“Yep.”
“I bet. Any woman worth it will have us running around, chasing our tails. Panting like a dog.” He grinned, picking up a black marble vase.
“How do you manage to be both smart and dumb?”
Any other dude? I’d stretch my knuckles. Square up for a fight. Texas had levels.Two. Laughing and talking crap about the next shady thing he’d get into. Or silence.
After a second, he put the vase down and sniffed the air. “Bruh! You cooked something fancy, huh?”
“Like my momma raised me, which is irrelevant. You just ate.”
He was already walking away. “Man, that was breakfast.”
Dude made himself comfortable at the dining room table, where I’d set food in Madison’s favorite serving dishes. When he reached for the bottle of wine, I swatted his hand.
Seconds later, I grabbed a wine opener, and we got down on the spread I’d made for my wife.Okay, bought.I’d hid the evidence already. As we ate, I wished for more for my brother. Boy Three had examples from me, Montana, and his twin. I knew college wasn’t for everyone, but I wished he’d get things right this time.
After dinner, I showed him to one of the guest rooms. He picked another. Said he wanted to wake up with a Mississippi River view. I threw terry cloth towels at him and left the room, slamming the door behind me. In the hall, I texted mybébé. Since she didn’t answer, I got things ready in our room for her homecoming.
“How was last night? Did you give your brother some of your last-season suits and a few sweats and jeans?” Madison asked, taking my hand as I helped her into the Bentley.
“Yep.” I jogged around the convertible and got in. Sitting there, staring out the window into the bright morning sun, I muttered, “I can’t believe he had nothing. Slid him a few dollars, even though he told me he didn’t need tohold nothing. That man needs to hold a résumé.”
She chuckled, soft and low. “Be kind to him.”
“A Black man can’t get anywhere being babied.”
“You … told me the same about Elijah.”
We didn’t bring him up much, and I had the feeling Shonda’s contract included him as a silent caveat in her unusual torture.
Lack of sex? It was silent and deadly.
But there shouldn’t be anyhiding the salamiwhen we couldn’t discuss our boy. Shonda was right about that.
“If I had known …” I replied, starting the car.
“You couldn’t have known,” she whispered, then shook her head with a soft laugh. “He was a little crybaby, though, huh? Instead of terrible twos?”
“He was a tough three after you rationed your kisses.”
“True.” She took my hand as I drove.
madison
. . .
Shreveport who?Was I low-key sabotaging our chances to make it to the wine spritzer? Well, yes, I was. But I had many more reasons than a desire not to relive my son’s funeral and Bridget’s statement. Beignets. And farmers markets.
Who didn’t love a farmers market? Okay, maybe that was the genetic makeup that came from my bougie mommy. She couldn’t resist themarches fermierswhen in France. Amercadillosin Spain. And anasaichiin Japan, which translates as a morning market. However, I wondered if my mind had constructed that correctly. If so, Duolingo had nothing on me when it came to recalling Mom’s many adventures and how she loved toSpanglishorJaplish it outwherever she traveled.
I would’ve called the mashup of languagesthugging it out, but she would’ve slapped me and then snatched the annual subscription of truffle face mask she got me one year and forgot to cancel.
In my attempt to derail our actual plans, I’d done an online search and brought up every farmers market off Interstate-10. So far, I’d dragged us through Sorento and Baton Rouge without getting us arrested or me a urinary tract infection. Because I’d been on my best behavior, like first-date behavior where youshare desserts and stuff. Now we were in Opelousas. The sun was shining and a zydeco melody floated through the air.
The smell of powdered sugar drifted toward me, a trap for new couples. All that sharing and caring, so sweet. But I had loved this man too long to hurt his feelings. “Listen,” I blurted, “I can’t share these with you.”
Maybe I moaned the words in between bites of heavenly beignet goodness, but I tried to be kind about it. I cradled the brown paper bag, newborn-style.
