Page 74 of Redemption (Brazen Bulls Birthright 1)

“Eight …” She didn’t know what to say.

“Why not, Marce? Isn’t it worth a try?”

“Because of Ajax?”

He stared at her. “There’s nothing about me you like?”

All she had was physical attraction and a healthy dose of lizard-brain lust. There was also that old sense that there was somebody decent underneath the hard-shell asshole exterior, and the new, disconcerting sense of vulnerability, but the man himself, the way he behaved? No, there wasn’t much she liked.

But she didn’t disagree that their explosively great sex, the way they were wholly in sync, wasn’t nothing. It suggested to her, as well, that there was a kind of intuitive connection between them.

Was that enough? Or was it indicative of some heretofore undiscovered self-loathing in her psyche? The guy was a redneck, after all. Typical Oklahoma country white boy. How could she want to be with someone like him?

So she said it out loud. “I don’t want to be your Black girlfriend that you trot out like a participation trophy to prove you’re not racist.”

She might as well have slugged him, for his reaction. He actually reeled back in his chair. “Fuck, Marce. That’s what you think?”

“Come on, Eight. If we’re having this conversation, then let’s have it. You’re gonna tell me you don’t see Black first and foremost?”

“I didn’t even think of you as Black until you yelled at me for saying your skin was like caramel.”

She remembered that fucking fight. Right in the middle of excellent sex, he’d been whispering sexy things about her pussy, her long legs, her tight ass, and then he’d dropped that bullshit about her skin like caramel, and sweet as candy. When she’d tried to school him, he’d told her she was ‘only half Black.’ Definitely iced up the mood.

Yet that hadn’t been the last time they’d hooked up. Maybe itwassome latent self-loathing in her programming.

“And that’s just it. You didn’t ‘think of me as Black?’ What the fuck is that supposed to mean? And if you say you ‘don’t see color’ right now, I’m hitting you with this mug and marching out the fucking door.”

“What am I supposed to say, then? I don’t give a shit that you’re Black, Marce.I don’t give a shit about it.I’m not racist. The club is integrated, and has been for years. We’re in a majority Black neighborhood, and I call a lot of our neighbors friends. Yeah, I’ve said shitty stuff, because it stirs people up and yeah, I get off on that. I know that’s shitty, and I’m working on it, but I don’tcareabout color.”

Suddenly, this already fraught conversation was like a terrible Facebook comment thread. Marcella put her head in her hands and tried to think. When she returned her attention to him, she could see he was frustrated, too.

“I’m not patting you on the back because you happen to know some Black folks and don’t treat them like garbage, or for occasionally not being an asshole to your neighbors. Here’s what I think: you are a fifty-plus-year-old white man in Tulsa, so yeah, you’re racist.” He made to answer back, and she put her hand up, as he’d done to her more than once in this uncomfortable conversation. “Listen. Youare. It’s baked into what you were taught, how you think, everything. Period. If you try to tell me you haven’t even had a racist thought, I will tell you that you’re either lying or very stupid, and I know you’re not stupid. So just sit with that, accept it. A lot of it’s not your fault. The whole fucking country isdesignedto be racist. What is your fault is if you keep denying it and not trying to overcome it.”

“The country’s not designed to be racist. That’s bullshit. It’s in the Constitution, or the Declaration, one of those, that all men are created equal.”

“It’s in the Declaration. Both those documents were written bymen who owned slaves, Eight. They weren’t even thinking of Black people aspeople, much less as equal. Like I said, racism is in the design.”

He sat quietly, staring at his hands on the table. His quiet encouraged her; maybe he was really thinking about what she’d said.

“Youhavetocare about color, Eight. Your son is Black. Yeah, he’s blond and blue-eyed, but he’s obviously biracial. It will affect his whole life. It’s already affecting his life.”

Eight’s blue eyes flashed up. “It is?”

Marcella nodded. “Yeah. It’s not been too bad yet, but he’s been called the n-word a couple times that I know of—and one of the parents on an opposing soccer team called him mulatto.”

A spasm of anger cramped his face. “Fuck that.”

“Racism is more than nasty words, Eight. The overt hate, it cuts deep every time, but it’s also opportunities he won’t have, and assumptions made about him because of how he looks. He’ll have to work twice as hard to have half as much. It’ll only get worse as he gets older. Especially when he’s old enough to have social media. Or to drive. Every time he gets pulled over—and it will happen a lot—he’ll have to wonder if that’s the day hedies.” As always, she shuddered at the thought.

Then a question occurred to her, and she paused to consider it before she gave it voice. “Have you ever said the n-word, Eight? Hard R?”

His eyes flared, and she had her answer. Not that she was surprised.

“So you see why the thought of being with you gives me pause.”

They really wouldn’t work together, would they?

Marcella was surprised by how much that truth hurt.

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