Necessity

Chapter Six

I walked down the baby aisle with a shopping cart that was already half-full with groceries and other baby products. All I needed now was some baby powder but there is this particular one that is a godsend when it comes to protecting Deon from rashes. He has super sensitive skin and this one is the only one that would work for him but unfortunately, I had just run out of it. I made my way to the end of the aisle praying that they weren't sold out because there weren't anymore where the powders usually are. Just when I was about to give up hope and just go home, I finally saw a lavender bottle sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the baby food. I hated it when people put shit where it didn't belong but thank God I saw it before someone else did. I grabbed it and put it in my cart. Making my way to the self-checkout line, I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket. It was Chresanto replying to my text after I told him that Zonnique said she would have no problem tagging along with us on our trip to Orlando.

Okay, I'll talk to you later to figure out what we're doing.

I liked that we were cordial enough to hold a conversation but I still didn't know if that meant we were headed somewhere else besides co-parenting. I wanted more than this and yesterday especially had me wanting more than this. My infidelity was still the big ass elephant in the room whenever we were around each other no matter how much we try to ignore it. I still have so much I want to say to him but I didn't want to force it on him. When he's ready to talk, we could talk but I didn't know how much more of this I could take. I put my phone back in my pocket as I approached the long ass line for self-checkout. I was about to go to another line when I realized all of those were long too. I rolled my eyes and got comfortable in the line. After a few minutes and hardly any movement in the line, I felt someone tap my shoulder behind me. I turned and saw the man from the club the other night looking even finer now that I could see him in the light.

"Bahja, right?" he asked.

I smiled and nodded at him.

"Yeah, that's me. And you're Usher's dancer" I said earning a chuckle from him. "Sorry, I'm not as good with names as I am with faces"

"It's fine. Jacob" he corrected.

"Right, Jacob, how you been? How's work?"

"I'm fine and work is great. Tiring but it's great. How you been?"

"I was doing okay until I saw these long ass lines" I said rolling my eyes.

"Yeah I feel you on that" he laughed.

I looked at the stuff in his cart as the line started to move and saw nothing but junk food and books.

"Preparing for the road?" I asked pointing to his cart.

He smiled. Wow, he had such a nice smile. For a while, it made me forget all my problems.

"Well, the books are but the snacks are just for when I get hungry at night"

"I hear that. I didn't know they sold Dickey in grocery stores though" I said noticing one of the books he had in his cart.

He raised a brow.

"You read his books?"

"Yeah I used to when I was a teenager"

He looked at me strangely. The line moved again.

"You were reading urban novels as a teen? You coulda never been my mama's child. She woulda tore my ass up for reading this"