“I brought you somebody pretty to look at,” Rich replies to his gesture. “I found her in the kitchen last week.”
A shudder courses through my body as Rich rakes his fingers through my hair and pushes my headband back again. “She like to follow me around.”
Senior smirks, dragging his finger from me to Rich as if he’s trying to wag it.
It stops on Rich. “She for you?”
My mouth waters again.
“Nah. She don’t like dirty lil’ bayou boys. She like pretty boys like her aunt likes.” Rich snorts, placing his hand on my shoulder and nudging me down into the chair. “This Faye’s niece.”
Senior smiles, exposing perfect, stark white teeth. “Oh yeah? Faye-Baby’s niece, huh?”
“Yup,” Rich replies.
“I still remember when she got that call from her sister talking about she was pregnant. Time sure do fly, huh?”
That heavy bowling ball of whatever the fuck rolls through my stomach.
I think Aunt Faye lied again.
She said her and Rich’s mama and daddy were classmates, but I don’t think they were. Beatrice didn’t even mention them when she reminisced about their high school days.
The truth is in Senior’s placid eyes as they stroke my face and in the cutesy nickname he rasped out: Faye-Baby. Uncle Kenny only ever calls Aunt Faye “sweetie.”
“Tell him your name, Slim. Your real name,” Rich says.
“Lovie,” I rasp, waiting for his touch again.
Rich hooks his hands on the back of the chair, sliding his fingers behind me, and my shoulders droop from the contact.
“That’s a pretty name, huh?” Rich asks.
Senior smiles in amusement, then nods.
“Tell my ole’ man where you graduated from.”
I swear I almost hear a silent “baby” lingering at the end of his words like he’s bragging on me to my future father-in-law even though I have nothing to show from my time in school except fancy pieces of framed parchment paper hanging in Aunt Faye and Uncle Kenny’s living room.
“I graduated from Rhodes…and then Lockwood.”
“Smart?” Senior purses his lips, nodding.
“Oh yeah,” Rich replies, pulling his fingers from behind me and squatting next to the chair. “Be careful throwing that word around, though—she insecure about her nerdiness.”
My face grows hot as they laugh, and Rich looks up at me. “You gonna stay here—right, mama?”
“Ye…yeah.”
Shit.
I pinch my eyes shut just as he shakes his head at me with a smirk. Afterward, he swipes his thumb across my bottom lip, picking up the moisture my tongue left.
I open my eyes to him staring at me.
“Curiosity never brought nothing good to none of the cats I know,” he mumbles. “Stay.”
My eyes scrape against his biceps as he pulls his thumb away from my mouth, and that “Bayou Boy” teases me from his arm.
