Page 13 of Justice

The receptionist buzzed through then. “Fellas, your ten o’clock is here. The Harlows.”

“Send them in,” Quest said.

The door opened and Roman Harlow walked in with his hand already out, a smile on his face. I stood and shook it.

“Roman Harlow.” He shook all three of our hands, unhurried, comfortable in a room full of men like us, which was rarer than people thought, and I clocked it same as I clocked everything. “This is my brother, Julian. Appreciate y’all having us up.”

Julian was the quieter one, younger, softer around the eyes, a man content to let his brother do the talking. He shook our hands and took his seat and mostly listened. It was Roman who ran the room.

And he was good. He talked about Freetown like he already loved it, like it was his own mother’s neighborhood, and laid out a vision that lined up with ours so clean it was almost uncanny. He knew the history of the land. He knew what it meant to build Black in a country that spent four hundred years building on our backs and calling it their own achievement. He said all the right things, and the thing was, I believed he meant them. Prime was nodding. Quest was leaning in. It was shaping up to be the easiest yes we’d given in a long time.

“We like what we’re hearing,” Quest said when it was done. “We’ve got a couple more conversations to have on our end, but I won’t lie to you, Mr. Harlow. You’re at the top of a short list.”

“That’s all I can ask.” Roman stood, buttoned his jacket, easy and gracious. “Freetown deserves to be built by people who understand what it is. I’d be honored to be those hands.” He smiled that smile again. “Y’all have my number. Take your time. A thing worth doing is worth doing right.”

We saw them out. Prime clapped me on the shoulder, already talking timelines. Quest looked pleased in that rare way he got when a thing came together right. And I stood at the glass and watched the two Harlow brothers cross the lobby forty floors down, small as toys, and thought that Freetown might’ve just found its hands.

My phone buzzed on the way to the car. It was Kira.

Meet me at the hotel tonight? Been thinking about you.

I looked at it a long moment. I knew what that text was and I knew what it wasn’t. Kira had been filling a space in my life. It had only been happening the last few months. And even though Monica had been gone for three years, I still felt a lil guilty.

She filled a space but she wanted to be a lot more than she was, and we both kept pretending we didn’t know that about each other. She was always available. Always right there when I needed a body that wasn’t a stranger and a face I didn’t have to explain myself to.

And lately something had shifted. When I thought about the empty side of my bed, Kira’s face wasn’t what came to mind. I saw a dimple in a right cheek. A pair of almond eyes that went to my grandmother first.

I typed back one word.

Aight.

Then I got in my car and drove, and I didn’t let my mind go anywhere near whose name I’d almost typed instead.

7

SKYE

One week down. I’d survived my first week inside the Banks family. I had the sore feet and the full heart to prove it, and that full heart was exactly the problem. I could not afford to get emotionally attached to this family.

I swung by my apartment before dinner to shed the day. Same as always, I worked the locks going in, top to bottom, then turned and threw every one of them again behind me. I scrubbed through the footage until the rest of me believed what my eyes already knew. Nobody had come. Nobody ever came. I checked anyway, because checking was the only religion that had never once let me down.

Then I peeled out of those scrubs like I was peeling off a second skin.

That was the part nobody warned you about a disguise. You start to feel it grafting on. All week I’d been Skye the caregiver. Soft, warm, harmless. Wiping counters, holding an old woman’s hand, being nobody at all. Taking the scrubs off felt like remembering I had a body under there. A whole woman, with a past and a temper and a mind that used to cut glass. For one night I got to put her on instead. I threw on jeans that fit like they meant it and a top that showed I still had something worth showing, and I did not look too long at the raised, ugly line riding above my heart in the mirror. I knew it was there. It was always there. I didn’t need to read it to remember what it said.

Then I locked my life back up behind me, top to bottom, and went to go be a person for a couple of hours.

Aubrey was already two sips into a glass of red when I slid into the booth, and she pointed at me before I even got my jacket off.

“Okay, talk to me. And don’t leave nothing out, I’ve been dying all week.” She flagged the waiter, ordered for both of us like she’d been doing since we were nineteen, and turned those nosy eyes on me. “How was it? These Banks people as crazy as the papers say?

“They’re not crazy.” I reached for the bread. “So far anyway. I get the feeling they’d do anything for each other. And I do mean anything.”

“Mm. So, crazy.”

I laughed. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to.

“The grandmother is everything,” I said. “Rita. She’s so funny it hurts. She told me the first day I wasn’t the help, I was family, I just didn’t know it yet.” I turned my wine glass by the stem.