“But you didn’t lose it.”
“No.” She glanced at me sideways. “I turned it into three hundred in two weeks. Then I knew I could do it for real.”
“That’s impressive,” I said, and I meant it. “Most people blow up their accounts in the first month.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I’m starting to see that.”
We turned onto her street, and the energy shifted immediately. A group of women were sitting in the yard, playing spades, their voices loud and animated, trash talk flying. Music was coming from somewhere—old school R&B mixed with bounce. And in the front yard of a shotgun house halfway down the block, I saw a woman standing over a propane burner with a massive pot, steam rising into the air.
Fish fry.
Truth’s steps slowed slightly as we got closer, and I realized why. The woman at the fryer was her mother. Had to be. Same bone structure, same way of holding herself—proud, unbothered, like she owned every inch of ground she stood on.
“That’s my mama,” Truth said quietly, confirming what I already knew. “And her friends. They’re… a lot.”
“I can handle a lot.”
“We’ll see.”
As we approached, Delphine looked up from the fish she was frying. Her eyes landed on me, and I watched her do a double-take—subtle, but there. Her gaze sharpened, traveled from my face down to my shoes and back up again, taking inventory.
Shit.
“Hey, Mama,” Truth said, her voice deliberately casual.
“Baby.” Delphine’s eyes were still on me, assessing. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Kaisen. We met at the park. He walked me home.”
One of Delphine’s friends—a woman with box braids and a sundress—leaned forward in her lawn chair, grinning. “Girl, you sho been having some fine ass men ripping and running down this street lately!”
The other women laughed, loud and unfiltered. Truth’s face went hot.
“Y’all need to chill,” she said, but there was no real heat in it. Just embarrassment.
Delphine didn’t laugh. She was still watching me, her expression unreadable. Then, she tilted her head slightly, like she was trying to place something.
“You look familiar,” she said slowly. “You look like that other one that’s been coming around here.”
My blood went cold.
I kept my face neutral, kept my body language relaxed, but my mind was already calculating. She’d clocked it. The resemblance between me and Amai. We didn’t look identical—I was lighter, my features softer, my build leaner—but we had the same eyes, the same jawline, the same way of moving through space.
And Delphine Renois was sharp as hell.
“I get that sometimes,” I said easily, flashing a smile that I hoped looked genuine. “Guess I just got one of those faces.”
Delphine’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t push. Just nodded slowly and turned back to her fish, flipping a piece with practiced precision.
But I could feel her watching me from the corner of her eye. Could feel the weight of her suspicion settling over the yard like humidity.
Truth was oblivious, still embarrassed by her mama’s friends, still trying to recover from the teasing. She didn’t see what I saw—the way Delphine’s shoulders had tensed, the way her grip on the spatula had tightened.
She knew something was off.
And if I stayed much longer, she’d figure out exactly what.
