Page 26 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“What is it?” Vin pressed, brows taut as he watched Milo scratch at his bushy eyebrow, his skinny, copper arm ending in a sharp elbow.

He’d grow into all of that. Milo had Tahli’s slanted, wide-set eyes.

He had her puckered mouth. Real, standout features that would be appreciated one day.

But in middle school, they all just wanted to blend in.

“Is it true that…like if you…do something? Too much? Can you…make…something…fall off? Or…stop working?”

Vin’s crumpled expression dropped down to Milo’s fiddling fingers. Two plus two was still equaling five. Vin was lost; until clarity instantly landed. His neck loosened in a chuckle.

“Yo. You asking me if you jerk off too much, is your little jimmy gonna fall off or break?”

The face Milo made was full of embarrassment as he folded his arms, even crossed his legs.

“Hey, man, don’t be embarrassed. Hey, it’s me. It’s just me and you.” Vin let it sink in for a moment. “So, you…you doing that? You, um…you doing that already?”

Reluctantly, Milo nodded.

“Okay. Well, first…who told you that?”

“Lil’ Rell.”

“Yeah, well, Lil’ Rell don’t know shit. When I was young, ya Uncle Munch’s father sat us down and told us we were gonna grow hair on our palms like gorillas if we did it too much.”

“Is that true?” Milo’s eyes bugged.

“I don’t know. Let me see your hands.”

When Milo held his out, Vin laughed. “I’m messing wit’ you, kid. None of that is true. It’s nothing wrong with it. It won’t fall off. You can’t break it.” Instantly, Vin flashed back to this gymnast named Brittany when he was 17, and the tricks she used to try.

“Well…not technically,” he cocked his head. “But…I’m glad you told me. ‘Cause there’s some stuff we gotta discuss.”

“Like what?” He could detect Milo’s eagerness. It almost made him laugh but he wanted his son to remain comfortable. Little man had girls on the brain and raging hormones.

“Like…when you start…exploring yourself some more. But with…someone else there. There are certain things you’ll need to do.”

“Like what?” Milo waited on the edge of his seat. Vin wiped his brow, knowing Tahli would have a fit. He wasn’t even 13 yet.

“Like…when you go to the party…you make sure you have balloons,” Vin tried to keep it PG. “But we’re not there yet.” Milo’s eyes stretched in horror, matching his mouth.

“I have to bring a girl balloons for her to have sex with me?!”

Vin choked on his saliva. “No! Just…we’ll get into it later.” They had to get Dali.

“Okay… Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?” Vin tried not to sound weary.

“Can you do it now?”

A half-smirk jerked Vin’s lips before he peeped the rearview and revved the engine. He accelerated from 0 to 60mph in 4.4 seconds, and in the next four, he doubled it. He only let Milo grin and giggle a little before returning to a safer speed.

When Vin pulled up to Dali’s school, she was already waiting with her violin.

“Hey, Dad. Hey, Weirdo.”

“Chill,” Vin warned on the Milo insults, especially with the insecurities Milo had just voiced.

“Dad, can you swing me by Walgreens to buy facewash? I forgot to bring mine in my overnight bag because I was rushing for practice, and I almost forgot my violin music, and I forgot my key.”

“That’s a whole lotta forgetting,” Vin jested.

“Maybe ‘cause you can’t pull your face from your phone for five minutes? I mean, like…I gotta Facetime Megan. And then like, we gotta Facetime Kendra,” Vin imitated Dali, and even Milo giggled.

“Too busy snapping and tocking to focus,” he accused. She smirked.

“Dad, what do you have against social media?”

Vin swiped his eyes at a red light. “The overdose of useless information,” he informed. “Way too much time worried about things that don’t matter, distracting you from the real things that you should be concerned with.”

“Oh. Like boys?”

“What?” Vin’s head spun.

“Just joking. Keeping you on your toes.”

He rolled his tongue in his cheek, trying not to think about how much of Tahli was in Dali.

Demeanor more than looks. And how drawn Vin had been to that demeanor.

How Tahli had niggas eating out of her palm, jumping off of balconies, and even climbing up them.

He couldn’t piece that potential together for his baby girl.

“Call your mother. I’ll swing you by to pick up your key, face stuff, and whatever else you need.” Seeing Tahli would be a treat.

Vin should have known from the way Milo peeked over at him, but Dali was too busy smiling back into her phone to think about her next words.

“Can’t. Mom already left.”

“I’ll take you when she gets back.” On a Friday night, Tahli did shit like grocery runs for ingredients to cook something amazing. With the kids not home, she might’ve been picking up takeout. Or heading to a movie. She still loved the movies.

“It’ll be late. She went out.”

Vin tensed. He’d heard through the kids that Abby had moved back, and Vin was certain that had less to do with a job switch and more to do with being there for Tahli. But Abby was single.

