“I’m outside.”
“No shit, Relic, I saw you! How the hell do you even know where I am? Are you stalking me now?”
“I am, but this is what you want, right? You want me fucked up in the head about yo ass, Kennedy. That’s why you’ve been missing in action for days, ignoring my calls, and not checking in, right? That’s why you told Jah about meeting up with somenigga, knowing I could hear, dwat? Because you don’t have to beat me physically is what you told him. You’ve been fucking with my goddamn head for days, and you know that shit. You don’t want to talk it out because you’d rather bring out the side of me that I tried to keep light with you. You would rather I show my ass... you got it.”
The call dropped without forewarning, and her heart followed suit. Against every fiber of her being telling her to leave his ass outside for the neighbors to call the police, she shot him a text to inform him that she was doing the opposite. His diatribe warned her that his temperament was unpredictable.
“You’re leaving?” Diane asked, watching as Kennedy slid on her boots and grabbed her purse. “You don’t have to go out there if you don’t want to.”
“I know, Momma, but I’d rather get this conversation over with than leave him out there for dad to overreact or the police to show up. It’ll be quick.”
“So, what do you need your purse for? I was born at night, but not last night, girl. Had I known you’d just run off with the boy, I’d have sent Butch instead of telling you first.”
“See, this is why it’s so hard to talk to you. You worry too much and make big deals out of nothing.”
“And why wouldn’t I, when I only have one child left who’s as hardheaded and stubborn as the one I lost?!”
Diane’s beautifully aged face grimaced like confessing her grievances aloud pained her, and Kennedy’s breathing labored from the weight of it landing on her chest. A wave of guilt came afterward. Not once had she caught on to the reason her mother called and bothered her so often. Diane missed Koda—her eldest child and only son. Kennedy had been so self-absorbed, she hadn’t taken time to notice how her brother’s death was still affecting everyone else in her family.
“Ma, I am so sorry you have a selfish ass daughter. I haven’t once asked how you’ve been holding up since me and Tekken moved out.”
Diane sighed. “It’s lonely without y’all, and this quiet house leaves me too much time to think. If I’m not looking through photo albums at pictures of my son, I’m worrying sick about you and Tekken. That damn fire didn’t help.”
“That’s why you were trying to get me to move back home?” she surmised, and her mother nodded.
“I want to keep eyes on you, Kennedy. I know you’re grown, and I can’t protect you forever, but I need to know you’re safe. Butch told me that your friend is in the streets, and for the life of me, I can’t see why you’d date someone like him, knowing where it landed Koda. Just because you don’t have a hand in what he does, doesn’t mean that you can’t end up getting harmed in the crossfire. I can’t bury another child, Kennedy. I don’t have it in me.”
The strain in her mother’s voice made Kennedy throw both arms around her for a tight hug. Diane had worn her best face and shown nothing but strength for years, and it broke Kennedy’s heart to find out it was a facade. Her dad hadn’t lied when he claimed they were alike.
“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t intend to date him initially. It was business,” she explained, downplaying the intricacy of their relationship. “Then he mentioned getting out of the streets when I told him about Koda, so I wanted to help get him there before it was too late. That was all it was.”
“But it became more, and you were comfortable with him to where you told him about Koda?”
Kennedy hunched a shoulder as if it wasn’t a big deal, but her mother knew it was a huge step. Diane smiled.
“Invite him inside. I’m about to cook breakfast before I drag your father to the store. If he drove all this way, I’m sure he’s hungry.”
“Momma, I usually don’t curse around you, but hell to the no! You want him and dad tearing up your house?”
“They ain’t gon’ do jack squat! I can handle my man. Can you keep yours in check?”
Kennedy cackled and tossed her purse back onto the couch. “Is that a challenge?”
“Call it what you want. I’m about to get Butch, so get your friend. I can’t wait to have a conversation with the man bold enough to show up at our home unannounced.”
Diane gave her daughter the most up to no good grin before she waltzed away while Kennedy pondered how in the hell her mother had gone from urging her not to leave with Relic to inviting him inside. After hearing her mother express her sadness, she didn’t have it in her to turn down the request she was certain would go awry.
She groaned inwardly as she traipsed onto the porch, causing Relic’s head to pop up from his phone as if he felt her presence. Kennedy didn’t miss the creases forming on his forehead before his brows furrowed as he sized her up like he was seeing her for the first time in years.
Relic pocketed his phone and opened the passenger side door, gripping the handle as his muscles tensed to the point of paralysis. Her appearance put a fury inside of his chest so large; it took every ounce of willpower not to hurt her. Kennedy tugged at the hem of her dress like she knew where his mind had gone, and he could tell from the front that it barely covered her ass. He grew irater after noticing he couldn’t inspect her facial scars like he’d usually do to settle his nerves. She’d concealed her burns like they were a fucking nuisance to her and not the most unique feature that she possessed.
Kennedy stood before him flawless, but his bitch was heavily flawed like him—like his equal. The person she’d turned herself into the last few days out of his sight; Relic didn’t know her.
“Where the hell are you coming from, Kennedy?” he questioned as she strutted into his space, glaring like she’d swing on his ass if she thought she could win.
“Didn’t you just see me walk out of my house?”
“That isn’t your fucking house. Your spot has been as empty as my goddamn bed since you stole my car keys to creep out while you thought I was sleeping. Keep playing games with me—”
