Malaki laughs, and I roll my eyes. He pops up from resting against the counter and nudges me out of the way with his hip. “You start tomorrow. Oh, and lasagna is my favorite food.”
He grabs my shirt covered in soap and rinses it under the cool water before grabbing Charleigh’s onesie that’s in a damp ball off to the side. My lips part. I glance at Zoe, and she looks just as surprised as I do.
For the first time in her life, Zoe is speechless.
I laugh, and it breaks her out of her stupor.
“I’m sorry, what the hell are you doing?” she asks.
Malaki’s jaw catches the light just right as he looks over his shoulder at her, the defined curve sharper than ever. “Helping?” he says questionably.
He goes back to the project in front of him.
“My mom grew tired of me coming home with grass stains on every pair of jeans that I wore when I was younger, so she taught me how to get the stains out myself.”
I try to picture Malaki as a young boy.
What was he like? What was his mom like before she passed?
I suddenly want to know everything there is to know about Malaki Young. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t be so surprised that he does things like this.
“Oh.” Zoe huffs with sarcasm. “That explains it, then...” She glances at me with a roll of her eyes. “We didn’t have a mom growing up, so no stain lessons for us. She didn’t teach us how to make lasagna either.”
Malaki’s hands freeze mid-rinse, but only for a second.
Zoe’s sarcasm keeps coming, her grudge over how we grew up flying out of her mouth without boundaries.
“So your mom taught you how to get stains out, and your dad taught you how to be a gentleman? Donuts and offering up your car so I don’t have to ride the bus? Our dad taught us how to evade the poli–”
“Zoe!” Her name squeezes out between my clenched teeth.
She stops talking immediately, her eyes widening as if she forgot that it wasn’t just her and me in the room.
She mouths the wordsorryto me, and I look away.
“No…” Malaki drags the word out. “I didn’t have a dad growing up,” he admits. “My mom taught me how to get stains out of pantsandhow to be a gentleman. I also know how to sew, and I’m not ashamed to admit that.” He pauses and looks at me over his shoulder with a half-smile. “Probably not as good as you, though.”
Surprise flickers throughout like a camera shuttering to take a photo.
He was raised by a single mom?
Is that why he was so willing to stay in this fake engagement with me?
Zoe places Charleigh on the ground and leaves the kitchen to head to her room. She hates showing her emotions, but I knowher like the back of my hand. She’s embarrassed she just blew up like that about our parents.
I walk over and scoop Charleigh into my arms. She grabs the end of my braid and plays with the hair tie with a look of concentration.
Malaki spins around after wiping his hands on a nearby towel and stares at me.
I move Charleigh to my other hip and nervously blurt, “Is that why you’re doing this? Because you know what it’s like to be raised by a single mother?” I pause. “Is it because you feel sorry for me?”
There is a sliver of hurt that comes with the thought, but I have no idea why.
It doesn’t matter why he’s doing it, because at the end of the day, he’s providing me with a safety I likely couldn’t get anywhere else.
Malaki’s forehead furrows as he studies me. His head tilts to the side, his hands gripping the back of the counter tightly. “What makes you think I feel sorry for you?”
I scoff, but it sounds more like a pitiful laugh. “I think you’ve been around me enough to know that I’m a mess, Malaki. My house is”—I shake my head—“wasa shithole. I have basically nothing to my name, and I’m hardly making ends meet. The only true romantic relationship I’ve had is with a man who no longer wanted me after I got pregnant, yet now he refuses to let me go. I mean…just look at me!” I stare down at his shirt draped over my body. “You walk into your house, and I’m literally standing in the kitchen without a shirt, my hair a disaster, with a naked baby on my hip…not to mention, my ex on the phone, threatening me unless I video-chat with him.”
