Page 71 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“Stop trying to make sense of everything, Tahli,” he finally had to intervene.

“We live in a world where we got a dickhead for a president, and he’s letting babies get blown up.

None of this shit makes sense. And…” Vin wet his lips, scared to admit the truth.

What he wouldn’t reveal was that it was so difficult because somewhere along the way, their souls had molded into one.

They hadn’t just ripped apart their family; they had torn their spirits to shreds.

“You hate me enough,” he reminded her instead, feeling the charring wound.

“Trust me. You divorced me, Tahli. Somewhere in my fucked-up mind, I actually thought that would never happen. I thought once I had you, I had you forever. But you divorced me. And a year later you were engaged to somebody else. So cut yourself some slack,” Vin frowned. “You hated me enough for that shit.”

Her eyes widened with some acceptance.

“I’m not with Drew anymore,” she spoke barely above the hum of the central air conditioning, which was damn quiet compared to other units. Vin had nothing. He steadied his breathing; long and controlled.

“I should go,” she sprang up like the couch had caught fire, rushing to the door. Vin smelled her shampoo when she passed. Before she reached the knob, he was on her back.

“Why did you tell me that?” His hand snaked around her to rest on her stomach, mouth buried in her ear. “No fucking running. You’re not going out of that door until you tell me why you just said that shit.”

Weighty breaths made her pillowed breasts rise and fall in her Rutgers t-shirt. “Let me go.”

“Then answer me.”

“I can smell her pussy on your breath.”

“Tell me, Tahli.” Vin wouldn’t let her evade it.

Her chest still heaved. From his obscured view, Vin spotted the gloss on her lenses as she trolled them around the entryway.

“Fucking answer me. Just…” He squeezed a fist, arm wrestling patience.

“Just say it, baby love. Just…” His hands slid up to grip her shoulders, still standing behind her.

He massaged them. “Just say the word, Tahli. If it’s one little fucking fraction of a chance…

you gotta tell me. Am I picking this up right, or no? ”

She broke away to face him. Eyes swamping with water, but still not connecting with his. Tahli shook her head, crushing him. Again…and again.

“I…,” sputtered out. “I…don’t know?”

Vin’s eyes swelled. Breaths grew shallow. His whole life, he’d moved with patience. Like after that steakhouse over sixteen years ago.

“Okay,” he said evenly. Inside, he was doing cartwheels.

“It’s not yes, Vin…” she wet her lips, finally looking at him. “But… it’s not like the no before.”

He nodded, inhaling that in. “Okay,” he said again.

“Maybe...I can go…talk to the person you talk to?” She looked so uncertain…

and afraid. Afraid of what this identified her as, Vin was sure.

He always knew what Tahli was running from.

Weakness. Even if there was strength in her honesty.

Even if she was the strongest fucking person he knew. “Maybe we talk to him together?”

Vin heard trumpets. But he didn’t want the Gatorade bath, yet.

“Okay,” he only repeated, half-dazed. He stretched his mouth; jaw cracking from holding a clench for so long.

“Okay,” Tahli parroted him. Then she escaped out of the front door. He let her.

Parked back on the couch, an untraceable amount of time passed. Felt like as long as he’d been waiting for this shard of a chance that he had given up on. Vin cracked his knuckles, breathing in the faint relics of precious Tahli air. She had been there. The last whatever minutes were real.

“Something tells me we won’t be picking up where we left off.” Bianca’s assumption doused water on his face. Damn. Vin forgot about her. With a slow clap, she tipped further into the living room.

“Congratulations, Mr. Hayes. It worked.”

His crinkled brow questioned her before his mouth. “What?”

“Don’t worry.” She knelt before him. “I guess in a way, I was using you, too. I was as lonely as you were sad.” Vin put as much respect into his stare as he could. “One last 69 for the road?”

He chuckled. “I don’t think so, B.”

“Because you’re already hers again.” A crestfallen look escorted her smile. “Got it. I’m happy for you, Dalvin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so lost without his family. Thank you for showing me how a man is supposed to treat a woman. And for the incredible sex.”

He snorted. “You’re a good girl, B. Don’t ever shrink yourself to fit into a little nigga’s box again. Find you a big nigga, or walk alone.”

Her eyes watered with hopeful warmth. Then, she saluted him, four fingers from the brow. “Copy that.”

There was a girl at a barbecue.

