The Poet

8

Giana

We sat with my mom for a few hours, talking to her and laughing amongst each other. I hope she comes out of this, and I hope she leaves that coward. My phone goes off, and I answer it walking out of the room. "What's up, Ana?" I answer. "How's your mom?" She asks. "Stable. He beat her up. It wasn't a car accident." I say and listen as Ana sighed. "I didn't want to kill nobody today. I didn't want to have to kill anyone but now you done fucked up." She says cocking her gun and sighing. "Nah, not tonight, but he will get his," I say. We talked about dinner plans and then wrapped up our call. I walked into the room and looked around at everyone. "You guys hungry?"
I ask, walking over and hugging Rafa. Chris looked at us with a weird look, and before he could say something, Tristan jumped the gun. "You guys should just date." He yelled out. I blush and send a death glare to my little minions as I feel Rafael staring at me. "Why would you say that like that?" I say with a fierce eye roll. "Honestly," Rafael starts. He pauses for a beat and then shakes his head. "Nah, you're too much to handle sometimes. I have to take you in small doses." He finishes with a laugh. "Says the man that's at my apartment damn near every day and blowing my phone up every second." I quip.

The twins laugh as Rafa pushes me softly. "What's the plan for dinner?" He asks. "Ana and JoJo want to treat us to dinner, so I'm not sure. They said not too dress up too much." I say, looking at my texts. The guys groan, and I roll my eyes at them, tucking my phone in my pocket. I wave them off and kiss my mom on her forehead, my brothers following my lead. Before we leave, we pray over her and say affirmations for her recovery, send it up to God, and then leave. We head to the house in silence until Tristan burst out with a line from SpongeBob. "Art thou feeling it now, Mr. Krabs?!" He says, and we all crack up laughing. We pull up and head inside to get ready for our outing. "Hey, Raf? What are you wearing?" Tris asks. "I have no clue, man. I didn't pack for fancy dinner dates." He says, shrugging and walking into my room. I get out of the shower and go into my closet. "Hey, Ra, I might have something for you to wear. I bought my ex a bunch of stuff before he dumped me, and it's all-new. Wanna try it on?" I say, grabbing bags from the back of my closet. He grabbed the bags and sorted through everything. "You must have a type." He said, looking at the button-ups. "How do you figure?" I ask, confused. He holds up a picture of my ex and me that I had long forgotten about. I snatch it from him and put it in my vanity drawer. "I do not have a type! You two just share a likeness!" I protest as he walks into the bathroom, not even paying attention to my rant.

The shower starts, and I look at the options he laid out on the bed. Hmmm. I wonder what he's going to wear. I would love to see him in a turtleneck. I go to my vanity and pull out my jewelry box. Before my dad left, he gave me all of his "precious" jewels. He said I could gift them to the right man or sell them as long as it made me and someone else happy. I also grab my set of clippers and my cape. The shower stops, and the curtain opens. Rafael walks out in his towel, looking for something. "I need a smaller towel for my hair." I pass him one, and he winks, drying the top of his head. "I should've gotten a haircut today." He says, looking in the mirror. I click on the clippers and smile, his eyes growing wide with amusement and then confusion. "You can't cut!" He says, laughing a little. I pull out my photo album, and he grabs it, flipping through the pages. "One thing my pops taught me that I'm so grateful for is being able to perfect the craft at six years old." I smile. He picks a style and lets me do my work. I miss cutting hair so much. I might just go back to doing it once we're back in Cali. As I'm cutting him up, his phone rings. It was a FaceTime from Jason. He answers, and I see Mario with his mouth wide open. "Ayo, since when do you cut hair?!" He exclaims. "Apparently, since she was six." Rafa laughs. They all talk as I do my work and perfect every part of him. He chose a simple James Dean-ish look for the top. The boys came in needing a lineup, so I cleaned Rafa and the clippers up and then sat down. Rafa and the homies were hooting and hollering about the cut, and he asked what he should wear. The boys picked the turtleneck since they were wearing them too. "Raf, you have to go with the black on grey, bro," Chris says.