Chapter 3 - Claimed Out Loud

PART 3: CLAIMED OUT LOUD

But before I could get in my car, Kane grabbed my hand.

Not rough.

Just enough to stop me.

"Winnie."

I turned around. "Don't."

"I didn't do that."

"I know."

His face softened. "Then why are you looking at me like I stole your oxygen?"

"Because even if you didn't do this, Kane, I'm tired."

He frowned.

And there it was.

The part nobody claps for.

The part after the funny mess, when the crowd starts leaving and your chest still hurts. The part where the woman who made jokes all morning has to stand there with her feelings showing, and that is more embarrassing than any Facebook Live could ever be.

The parking area smelled like car wax, hot tar, and frying oil from Sipho's trailer. Somewhere behind us, one of the garage fans hummed. Kane's employees were pretending to wipe down cars while leaning hard enough to hear every word.

I looked at that big, tattooed, fine, dangerous man and felt my eyes burn.

"I'm tired of having to investigate my own peace," I said. "I'm tired of acting like I don't care about you because you're too scared to admit you care about me. I'm tired of women popping up because you have old mess, new mess, almost mess, side mess, mistaken identity mess — whatever the hell this was."

Kane dropped his eyes.

I kept going because my mouth had finally caught up with my heart.

"You want me in your bed, at your house, around your mama, eating Sunday lunch, helping you pick out tiles for your new shop, but when somebody asks what we are, you go quiet like the Wi-Fi went out."

His jaw tightened.