Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(44)
“I might get grandbabies yet!” She claps her hands and cackles.
“Excuse me, what’s Simone? Chopped liver?”
“One?” She demands, eyes wide, but sparkling with humor I haven’t seen much lately. “I need at least a spare, since you don’t have any prospects.”
“Who said I don’t have any prospects?” I mutter, grinning and braced for her third degree.
“Kenan Admiral Ross, what are you not telling me?”
“I’m not holding out . . . not really.” I lean against the sink and cross my arms over my chest. “There is this . . . uh, girl, I like talking to.”
“You like talking?” Incredulity lifts Mama’s brows. “Go on.”
“She’s so different from me. She’s outgoing and vivacious and the life of the party.” I laugh and shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “But she’s also thoughtful and sensitive. Superstitious.”
“Where are her people from?” Mama asks semi-haughtily.
“Her people, as you call them, are from New Orleans, but she went to Spelman and lived in Atlanta before she moved to New York.”
“Excellent school.”
I don’t bother telling her Lotus dropped out to pursue fashion. Despite the huge risks she took, it’s all turned out well, and she landed on her feet. Lotus is a cat with nine lives.
“And does Bridget know you’re interested in someone new?” Mama shoots me a meaningful look. “She knows she lost a good thing.”
“She didn’t lose too much. I’m paying her enough every month.”
“You know that’s not what I mean, and watch that one. I didn’t see her before for what she was, but I have since. She’s got a vindictive streak.”
“Maybe I do, too.”
“No, you don’t. You can make a person feel like they don’t have the common sense of a sheep with one look, but that’s not vindictive. It’s just your personality. Your father was the same way.”
The doorbell rings before I can comment.
“That’ll be Lucius,” I say.
“So the shop’s doing well?”
“Great actually.” I head for the front door. “At least that’s what Lucius tells me. I need to see for myself.”
Lucius stands on the stoop, sporting a big grin and a white kufi cap fitted tightly to his skull.
“Assalamualaikum,” he says, reaching up to hug me.
“Mualaikumsalam,” I reply, pulling back to give him a once-over. “You leaner, bruh.”
“Cutting out that pork.” He grins sheepishly, still looking like that guy I played JV basketball with in high school. That is before I got bumped up to varsity, of course. “And that workout you turned me onto didn’t hurt.”
“Didn’t hurt?” He swore up and down he didn’t need my “fancy” diets and workouts to lose weight. “Okay. I’ll let you have that. Come see my mom before we go to the shop.”
“Your mom still fine?” he asks with a teenage boy’s irrepressible smirk. “You know she always had that Claire Huxtable vibe.”
I roll my eyes and lead him back toward the kitchen.
“Damn shame we can’t even watch The Cosby Show anymore. Lisa Bonet was fine as hell,” he complains. “We lost Cosby and Kanye.”
I laugh, thinking of my conversation with Lotus.
“Yeah, I did see on Twitter that Kanye’s in the sunken place,” I joke.
“Twitter?” he asks, giving me a crunchy face. “You still using Twitter?”
I wish Lotus was here to appreciate this.
13
Lotus
“Happy birthday!”
Billie blows out all twenty-seven candles on the huge chocolate espresso cake. With laughing eyes and her hair even redder than usual from the glow of candles, she looks ironically younger as she celebrates another year.
“I hope you made a wish,” Yari says, aiming her phone at the cake and the birthday girl for a photo.
Billie’s smile slips so quickly, I doubt the camera caught it, but I did. We all cheer, and I’m glad the people who care about her most are here celebrating. Paul wouldn’t be here with us peons.
Makes me sick.
How an otherwise bright, ambitious, honest-to-a-fault woman like Billie can let Paul have her birthday cake and eat it, too, astounds and depresses me. She has ceded everything to him—all the control, all the leverage. She thinks Yari and I don’t understand, that we’re too hard on her, but I’ve seen firsthand and more than once how dangerous it is to trust someone unworthy with your heart. It’s why everything I’ve ever shared with a man was below the belt.
Lately, I haven’t even shared that.
Right on cue, Chase leans over and blows in my ear. Is that shit supposed to be sexy?
I swat at him like he’s an annoying fly.
“Chase, when you gonna give up?” Yari shakes her head and passes around plates with slices of cake.
“I’m not.” He squeezes my thigh under the table. “We’re on a break, but she’ll be back.”
“No, she won’t.” I force a smile and push his hand away. “You are firmly in the former fuck category, and there you shall remain.”