Page 122 of When Love Takes Root

I laughed, and she smiled into her food.

Dinner loosened us. She told me about Celestial Crowns and the women who came in carrying work stress, church news, blood pressure updates, and secrets tucked beneath bonnets. I told her about the first time I shocked myself at fifteen because confidence had convinced me instruction was optional.

Celeste covered her mouth. “You? Mr. Safety First?”

“I was fifteen and stupid.”

“What happened?”

“Pops made me write a two-page reflection titled Electricity Doesn’t Care About Your Ego.”

She laughed so hard she put her fork down. “I know you lying.”

“I wish I was.”

“Did you learn?”

“I learned not to tell Mama first. She made me write a prayer too.”

Her laugh came full that time, rich enough to make me forget the food cooling between us.

After dinner, she helped me clear the table despite my objections. She washed. I dried. She hummed under her breath without realizing it. The rosemary watched from the window. Her creamer sat in my refrigerator. Snacks for her children waited on a shelf.

The house felt different with her in it.

She handed me a plate. “You keep everything where it makes sense.”

“I try.”

“That must be peaceful.”

“It is now.”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

I put the plate away and rested both hands on the counter.

She folded the towel slowly. “Now?”

I looked toward the dark window. “There were years where peaceful wasn’t a word I could use.”

She leaned back against the counter and waited.

I wiped a drop of water from the edge of the sink. “You remember at The Blooming Room when I said I had to learn the difference between loyalty and surrender?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“That story starts with my Uncle Zeke.”

Her brows drew in.

“My daddy had a twin brother. Jezekiah Brooks, but everybody calls him Zeke. He’s family in every loud, complicated, loving way family can be. Funny. Slick-mouthed. Protective when he’s right. Dangerous to himself when he’s wrong.” I looked toward the dark window over the sink. “He wasn’t always the man he is now.”

Celeste set the towel down and gave me her full attention.

“I was nineteen. Young enough to think family instructions didn’t need questions and old enough for the law to stop treating me like somebody’s child. Zeke handed me some keys one afternoon and asked me to take a car to the wash for him. Simple errand. Ten minutes there, ten minutes back. I got in, turned the music up, pulled out too fast, and forgot to signal at the light.”

Celeste’s face shifted.