Page 46 of Another Constant

“Damn, you still gonna feed me after I threatened you, sexy? Bet. Yeah, Savannah, he's a good man.” She laughed loudly from afar.

I stopped checking myself out in the mirror and looked at him. With a fresh lining and retwist, this man looked glorious. He looked so good I had to shake my head at the thoughts that had begun to slowly pile themselves in my brain.

“You look good as fuck.” His hands were at my sides, pulling my body back against him.

“I do? Even in a T-shirt and leggings. Trust me baby, I wasn’t trying to look good when we left this morning.”

“You ain't never need to put effort into it. Lil shit look good. I want you to slide with me tonight and stay at my house.”

“Slide where with you?” I asked, eyes on him through the mirror.

“Does it matter? You with me. You can invite your girl too if you want.”

“Kinga. I’m asking where because I need to know what I’m wearing.”

“For who? Shit, if you walk in there in a T-shirt and fucking bell bottoms I better be the only one looking. I catch somebody else looking that’s their fucking forehead.”

I waved him off and went to move. “That’s a lot.”

“I’m a lot. So you finna stop giving me a hard time or what?”

“I wasn’t giving you a hard time. You just don’t like to be questioned, even if it’s the simplest question.”

“Probably.” Of course he didn’t disagree.

We spent a while longer at the shop talking to Caya then we left. She had also agreed to go tonight, so Kinga sent her the address and time to meet us. I thought we were headed to my place, but we stopped at a mall. There he proceeded to drag me into store after store. He didn’t even strike me as the shopping type, but he spent big money on modest looking clothes. In so many words, just because it didn’t have the logo printed a million times didn’t mean it wasn’t worth a stack. I called myself not letting him buy me anything, but that didn’t get me far. I was checking out these indigo denim shorts with fringe around the thigh and butt, for a look I figured would work tonight, when he scooted up behind me and told the girl to put my item on his bill. The moment I tried to protest, he gave me a look. That “don’t piss me off” look in Kinga language. He was the only person who hated apologies and anything remotely polite showcasing manners.

Once we finished in the clothing store, we moved to the lower level where he had to pick up Aja’s earrings. She’d lost one at school one day and he decided to get the earring recreated seeing as how they were her favorite earrings and custom made from her father. While he spoke with his jeweler, I moved about the cases. I’d never been a jewelry girlie besides the gold H necklace I kept around my neck. It wasn’t that I didn’t like jewelry, because I did, I just didn’t like the cheaper pieces aka the shit I could afford. I liked high-end pieces that, even though I had the money, I still wasn’t spending for. Though that Cartier Love bangle and ring were calling my name, I just couldn’t see myself buying it. Shoot, right now I had the dupes, and as far as I knew, they were fine.

“You got a man, sweetheart?” I heard a voice that didn’t belong to Kinga call from behind me.

I didn’t respond, just maneuvered away from him.

“I asked if you had a man. If I was your man, you damn sure wouldn’t be in here window sho—” he started but his sentence halted. It stopped at the same time I felt a presence at my side.

“Here.”

I looked in front of me and he was holding out a bag. I accepted it, assuming he was asking me to hold Aja’s earrings.

“My bad, Kinga, I didn’t know this was you.” Ol’ dude’s expression showcased fear when he saw Kinga. He was a pudgy man wearing all one color, resembling an overweight blueberry.

“Nah, you didn’t. But you do now. Move the fuck around.” His voice was final and heavy.

Ol’ boy nearly jumped out of his skin trying to get out of our immediate space. Kinga went back to talking to his jeweler for a while and I continued to look around. When he was finished, he approached me holding a bag and told me it was time to go unless I wanted to go to another store. I didn’t, so we decided to leave.

When we made it to the car, he made sure I was in before putting the bags in the back seat and getting in on the driver’s side.

“Open it.”

Confusion swept my features. “Open what?”

“The bag, Harlem.” His eyes jumped from mine to the cream colored paper bag in my lap back to my eyes. He hadn’t started the car or pulled off. Apparently he wanted me to see something, so I reached into the bag and pulled out a red Cartier box.

I looked from it to him then back down at the box. I opened it and the bangle I had been eyeing was in the box. My jaw dropped.

“Should be another box in there, baby girl.”

I reached in and pulled out the other box. From the size I could tell it was the ring. “You bought me this?” I asked in disbelief.Had he actually spent this kind of money on me?

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