Kade’s frown deepened.
Garcelle turned and walked up to the line of people, which ran down the stairs of the movie theater. She looked up at Kade briefly as he came up to stand beside her. She had to admit he looked nice in khakis and an orange Hilfiger polo.
“My parents are going on a cruise,” he said into the quiet between them.
“That’s nice,” she said shortly. From the corner of her eye, she saw him wipe his mouth.
“Garcelle, what’s going on with you?” he asked, lowering his head to speak directly into her ear.
She gave him another one of those fake smiles that made her face muscles tense. “I wish you’d stop asking me that,” she said in a low voice as the line moved forward.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on with you.”
Garcelle stepped aside as they reached the outdoor box-office window. She watched Kade as he paid for their movie tickets. As he walked up beside her and held the door, she avoided his eyes. She was angry, and holding it in, pretending she wasn’t angry, was making her even angrier.
“You all right? You want something?” he asked, looking down at her as they passed the snack counter.
“I’m fine.”
She felt him tense beside her.
When they walked into the dark theater, the movie was playing, and a loud action sequence of gunfire and bombs coming through the surround sound made it seem like they were in the middle of World War III.
Garcelle followed Kade to a spot near the far wall. She tugged his hand once they settled into the seats. “Are you sure you want us to sit together? Somebody might see us.”
“And?” he snapped as he turned in the seat to look at her.
“Hell, it’s your issue, not mine,” she snapped back.
“Sshhh.”
They both ignored that from the people behind them.
“Listen, what the hell is your problem?” said Kade.
“My problem?” she asked, sitting up in the theater seat to face him. “What is my problem?”
Kade threw his hands up as if exasperated.
Garcelle crossed her legs and then crossed her arms over her chest as she rocked back and forth in the reclining theater seat, mumbling under her breath in Spanish.
Kade mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.
“What did you say?” Garcelle asked, knowing she was being childish and not caring one bit.
Kade stood up. “I said you’re crazy,” he said, looking down at her.
“Hey, sit down!” someone yelled from behind them.
Garcelle jumped to her feet. “And you’re selfish.”
“Y’all need to take that outside,” someone else yelled.
“Shut up!” both Garcelle and Kade roared at the theatergoers.
Garcelle pushed past him and stormed out of the theater just as an usher entered. She heard Kade say, “Oh, trust me, we’re out of here.”
She was walking out of the building and toward her car when she felt a hand wrap around her upper arm. She felt a tingling sensation, and she knew without looking that it was Kade. She pulled away from him. “Just leave me alone, Kade,” she said coldly as she reached in her purse for her keys.
“You want me to leave you alone?” he asked just as coldly, moving up to walk beside her. “You ain’t said nothing but a word.”
He quickly walked past her, climbed into his SUV, and sped away, without giving her a second look.
Garcelle fought the urge to flip him off, jumped in her car, and sped away as well.
Kade slammed his hand on the wheel in frustration. He was still lost as to what the hell had just happened. The Garcelle who acted like a child needing to be spanked was not the fiery, up-front woman he thought he was involved with. This night was nothing but drama with a capital D, and it wasn’t something he had the time or patience for. Ever. Period.
He pulled up to a red light and glanced down at his cell phone, which was sitting on the passenger seat. He patted his hand on his thigh in time to the music playing on the stereo as his eyes kept darting to his phone. He shook his head. “I’m not calling her,” he told himself aloud as he pulled away.
What he had thought was going to be a fun night out with his woman had turned into one of the most embarrassing and frustrating spectacles of his life. Catch a flick. Maybe go by Ye Old-Fashioned Café for ice cream and then spend the night at their favorite hotel. How the hell had those plans become a hollering match in the middle of a movie theater?
Kade had just left Charleston and entered Summerville when he picked up his phone and turned it off. He wasn’t sure if Garcelle even wanted to call and talk to him, but he did know that they both needed a little time to cool off.
Garcelle couldn’t sleep. She would doze for an hour and then jump up and check her cell phone to see if Kade had called. She truly needed her sleep. She had her first pathophysiology test in the morning. She tossed. She turned. She knew she would have bags as big as one of her textbooks under her eyes.
She sat up in bed and picked up her cell phone, which lay by her pillows. This couldn’t be the end for Kade and her. Could it? Not over a silly little argument in a movie theater. It was not like anyone there had known them, right? They hadn’t said anything yet that they couldn’t get past, right?
They needed to talk.
She dialed Kade’s cell phone number, but then she stopped, her thumb hovering over the SEND button.
It was one in the morning. Maybe he was sleeping. She couldn’t believe she felt nervous about calling her man. She was being ridiculous. She hit SEND.
“Your call is being transferred to an automated voice mail system.”
She sat up straight in the bed. His phone was turned off. “Oh no, he didn’t,” she muttered to herself as she dialed him again.
“Your call is being transferred to an automated voice mail system.”
Garcelle fought the urge to leave him a voice mail before she turned off her phone and flopped back down on the bed in frustration.
