I accepted his phone from him and sent myself a text from his phone so that we would have one another’s numbers. “I will.”
He left, and Sawyer popped up again. “Was that what I think it was? Did you just exchange numbers?”
“It’s just a date to the annual ball,” I replied.
“Dates always lead to something else. Maybe you won’t need those batteries after all,” Sawyer stated with a wink.
Chapter 4
Christian
“The funniest part was that Chris didn’t even realize it. He was just walking around with the bottom flapping in the wind,” Mama shared as my dad and younger brother, Joshua, roared with laughter. I wanted to tell that nigga that shit wasn’t that funny.
“All right. Y’all ease up on my brother some,” my older brother, Nicholas, demanded with a smirk as I dragged my hand down my face.
“I mean, come on, you gotta admit, Nick. It was funny seeing him walking around with his butt showing,” Joshua stated.
“And I thought I taught you better than that. Why weren’t you wearing any underwear?” my mother asked.
“I thought onesie pajamas were underwear. Gimme a break, I was only ten,” I pleaded. My family loved embarrassing me whenever I brought a female around who they thought I had the least bit of interest in. So it was no surprise that it happened when I brought Angel over.
“You didn’t feel the cold wind on your behind?” Angel asked.
“It wasn’t cold that December,” I disputed.
“It was one of Georgia’s milder winters.” Mama agreed.
“I would’ve felt the temperature change if it had been me,” Joshua stated as I rolled my eyes.
“All right, that’s enough on your brother,” my father declared and stood.
“Baby, I think that was the last gift that we had to wrap.” Mama looked around the living room.
Angel and I had been talking on the phone almost every day. We had lunch on a couple of occasions when I had the day off. This was a rare Saturday that I didn’t have to work, so I had invited Angel to my parents’ home for our annual gift wrapping day. We all bought gifts to give to the less fortunate and spent the day at our parents’ house wrapping the gifts, eating cookies and other snacks that were reminiscent of our childhood Christmases. My dad had made his specialty hot chocolate and served it with my mom’s homemade peppermint bark.
Based on the laughter and how relaxed Angel had become, I could tell that she had been enjoying herself. But now she looked like she was ready to leave and get home from how she was putting things in Belle’s diaper bag.
“You’re getting ready to leave?” Mama asked.
“Not at this exact moment, but I do need to leave soon. It’s close to Belle’s bedtime. I need to give her a bath and a bottle of milk to settle in, or she will be fussy all night long. I’ve worked hard to get her on a schedule so that she will sleep through the night, and I don’t want to disturb it.”
“All right, boys. Let’s go load up my truck in the garage with these gifts. Your mama and I will take them down to the church and the hospital tomorrow. And then, Chris, you can see these ladies out,” my father announced.
“What are you doing with that girl, boy?” Daddy asked once we walked into the garage.
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“I mean, I heard she’d been to the station. Then I heard you met up with her at the mall, and the two of you have been talking on the phone since then,” Dad stated.
I glared at Joshua and rolled my eyes. He was the only one I shared that with.
“My bad. I was just talking to Dad in passing, and you know how he can be. He’s got this way of extracting information without really asking the questions,” Joshua pointed out.
“Or even without you realizing that you’re giving him the answers,” Nicholas chimed in.
“So, what’s your point, Dad?”
“I’m just wondering what your intentions are.”
