ONE
BACKTRACKING
“When love is gone, you’ll hold on to anything. Some do wrong, just to feel anything.”Pusha T’s “Coming Home,” featuring the elusive Lauryn Hill blared from someone’s Bluetooth speaker on the back of the bus. Recycled air flowed over the passengers as the driver hit bump after bump. A smooth ride it was not.
Used to private jets and first-class flights, Giselle Knox eyed the regular ass people around her contemptuously. All she could think about was getting off this bus! She’d barely slept on the ride from Leawood, Kansas. Four hours later, she realized Southwick always turned into her refuge when life was kicking her ass.
She eyed the kids racing along on the sidewalk with their mother yelling behind them to slow down and watch for cars. The woman looked exasperated, but those kids were bursting with the biggest smiles that Giselle found herself envying. Although born and raised in the small, four thousand population town, she could admit she hadn’t visited in a very long time.She recalled a trip when she was about eleven when her grandmother passed away and a few summers as a teenager too. Her father, Gregory, had separated himself from his family a long time ago. She always suspected he purposely moved so far away so no one would ever suggest visiting him or his family. Something in her wanted to automatically hate this place, yet at her core… tranquility. That damn sure wasn’t normal.
For as long as she could remember, Giselle was a storm, rarely tamed. She was always giving her mama and daddy a run for their money. She went to school and got good grades, but she was also a social butterfly. With her head resting against the headrest of her seat, she sighed and peeped the time on her cell phone in her lap. Nobody on this bus seemed trustworthy, so she’d kept her luggage close and took up two seats so no one would try to sit with her. The driver shouted that they had arrived as he wheeled the bus through the lane where the rest of the buses were lining up outside the sliding double doors of the bus station.
Sitting up, she canvassed the many people waiting as they came to a slow stop. At twenty-six years old, she suddenly imagined herself as this little kid coming home when she spotted her older cousin, Maisie, tapping away on her cell phone while waiting for Giselle to step off. Examining herself in the ivory pleated pants suit with a matching double-breasted jacket, she leaned forward to grab her gold Alexander McQueen heels and slip them on her feet. Overdressed was an understatement, and she caught a few envious and questionable stares when she got on. A simple gold chain with an ankh charm rested between her mango sized breasts, a gift from her father when she was seventeen years old.
While the rest of the passengers unloaded, Giselle gathered her things and slung the strap to one of her luggage bags over her shoulder before grabbing the handle to the extra-large rollingbag. This was all she had with her, given the circumstances. When the last passenger stepped past her, she placed her thick shades over her face and moved to the front of the bus to exit.
Storm clouds shifted in the sky above her, masking the sun as it began to set. A gust of air whipped around her, invading her nostrils with the familiar scent of upcoming rain. The spring into summer months brought the storms and tornadoes around here.
“There she is!” Maisie squealed, rushing toward her with open arms.
Giselle stood about five seven, petite as hell, but with curves and a flat stomach. Pilates, yoga, and a two-mile run every other morning kept her fit. Maisie was just as she remembered. Tall, slim like a model, but not particularly stacked with her B cups and handful of ass. In high-waisted stone wash jeans and a white tank top under a leather jacket, she was simple yet chic.
“Hmm, overdressed for that long ass bus ride, per usual,” she teased after a long embrace that Giselle barely fell into.
It was obvious from how tight Maisie held her that she was ecstatic to see her, but she couldn’t find the enthusiasm as the sky darkened even more, mirroring her mood. The low rumble of thunder had Maisie lifting her oval-shaped whiskey brown eyes to the sky with a frown.
“I came straight from the meeting with the lawyer. My bags were already packed, and I didn’t feel like changing.” Giselle gripped the handle to her rolling luggage bag.
“Oh, so you were ready?” Maisie reached for her cousin’s luggage weighing her shoulder down. “Well, let’s get you out of here. You hungry? Need a drink… or a Valium?” she suggested.
“Hmm, sounds like quite the concoction,” Giselle muttered.
“Hey, this is a no judgment zone. Whatever you need, I got you. Mama told me shit is bad and tied up in legalities, so you don’t have access to your funds. Don’t worry about it because meand Crew got you,” she assured her, running her fingers through her sexy pixie cut.
“I pulled what cash I could, but it’s not enough to live off, and where is Crew?” Giselle peered around in search of Maisie’s husband.
“In the parking lot. He’s probably talking shit and smoking a blunt,” Maisie acknowledged. “Meanwhile, Mama is at the house, whipping up a little bit of everything. So, I hope you got an appetite, or she’s going to force-feed you.”
The two strolled along the sidewalk to the parking lot across the street from the station, and Giselle continued to scope her surroundings.
“I can’t believe this is what it’s come to,” she grumbled, shaking her head.
“Don’t even trip. This is what family is for, G. We’re there for each other when times get hard, and you need us. I’m sure things were heavy in Leawood between the press and all your parents’ nosy ass friends. You’re safe here.”
Maisie was right about that. Giselle had become a hot topic. Although, normally, she loved all the attention, that wasn’t the case in this situation. She no longer had her parents to help navigate her moves in this world, and that was something she hadn’t quite processed amid everything else. While their relationship was far from perfect, at the end of the day, her mother and father loved and provided for her, sometimes overcompensating for the fact that they didn’t spend a lot of time with her.
“Safe,” she repeated as they neared the curb where traffic was whizzing by.
A red light gave them a path across the street where Crew stood outside his black G Wagon, smoking a blunt. His features morphed into a big grin the minute he laid eyes on Giselle, and his arms spread for her to walk into. His six-foot frame wasaccompanied by broad shoulders and defined arms in the gray Armani Xchange t-shirt, denim regular fit jeans, and black St. Laurent sneakers with gray detail.
“G!” Crew held her as tight as Maisie had and rocked back and forth with her before releasing her.
Crew grew up within the Knox family. His father went to prison when he was eight, and while his mother busted her ass to provide a life for him, she died when he was thirteen from some kind of rare blood disease. Although Giselle hadn’t been to Southwick in over a decade, she and Maisie shared a bond. Crew was like a big brother to her, and she kept in touch with them when she could. There was this dark somberness resting in her gaze that he had to acknowledge when he pulled back, and Giselle forced a tight smile over her bottom-heavy mouth. Crew pinched her cheek.
“You got everything?” He grabbed the handle of her luggage and Maisie slung her other bag into his arms.
“Yup. Let’s go,” she declared.
Once Crew got Giselle’s bags loaded in the back, he joined them in the warm interior of his whip and rubbed his hands together. In the Midwest, the weather was tricky this time of year. Coming off a fresh winter, Spring wasn’t quite on the horizon, but storm season was in effect. The early May sunshine gave false hope.
