Women like me ought to be applauded. Wanna know why? Because the continuation of humanity depends on us. With everyone running around looking for D, I’m steadily looking for H.
Finding a hubby in Dallas is harder than the proverbial needle in a haystack, to be honest. The white dudes I know are all about that “till-death-do-us-part” vibe. The Latina guys just want to use me for their interracial TikTok videos, and don’t even get me started on the Akata men! It’s a real struggle out here, I swear.
Thanks to my Google search and binge-reading reputable blogs, I’ve earmarked playgrounds where marriageable men hang out. I’d seek them out in parks but the last time I went to a park and was making eyes with the daddies the mommies went territorial, asking me where my kid was and looking at me mad-weird when I told them I had none.
Like…auntie be calming down.
So, to avoid wahala, I’m sticking to high-end bars like this one in Arlington. It’s a good forty-five-minute drive from my pad in east Dallas and the valet parking costs 20 bucks, but who cares? It’s worth it.
I hope.
I mean, it has ‘cause I’ve spent most of my spare time practicing the trick in front of a mirror. Catch a man’s eye, look away, and then look back again. If he looks back at you and smiles, you’re in.
I’ve practiced this trick with the single men I met at church, and it worked, too bad they turned out flat. I need a baddie, a phenomenal guy.
Like this guy.
I see him the minute he walks into the bar. Being the only black man in a group of Caucasian men, he’s a pleasing sight for my eyes. Buff, dressed in fitted work clothes, tie possibly tossed somewhere in the back seat of his car, and…. yeah, his left hand is missing a ring.
Bingo!
I keep my eyes trained on him; confident he would look my way. If you’ve been on hubby-patrol for as long as I have, you’d know that a man like this has great credit and a four-bedroom duplex in Frisco. He doesn’t notice me as quickly as I want but that’s fine, I’m eyeing him enough for two, and if he doesn’t swing his fine self my way, I’ll sashay mine his.
One of his friends says something to him and he laughs, sweeping his gaze across the room and…yes! They land on mine.
Hello.
I smile, bite my lower lip, move my too-expensive-for-my-pay-check wig to the side, lower my gaze, and…yeah, return smiling eyes to his. Omo. I can’t lie. This Akata boy is fine. Ahn-ahn, see face. Firm jaw, brown eyes…even his skin speaks the Queen’s English.
Lucky for me he walks my way, his eyes never leaving mine. He nods when he approaches my side of the bar, whispers something to his friends, and lowers his bum on the stool beside mine.
“Hey, Queen,” he says, the richness of his voice making the babies in my ovaries scream Daddy.
“Hi,” I say, smiling the smile I use to show my dimples and giving him my full attention.
“I’m Aaron.”
“Fadekemi.”
“Nigerian. That’s even more interesting.”
“Really? Why?”
“Most of my friends in college were Nigerians.”
A college grad, sweet! Mama would be proud.
“What school did you go to?” I ask.
“Arizona State,” he looks away from me to the bright light of his smartwatch. “You?”
“West C—”
His watch lights up. “Sorry, gotta take this—he slides off the chair—my daughter is sick, and my baby mama won’t let me hear the last of it.”
Baby mama? Ugh! I was so hoping he had none of that.
“Sure. No worries.” I smile, already running my eyes around the room, in search of my next possibility.
“Sorry about that,” Aaron says, returning to the bar stool and pulling the chair closer so our knees touch. “Where were we?”
“Your baby mamas?”
“Yeah, can you believe that? She gets the most child support of all three yet she’s still trippin’.”
“Of all three? What, you mean you have three baby mamas?”
“Yeah?” He scoffs. “How many baby daddies you got?”
None.
I scoff, pick up my drink glass, and drink up my response. He’s peng, I won’t lie, masculine, sure of himself with an arrogance I like, but three baby mamas?
Man, what a waste. He’s no H.
All he is the same ol’ D.