As an answer, I nod and kiss him lightly, squeezing his dense muscles. I want to do cartwheels through the backyard, but I try to play it cool. He’ll find out soon enough how not-cool I am when it comes to him. His hands tighten at my hips and he groans into our kiss, and then pulls back after a few seconds to drop his forehead against mine.
“I need to go,” he says on a ragged breath. “Kenneth and I are meeting with the set design team one last time before we break for the holidays.”
Taking my hand, he grabs his cookies from the bench and we walk back into the house. In the foyer, he leans against the door and pulls me close to kiss me again, like he can’t help it. Like I’m against his better judgment, but he can’t resist. I feel that. In his arms, risk weighs less than this necessary passion. And it does feel as necessary as breath. He’s hard through the thin fabric of my dress and I have to stop myself from dropping to my knees right here and taking him down my throat.
It has been a long time, and he is the only man I’ve really wanted in ages. He breaks the kiss after a few drugging seconds, and when he pulls away, desire glazes the eyes that are usually so focused.
“I really have to go.” He dips to kiss my forehead. “Thank you again for the cookies. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Canon.”
Once he’s gone, I dance around in a circle.
I’m going to have him.
I’m going to have him.
I’m going to have him.
“So, question.” Takira’s pointed words break the spell, and I stop mid-circle, staring at her in surprise. I’d forgotten she was even in the house. “What was Canon Holt doing here, and why were you kissing him?”
“Uh, you saw that?” I squeak, unable to hold back a broad, delighted smile despite getting caught.
She crosses her arms, eyes bright with curiosity and anticipation. “Girl, you got some ’splaining to do.”
34
Neevah
A house is not a home.
Luther’s lyric replays in my head as I pull up to the house where I grew up. A house may not always be a home, but this one used to be. In the years before my father died, this brick ranch-style house was filled with laughter and the four of us were happy.
When he passed away, grief drew Mama, Terry, and me closer. Love kept us tight.
It’s hard to believe this patch of land, this street, this town used to be the breadth of my existence. Not much has changed here. Oh, the Piggly Wiggly is gone and there’s a new Taco Bell/KFC combo on Main Street, but Mama says Mrs. Shay still does a fish fry every Saturday and sells chitterlings dinners at Christmas.
I thank the Uber driver and drag my small rolling suitcase behind me under the car porch and to the door. My flight was delayed and Mama had to take one of the ladies from church to the doctor’s office, so I told her I could find my way home.
“You still got your house key?” she had asked.
I pull out my key ring and select the one I haven’t used in years. I wonder if the key, like me, no longer fits here, but it slides right in. I can only hope my homecoming goes as smoothly.
“I’m home,” I tell the empty foyer, parking my suitcase at the foot of the stairs. I’m not quite ready to face the pink canopy bed and my wall poster gallery of Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake and Soulja Boy.
“Soulja Boy?” I grimace and laugh. “That was quick.”
It’s not my first time home in the twelve years since I left for college, but it’s one of only a few, and the first time I’ve had this house and all its memories to myself. I wander down the hall into the living room and, like a shrine to what our family used to be, a lifetime of photos line the mantel. Each one chronicles a uniquely awkward phase of my life. Stockings decorated with candy canes hang over the fireplace, the same ones Mama used to stuff on Christmas Eve with our names on them. Now there’s a new stocking.
Quianna.
The beautiful living indiscretion that demolished my illusions and tore my family at the seams. Mama was disappointed and angry with them, of course. She took my side, of course.
But Terry was pregnant and needed Mama more than I did.
Terry was a new mother and needed Mama more than I did.
Terry was here, and I was gone, so she got more of Mama than I did.
In a strange new city, I licked my wounds alone. Away from home for the first time and overwhelmed, I learned to stand on my own by necessity. I never stopped needing Mama, but I let her think I was fine, and to survive, I told myself the same lie. But lately with my life barreling ahead at breakneck speed, with a decade’s worth of work harvesting rewards seemingly overnight, there’s been a tiny hole in my happiness. An irritating tear like a sock in need of darning. A secret tucked inside my shoe, but it doesn’t affect the way I walk, and I’m the only one who knows it’s there.