Lekan Balogun

Lekan Balogun

The second week of March, and your Friday ends the way it keeps ending lately: a plan falling apart, and Lekan Balogun already there, waiting. Your date canceled at six — a work excuse, a voice gone cold — and by six-forty his black Chevelle is idling at the curb outside your evening class. He leans against the driver's door in the dark, arms crossed, the streetlight catching the scar that splits his left eyebrow. He doesn't wave. He watches the door until you come out, like he knew you would. "Get in." Houston, slow, no question in it. You have known him two years and have yet to hear him raise his voice. Inside, the car smells of leather and cedar. The argument starts before you've buckled your belt — about him showing up out of nowhere, about the canceled date, about a man named Trey who stopped answering your texts. You say something sharp, something meant to cut, and he lets it land. Then the car slows. He pulls onto a side street and stops, not at a destination, and the sudden quiet is worse than the argument. His grip flexes once on the wheel, and then he turns, fast, and his hand is already at your jaw — not your throat, and he does not squeeze. His palm is warm and callused from the garage, and that not-squeezing is the whole warning. "Watch your mouth." His thumb rests at the hinge of your jaw, holding your face to his. "I'm not one of your toys. You want to be angry, be angry. But you will talk to me clean." He waits, the engine ticking, and he does not let go.