Promise

NINE.

"They can't be in the dark if they don't like me, and if they don't know I like them, which they don't," he immediately replied.

"Boy—I'm tired of the anonymity. Who is she?" he asked.

"Now why you need to know all that? It don't change the course of conversation," he chuckled, knowing full well it did.

"Alijah," Tatum straight faced him.

"What I do?!"

"Who?" he repeated and Siah sighed loudly and dramatically, throwing his head back. "You'on gotta be embarrassed son! It's just me," he teased.

"See—you sound like I do need to be embarrassed," he pointed and his father laughed.

"Stop dodging my question, Alijah. I wanna know, it's important to the discussion," he asked again, leaning forward in his chair.

Siah leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling again. For some reason, telling his father who she was meant that he had to confront it himself and he hadn't done that yet—nor was he really ready to but he couldn't hide from it forever. There was no use in that.

"Sadé," he said simply and his father's eyes widened, as he leaning right back in the chair again.

"Sadé? Sadé Bryant? Kash?!" he asked and Siah nodded. "Khyren's sister? That's who—aw hell," he laughed. "Damn, I wasn't expecting that but...I'm not really surprised," he chuckled to himself.

"And why not?" he raised his eyebrows. He was certainly shocked when the notion of Sadé romantically even crossed his mind for a minute. He never looked at her that way before, sure she was pretty, she'd always been pretty to him but he never thought of her in a romantic sense until recently and he hadn't been able to erase the image of her from his head.

"We can talk about that later—when did this happen?" he wondered. "Y'all was just fighting when we went back home," he said.

"Uh...I'on really know. I think on that trip, nothin' crazy happened but I guess that was enough to—aw hell," he groaned, running his hands down his face. "I like Sadé what the hell," he mumbled to himself very quietly.

"Lemme tell you why it don't surprise me. Na' don't go don't act crazy when I say this," he prefaced with a short laugh, knowing how his son could get. Siah just nodded and his dad continued. "Sadé reminds me a lot of your mama at her age," he said.

"H-huh?" he sputtered. "How? I'on understand,"

"Well, you knew mama Vannah, you ain't know her before. She always been a sweetheart, to everyone. But like I told you the other day, we used to fuss and fake argue all the damn time, she had a smart mouth and she was a lil bit of a brat because her brothers treated her like a princess," he chuckled. "Of course so did I, that was my baby I gave her whatever she wanted," he chuckled.

Siah was always happy hearing his dad reminisce about his mother. Their relationship was so pure, they looked at each other with so much love in their eyes all the time, he knew at a young age what love looked like and he knew he wanted to be happy like them.

"But anyway, Sadé acts a lot like your mom when she was young. Extremely nice, joyous, always smiling and willing to help other people, she's a sweet girl. It doesn't surprise me you're attracted to her, you see good qualities, like you saw in your mama, in her even if you'on wanna admit that. Why is this messin' with you so much?" he wondered, literally seeing the conflict in Kasiah's face.

"I just—It's Sadé. It don't seem weird? Like I'm not supposed to like her," he tried to explain. "That's my best friend's lil sister, how do that look?"