Chapter 14: The Next Morning
The diner’s neon sign buzzed, a low, angry hum that vibrated in Alysha’s teeth. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of old fryer grease and weak coffee. A jukebox in the corner wheezed out a familiar country song about lost highways, the melody almost swallowed by the clatter of plates from the kitchen.
Tamika was already in the booth, a cup of steaming black coffee between her hands. She looked up as Alysha slid in across from her, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “You look like you either won the lottery or got hit by a bus,” she said, her voice quiet. “Which is it?”
Alysha tried to smile, but it felt wobbly on her face. She’d driven here from Brandon’s hotel in a daze, the memory of his weight, his warmth, the three words they’d exchanged playing on a loop in her mind. Her body still felt the echoes of him, a pleasant, deep ache. “A little of both, maybe.”
Sugar, the waitress with the name tag that hadn’t changed in fifteen years, ambled over. “The usual, honey?” she asked Alysha, her gum snapping.
“Just water, Sugar. Thanks.”
Tamika watched the waitress leave, then turned her full attention back. “Okay. Talk. You’ve been MIA for days. Text replies are one-word. You’re glowing and also look like you might shatter. What’s going on with you and that boy?”
“He’s not a boy,” Alysha said softly, tracing a finger over a water ring on the checkered vinyl. “That’s the thing.”
“I know he’s not,” Tamika conceded. “Saw him on the news last month, riding that devil bull. Man’s a giant. But to you, he’ll always be partly that kid with the scraped knees you protected.” She leaned forward. “So which one is in your bed, Alysha? The kid or the man?”
The directness punched through Alysha’s fragile composure. Her vision blurred. She looked down at her hands, knotted together on the sticky tabletop, and a single tear splashed onto her thumb. Then another. She didn’t sob; it was a silent, steady leak of pure, overwhelmed emotion.
Tamika didn’t say a word. She didn’t hand her a napkin or offer empty platitudes. She just reached across the table and covered Alysha’s hands with her own, holding them tight, giving her the space to fall apart in the middle of the noisy, indifferent diner.
Alysha let the tears subside, taking a shaky breath. She looked out the window at the parking lot, gathering the feelings into words. “I didn’t know,” she whispered, her voice ragged. “I didn’t know being alive could feel like this. I didn’t know this was possible.”
She looked back at Tamika, her honey-brown eyes wide and luminous. “He’s such a sweet and good man. And he’s honest. And he respects me. And he doesn’t need anything from me—not money, not a place, not… validation. So him being around is out of pure want… pure…” She let the word hang, afraid to say it out loud in front of someone else.
“Love,” Tamika finished for her, softly. A single tear welled in her own eye and tracked down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “Oh, honey. I am so happy for you.” She squeezed Alysha’s hands. “I’ve prayed for so long. For you, more than anything, to get swept away and never look back.”
Tamika held onto her hands for another moment, then released them, sitting back with a thoughtful hum. “Listen to me,” she said, her voice dropping into practical, plan-making mode. “Your two weeks here with him is almost up, right?”
Alysha nodded, wiping her cheeks with the heels of her palms.
“Take your vacation. You haven’t used it in three years, they owe you the time.” Tamika’s eyes were serious, intent. “When he goes back to Colorado, you go with him. Not forever, not a move. A visit. See his world. Breathe that mountain air. Things will be clearer there, one way or the other.”
The idea was so simple, so obvious, it cut through the emotional fog. Alysha blinked, considering the shape of it. A visit. Just a visit.
“And until then,” Tamika continued, a sly grin finally breaking through. “Get your behind back to that hotel room and let that man put your ankles by your ears.”
Alysha covered her face with both hands, a loud, startled laugh bursting out of her. The sound was pure relief. “It’s ridiculous,” she managed, dropping her hands. Her cheeks ached from smiling. “He’s this perfect gentleman. Opens every door, talks to me like I’m made of glass. Then the same man will just… twirl me like a rag doll.”
She leaned back against the cracked vinyl, closing her eyes. “He flips me onto my stomach like I weigh nothing. Smacks my ass so hard it stings for an hour.” A shiver ran through her, genuine and unfeigned. Her voice dropped to a murmur. “And I just… lose my mind.”
Tamika snapped her fingers sharply in front of Alysha’s face. “Hello. You having flashbacks right here in the booth?”
Alysha opened her eyes, the honey-brown gleam in them dark and warm. “Yes. And my pussy has not stopped throbbing all week. It’s honestly distracting.”
“Then stop being an idiot.” Tamika pointed a stern finger at her. “If you don’t snatch this man up right now, me, Cynthia, and Denise will. At the same time.”
The image was so absurd Alysha laughed again, the sound drawing a glance from Sugar at the counter. She shook her head, the last of the heavy emotion lifting, replaced by a buzzing, anxious warmth. She slid out of the booth, grabbing her bag. “I have to get ready for work.”
“Think about what I said,” Tamika called after her, not getting up. “The vacation. The visit. The ankles!”
Alysha just waved a hand over her shoulder, still laughing as she pushed the diner door open. The evening air was cool on her heated skin. Instead of heading straight to her car, she paused on the sidewalk, pulling her phone from her pocket. The last text from Brandon glowed on the screen, sent an hour ago. Thinking about you. The memory of his hands, his mouth, the shocking, perfect force of him, crashed over her fresh, making her knees feel weak.
She typed a reply, her fingers moving before her brain could censor it. Pick me up after my shift. 11pm. Sending it felt like stepping off a cliff. She didn’t wait for a response, sliding into her car and starting the engine. The hum of it was a feeble replacement for the one still pulsing low in her belly. For the first time in years, the prospect of a fourteen-hour night shift felt like an irritating delay, a mere intermission before the main event could begin again.
She pulled out into the traffic, the diner’s neon glow shrinking in her rearview. Her mind was already miles away, in a sunlit hotel room smelling of leather and pine, plotting a potential future that stretched all the way to the mountains of Colorado.