I’d somehow convinced my grandmother and brother I was meeting the neighbor lady I’d met across the street for drinks downtown.
Unbelievable?
Absolutely.
But I guessed all of us had become complacent.
Easing into normalcy which was the goal.
Our claim.
What we were desperate for.
She didn’t need to know I was hawking the last piece of jewelry I still owned of my mother’s.
Mimi’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “So, who was this friend?”
Uneasily, I took the last step up to the front door, my gaze dropping to my feet for a second before I met Mimi’s eyes. I thought to lie, but then I figured the woman could see right through me, anyway.
She’d raised me, after all.
“I guess you could say he just became my friend last night.”
Juni clapped, her voice full of a thrill. “You got a new friend, Mommy? That’s so, so good! Meeting new people is really important.”
“That’s right, Juni Bee,” I told her, though my attention was still locked on my grandmother who eyed me up and down.
“He a looker?” she asked, her brow rising in what appeared glee.
“Mimi,” I chastised as I stepped into the old house. The main room was small, the carpet worn, and the furniture old. But Mimi had taken to making it a home. Every nook and cranny was filled with the same knickknacks from her house growing up, and she’d covered the walls in family pictures.
Juni and I were staying in the main living room since there were only two bedrooms, and I wasn’t about to oust Darius and Mimi from their beds. Darius had tried to argue, but I’d insisted. He was paying for this place, and like I’d told Jud, I was no charity case.
I’d managed to scrape by doing odd jobs for the last four years, and that wasn’t going to change.
Mimi laughed as she followed us inside. “Oh, I was young once, missy. Don’t even be givin’ me that. It’s about time you had yourself a little fun.”
“I’m not anywhere near being in the position to entertain the idea of fun, Mimi,” I told her, setting Juni on her feet. Juni scampered over to the dolls she had set up by the window, singing under her breath when she climbed down onto her knees to play.
A light in the shadows. My beacon in the dark. Where my heart would always follow.
I realized I must have been staring at my daughter because Mimi’s expression had gone soft when I finally looked back at her.
“The heart usually decides when you’re ready, Salem, not the head.”
A doubtful chuckle rippled out. “Honestly, it was nothing, Mimi. Just a nice guy who stopped to help me in the rain. A guy who just so happened to turn out to be Darius’ boss. There was nothing there, so you just forget whatever scandalous ideas you have spinning in your brain right now.”
“I live for scandalous ideas.”
“Mimi.” I huffed.
Laughing, she started to shuffle toward the kitchen. “I might be old, but I’m not dead, girl, so don’t pretend like I didn’t just see that blush light up your cheeks. Nothing there, my ass.”
“I am not blushing, Mimi,” I hollered behind her.
The second she disappeared through the doorway, I touched my cheek, feeling the heat on my fingertips.
Crap.
“And while you’re at it, you might as well fess up about whatever you were up to last night because I sure know it wasn’t meeting up with a friend, but I sure like the idea of you making some new ones.” Her voice carried from the kitchen.
Double crap.
“Mimi, ass is bad words.” Juni said it so casually, like she’d been a part of the entire conversation. “You’re the one who’d better be fessing it up, young lady, before you get in troubles and have to go to timeout all the way in Antarctica.”
“Time out in Antarctica? Well, we don’t want that now, do we? How about I trade you a popsicle, instead, angel girl?” Mimi all but sang.
Juni hopped to her feet and raced for the kitchen.
The child was nothing but pink bows and bright, blinding life.
“Deal!”
“Ugh, Mimi, you are going to spoil her rotten.”
“That’s what mimis are for, sweet child.”
“And you’re my greatest mimi, right?” Juni asked, standing at her side with all that hope shining on her adorable face.
I’d followed them to the entryway, light laughter rolling from my throat. Juni kept smiling up at her great grandmother. Mimi touched her chin. “That’s right, Juni Bee. The greatest, and don’t you ever forget it.”
My chest squeezed tight.
I nearly hit the ceiling when the doorbell rang five times in a row. Carefully, I inched that way, forever on edge. I peered out the drape and the dread that had bottled fizzled in a flash. I worked through the lock, calling, “I think you have a visitor, Juni Bee.”
She was already at my side by the time I got the door open to the little neighbor boy and his dad’s girlfriend, Eden.
You know, the one I’d supposedly gone out with last night.
We’d met them yesterday when they’d been out playing in front of their house. The child’s hand was wrapped up in Eden’s as he anxiously jumped at her side. “Hi, hi, hi! Do you remember me? I live right there.”
In excitement, he pointed at the house directly across the street.
Juni giggled and squirmed, and I was pretty sure she was blushing, too. “’Course, I remembers you! You’re my new best friend Gage, you silly willies. I seens you yesterday with your brand-new red bike.”
The little boy laughed like what she’d said was hysterical, all dimples and brown eyes. “It’s the coolest bike in the whole wide world. I’m gonna ride it to the highest mountain. You wanna try it today? My Miss Murphy said I was allowed to ask you. Right, Miss Murphy, right?”
The words rambled from his mouth in a slew of excitement.
“That’s right, Gage.”
Eden’s smile was adoring as she looked between the two of them, knowing as she glanced at me in small wonder. As if she couldn’t believe she was experiencing it herself. I didn’t really know her, but it was clear she’d taken up a role in the child’s life that had changed everything in hers.
Adoration stark.
Love fierce.
Devotion whole.
Eden was tall and slender and blonde. Wearing a modest floral dress and sandals. Everything about her was soft, gracious, and kind. “I hope we’re not imposing. Gage woke up this morning and the only thing he could talk about was getting over here to ask if Juni could play.”
My chest pressed with hope and twitched with nerves. “You’re not imposing at all.”
Eden smiled, pure affection rolling from her tongue. “Okay, good. We can be a lot to handle.”
“You wanna try it?” Gage asked Juni.
“Yes! Oh, please, yes!”
The second we’d come in after meeting them yesterday, Juni had begged for a bike so she could play with him.
And I was trying…trying so hard to give her everything she deserved.
Which was the precise reason I was out at nine at night in the middle of a storm trying to scrimp something together.
Stupid?
Maybe.
But I couldn’t ask Darius for anything else, couldn’t put another burden on his shoulders, not when he was paying for Mimi’s medications and this house, so I’d slipped out when he’d gone to hang out with the girl he’d been seeing for the last few months and had headed straight to a pawn shop.