Page 54 of Made to Love Ya

“What?” I asked, growing uneasy under his gaze.

“Next time you see something out of whack, please call me and ask. Don’t rush home to cook up a whole restaurant worth of food and let your emotions control you. You feel me?”

“Yes.”

“Now who loves you?”

“You do, baby.”

He kissed my lips gently, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

We lost ourselves in the kiss for several moments before I pulled back and ended the kiss.

“So, you’re leaving me?”

He sighed again as he stared into my eyes. My heart jumped wildly around in my chest and my belly clenched in fear of his response.

“I’m not leaving you; not this relationship. But I will be moving out soon.”

“Don’t go, baby. I know that I was wrong and shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I was just scared and hurt. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me. But I do think that things happened between us quickly.”

“They did, but is that a bad thing?”

Izael dragged his hand down his face, and then he angled his head as he stared into my eyes. “Maybe you need some time to truly get over Ricky. Until you do, there’s no place in your heart for me, li’l homie. I wanna be that nigga that locks you down, but I can’t until you’re ready.”

He wrapped me up in his arms, and I allowed his words to penetrate my heart and mind, while I waited for them to saturate my soul.

I was scared of Zae’s love. It had been too good to be true, and all along, I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now, I realized I had been looking for a reason to let this thing go because I was scared of how deeply and fiercely I loved this man.

The feelings I held for Ricky didn’t have anything on what I felt for Izael. The love for him that I had harbored through the years had only grown with intensity since we had been living together, and it consumed me once we became intimate. That terrified me because a love like that could cause a woman to lose herself.

TALIA

THREE DAYS LATER

“Come on,baby. This is a good thing.”

“I don’t know howwww,” I wailed.

“Because you and I both know that you need your space to deal with some things, and I’ll have a chance to clear my head too.”

“So, we’re breaking up?” I asked and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

Izael kneeled on the floor in front of me. I was perched on the edge of my bed bench, sniffling and snotting my way through Izael’s moving day. He didn’t have any furniture to move out because the bedroom he had stayed in for the last couple of months was furnished when he moved in.

There was just clothing and things he could fit in luggage and duffel bags that he had to take with him. Everything was moving so fast. He bought the house outright with cash, and now, barely a week after that, he was moving in.

“Chè, this isn’t us breaking up. This is you having time to figure out what you want. And if it’s me, then you know where you belong. In five weeks, it will be time for your lease to be renewed. If you decide to renew it, that’s fine, but if not, then you know you’ve got a place in my home…our home.”

“It’s your home. I didn’t help pick it out.”

“That’s because you didn’t want to. I invited you to, but you didn’t want to, baby.”

He reached up and wiped my face.

“I love you. We came together in this space, but I want to make sure that we didn’t come together because it was convenient since we were living together and because you were going through a hard time. This time apart will prove to us if we were truly meant to be. I know…” Izael paused and thumped his fist against his chest before he continued. “…that we were meant to be. I need you to know it here…” He tapped my head. “…here…” He tapped my heart. “…and here,” he remarked and pressed his hand in the middle of my chest to indicate my soul.

---