Daddy Material

Stupid Neapolitan Milkshake

Zafirah sat down on my bed, leaning back on her hands. She patted the spot right next to me and I chuckled. How was she gonna tell me to sit down like this wasn't my own room?

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked, making sure to keep a good amount of space between us. After what happened this afternoon, I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Great news, my complex is now gone.

She looked at me, a slight smile on her lips and soft eyes. "You shouldn't walk around with wet hair. You'll get sick." She moved closer to me and got on her knees, grabbing the towel around my neck. From her spot behind me, Zafirah began to run the towel through my hair, drying it for me.

It was nice...and strangely domestic. But I wasn't going to complain. The last time someone dried my hair for me was when I still had baby teeth.

"I told Quanetta everything," she started, breaking the comfortable silence. "Except for the fact that I am pregnant. It's probably best I wait until I'm 12 weeks. But now she knows that we live together." She sounded like she had something else to say so I stayed quiet and waited for her.

Her hands stopped moving and she sighed. I took the towel off my head and went to throw it back in the bathroom. Zafirah had switched back to sitting and watched me.

"Have you told anybody?" she asked me.

"No, my current roommate situation hasn't been brought up yet as a topic," I answered, sitting back down next to her. I could feel her eye roll without even looking at her. It was one of her signature signs of annoyance.

"I gotta tell my family eventually," she said. "They might roll up like Quanetta and if Devante is acting out of pocket like she said, it's only a matter of time before they run up on him."

I didn't really see a problem with that. If Zafirah wasn't there to hold me back, I would have beat his ass to a pulp. That bitch deserved it. "What's wrong with that?"

She sucked her teeth and pushed at my shoulder. I grabbed her arm and pulled her over, putting my arm around her shoulders. "The sooner I can stop hearing that dumbass's name, the sooner I can forget the fact that I wasted four years of my life. That would be kind of hard if one of my relatives is in jail for his murder."

"My family has a great lawyer," I pointed out. "I'll refer him."

Zafirah moved out from under my arm and pushed me away from her. "You play too much." Not the first time someone has told me that. Probably not the last time I'll hear it. "They're gonna find out."

"I never said you couldn't tell anyone. It's your business to tell and this apartment is just as much yours as it is mine," I told her.

"Your lease says otherwise," she told me with pursed lips and an eye roll to compliment.

"I'm serious," I chuckled. "This is your home too. I don't care if you tell people."

She nodded and didn't say anything back. We sat like that for a few moments, neither of us saying a word, just sitting in comfortable silence. "Are you planning on telling anyone? I mean my sneak game is top tier but if you got people busting up in here like my family probably would, I can only do so much."

"No one is gonna bust in here," I tried to say. Zafirah's eyebrows raised as she looked at me in disbelief.

"Bitch, I have known you since high school," she snorted. "Your family stays in your business. I can't even count how many times your mama bust up in your room whenever I was over."

Shit she was right. "My mom can't know you live here," I told her. I felt like I had just admitted a dark secret. I had already known that my mom finding out Zafirah now lived with me would probably give her a stroke, but I didn't tell Zafirah that. Here I was, a 27 year old man, and I was still hiding stuff from my mother.