“With Auntie Abby or Aunt Paige?” Vin hoped she would say Paige. That drastically cut down the likelihood of any activities involving men.

“Neither.” Dali grinned at her screen, texting away. Vin waited in vain. He held out his palm.

“So?”

“Oh,” she shrugged. “Her friend, Drew…Dad!” She shouted, just after her body lurched. Vin slammed on his brakes, giving them all whiplash. But it was either that or smashing into the back of the Tesla that stopped in front of him for a school bus.

“It’s not a date or anything,” Milo grumbled, surely trying to keep the peace. “He’s just her friend from college. He doesn’t even know where we live. He picks her up from Pop-Pop’s.”

Milo’s voice went muffled as Vin’s surroundings faded to gray. His clammy hands slipped off the steering wheel as a wave of nausea drowned him. Vin’s deep breaths rose and collapsed in his chest. Rage ripped into him, gutting him fully.

“What are you doing? You’re not getting Terran from after-care?” Dali asked when they pulled up to Vin’s house. Their house.

“I’ll get her after. Go in the house.”

“After what?” Milo pressed, like he knew.

“I said get in the house!”

Milo frowned, and Vin watched the last twenty minutes of progress spiral down the drain. But he couldn’t rectify that. Couldn’t even think straight. Once his kids were safely inside, Vin was pedal to floor right after.

She was laughing. Breaking hearts in a short orange dress that showed off her toned brown legs.

Legs that had thickened over the years, to no complaint from Vin.

Legs that would encase him as he did his favorite thing he could do to her body, short of fucking or kissing her.

Tahli had those tight, brown, meaty thighs showing in a mini dress with a blazer on top—longer than the dress—and she laughed. Fucking laughed .

Like it was funny. Like all of it was funny.

Like this nigga was funny.

Tears of acid rushed Vin’s lenses, searing them. A sight too horrendous to witness, yet Vin stayed fixated, with a finger curled to his lips, deliberating only the how.

Not the if or why. Just how he would kill this pussy.

He thought losing Tahli was hell.

No…the devil said, “Hold my beer,” and went and dug up good old boy, Drew.

Time had put weight on the boy. Some facial hair that Vin didn’t remember from 15 years back had grown.

But it was him.

Donning a clean-cut sweater and slacks combo, Vin watched Drew open the door for Tahli, then swagger around to the driver’s side of a nice-ass 7-series BMW, too luxurious for UPS.

Drew was the type even men knew women found attractive.

Probably shaped his fucking eyebrows. Undebatable pretty-boy shit.

And he had a fucking plastic container in his hand.

Tahli was up to her old tricks. Pick her up for a date and she’d have a gift for you; something left over that she had cooked to reel a nigga in.

Vin laid his forehead on the steering wheel at the thought of Drew eating his wife’s cooking. Banged his head against it at the possibility of him eating his wife’s anything else.

At age sixteen, Vin had killed a man.

At seventeen, another.

At eighteen one more.

Then one not even half a year ago. That one—the most brutal—at the height of his fury and the hands of harm to his child.

Vin never thought anything could channel that rage, where his victim was a mere distorted image in his blood-stained view.

Not until he watched another man make his wife laugh. Hold the car door for his wife. All while admiring her ass.

Before Drew could close his driver’s door, Vin had his back one opened.

“Dalvin!”

Alarm exploded from Tahli’s aghast face. But Vin was in Drew’s backseat in the next instant with everything he wanted to say put into the cobra grip snaked around Drew’s neck. Blind fury, brewed by regret and insecurity, tightened the choke. This nigga…of all niggas.

“Mmgh!” Drew gurgled as Vin’s brawny arm locked. Vin pulled him up so tight, his ass left the driver’s seat. Drew’s freshly cut hair prickled Vin’s chin. Vin could smell the barber spray. Nigga thought his $30 haircut and a deluxe wax on his whip would get him a one-way ticket into some pussy.

“Dalvin! Stop!”

Good. She was scared. She should be. If Tahli wanted to see this nigga again, she could see him lifeless. Laid out with his soul departed from his body. All at her doing. Never had Tahli’s fear not been the emergency brake on his madness…until now.

Drew swung wild arms, trying to connect his fists.

“You think this shit is a game? This ain’t puppy love and college campuses, bitch. This is my wife . The mother of my kids. And you dumb enough to try to come up behind that?”

“Dalvin, stop! Oh God,” Tahli cried out her horror. “We’re just friends! And…and we’re divorced! Fucking stop, Vin!”

Vin was numb to the smacks Tahli landed on his head. Only one made his ears ring. She tried prying his forearm from Drew’s throat, pointy painted nails clawing at his tattooed Isaiah verse.