Fifteen months out of prison and still trying to find his footing, shit like a nigga he hadn’t seen in a minute tapping his shoulder just to say hi still had Vin turning abruptly with his fist cocked, ready to knock teeth in.

Just earlier that day, Jay had been goofing around with his immature, wet-behind-the-ears friend, Dan, and Vin had his back turned, hooking up the propane tank on Munch’s new grill because none of them were good for shit.

Being young and dumb, Jay had gone long to catch Dan’s tossed football and knocked into Vin’s shoulder.

Reflexively, Vin reached for a ready-made shank that was no longer in his waist, instead replaced by a Ruger 9mm.

Almost pulled it and knocked Jay in his temple, where he would have stabbed him a year and a half prior.

That conditioned, still.

He still woke up hearing screams of young boys who barely reached their manhood, having theirs ripped away on opening night.

Still smelled the blood from the riots. Felt guts smushed beneath the soles of his boots.

Like a man returned from war. The sun was shining, people were laughing, and Vin was pretending to be here, seeing what they saw and feeling what they felt.

Until there was a girl. At the barbecue.

Vin had been half-entertaining one of Wynter’s friends out of boredom. They were all shooting the shit, keeping distance from Jay’s crowd.

“Why when I asked Munchie if he got any friends for me, he hooked me up with Scarface over there instead of you?”

Because Munch knew his type, and Yellow-Teeth here wasn’t it.

“I wasn’t around.” Vin wouldn’t be undeservingly cruel to a woman.

“Mm. You got a girl?”

“Yeah.” Only time he’d ever claim Sophie as such. He’d glanced into the kitchen once and there was nothing he could use. He looked back to Wynter’s homegirl. He glanced again and everyone around him knocked down like dominoes.

There was a girl at the barbecue.

Vin didn’t even know his mouth was open until he felt the space between his lips when he rubbed them.

She had the face of all faces; one full of features where beauty derived from.

The motherboard of beauty. The origin. Her smile touched both ears as wide as her spaced eyes.

Vin yanked in a sharp breath, canvasing her as she looked around, standing beside a red-headed white girl.

Ironically, he didn’t feel it in his dick first. The feeling stirred in his brain like the makings of a tornado swirling down to his toes.

His toes. That he moved in her direction in the middle of Wynter’s friend’s invitation to a group Miami trip.

Because in 15 months since being home, whoever this girl with the cherry-colored locs was the first thing he wanted and the last thing he needed.

But he’d get high enough off interaction.

The kind of girl men were drawn to help just for a whiff of her magic.

Vin took her bags, hoping she’d say the wrong thing and break the spell.

But she said something about him being a gentleman in a light flirt.

Was this supreme being flirting with him?

Afraid to reply the wrong thing, he chose nothing.

Vin would have to travel back six years and dig in his game bag to find a worthy reply.

Since being home, he’d had bitches with minimal effort.

He wasn’t ugly and had money. But something told him, say the wrong thing to this type of girl, and he’d end up benched on the sidelines like all the other faceless losers.

A girl like her, it only took one word to flip the switch in the other direction.

She thanked him in the sweetest voice and fogged his head up.

Vin had to get away from her. She was young; Jay’s age.

She was untainted. She smelled good. She laughed loud.

She turned heads. She stopped hearts. His.

So, he talked himself out of it. Until she came over talking about African wells and proving she had a brain, too.

He was infuriated by her perfection. How hard was she going to make this?

Then he danced with temptation because she gave him a reason to interact with her.

Then he gave her way too much money to build a well in a village in Mozambique that would probably get destroyed in the political warring between Renamo and the government. He wouldn’t tell her that. Her excitement was too infectious.

Then he pushed her out of his way and mentally told her to get the fuck on.

Until she came with steak dinner propositions and contaminated his mind.

Then he dated the girl.

Then he made love to the girl.

Then he fell in love with the girl.

He fucked up and fumbled the girl because he was young, reckless, and didn’t know how to navigate a relationship with a girl of her caliber. But by the grace of his grandmother’s God, he got the girl back. He made a baby once, twice, three times over with the girl.

He married the girl.

He built a life around the girl.

He tried to keep a smile on the girl’s face by granting any wish he could imagine she would never ask for because she wasn’t an asking kind of girl. No, she was a get-up-and-get-it-myself girl, so Vin always tried to beat her to the punch to prove his worth to the girl.