Page 21 of A Cancer's Embrace
I screamed internally. I wanted Jabari to take up more of my time. I wasn’t ready for the night to end. I wanted to bask more in his company. He had taken me on a spin of serious emotions, and I quickly became addicted. It’d been a while since I’d feltthis way. All of my feelings were building up inside of me, and I needed to release them before I exploded.
It took Jabari thirty minutes to get everything cleaned up. I offered to help, but he told me to relax. We walked out of the restaurant, and this time the streets were quieter, and the moon shone brighter. There was a slight breeze in the air, and I was thankful Jabari had offered me one of the clean chef’s coats he had on standby. It fell past my knees because of my short stature, but it didn’t bother me because it smelled just like him. Jabari held my hand from the time we walked from the kitchen until we got to my car. It felt natural, and for the first time in a while, I felt at ease around another man. He opened the door for me, but I paused, looking back at him.
“Thank you for tonight. I really enjoyed myself.”
He grinned. “Me too. I hope I’m on your good side. The other day I thought you were about to Mike Tyson my ass.”
I laughed. “Sorry, I sometimes allow my emotions to get the best of me.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that. I actually like that.”
We stared into each other’s eyes, and a rush came over me, and before I knew it, I had leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. Jabari wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing me back with just as much passion. I wanted to pull away, but I needed to taste more of his lips. Finally, after getting my fill, I pulled away. I was proud of the rush of confidence that had come over me. He had a silly smirk on his face as he looked at me.
“Have a good night, Jabari.”
He scanned me up and down. I never broke eye contact with him. “You too, Amina.”
I climbed into my car and drove away, but as soon as I turned onto the next street, I let out a squeal. Jabari’s lips were soft, and I could still taste the banana pudding residue on them. Jabari had me feeling myself, and he didn’t even know. Still, Ididn’t know what would come of tonight. Was it just a one-night adventure, or could something come from this? Either way, I felt better than I had in a long time.
No matter how hard I tried not to think about last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even with us being swamped by the unit, I still kept thinking about my time with Jabari. I didn’t want things to end. It didn’t make it any better that Gloria was here for a visit, and all I could think about was him. Gloria had wrapped up, and she and I walked toward the exit of the unit.
“I’m so tired. I can’t wait ’til all this is over,” she commented.
“I know you are, but you’re doing good, Gloria.”
The spot that doctors found confirmed it was indeed cancer, but they had caught it in time, and she was currently going through chemo. Today was the first round, so I made sure she had the warmest blanket and had a few of my personal books from my bookshelf on hand specifically for her to read during treatment.
“Thank you, baby. The plan is to go home today and rest. I’m glad I got the opportunity to use the bit of energy I had last night with JaBria. It wasn’t much of a long night, and we both were knocked out before nine. Jabari didn’t even come pick JaBria up ’til this morning, which was good because neither of us would’ve heard him knocking.”
Butterflies filled my stomach. Jabari didn’t make it last night because he was with me. However, I didn’t feel the need to tell Gloria that. I didn’t want to get her hopes up about anything or have her asking questions after the long day she had. The closerwe got to the nurses’ station, the stronger the smell of flowers invaded my nose. The entire hall smelled like a flower shop.
“Wow. Someone must’ve brought a whole flower shop in here,” Gloria stated.
“It sure smells...”
Gloria and I paused when we laid eyes on the culprit of the smell. Jabari stood there with two gigantic bouquets. He held pink lilies in one hand and red roses in the other, smiling once he laid eyes on us.
“Hey, Mama.” He walked over toward her and placed the pink lilies in her hands, kissing her cheek.
I looked over at Gloria, and she had tears in her eyes.
“Hey, son. Thank you. These are beautiful.”
“You’re welcome. How was the first day of chemo?”
“Tough, but I’m going to make it.”
He gave her a tight hug, towering over her little body. “You sure are.”
He looked over at me and smiled. “Hi, Amina.”
“H-hi, Jabari.”
Jabari placed the flowers in my hand and then moved his finger under my chin, pulling me toward him. He placed the sweetest kiss on my lips, but this time, the peck turned into him inserting his tongue into my mouth slowly. I could hear Gloria gasp, and I could feel the stares from everyone all around me. I was thankful when he wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me up from melting from the kiss. Once he pulled away, I opened my eyes, and he had a smile on his face.
“I thought about doing that after you left last night and this morning. It’s something about you, Amina Anderson, that I can’t get enough of.”
“I can say the same, Jabari Moore.” I blushed.
