Parachutes Book Three: The Impact

by Takerra Allen

“Okay.” Vin took one knee and then two, Brunello slacks to polished wood floors. “Okay. I only bowed once in my life, to ask you to be my wife. I’d die on my feet before I bow to anyone. But Tahli Celine, you are the only person in this fucked-up world that can bring me to my knees. So, here I am. I’m here, baby.” Vin slapped the floor. “I’m on my fucking knees begging you. Please. Stay. Just stay, Tahli. Please. I’ll fix everything.”

“Baby, I will always, always love you,”

My hearttttt 😭

“You need to be thinking ‘bout how much pussy you can run through before the sun comes up. Fucking so much, your dick falls off in the morning. Nigga, you better overdose on pussy tonight. Like how them bears do... Eat enough to hibernate all winter and shit? You better eat, fuck, and drown in enough pussy to last you the next five,” Munch made light of Vin’s upcoming predicament.

Lmfao!

“I almost broke my pelvis fucking her with my strap.”

Lmfaooo!!!

“You know there’s an in-between right? Everything ain’t black or white? My grandmother got mad people living with her. She took me in when my pops put me out, but she barely got enough to keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and dinner on the table at night. But yeah…to the government, we ballin’.”

“Have fun bumping ya little coochies. Call me if you want a fish stick.”

Ah na! 🤣😭

“My high can’t survive this conversation,” Paige quipped. “Why do you talk like you’re thirty-five?”

🤣🤣🤣

“Looks like you couldn’t wait to leave my crib to come to your grandmother’s so you could dyke in peace.”

Lmfaoo! 🤣

“Sometimes the people we think we need so much and that we think we can’t live without, they end up leaving us. And guess what? We live anyway.”

“Ayo. You got about a 60-second window before you either pick your head up or pull your pants down. Only my bitches get cuddles.”

🤣🤣🤣🤣

At the moment, Tahli’s twin desires were in a head-on collision. Pleasing Cree. Pleasing herself. She chose Cree. Because the more Tahli remained in her mother’s image, the more she would desire Tahli’s presence…right? If Tahli didn’t become the woman Cree wished, those shoe-string ties would unravel. But maybe…maybe if Tahli could please Cree more…she’d get more of Cree.

Had Cree Autumn imprinted on Tahli’s cognitive development? Because last month in that steakhouse, Vin had proposed it. That Tahli’s inability to forgive him tied in with some deep-rooted, running-from-scary-shit, issues with her mother.

“I believe who our parents were and what they did or didn’t teach us can only carry us but so far. Eventually, we have to take responsibility for the decisions we make and recognize we are fully capable of breaking old cycles and implementing new ones. We are not predisposed to anything,” she spoke more surely than she felt. “I don’t believe, anyway,” Tahli added in a mutter.

“Drew is-” “Oh, I know who Drew is,” her sister’s brows jumped. “College boy layover in between connecting parachute flights with Vin,” Leah made a funny that earned her an eye roll. “Didn’t Vin literally throw him through a television? Brave soul.”

And I fucking did! 😒

Dalvin Hayes. The supplier of her greatest love and greatest heartache. He made her float from earth to heaven. He knocked her back down to the pits of hell beneath it, too. There was no love like Dalvin Hayes. There was no torture like Dalvin Hayes.

“Tahli, I have thought that you were the girl of my dreams since I met you almost 16 years ago. I kept my eye on you throughout the years, winning your awards, and shit. Looking good as fuck while doing it; even in a hardhat renovating properties.”

And she doesn’t think this is creepy?

‘Grief is the price we pay for love’. Sometimes you have to let the pain run its course.”

Fucking another man was easier than she predicted. But inhaling another man’s underarms would take time. Grief was strange.

Bro what? 🧐

“I bet that makes you happy, though. That he’s going to play football,” Milo sucked his teeth, and the sickening churn in Vin’s stomach frowned his lips. “Lo…I know I disappointed you.” Milo’s head turned away from him. “He looks like you,” Milo muttered to the window. “I don’t look like you.” “You look like Mom. You look better than me,” Vin snickered. “I’m ugly and I’m dumb. He’s not dumb and you like him more.”

“I don’t ever wanna hear you say nothing like that again. You hear me? I don’t want you to even think anything like that. You did nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with you. Do you hear me?” Vin gripped the back of his son’s head, pleading with his eyes. “I’m wrong. I’m the problem. I’m the one who needs to figure out what’s wrong with me. But you? You’re smart. You’re amazing. You’re perfect, kid. You think I love Doll any less because I have Terran?”

“Yo. You asking me if you jerk off too much, is your little jimmy gonna fall off or break?”

“Yeah, well, Lil’ Rell don’t know shit. When I was young, ya Uncle Munch’s father sat us down and told us we were gonna grow hair on our palms like gorillas if we did it too much.”

“I have to bring a girl balloons for her to have sex with me?!”

Lmfao!

He thought losing Tahli was hell. No…the devil said, “Hold my beer,” and went and dug up good old boy, Drew.

At age sixteen, Vin had killed a man. At seventeen, another. At eighteen one more. Then one not even half a year ago. That one—the most brutal—at the height of his fury and the hands of harm to his child.

