Page 69 of When Love Takes Root

“Nah, I’m starting. You were looking at my sister like the Lord Himself highlighted her in yellow.”

Lyric gasped. “Uncle Si-yuh got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

Onyx grinned. “Not yet.”

“You worse than Juice.”

“That’s family. I learned from the best.”

He adjusted Jamilah on his hip, and she reached toward Lyric. The girls started talking in their own way, part words, part sounds, all joy. Onyx watched them for a second before the clowning left his face.

Onyx asked, “For real, though, what is it?”

I looked across the parking lot as children poured out of the school doors in bright uniforms and crooked backpacks. A joke would’ve been easy. Silence would’ve been safer. But there were some men you didn’t lie to when they asked about a woman they loved like family. “It feels like I’m being drawn to her.”

Onyx didn’t laugh.

“I know she’s fragile. I know she’s got children, grief, history, and a husband people still speak about with respect. I’m not blind to any of that.”

“Good. Because Celly ain’t casual. Not her heart. Not her babies. Not what Big J left behind. She’s good people, Siah. One of the best women I know.”

“I see that.”

Onyx looked me straight in the face. “And you’re good people too. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it. Y’all could be good together. But make sure you want everything attached to her, not just her smile. There’s a whole family standing behind that woman.”

I thought about her children, her shop, her tired laugh, and the way she carried love, even when her arms looked full.

“I know.”

“You up for that?”

I looked at Lyric holding Jamilah’s hand, then back at Onyx. “I wouldn’t be praying about it if I wasn’t.”

Onyx’s smile returned slowly. “All right then. I’m rooting for you.”

“Appreciate that.”

He dapped me up again, firmer this time. “Just don’t make me have to switch sides.”

“I’d expect you to.”

“Good answer.”

Later that evening, Celestial Crowns had settled into the tired hush businesses carried after serving everybody else all day. The last client had left. Starr was gone. The front stations were clean, and the back row still sat open with wires labeled, the wall marked, and the repair moving in the right direction. Celeste stood behind the counter counting receipts, her locs falling over one shoulder. She had a pencil tucked between two fingers, a calculator near her wrist, and exhaustion sitting at the edge of her face. Still pretty. Still graceful. Still trying.

That was what pulled at me the hardest. Not perfection. The effort. She kept showing up to a life that still hurt. I watched her for a second longer than business required and remembered the prayer.

I nodded toward the receipts. “You eaten?”

She looked up. “Today?”

“That’s a terrible answer.”

“I had coffee and half a honey bun.”

“That’s worse.”