“You’re right. You’re right. Let me pray a serious prayer.” She stopped what she was doing and bowed her head. “Lord God, as your child Jaxxon embarks on this new path you have set before him of moving to Chicago, playing for the Coyotes, and reuniting with the only woman he’s ever truly been smitten with, may Your favor fall upon him. May You rain down unprecedented blessings on him, the team, the town, and his union with Skyy. In Your holy name we pray, amen.
“Amen.”
The doorbell rang.
“Who is that?”
“Oh.” I turned my head and looked in the general vicinity of the front door. “That’s probably Tempest. She was determined to come through today, even though I told her you were coming to help me wrap things up.”
Phaedra McKissick released a heavy sigh. “What are you going to do about her, Jaxx? You just had me praying aboutyou and Skyy finally getting this thing going, and you have your current girlfriend coming by to help you pack?”
“Tempest isn’t my girlfriend. I’m single. She’s the chick I can’t seem to shake.”
She shook her head in disgust. “If you pull this stuff in front of Skyy, you’re going to lose her before you get her. You know how she is about honesty and trust.”
“Skyy knows that I don’t love these hos.”
“Get the door.” She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Let her in so I can pretend to like her. I want to get it over with. Being overly cordial to people you’re never going to see again in life is tiring. I can’t wait until you and Skyy settle down.”
“Me, either.” I agreed on my way to answer the front door.
I set my phone on one of the end tables, face down, while Tempest and I went around my living room and dining room. We were tagging everything the movers needed to take with blue masking tape.
“Jaxxon!” My mother called from the back of the condo.
“Coming!”
I quickly dipped out of the room to reach a stack of sweaters at the top of the closet for her. When I came back into the room, Tempest had my phone to her ear.
“Who is this?” Tempest asked.
“Ay!” I walked toward her. “Who told you to answer my phone?”
She turned to me, moved to the other side of the coffee table, and put the phone on speaker in time for me to hear Skyy’s voice.
“Who is this? And why are you answering his phone?”
That made me smile. Skyy was always going to be Skyy.
“I asked you a question,” Tempest told her. “Who is this?”
“Who did the screen say it was?”
“It said, ‘homie.’ So, what’s with all the bass in your voice if you’re just the homie?”
Tempest’s head and neck were going a mile a minute.
Skyy scoffed. “You might need to read it again, lil bird. Because are you sure the screen didn’t say ‘Home’ and not homie? He calls me Home . . . because I’m his home. You know, as inhome is where the heart is?”
While Tempest was distracted, with her face moving through every expression that read that she couldn’t believe Skyy had just said that, I crossed the room.
I was barely able to cover my guffaw as I snatched the phone from Tempest’s hand. Skyy’s mouthpiece had always lived on the cusp of being too much to take. She didn’t give a damn. If she thought it, chances were, she would say it. I called her “Home” exactly for the reason she told Tempest, but she usually told strangers that I called her home because her last name was House.
“Possessive ass,” I said loud enough for her to hear me.
Before she could respond to me, Tempest leaned toward the phone and spoke. “Well, I’m his girlfriend, so I don’t know how you would be his home.”
“Why are you lying?” I asked, shocked that she would say some shit like that, . . . particularly in front of me.
