Page 11 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“I bet his dick tastes like Godiva,” Abby wiggled her auburn brows. “And when he cums, it’s like white raspberry drizzle.”

“Did you…want to order?” However long the waiter had been there, his expression revealed he heard more than he wanted to. As everyone placed their orders, Tahli hopped up, blocking a woman returning from the restroom.

“What’s up, girl? You remember me?”

The confusion on the woman’s pretty face was expected.

“Um, no. Do I know you?”

Tahli peeked back to the man at the table behind theirs, eyes on Tahli and his date.

“No…you don’t,” Tahli’s voice dropped a notch, her back still to the seated man. “But…first date, right?”

She had to think Tahli was crazy. Maybe this version of her was. The woman nodded, anyway.

“Right.” Tahli maintained her forced smile. “And when you got up, he took a call. Said he was hoopin’ with his boys. He’d bring ice cream home after. Asked if the baby was kicking.”

The girl gasped.

“All good, sis. Just keep smiling. Enjoy your burger and then use the bathroom again. But this time, don’t come back.”

A tiny smile curved the stranger’s lips.

“I appreciate that. I’m gonna eat this burger, order one to go, and then shake his ass.”

Tahli winked, taking her seat.

“Girl code shit,” Abby gave her a pound.

“Snitch shit,” Paige frowned. “Whatever. Pull up shorty pic again. Matter fact…how you spell her name?”

“Paige. She’s not gay,” Dan warned.

“That’s what they all think. That’s what you thought. Had us thinking you was the pussy pimp and you was really the booty burglar.”

“Not everybody. Somebody knew.”

Tahli gawked at Dan in the deafening silence that ensued.

“Tahli knew?” Paige slit her eyes. “Y’all some sneaky-ass bitches.”

“What? Since when?” Abby yelled.

Tahli and Dan shared a glance of permission. “Since I caught Shells sucking him off in my bedroom back when I was pregnant with Doll.” Tahli pulled her shirt collar over her face as Paige screamed out.

“What?! Where the fuck was I?”

“There. Everyone was there. We had thrown that barbecue, and I told y’all what Doll’s name was going to be.”

“Oh, I was way too high that day,” Abby made light of her addiction.

“I wasn’t,” Paige frowned. “I mean…I was. But not like you. Not like on crack.”

Abby flipped her middle finger. “I wasn’t on crack.” Then she tapped her water glass with a fork.

“Okay. Announcement time.” Abby grabbed everyone’s attention. “So, I know I said I’m staying a while. But… I applied for the Northeast Regional Manager position in New York, and…I got that shit!”

Dan clapped his big hands.

Paige smirked with pride. “Who knew all the way back when I joked ya ass was gonna run Auntie Anne’s one day, that shit would come true.”

Abby had taken the Branch Manager position of the San Francisco airport Auntie Anne’s years ago; a proven good move for her fresh start, even if it killed Tahli at the time.

Everyone was busy congratulating Abby. Tahli jumped up, giving the table her back to hide how much of an emotional whore she’d become.

“What’s wrong, Tah? I know out of everybody, you gotta be the happiest,” Dan teased.

“Yeah, your lesbian lover’s coming back to the East Coast,” Paige taunted. But Tahli spun, lids brimming with water. Her gaze fixed on Abby. Silently, Abby received it.

“What?” Abby’s voice heightened. “You had Vin. You…you had the kids! You didn’t need me. If I would’ve thought you needed me, Tah–”

“I always need you,” Tahli’s lips shook.

“This shit is too gay... Even for me,” Paige muttered.

“Same,” Dan grumbled.

“I just didn’t want to hold you back,” Tahli ignored them to add, as Abby’s face morphed into awareness. “I knew you were getting your shit together. But I always needed you.”

“Well…I’m here now.”

“So, um, Tah… We safe?”

“Safe?” Tahli creased her nose at Dan, weed-stuffed blunt almost to her lips. Her, Dan, Paige, and Abby had retreated to her still-for-now home, and after feeding the kids and ensuring they were occupied in their rooms, Paige pulled out a bag packed with colorful weed.

“Yeah, man. Safe,” Dan asserted.

“I think he’s asking if Vin’s gonna bust up in here like the Black Panther and start slinging Vibranium spears at us and shit,” Paige drawled, already high before they’d made it home.

“Vin isn’t coming back here. He’s at the Oakman penthouse…with his son ,” Tahli sneered. “He’s staying there until I move out. Court-ordered.”

“And why the fuck are you moving out again? Of your own house?” Abby rolled her sober eyes, a fair distance away from the weed smoke in Tahli’s spacious living room. “That’s like the dumbest shit ever.”

“No.” Tahli propped up on her elbow to disagree, legs sprawled out on the rug while Dan and Paige took the largest sofa.

“I look around this place and all I see is me and Vin. Like that dining room table you’re sitting at?

