To the sound of her brother’s voice, P’Nee rushed out of the kitchen. “Josh!” She started to jump on him like she always did but stopped when she noticed who was behind him. “It’s about time you got here. Dad left the wings in the warmer.”
Joshua’s brow arched. He expected her to jump on him just as much as she originally wanted to. He grabbed her arm to pull her into him. “Come here, lil bighead! You acting like you’re not happy to see me.”
She let out a loud yelp when he scooped her up into his arms. When his fingers tickled her stomach, she tried to resist the laugh, but it was useless. “Josh, stop!”
He ignored her pleas until she punched him on the side of the head. He put her down and stepped back. “Damn, Nee! You’re just chopping niggas in the head now?”
“I told you to stop.” P’Nee straightened her clothes. When her head lifted, her eyes fell on the boy she’d had a crush on for the last three summers. “Hi, Bolt.”
Bolt smiled, then gave her a head nod. “What’s up, Nee? I hope you made enough cornbread for everyone.”
It was obvious to him that she liked him on some level. He thought it was cute, but there was no way that he was interested in his best friend’s thirteen-year-old half-sister. At fifteen years old, he already fucked with females who were eighteen. Mostfemales never asked his age because of his tall, solid body build. He passed for eighteen easily.
“Oh, yeah, I did. Dad told me to make enough for ten people.” She twiddled with her fingers as she stood there.
Joshua’s head went back and forth between his little sister and his best friend. He wasn’t worried about Bolt ever trying his sister. It just annoyed him that his sister had this stupid ass crush on his best friend. “Alright, bet. You gonna make those french fries too?”
P’Nee knew when her brother gave her tasks that he was ready to have space from her. He knew that she knew those home fries that he wanted took a while to prep. “You want me to make enough for everyone?” When he nodded his head, she rolled her eyes. “I don’t have enough potatoes for that many people.”
“It’s cool.” He patted Bolt’s chest with the back of his hand. “Let’s head to Piggly Wiggly to get some potatoes.”
Bolt knew his best friend well too. “Bet.” He looked at his phone. “We got like an hour before everyone gets here.”
With no further acknowledgement of P’Nee, they left the house. She was annoyed already with how the evening was projected to go. Hopefully, the girls that came over would be able to remove themselves from the guys’ peens long enough to realize there was another girl in the house who was not a whore.
She headed into the kitchen to wash the potatoes that they did have. Her father left after he finished the wings and placed them in the warmer. One of his bed buddies called, and he was on his way. P’Nee didn’t mind because she had her time with him when they cooked the wings together. She was thirteen, not five. She didn’t have to be under her father all the time to feel love, or at least that was what she convinced herself of.
She had just washed the last potato when her brother plopped a five-pound bag on the kitchen counter. “Josh, I’m notcooking all of those. The girls that come over here don’t even eat like that. Well, they eat, but not anything that should be eaten.”
Joshua’s head jerked. This was the first time that he heard his sister make a comment that was sexual in nature. The fact that she made the comment was bad enough. The fact that the comment was made in relation to him seemed egregious. “Aye, watch your mouth, P’Nee.”
She snickered. “You should tell that to your groupies. I don’t put foreign body parts in my mouth.”
“Yo, you’re tripping today,” Joshua said with a titter. His sister was really on one today. “You gonna watch the game with us, or you gonna be in your room reading?”
P’Nee shrugged her shoulders before she walked over to open the bag of potatoes. “I’ll probably come in there to not be rude, but I won’t be in there for too long. I’m sure your friends would prefer me not to be there.”
“I don’t give a damn about what they want. If I say you can be there, then you can be there.” He sat at the small table that was in the kitchen. “I heard your grandma cursed dad out again.” He chuckled then asked, “Why you think she hates him so much?”
It always bothered Joshua how much resentment Margie held for his father. It had been like that since he was a small kid. He knew some of it stemmed from the way his mother, Gina, treated P’Nee’s mother, Pam, when she lived here.
Gina was a special breed of country hoodrat. She had her son as a trophy. Yes, she loved him and was a good mother when she was around. When Joshua turned twelve, he started to show his ass. Gina couldn’t be bothered. She was still in heroutsidephase of life at that time. Jordan agreed to take his son because at the end of the day, he felt it took a man to teach a man.
“I don’t know, Joshua. I love Daddy, but he was kind of a butthole to my mama and my Grams. I’m surprised that I like him,” she said with a dry tone. “My mama always told me thatwhat they had going on had nothing to do with my relationship with him. She told me that I need to respect and love him as my daddy.”
Pam was jaded when it came to how she felt about Jordan, but she didn’t want that for her daughter. She was very intentional that she never spoke ill of him in front of P’Nee. Pam knew that her daughter would form her own opinion of her father.
Margie, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn about none of that. She was old school and believed in calling a spade a spade, no matter who the table was in front of. P’Nee went her whole cognitive life listening to Grams talk shit about her daddy. It bothered her because most of the bad talk was about his promiscuity.
“Well, your mom is cool for that I guess,” Joshua said. “I’m going to chill with Bolt until everyone gets here. Let me know if you need anything.”
He noticed the subtle response of P’Nee’s body at the mention of Bolt’s name. Yeah, he didn’t like that. Although he didn’t like it, he dared not speak on it. If he spoke on it, then it would be real. Instead, he would enjoy his evening with his friends.
“Yeah, nigga! I told you we was gonna work on that ass!” Bolt jumped up after his team scored a touchdown.
His outburst caused the girls in the room to laugh, while it distracted P’Nee from the book that she was knee deep into. She stared at him, admiring his attire. Bolt’s toffee skin tone and curly, long hair made people think that he was mixed withsomething. Perhaps further down his lineage, he was, especially on his father’s side. He wore his hair in braids or, when it was time to get it washed, loose in a bun on top of his head.
Bolt noticed P’Nee’s glances at him all night. She tried to be inconspicuous. His father, Benjamin, taught him from five to be observant of his surroundings overall. His mother, Sandra, taught him to be observant of the females around him. Just like the Nichols were a big deal in Clover, South Carolina, so were the Abloys. Both were families of farmers. The Abloys raised cows and pigs while the Nichols were solely about chickens.
