows. Dan didn’t say Jay’s name.

She wasn’t surprised by the way Dan spiraled after Jay—the partying, the drinking.

He blew his knee coming down from a dunk, the previous night’s liquor seeping from his pores.

Lost his scholarship. Joined the army at his father’s demand.

Distanced himself from Tahli, Abby, and Paige. Started over.

“I ain’t got no choice but to be strong, Danny. I got three mothafuckin’ kids.”

“You damn sure don’t look like it, princess.”

Tahli chuckled, a little solemn to the princess accolade; another Jay tribute.

“What can I do, Danny? Being cheated on changes you. But being lied to by the man you trusted with your life…it’s soul snatching.

I tried it all. Crying. Thought I had cried every tear my body could produce in a lifetime, and more still came today.

I tried drinking. Drinking until the pain was dull enough to sleep, but I couldn’t go down like that in front of my kids. ”

Dan nodded. “That shit is no joke. Alcohol will ruin ya life.” He would know.

“Tried smoking weed. Reading books. Working out… Throwing myself into work. Taking a break from work. I even took a two-week solo vacation and backpacked the Catskills …” Tahli recounted her mental reset.

The look on Vanessa’s face when Tahli informed them that she would take one.

The look on her father’s face when she returned.

As if he had already won a bet that she’d follow in her mother’s footsteps and vanish.

“You went backpacking with Abs?” Dan creased his brows.

“No. Why?”

“That just sounds like some white-ass shit.”

She shoved his shoulder in a laugh.

“You tried sex?” Dan hiked a brow.

“Some things never change.”

“Nah, I ain’t a hoe no more. I ain’t tryin’ to fuck you, Tah. I mean with someone else.”

“Too soon.” Tahli forced down vomit-tinged saliva at the thought of another man’s dick inside of her.

“Fuck that. After what you went through? Do whatever the fuck you want, Tahli.”

“I can’t even masturbate,” she confessed as comfortable with Dan as Abby or Paige. “Anything sexual, I just think about…” Vin. Her and Vin. Sophie and Vin. Just…Vin. Sex equaled Vin.

“Sounds like you need an intervention,” Dan teased. Tahli’s cryptic look followed. “Don’t get mad. I invited somebody.” When Dan’s eyes raised over her head, Tahli turned in her seat; and her jaw hit the Red Robin floor.

Dan’s grin dropped. “Aye! Why the fuck you bring Paige?”

“Fuck you ,” Paige cursed Dan while Abby tailed her. “Somebody had to get her from the airport. Then she gonna hop her saltine-ass in the backseat like I’m Morgan Freeman. I slammed on them mothafuckin’ brakes so fast…right in the middle of Terminal C.”

“She really did,” Abby scoffed. “Held up traffic just to swear on her ancestors that she wasn’t chauffeuring no white people.”

Emotion leaked into the laughter Tahli released as Abby shoved Paige with the recent memory.

“Stop touching me,” Paige warned, hugging Tahli first. She was nearest. But Tahli hugged Abby the longest. She hadn’t seen Abby in two months.

It’d been two months since the Christmas massacre of Tahli’s normalcy.

Two months since Abby had flown back to San Francisco, before she no longer had a job. But Tahli still had Paige.

“Oh my God! What are you doing here?”

“Don’t suffocate me, bitch,” Abby managed through Tahli’s squeezing. Tahli let her breathe, retaking her seat as they rounded out the table.

“How long do I have you?”

“A while,” Abby waved off. “Who the fuck picked Red Robin?”

“Dan,” Tahli snitched. “Like we couldn’t go somewhere decent.”

“Now y’all know this nigga loves his beef.”

“Really, Paige? That’s why I ain’t invite yo’ ass. How you gay with gay jokes?”

“That’s what you get waiting so long to come out,” Paige skimmed her menu. “Who the fuck waits until they got gray hair on their nuts to turn gay? Out here looking for boy pussy wit’ erectile dysfunction.”

“Fuck you. No hair on my nuts, no gray hair anywhere, and my dick works just fine. Speaking of dicks. Where’s yours? You left it in the car?”

“Nah, I left it in your mom.”

“Oh my God! Yes! Just what I needed,” Tahli shouted to the restaurant ceiling as Abby giggled.

“So, what’s new, Danny boy?” Abby smirked. “How’s Danny’s boy toy? Wait, did you ask for a kid’s menu to bring him home something?”

“It’s a McDonald’s down the street. You can grab his ass a Happy Meal.”

“Fuck both of y’all,” he cursed Abby and then Paige. “Hawnee is only 8 years younger than us.”

“What the fuck is a Hawnee?”

“That’s a nickname,” he corrected Abby.

“You’re getting married to someone who still uses a nickname?”

“Fuck all y’all. It’s really his best friend who uses it. It just rubbed off on me.”

“The best friend he’s with now?” Tahli probed.

“Best friend, my ass. Nigga getting his butt plugged,” Paige muttered.

“First of all, she’s a female. Second, he’s helping her unpack. She just moved back to Jersey from Seattle. Matter fact...” Dan pulled his phone from his pocket. “He just sent me a pic.” Dan flashed his screen. Jonathan was strikingly handsome. The woman next to him complemented his beauty.

“F-u- uuck,” Paige double-taked from the menu. “That bitch badder than silver caps.”

“That’s Aleeya. His best friend.”

“No shit. Her name is Aleeya? She kinda looks like Aaliyah.”

“She badder than Aaliyah,” Paige dismissed Abby, falling into superficial love. “What’s her Snapchat?”

“Man, fuck that. Wait ‘til y’all see her nigga. Even me and Hawnee had to admit that nigga is a fucking chocolate dream.”

“Ya’ll talk like that?” Tahli’s eyes doubled. Vin would’ve lost the few marbles he had left if Tahli salivated over another man.

“Put it like this. That nigga looks so good, we both agreed if we ever found one that looked like him, it’s free passes to Hershey Park. Hold up…let me find his pic.”

“Ooh.”

“Damn,” Abby followed on top of Tahli. “Sexual Chocolate!” Abby mocked Coming to America . To Tahli, he was unnaturally fine. But she was ruined. Because her mind went to compare. And when it came to hers, there was no comparison.