Certified Lover Boy 2

Chapter 1

Heyy yall!! Welcome to book 2! There will drama, there will some awkwardness, there will be some fights but one thing is for sure we wont leave out laughter and love! We just gotta get past the first few chapters :)

August POV

I stood there rubbing my hands together, looking down at the porch because I was trying real hard not to lose my nerve.

I had come all this way, and now that I was standing in front of him, every sentence I'd practiced felt fake. Mr. Adams never rushed me. He just waited, and somehow that made it easier to keep talking.

"I spent years thinking I knew what being a man looked like," I admitted with a quiet laugh, shaking my head at myself.

"Whole time... I ain't know nothing. I thought as long as the bills got paid, Mama had food in the house, and I kept everybody safe, that was enough. I thought carrying everything by myself was what made me a man. I ain't let nobody help me because in my head, if I needed help, then I was already failing."

I looked out toward the street for a second before looking back at him.

"Then I met Seoni."

A smile pulled at my mouth before disappearing just as fast.

"That girl used to talk about you all the time. 'My daddy said this.' 'My daddy taught me that.' I'd mess with her about it too. I'd tell her she was grown and she still quoted her daddy like he was writing the Bible." I laughed quietly, remembering the way she'd roll her eyes at me.

"She'd get that little attitude and tell me, 'That's because my daddy raised me right.'"

Mr. Adams smiled, but he didn't interrupt.

"I used to think she was just being dramatic," I admitted.

"Truth is... I was jealous. Not of what y'all had. I was jealous because she knew what it felt like to have a father she could trust. She knew what it felt like to have somebody she could call when life got hard, somebody that corrected her because he loved her, not because he wanted to control her."

I swallowed around the lump growing in my throat.

"I ain't never had that."

The words sat between us for a second before I continued.

"I know how to survive, though. That's one thing I can do. I know how to make something shake when it need to. I know how to keep Mama afloat when life get ugly. If somebody come for the people I love, I know how to stand in front of 'em. That's all I ever knew."

I laughed at myself again, but there wasn't any humor in it.

"But loving somebody the right way?" I shook my head slowly.

"Man... I ain't know what I was doing. I ain't know how to let Seoni carry something with me without feeling like she was saying I wasn't enough. I ain't know how to tell her I was scared without turning that fear into anger. Every time life backed me into a corner, I kept acting like I was by myself... even when she was standing right there trying to help me."

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down again.

"Truth be told... I almost ain't come over here."

Mr. Adams tilted his head.

"I sat in my truck damn near twenty minutes," I admitted with an embarrassed smile. "Kept telling myself, 'Man, you look stupid.'"

He didn't laugh.

"So what made you get out?"

I let out a long breath.