The next morning, before the sun even began to rise, Kade busied himself getting Kadina ready for school. His daughter wasn’t exactly a morning riser, and she grumbled as he led her into the bathroom. “Teeth. Face. Wash. Underwear change. Go,” he told her, placing fresh undergarments on the sink before he left the bathroom. He walked in her bedroom to find out which of her new outfits she’d chosen to wear.
Not that he had anything to worry about. Garcelle had taken her shopping, and each coordinated outfit had been hung in her closet, with a little Polaroid pinned to each one showing which shoes to wear with it. Garcelle had really tried to make sure that everything ran smoothly during Kadina’s first couple of weeks of school.
He smiled at her thoughtfulness.
Kadina dragged herself into her bedroom. “Why can’t it still be summer, Daddy?” she asked as she came to stand in front of where he sat on the edge of her bed.
He chuckled as he held the jeans for her to step into. “Because your job is to go to school and get good grades, so your vacation is over, kiddo,” he told her as he zipped up her pants and buckled her sparkly belt.
“One day I’m going to work on the ranch with you, just like Aunt Bianca works with her daddy,” she told him as she raised her arms over her head for him to put on her pink- and white-striped polo shirt.
“Oh, you are?”
Kadina nodded. “I’m never leaving my daddy,” she said, with the utmost confidence of a child.
Kade snorted as he handed her her matching pink sweater jacket. “We’ll revisit this when you’re thirteen,” he said dryly.
She jumped on the end of the bed, beside him, and threw her legs onto his lap so that he could pull on her socks and sneakers. “Daddy, can I try to tie them again?” she asked.
He nodded and watched as she knelt on the floor and fought like hell to tie the laces herself. Another Garcelle contribution. Kadina wasn’t quite there, and Kade had to tighten the loops, but she was on
the road to her first bit of independence.
She grabbed her bucket of hair accessories before she knelt between his legs, with her arms over his thighs. “One pom-pom, please,” she said. “And do it like Garcelle.”
Kade frowned as he loosened the band in her hair and rubbed her hair with hair grease before he brushed her edges back up. “I’ll do it the best I can,” he said, his face determined as he twisted the band back around her hair.
She handed him three pink and white balls to wrap round the curly Afro puff atop her head.
He thought about Garcelle. About leaving for work in the morning without his belly filled with her strong and sweet coffee and homemade breakfast pastries. About the scent of her perfume no longer lingering round the house. About not coming home to her in the night. About their argument last night. About not speaking to her all night.
“Yeah, I miss her, too,” he admitted as he felt a literal pang in his heart.
Kadina jumped up and checked her appearance in her mirror. She nodded in satisfaction before she turned back to press her forehead against Kade’s. “You’re a good daddy,” she whispered to him before puckering her lips.
“Now that’s the best compliment I’ve ever received.” He kissed her briefly before rising to his feet. “Let’s go have some waffles before the school bus comes.”
“With strawberry syrup?” she asked as she left the room.
“What else is there?” he joked, grabbing her rolling book bag as he left her room.
Kade was sitting in front of Garcelle’s house when she walked out the front door. She paused on the top step of the porch as her eyes locked with his through his windshield. He was glad to see her, even though a big piece of him was still annoyed at the way she’d acted last night.
Garcelle looked away as she closed and locked the front door before she jogged down the stairs. She specifically ignored him as she climbed into her car.
Here he’d thought, after a night of both of them cooling their heels, she would be ready to have an adult conversation. Hell with it. He was starting to wonder if jumping into a relationship with Garcelle had been the right choice.
“Kade.”
He turned his head. His eyes filled with surprise when he saw Garcelle standing beside his driver’s side window. He lowered the window farther. “Are we going to argue like we did in the movie theater?” he asked.
Garcelle stepped forward. “Listen, I should have come out and said what was bothering me last night . . . what has been bothering me for the last few weeks. You did ask—”
“Several times,” he insisted, with a hard look.
“Kade. I mean seriously. Seriously.” Garcelle tilted her head back and shook it before she looked at him again.
If she acts up again, I’m pulling away and leaving her here to argue by her damn self, he thought. “Garcelle—”
“Let me finish apologizing before you give me one of your speeches.”
He swallowed his irritation. “What do you mean one of my speeches?” he balked.
Garcelle snorted in derision. “Kade, please, you can get on your little soapbox when you want . . . but can we stay in the moment please?”
Kade smirked. “If you could define what the moment is exactly, maybe I’d be more successful at staying in it.”
“You are a smart ass,” she snapped.
“And you have a bad attitude.”
“You’re selfish.”
“And the way you acted last night was childish.”
“Oh, and turning off your phone wasn’t.”
“No more than you turning off yours, too.”
“Why do you love tit for tat?”
“Why do you think you can say whatever and do whatever whenever you get ready?”
Garcelle sat her hands on her hips as she looked down at her sneakers and sighed heavily. “Kade . . .”
“Yeah,” he said briefly.
“I don’t like feeling like we’re sneaking around like two kids whose parents don’t want them to date or like two married people having an affair.”
