Watching from my bedroom window, I wait until Lance disappears out of sight before I turn towards my bedroom door. “You can come in. I know you were listening.”
The door bursts open, and René stands with his nightly smashed avocado face mask on in a white robe he stole from a posh hotel that Ricky took him to on an anniversary.
“What are ju doing?”
“I’m sitting on my bed. What are you doing?”
“Jour going to take him on a tour of Jew York?”
“That’s the plan.” I can’t hide my elation, and I don’t want to.
“Mami, ju let him go for a reason.”
“Yeah, the timing was off.”
“And ju don’t tink it’s off now? Jour career is thriving. Ju just landed jour first solo.”
“So?”
“So, what ju going to do? Ju going to go to Texas and have his massive babies and trow it all to shit?”
“No, I’m not. Stop spitting hatorade. He’s in town, and he wants to catch up.”
“In town for Christmas? Ju don’t find that odd that he here without no family?”
“I don’t know. I’m not going to waste time that I could spend with him worrying about it.”
“Fine, he jour first love, I get it. But ju made a conscious decision to end it with him. Ju both have different lives. Ju told me so over and over.”
“It’s a tour of New York, not marriage.”
“He wants ju back. Mark my words.”
“That’s hard to do.”
“Chut up,” he snaps, sauntering in my room and sifting through products that he will eventually steal off my dresser. He flips a cap off my body spray. “Mmmm.”
“Don’t you dare, I just bought that.”
“A little spray.”
“It’s a bit flowery.”
“I like flowery. My parents named me René, a girl’s name,” he sighs, “what did dey expect me to do with dat?”
“Your name doesn’t make you gay,” I say, taking the bottle from him and capping it, “your attraction to men does.”
“Sactly, it’s a sickeness though, dese men, dey break your heart.” He gives me a side-eye I’m sure he considers subtle and is anything but. The man is shit at keeping secrets, and that’s why I’m careful with my deepest around him, but he’s all heart. And I love him like no other.
“I’m okay. And I’m going to be okay, no matter what happens the next few days.”
“He wants ju back,” he singsongs, giving me a pointed look while swiping some of my new balm across his lips.
“It’s been two years,” I shrug. “Maybe he’s curious.”
“Curious if ju still look the same naked.”
“And would that be so bad?”