Page 48 of The Plus One

“Feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you, Kema. This may sound crazy, but I understand you now. More than I did before.”

"How?”

“I told you my parents were addicts but what I didn't tell you was I watched my mom do anything for a fix before my grandparents stepped in. I would've rather been in foster care cause it's some shit you can't heal from or unsee."

She stared at me for a few seconds before looking away. "I get it,” she finally said. “But at least you have your sister. I don’t have siblings. My last name came from one of the families I stayed with, which is why I got mixed feelings about that shit too. It’s mine, but it reminds me of a part of my life I’d rather forget.”

“You ever thought about changing it?”

“Plenty of times.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Because it’s the only thing I have.”

I understood that too. There were parts of my childhood I wouldn’t choose, but they still belonged to me. I squeezed her hand. “I get it.”

And I did. Maybe that was what I’d been feeling with Kema this whole time. We came from different shit, but somewhere along the way we both learned how to make a life out of what we were given.

After our heart to heart Kema went back to being herself. “Ugh, I have mud in my hair.”

I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t trying to have her come out of that bathroom on my ass. Plus, we only had two hours to get ready. “You need help?” I asked.

“With washing my hair?”

“Yeah.”

Kema stepped back into the doorway and looked at me. “You know how to wash a woman’s hair?”

“I have a sister.”

“That doesn’t mean she let you touch her hair.”

“True but my nieces do.”

Her whole expression softened, “aww, you wash your nieces’ hair?”

I nodded, “When they let me.”

“Okay then, Uncle Ace." She crooked her finger at me. "Come help me.”

Ten minutes later, I had Kema standing underneath the shower while I worked shampoo through her hair in sections. She’d spent the first five minutes giving me instructions, but eventually she shut up and let me do what I was doing. As I massaged her scalp, she moaned and leaned back against me, making it even harder for me to just wash her hair.

I was already struggling being in the shower with her, and that little moan didn’t help. I ran my hands down her body and kissed her shoulder. Her head fell back against me, and when she turned around and kissed me, washing her hair became the last thing either of us was thinking about.

The next twenty minutes were spent against the shower wall, completely forgetting we had somewhere to be. I could’ve stayed in there with her all night, but eventually Kema reminded me that Sierra would probably send somebody looking for us if we didn’t get our asses downstairs. Somehow, I was going to get blamed for making us late even though she had been just as distracted as me.

When we finished in the shower, she got out and sat on the edge of the tub while I rinsed the last of the conditioner from her hair. “You’re surprisingly good at this,” she said.

“Surprisingly?”

“You don’t look like you know anything about conditioner.”

“What does somebody who knows about conditioner look like?”

“Not you.”