“Ko—” His voice quivered as he looked from me to the barrel and back again.
I kept the gun where it was for a second, watching as his shoulders drew close to his ears.
“It’s me,” he added. “It’s just me.”
I lowered the weapon, but didn’t put it away. What for? His eyes stayed on it anyway.
“Boy, you almost got shot. I forgot I sent you to the store,” I said, moving out of the way so he could come inside.
“How could you forget that? I haven’t even been gone that long,” he replied, holding the bags out to me, but never moving to step inside.
I shook my head. “Come in and set the bags on the counter. I’m not paying you to do a half-ass job.”
“How is it half-ass? The delivery apps don’t bring your stuff in. They just sit it in front of the door.”
“That’s why I paid you, and not them. Now do what I said. Chop, chop.”
He didn’t move right away. Instead, his gaze flicked from me to the doorway, then back again, like he was trying to decide if he should come in.
After roughly a minute had passed, he finally walked past me, but kept a little distance as he crossed into the apartment.
The door dragged behind him when he pushed it shut. I listened to it without meaning to, waiting for it to sound the way it always did.
Tink set the bags down near the counter, but he didn’t wander off like he normally would. He stayed where he was, glancing around the empty space before his eyes came back to me.
“You good?” he asked, and I turned away so that he wouldn’t see the expression on my face.
“Yup, I’m fine.”
“You still didn’t tell me how you forgot you sent me to the store?” he said, watching me closely.
I shrugged as I reached into one of the bags. “I don’t know. I just did.”
The plastic crinkled under my hand as I dug through the bag, checking each item without really looking at them. Everything was there in the same brands I always asked for, stacked the same way they would have been if I had gone myself.
I set a container of chicken lo mein on the counter and opened it, more out of habit than hunger. Steam rolled up, carrying the smell with it, but it didn’t pull me in the way it usually did. I stood there with it open, staring down at it for a minute before I pushed the lid back into place.
Behind me, Tink’s shoe scraped against the floor, cutting through the quiet. “You sure you good?” he asked again.
“I said I was fine.”
He didn’t say anything else, but when I glanced over my shoulder at him, he was still watching me.
“You never forgot any other time I ran an errand for you,” he said finally.
I picked up another item from the bag and turned it over in my hand, pretending to read the label. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“When my momma says stuff like that, I know something ain’t right.”
I set the jar down and turned to look at him. “I’m not your momma, so when I say I’m okay, that means everything is fine, Tink,” I snapped, and he lifted his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay. I believe you. Don’t bite my head off, woman.”
I glared at him for a second, then turned back to the counter. “You get everything I told you to?”
“Yeah.”
I checked anyway. One by one, I pulled things out and lined them up across the counter. When I got to the bottom of the bag, I paused, shoulders stiffening.
