Page 46 of Delirium 2

I pulled my lips into my mouth and shook my head. “You did exactly enough,” I whispered.

“What’s wrong then?” He asked, his baritone softening, catching yet another tear.

I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him, tears rolling down my face, thinking about how beautiful and nice and sweet and complete it would be to have this all of the time. To be able to truly bask in it. Thought about how nice it would be to attach. About how nice it would be to fall… freely. Without the dark cloud of death lingering over his head. I could leave first, but with my track record, he’d leave me because people… they always left me.

“Sereia,” he said.

“You feel,” I paused, choked up by tears. “You feel so, so, so good.”

Instead of saying anything in return, he wrapped his arms around me, and I laid on his chest. I cried there. Again. And I claimed it as my favorite place to not only drop tears but to exist, too. Exodus didn’t feel like home. He felt like paradise. Calm. Comforting. Secluded. Serene. Safe.

Like heaven.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up on the couch. Alone. Sitting up, I looked around, the smell of sausage links immediately hitting my nostrils. I stretched and looked towards the kitchen. My eyebrows raised at the sight of Exodus standing at the stove, his back to me.

I stood up and when I did, he looked over his shoulder, as if he’d heard me but I hadn’t made a peep.

“’Morning,” he spoke.

I wrapped my arms around my body, shivering a little at how chilly it was in the house. “Good morning. Why is it so cold in here?” I rubbed my arms. “What the hell?”

I walked into the kitchen and stood next to him at the stove.

“Can’t sleep unless the crib sixty-five degrees,” He said, picking up a fork to remove one of the sausages from the pan.

“Sixty-five is way too cold. What is wrong with you?” I giggled, scratching at the back of my head. Stretching with a yawn, I immediately covered my mouth remembering morning breath. He snorted, looked at me and then back at the pan.

“Breath hot as hell and you got the nerve to be all up in a nigga face,” He joked.

I sucked my teeth and shoved him with my shoulder. “Shut up. Is First Lady up yet?”

“Hell naw. I figured I’d let her sleep a lil’ longer,” he told me.

I looked down in the pan. “You not making them dark enough.”

“Teach me something then,” he said, pushing one of the sausages aside.

I looked over at the counter. “Pancakes?”

He nodded. “Something like that.”

There was an elephant in the room that needed to be addressed. I felt it. I wondered if he did too and like me had decided to ignore it. We kissed. We did more than just kiss. We humped. We rubbed. We practically had sex with our clothes on and I cried. I sat on that man’s lap and cried in the middle of a kiss because I had shit. Too much shit. And he held me through the night. I hadn’t slept like that in… forever. Hell, in never. Not that I could recall. I was at peace. Something I hadn’t really had here. Not when it was time to go to sleep.

“I like buttery, crispy edges, chef,” I said before walking off to handle my morning breath.

Exodus didn’t say anything, but I could feel his eyes on me. Not in a lustful way neither. You know how you can feel someone’s eyes burning a hole in your ass? His look didn’t give that. It gave, ‘there’s an elephant that needs addressing but we’re going to ignore it for now.’ And the elephant this time… the elephant I thought of? It wasn’t the same one he had in mine. It was the tears. Not the kiss. I hated it. The kiss would’ve been easier to talk about than the other. I hoped like hell that the elephant in the room was gone when I returned.

When I made it to my bedroom, I closed the door behind me and stood at the mirror. Touching my lips, I thought about what it was like to have his against mine. Tingly. Serene. Literally like paradise. Like a hug, except… without arms. Without that body-to-body touch. Just… a hug. The comfort and emotions that come with it. Like finality. Like… love. The good kind. The healthy kind. The unconditional kind. The potent kind. The addictive, unwavering kind. The type of love that wasn’t shown on TV or in movies. A different type of love. Something unheard of or unseen. Real, raw, and everything good. The connection was insane. Honestly. Because… how? How did I feel love without… love?

With a deep breath, I went off to the bathroom. Well, started to the bathroom until my phone rang. The hell? It’d been up here all along? My phone stayed glued to my hand. Last night, however, I left it in my room. That spoke volumes.

Pivoting, I turned to grab it. When the call ended, my jaw dropped at the sight of ten missed calls. Before calling Lani back, I went through the call log. All ten calls were from my cousins. All but Lakeland. I swallowed, as the room around me began to spin and my hand began to shake. Why had Dom, Lani, and Ki called me so many times? With nothing from Lakeland?

I bit my thumbnail and started to pace. I walked back and forth across that carpet for so long. Too long apparently. Because in the middle of me doing it, there was a knock on my bedrooms door. A knock I didn’t answer. I just paced. Back and forth, back and forth. Eyes on my call log until another call came in. This time from Auntie. You guessed it… Auntie Dani—Lake’s momma.

“Yo,” Exodus said from the other side of the door. “You good?”