“Dalvin! Stop!” Good. She was scared. She should be. If Tahli wanted to see this nigga again, she could see him lifeless. Laid out with his soul departed from his body. All at her doing. Never had Tahli’s fear not been the emergency brake on his madness…until now.

“You think this shit is a game? This ain’t puppy love and college campuses, bitch. This is my wife. The mother of my kids. And you dumb enough to try to come up behind that?”

😈

“That’s right. Don’t fight it,” Vin advised, high on the adrenaline. “Makes it worse.”

“Grow up, Dalvin. Learn how to deal with your emotions. Better yet, learn how to deal with your consequences.”

“Now I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but let me start with the facts. That is not your wife anymore. That is still my daughter. And this is my mothafuckin’ house!”

“You’re not in them fucking streets anymore. You’re a 40-year-old father running a multi-million-dollar business. You trying to kill people in broad daylight over a fucking dinner date after you just escaped going to prison for a second time by the skin of your goddamn teeth? I thought you were smarter than that. I can’t keep saving you from yourself, Dalvin.”

“Don’t,” she shook her face, lip quivering. “Don’t you fucking dare act like I owe you an explanation or consideration, Dalvin. You kept so much out of my control, keeping me in the dark for almost our entire marriage. You do not get to control how I get through this.”

With her waterlogged eyes, Tahli landed a kill shot. “I don’t care if I wanna fuck everybody up and down this street, in this mothafuckin’ street…” she pointed at the concrete, shutting Vin’s eyes temporarily. “You will stand there and you. Will. Take that shit.” She jabbed a finger in his chest with each word.

“I ain’t going no fucking where, and neither are they.” Vin was determined to stand there for the rest of his life if it meant Tahli didn’t drive off with this bitch.

“Don’t. Be. Dumb,” Robert warned, stare burning into him. “You got four fucking kids to think about. And if they take you, they’re gonna take Tahli for assaulting you. At least care about that enough to get in the fucking car and drive yo’ crazy ass off before they lock both of you up,” Robert hissed. “And let me convince his ass not to press charges,” Robert mumbled even lower about Drew.

“I know it hurts,” Robert shockingly whispered, barely audible. But Vin’s languid and pained stare tuned in, watching his brown lips move. “I know it’s brutal. But you’re a man. Walk away like a man. Think. Then fight another way. Like a man.”

“I don’t wanna see you again,” he made clear with an incensed glare aimed at Drew. “And you definitely don’t wanna see me again.” Tahli ran fingers through her locs, tugging on the ends. “You took this shit too far, Tahli.”

“So, you wanna kill Drew?” Licking his lips with a meditative gaze out of the window at a blue jay dancing on a tree limb, Vin nodded. “I do. I wanna level that soft-ass, possum-faced nigga.” “Then, do it. Kill Drew.”

“I’m serious. Kill Drew. Go kill Drew, come back, and I’ll buy you lunch before the police get here.”

“Matter of fact, this session’s on me, since it’ll be our last one. Make sure you swing by, say goodbye to your kids while you’re at it. But yeah, that…that sounds like the answer.”

“Look. Let’s do the math. You spent five years in prison, and almost went back for being accused of killing the woman you made a secret baby with. Your wife left you when she found out about the secret baby. And worse than any of that, a man violated your son, and you blame yourself because you weren’t there for him.”

“My pops was around.” “I’m not sure you believe that,” Larry challenged. “Around doesn’t always equate to there. No disrespect to your pops. You speak very highly of him. You speak very highly of him despite his issues with infidelity which we will revisit because I think it has a lot to do with how you view the scale of infidelity. But back to my point. You kill Drew…maybe you go to prison for it. Maybe you don’t…but what happens to all of those problems? You think they disappear?”

“You don’t wanna kill Drew, man,” Larry surmised, way off base. “I mean you may want to. But you won’t. You know that’s not the best decision to make, Dalvin. You would’ve done that shit back at the house if you really wanted to. And for that, I commend you. I see that as progress. Look, bro. I get it. Your wife, who you still love, is dating the buster you had beef with back in the day.”

“As bad as you want your marriage to be repaired, you might have to face that it’s actually over.”

“Dalvin.” Vin gulped, rubbing his eyes. “Dalvin,” Larry called again, and Vin’s burning glare finally landed on him. “It’s okay, man. It’s okay to feel those emotions.”

“Remember our first conversation, when all you wanted to talk about was Tahli…I mean, there was no Dalvin in there. It was all Tahli. I know so much about Tahli, I should send her a bill,” Larry grinned, almost drawing a laugh out of Vin.

“Remember what you told me. That you felt whenever things got hard or scary for her, she–,” and Larry swiped his hands like someone taking off in a sprint. “That was your interpretation of her coping mechanisms. Well, can I reiterate mine of yours?”

“It’s self-sabotage, man. Anytime shit gets a little scary, you go and do somethi...

Because deep down, Dalvin, you don’t think you deserve the life you’ve worked hard to achieve. Come on, man. You’ve made it out of the jungle. You managed to escape from the other side of that cage. And now, when shit got out of your control, you’re not running to get a little piece of ass on the side. No, you default to your other vice: violence. You gotta do something to risk putting yourself righ...