Page 35 of Surrender

Growing up, he made it a point to take my sister and I on little dates. When it was my day, my mother would help me get ready. She would do my hair, paint my nails, and put a little make up on me because I wanted to feel pretty. It was never anything over the top, just a little eye shadow that usually matched my skin tone and some lip gloss.

My father would always leave the house while we got ready and returned, bearing flowers and dressed in his best suit. I was always so excited to see what he had planned for us. At five years old, I didn’t care if we were sitting in a five-star restaurant or McDonald’s in a suit and my best Easter dress; he made the moment special. To this day, he still picked my sister and I up and took us out on dates.

“Jacob?” I asked, breaking my own thoughts.

“Yes, love?”

“Do you think this marriage will last?”

He peered down at me. I half expected there to be a frown on his face, but all I saw in his eyes were understanding.

“I’m gonna tell you what they told me at my interview. It works if you do the work. Marriage isn’t easy, and it should never be presented as such. We’ll have our share of ups and downs. Things will come along to test us, much like our families are right now. But we aren’t trying to prove them wrong. You wanted this, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then fuck all that extra outside shit. This is our little bubble. In this bubble, we don’t have negativity. We don’t allow outside influence. We won’t tolerate no bullshit. You got me, and I got you. Gang gang in this muthafucka.”

I couldn’t help but to laugh as he threw up random hand gestures. He smiled as he moved to palm my face in his hand and stroked my cheek.

“That’s what I like to see,” he said softly. “You let me do my job of keeping a smile on your beautiful face, and you’ll never have to worry about anything else.”

I stared at him for a moment. Damn, I got lucky.

“You want some head?” I asked.

He laughed loudly. “What? I mean, yeah, but what for?”

“For being you.”

I moved from his lap and dropped to my knees on the floor. If he kept being the man he was showing me, I’d happily swallow his kids every single time.

“What do you mean you got married?” my agent questioned.

She’d been flooding my inbox for days like I hadn’t told her I was taking a sabbatical. Granted, I didn’t tell her why, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t working, and that was that. Brenda had been in the literary world for twenty-plus years. She worked with some of the biggest names to date, and she was a beast at her job… so much so that she didn’t know when to stop working. I was going to leave her on read, but Kachelle told me to go on and call her back. Against my will, I called her via Facetime while my wife got ready for the day.

“I meant exactly what I said, Brenda. I got married.”

“Since when were you even dating anybody?”

“That’s neither here nor there. The point is, I’ve taken the next couple of weeks off to spend with my wife. I’m not writing, I’m not illustrating, and I’m not touring. I need to be close to home right now.”

She sighed heavily as she rubbed her temples. “You’re killing me, Jacob. You realize you have a deadline for this next book, right?”

“And it’ll get done. Don’t I always deliver?”

“You do, but?—”

“But what? Like I said, it’ll get done. Let me enjoy married life for a little bit, Brenda.”

Just as I said that, Kachelle came out of the bathroom dressed in a sports bra and some little ass shorts. My eyes followed her from the bathroom to the dresser where she bent over to dig in a bottom drawer.

“Damn…” I mumbled.

“Jacob!” Brenda yelled.

“Huh?”

“You don’t hear me talking to you? What’s got you so distracted?”