Boyfight

"Let Me Love You"

            "Are you sure about this, Khalil?" Jamari asked me as we walked through the lobby of his apartment building. "You don't have to take me out to eat. You know I'm cool with us being lowkey."

            "I haven't taken you out on a real date yet," I told him. "The spot I'm takin' you to is pretty classy and it's lowkey. That's why I asked you to put on somethin' nice." I looked him up and down before saying, "And you do look nice as fuck."

            "So do you. It's the first time I've seen you in something other than gym clothes since my graduation." We walked outside and when he saw my 2015 midnight blue Audi A7, his mouth dropped and he asked, "We're riding in that?"

            "Yep."

            "Is it a rental just for the night?"

            "Nah, it's mine. Well, I'm leasing it so I gotta make payments every month until it's paid off. I got it yesterday. It's decent for a used car, right?"

            "It's amazing. I had no idea you knew how to drive."

            "I've been had my driver's license but now I got enough money saved up to afford car payments. I didn't even need a co-signer since my credit is good." I unlocked the doors with the alarm remote on my keychain and opened the passenger side door for him.

            He climbed in and said, "Thank you."

            As I drove us to the restaurant, I thought about how smooth I needed the night to go. I was determined to show him that I was ready to take our relationship to the next level. I was nowhere near ready to be out, but I wanted him to know how seriously I was taking the relationship. Yeah, I wanted to go all the way with sex but that wasn't my main goal for the night. My main goal was to figure out if he felt the same way about me that I felt about him.

            Jamari wasn't a distraction from my problems. He did provide me with a judgment-free period of time whenever I was with him, but he wasn't a distraction. I constantly thought about everything that I was dealing with. I thought about Leo and his battle with cancer. I was worried about Malik. And even though I was working on accepting the unknowns of my existence, the fact remained that I was still lost. I was twenty-two years old and had no idea who brought me into the world. Did my parents ever think of me? Were they even alive? No matter how great Jamari made me feel, I could never stop thinking about all of those unknowns.

            "This place is amazing," he said to me the moment the waiter walked away to get our drinks. "What made you choose here?"

            "My boy Shawn told me about it," I answered. "He brought a girl here for a date a few nights ago."

            "Has he still been cool with you being...whatever you are with me?"

            "Mari, I'm bisexual. I'm not DL and I'm not in denial. I'm with you and I'm not ashamed of it. I am still attracted to women but like I said, I'm with you. One of the few good things that came out of my relationship with Naomi was that I learned how to be loyal. Shit, I got too much stuff goin' on anyway so there's no way I could cheat even if I wanted to."

            He smirked and asked, "Even if you wanted to?"

            "I don't want to. I was just sayin'..." I shook my head and smiled as I told him, "This dick and body are all yours, Mari. It's yours until you're done with it. Hopefully you won't be done with me anytime soon."

            "I'll keep you around until I'm bored." He laughed and quickly told me, "I'm just playing, baby. So, you're okay with the bisexual label?"