Kade reached to shut his vehicle off. “Garcelle—”
“No, let me finish,” she said as she shook her head, making her ponytail do a dance. “I mean, maybe for you it feels like an affair, since you live as if you’re still married, but I’m just curious, Kade Strong—”
“Oh, I’m back to Kade Strong,” he drawled as he tilted his head back against the headrest and wiped his eyes with his hands.
“I’m not joking, Kade.”
“Garcelle, trust me. I know I’m not married,” he said, unable to deny the tinge of bitterness in his voice.
“Reema is—”
Kade’s face hardened. “Don’t go there, Gar—”
Her eyes dulled, and her lips thinned to a line.
Kade couldn’t believe they were in the midst of their second argument. Reema would never act like this. . . .
“What?” Garcelle asked, stepping closer to him after witnessing the sudden change of expression on his face.
Kade released a heavy breath as he looked at her. The comparison to Reema was completely out of line, and he just thanked God he’d thought it and hadn’t said it. The taste of that foot would’ve been bitter.
Garcelle wanted the next step in their relationship. She wanted more from him. What seemed so simple for her was so very complicated for him, but then was it fair for her?
“Okay. Listen, Garcelle. Let’s take a shortcut,” he said as he opened the car door and turned sideways in his seat to face her.
She looked a little alarmed but, thankfully, said nothing as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“One of the things I like about you is how open and honest you are. You say what you feel. You don’t hide anything.” He leaned forward and reached for her arms to pull her forward. She moved to him with obvious reluctance. The scent of her flowery perfume teased him. “Last night was frustrating as hell for me. So I ask that next time you have something on your mind, just come out and tell me. Don’t leave me to guess, and then when I still don’t get it, you get more shitty than ever.”
Garcelle squinted like she was ’bout to cuss him twelve ways to Sunday.
Kade went on. “Now, I admit that I wanted to keep people out of our business, but now I agree we’re two grown-ass people who shouldn’t be sneaking around town and out of town to see each other. I promise to do better if you promise not to act up in public again.”
Garcelle placed her hands on his knees. “Good shortcut,” she said, with a hint of a smile.
Kade leaned forward to press his lips to hers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his mouth.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “So am I.”
“So no more down low?” she asked.
Kade knew his options were simple. To have Garcelle meant a full-blown relationship. Telling Kadina—who had already dropped enough hints for him to know this was right up her alley. Family functions. Public displays of affection. Nosy country people keeping an eye on them and everything they did. He knew their relationship would be the talk of Holtsville. There was no turning back.
He didn’t want to lose her. He wasn’t going to lose her. Not over this.
“I refuse to even use the words down low . . . but, yes,” he finally said, with a laugh.
Garcelle stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She smiled, and in his heart, he felt emotions he wasn’t quite ready to claim.
It scared and excited him all at once.
16
Garcelle felt like she was under a microscope as she shopped at the small store near the mobile home park. She glanced over her shoulder, and a few of the women in the store were openly staring at her. She stared back at them before she turned back around to place her items on the counter. The clerk, Keisha, gave Gabrielle a stare filled with attitude as she scratched her orange short-cropped weave.
She kept giving Garcelle the once over as she
took her slow and sweet time ringing up the items. “Six–fifty,” Keisha said, with a surly tone.
“Humph. She a slick little something, too. Word all over Holtsville how she wouldn’t let a woman within five feet of him, and now she dating him. Oh, that heifer slick.”
“Good and slick.”
Garcelle turned again to find Rita and Pita looking as scandalous as ever in skirts that were hardly as long as men’s underwear. “Do you ladies have something you want to say about me to me?” Garcelle asked, with a big, fake grin.
Keisha rudely dropped Garcelle’s change on the wooden counter. One of the quarters spun on its side before it rolled off the counter and onto the floor. “Oops, my bad,” she said, with not a hint of regret in her voice.
“No problem. Mistakes happen,” said Garcelle. She laughed a little as she bent over and picked up the coin. “You know what’s funny?” She eyed each of the three women, even though none of them answered her question.
“Well, I’ll tell you what’s funny. You all act like I blocked each of you from getting him.” She moved her index finger in between the sisters. “You two got like a dozen kids between the two of you. And, Keisha, most men who know you say you’ll screw a snake. So . . . none of y’all had a chance in hell with him. So I didn’t block a damn thing, sweethearts. And sitting around, thinking I’m the reason you couldn’t get Kade Strong, now that’s funny as hell.” Garcelle chuckled as she walked out the door just as calm as could be.
Garcelle liked how she and Kade blurred the line between friendship and love: they could get lost in the heat of lovemaking or just hang out, laughing and talking as cool-ass friends.
She was turning down the road leading into the mobile home park when her new cell phone vibrated on the passenger seat.
“Hey, you,” she said, already knowing it was Kade.
“What’s up?”
“I was just thinking about you,” she admitted, with a soft smile. “I miss you, lover.”
“Tell me in Spanish.”
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