The same boy who trampled over the wild sunflowers whizzes past us, bumping into my back.
“Oh shit. Pup here!” he yells.
Pup?
I pull the beanie weenies into my middle and turn around, catching the back of Chase’s locs bouncing up and down for the second time today.
“Hey!” Meechie yells. “I know his lil’ bad ass saw you standing there.”
His wet footsteps leave a trail on the pavement, and I follow them until they stop at the edge of the pavilion.
“What’s going on? What is Chase hollering about now?” Aunt Faye asks.
I look up and find her squeezing between two of the ushers from New Bethel with her eyebrows furrowed.
Terrica points toward the field of grass outside the pavilion, and Aunt Faye’s eyes follow her finger until they stop on Chase sidling up to Rich and slapping his hand. He grins up at Rich when Rich drops his hand on top of his head.
Another boy runs up, and another one, until a small group of them and their wide-eyed mamas gather around Rich. My sweaty palms slide against the pan, and I shift from foot to foot to keep myself from running up to him too.
I’ve seen men in twenty-thousand-dollar bespoke Louis Vuitton suits gliding down runways in Paris, but seeing Rich in a plain white Polo crew neck and black fleece shorts makesme scoff at the way I had drooled over those custom suits draped over those models’ lanky bodies, becausehe’sthe one that makes everything look expensive—even simple things like a fresh haircut.
The sun beams down on his deep skin, making it pop against his stark white shirt and I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t even remember how many days I’ve been home, but somehow I remember how many days it’s been since I saw Rich in person.
“Five,” I blurt out with a pathetic sigh.
Aunt Faye scrunches her face. “Huh?”
“No…nothing.” I shake my head, holding up the pan of beanie weenies. “You want me to put this on the kid’s table?”
“Yeah…” her voice drifts off as she stares at Rich, and Meechie grunts out a “damn” under her breath while tracing Rich’s body with her eyes.
Terrica nudges her, and they look at me. Their private conversations about me linger in the smirks on their faces.
“Rich!” Aunt Faye screeches.
He glances up with a placid expression and tells the group something that leaves Chase with a disappointed pout until he palms the top of Chase’s head and pulls Chase along toward the pavilion. After five different handshakes with five different people, he and Chase finally stop in front of us, and I still haven’t left to drop the beanie weenies off at the kid’s table because IwantRich.
After five days and a gut-punch of a conversation with Uncle Kenny, I want him worse than I did that night in his kitchen, and the culmination of that want sits right in the middle of my belly, taunting that clusterfuck in my stomach.
He and Aunt Faye stare at each other with expressions on their faces I can’t decipher.
She folds her lips over her teeth. “What you doing here?”
“You invited me the other day,” he replies smoothly.
She tilts her head. “I did?”
“Yeah…when we were talking about that thing you told me you’d take care of.” He shakes the top of Chase’s head while they stare at each other. “You said you’d tend to it. Remember? I figured I’d stop by to see how it was going.”
Her eyes flicker over at me, and she swipes the back of her neck. “I…yeah, Junior. I remember.”
Junior?
This meeting between them feels different from the one they had at Lucky’s when he bought her gas, and I can’t tell if I’m making it all up in my head because now I know about Aunt Faye’s secret life before me and Uncle Kenny, or if it’s really just this awkward.
Rich breaks eye contact with her first by glancing over at me and the crumpled pan of beanie weenies I’m holding. Layers of tension bubble between the four of us until he tugs at the pan in my hands.
“Where this supposed to go?” he asks.
