It wasn't my place. Darius looked at him. He thought about the morning. He thought about what that conversation had cost him, not in damage, but in the particular tax of having to manage one more person's discomfort about his existence. He thought about what it meant that Gerald Walsh was standing in his driveway now without a mug with his hands in his pocket saying this.
I appreciate you saying that, Darius said. I meant it. Gerald nodded once. Then your business any good? Darius held his gaze.
Best in the area. Gerald laughed. The real kind. All right, I'll keep that in mind when my unit needs servicing. He turned to go, then stopped.
She's good for you, Clare. For what it's worth from someone who should have kept his mouth shut from the start. He walked back down the street. Darius stood by the van for a moment. He thought about all the energy he had spent over the past year managing other people's discomfort.
And he thought about how the one thing he had never been able to control what other people decided about him had in several cases sorted itself out on its own once he stopped making himself small enough to seem manageable. He wasn't naive about it. Patterson still existed. The assumptions still existed. The specific weight of being a black man in spaces that hadn't expected him still existed and would keep existing.
And no amount of personal growth was going to renovate that particular reality. But Gerald Walsh had walked down his driveway. And Richard Colt had shaken his hand at the fundraiser. And Sandra had texted Clare warmly. And Diane had said, "Don't carry the guilt of being happy."
And Maya had put her hand on the side of the van and smiled like the whole world had just confirmed what she already knew. And across 30 ft of driveway, Clare Bennett's curtains were always open. The lease question came up on a Wednesday evening in April. The way practical things between two people come up when the relationship has matured past the phase where practical things feel unromantic naturally directly over leftover Chinese food at his kitchen table. Clare said my lease is up in August.
Darius sat down his chopsticks. I know mine too. She looked at him. I've been thinking about it. So have I a pause.
The waited kind. I'm not going to pretend I haven't thought about what the obvious option is. She said. But I also know you and I know that obvious is not the same as right. And I know that moving too fast on something like this could unravel things that are working.
He was quiet for a moment. Then what do you want? She looked at him steadily. I want to build something with you, something real that takes into account Maya and your business and what you need and what I need and what all of it actually requires instead of what feels romantic in theory. That's not an answer to what you want.