” Tahli pointed at Abby. “We like to fuck there. We like to fuck right there, too.”

“How you fuck on a bookcase?” Paige frowned.

“We argued right there. You see that scratch on the table? That’s from him kicking it.”

“Fucking temper problem,” Paige muttered, and Abby sputtered giggles, now vaping her flavored nicotine.

Paige was right. Tahli had bank accounts for everything, including one called “bail money” for her ex-husband’s antics.

One time, Vin had seen a man beating a dog.

The cop didn’t even arrest Vin for beating the man twice as bad.

“You see that mark on the wall? That’s from him trying to carry in the television by himself and nicking it. Every. Fucking. Dent. Every scrape. Every paint color. Every piece of furniture. Tells a story in the museum of Tahli and Vin. And I want out! For my fucking sanity,” Tahli strained.

“You guys don’t get it. Like most people don’t get it.

I don’t expect them to get it. This nigga was in my soul.

Like do you understand that shit?” She looked at them one by one.

“As long as I knew my kids were good…I would’ve laid down and died for him.

I would’ve taken a bullet for Dalvin. I would’ve done a fucking bid for him. ”

“I ain’t never doing that shit,” Paige declared, and Dan laughed into his fist. “Gimme a bag of weed and a four for four from Wendy’s, I’m telling every fucking thing.”

“Yo, the four for fours slap.”

“Yo, the four for four is where it’s at, my nigga!” Paige exclaimed, dapping Dan in a pound. “You wanna go get a four for four?”

“We just ate, Paige,” Dan chuckled.

“Stop talking about four for fours. We’re not here to talk about four for fours,” Tahli waved a hostile finger at them. “We’re here to talk about my marriage.”

“You don’t have a marriage.”

Tahli snapped her glare at Abby when she muttered it. There was something Abby had checked and carried along with her luggage…judgment? Disdain? Disappointment?

“I ain’t here to talk about that shit,” Paige broke Tahli’s contemplation. “I’m here to kill time before I hit up my sneaky link.”

“Word? What she look like?”

“You still like girls?” Paige slit her eyes at Dan.

“I mean…I miss pussy sometimes. She got good pussy?”

“Yo! Incredible pussy. And one of them big, ole’ Section 8 asses with the dimples. Ghetto bitch. All her kids got silver teeth.”

“I know them mothafuckas got good snacks,” Dan muttered.

“Yo, they got so many fucking snacks. Juice boxes. Cookies. Hot Cheetos. Her nigga’s a truck driver so he be gone like three days at a time. I just be eating pussy and eating snacks.”

“Somebody’s gonna shoot you one day,” Abby said flatly.

“Why the fuck would you say that? That’s some white-ass shit to say, Abigail,” Paige snapped.

“How is it white?” Abby flipped her pink palm up.

“’Cause it ain’t fucking black . We talking about four for fours and big asses and you like ‘oh, you’re gonna die,” Paige squeaked up her voice.

“Yeah, well, stop fucking people’s wives and girlfriends,” Abby suggested.

“No. It’s fun. Tah…I’m sorry. You crying? Don’t cry,” Paige urged, and Tahli raised the head she didn’t know was hanging.

“I’m not crying. I was sleeping. It’s past my bedtime.” Tahli sighed, dreading climbing into her empty bed alone…again. “Is it bad to admit I miss him?” Tahli met Abby’s gaze, as wet and blue as the ocean, but no one uttered a word.

“We were like this.” She crossed her fingers. “In our own world, you know? Then we had them babies. We had pretty babies, y’all.”

“Y’all did make some pretty-ass babies,” Paige snickered.

“We would lie down at night…after our long days, and the kids were safely asleep; all filled up with our love. Vin would just look at me…and I would stare back at him. Sometimes we would just start laughing out of nowhere, not even knowing what we were laughing at. I’d be like, ‘man, I love you.’ And he’d be like, ‘I fucking love you, girl’ .

How could he be so different from what I thought?

How could I not know him but know him so well?

My husband was so good . He was doting…patient…

He was sexy. My nigga was sexy . Women would stare at him, and I felt so fucking lucky.

” Tahli sulked, two monstrous, tattooed hands squeezing on her heart.

No, they weren’t perfect by far. Like any married couple, quarrels were inevitable, and complacency crept into their routines.

But undying passion trumped it. Tahli would mouth her goodbyes while Vin took a conference call, and he wouldn’t hesitate to put the whole meeting on hold.

He’d draw her back, whispering something like “let’s try that again” , before kissing her deeply.

A second later, he’d be back to barking orders on the phone, running his boardrooms like a G, and send Tahli off to work on a cloud.

“I gotta get the fuck outta here. Before I really lose my mind.”

No one spoke, but Paige hit the blunt.

“Ohhhhh! This my shit.” Paige sprang up from the couch. Tahli snapped her fingers to Ari Lennox’s I Been , as Abby danced over, pulling Tahli up by her lifeless arms.