Page 11

“Count on it.”

By the time Lakelyn and I made it downstairs, Granny Liz already had her morning music playing from the little speaker on the kitchen counter. The smell of bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and grits filled the room, and she was standing at the stove in her robe and house shoes like she had been awake for hours.

“Good morning,” Lakelyn said as we walked in together.

Granny Liz turned from the stove, took one good look at both of us, and gave the smallest nod.

“Morning. Figured y’all might be hungry after all that carrying on upstairs.”

For a second, neither me nor Lakelyn said shit. We just turned toward each other.

Granny Liz kept stirring the grits like she hadn’t just exposed the both of us before eight in the morning.

Lakelyn recovered first. “Granny!”

“What?” She finally faced us, completely innocent. “These walls old, baby. Old don’t mean deaf.”

I dropped my head, trying not to laugh.

Granny Liz pointed the spoon at us. “And if y’all break that bed, Caspian, you’re buying me another one… a good one too. Don’t come bringing no cheap mattress in my house.”

I laughed outright then. “I got you, Granny Liz.”

She slid a plate in front of me. “Mm-hmm. Now sit down and eat before this food gets cold. Lakelyn, yours is right there.”

That was another thing about Granny Liz: she never asked whether I wanted breakfast, because as far as she was concerned, if I was in her house when food was being cooked, I was eating. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped treating me like Lakelyn’s boyfriend and started treating me like I belonged there.

I had my own spot at the table, she knew how I liked my eggs, and if I tried to leave without eating, she would fuss like I was one of her own.

That morning was no different.

Willow wandered into the kitchen with a coffee mug in one hand and a bonnet sitting crooked on her head.

She took in the scene, then her attention settled on me.

“Heeeeey, brother-in-law!” The fake innocence in her voice was so obvious that even Granny Liz shook her head.

“What’s up, Willow?”

“You know, don’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way, because we love you over here. But I swear you stay here more than you stay at your own house.”

“Willow!” Granny Liz shrieked.

“Granny, I’m just saying. The man got a whole mansion and he’s sleeping on a full-size bed at his girlfriend’s house. That’s love right there.”

Willow wasn’t wrong.

I had a house big enough for ten people, built exactly how I wanted it, every detail chosen with Lakelyn in mind even if she didn't know it yet, and I still ended up there more nights than not. The reason was sitting right beside me. It was that simple.

“I been trying to get yo’ sister to move in with me. She’s the one acting like I asked her to relocate to another country.”

Willow turned toward Lakelyn. “Sis, say it isn’t so? If I had a man with a mansion asking me to move in, my shit would’ve been packed before he finished the sentence.”

“Nobody asked you,” Lakelyn muttered.

“And I wouldn’t need to be asked twice either. I’d be in there picking my side of the closet before that man had a chance to change his mind.”

Lakelyn cut her eyes at both of us. “Then you move in with him.”