Rich squats in front of the boy and nudges his head back. He grabs his chin and studies his nose, twisting his head from left to right while she stares down at them.
“This is the second time this month they jumped on him on the bus, and the school won’t do anything about it!” Her voice floats across the backyard. “I’m so sick of this shit!”
I pull myself up on the side of the truck and rest my head against it, minding their business even though I should’ve been inside finding something to clean.
She rants about the school and the bus driver until Rich lazily flings his hand out, telling her to “stop”…and she actually does it.
“C’mere, Slim!” he calls out.
“I told him that wasn’t my name,” I mutter to myself, setting the smoothie down and sliding off the back of the truck.
I wanted to watch their drama from a distance, not stand right in the middle of it, so I take my time walking toward them. When I get there, I keep a foot of distance between me and Rich.
The woman is prettier up close in that plastic type of way, but maybe I’m just being judgmental. Her lace wig is straight and perfect, and freckles dot her nose. If I were with the Knights WAGS they’d compliment her on her plump lips, then gossip about the obvious filler in them as soon as she walked away because they were nasty like that. It’s why I didn’t survive the first WAGs brunch of AJ’s rookie season.
Rich looks up at me with red, glassy, apologetic eyes, like she interrupted an intimate moment when we were really just trying to escape the humdrum of our lives—well, at least I was.
She pushes the boy again, and he flails into Rich’s chest. “I told you he said he wanna fight, so teach him how.”
Rich grabs him and holds him tight, and my stomach flutters for some silly reason. Those flutters get worse when he picks the boy up like the baby he is and turns to me.
“Take him in the house and clean his nose up for me,” he says, swiping a speck of blood from the boy’s cheek.
He doesn’t even introduce me to them. He just passes the boy to me as if he’s ours while giving me a fleeting look.
The boy shuffles into my arms without question. He’s light and warm and looks at me while I stare at Rich becausewhat the fuck?
The woman’s nostrils flare. “I don’t know that bitc?—”
“But I bet you know better than to call her out her name, though,” Rich cuts her off, and she crosses her arms, looking away from us.
The correction was just as soft and stern as the playful thump he gave me for digging in his stuff.
He nods his head toward the house, and Ireallydon’t want to be as acquiescent to his commands as she is, but he makes it kind of easy. I guess it’s the perk of being a good-looking man.
I turn away and carry the boy toward the house, ear hustling all the way until I get to the back door and open it. The woman’s mouth is so big that I can still hear her even after I close us inside the house and carry him into the kitchen.
“What’s your name, little man?” I ask, sitting him on the counter.
“Ky,” he rasps.
“I’m Lovie,” I whisper back to him and wait for him to giggle like other kids did when they heard my name, but he just smiles back at me with a trail of blood trickling from his nose.
He looks like the phantom baby I convinced myself I was supposed to give AJ and that heaviness creeps into my conscience again.
I clear my throat, turning away from him. “Let me find something to clean you up.”
I leave him to fumble around and open and close drawers until I find the dishrags. They’re all mismatched and folded into neat squares. I grab one and walk back over to Ky, tilting his head back just like Rich did.
A fresh line of blood trickles out of his right nostril. I swipe it away with the rag, then wipe the rest of the dried blood crusted around his nose.
He has the same low eyes as Rich, but that’s all they have in common. Ky’s irises are a hypnotizing hazel, while Rich’s are a calm brown, and Ky has a toasty cinnamon complexion, while Rich’s is a smooth, velvety chocolate. I can only see Ky’s mama in him.
“Did you get into a fight?” I ask.
“No. They jumped me.”
I let out a low hum. “Oh yeah? Why’dtheydo that?”
