Page 74 of When Love Takes Root

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. Dangerous is a man who wants you without reverence. I’m trying to be the opposite.”

Her eyes glistened again, and her smile trembled before she caught it. “Josiah.”

“I mean that, Celeste.”

For a few seconds, neither of us reached for food, drinks, or easy laughter. We just sat there across from each other while the restaurant carried on around us, while the ice melted in our glasses, while something living and sacred shifted beneath the surface of a Thursday night neither one of us would ever call ordinary again.

I hadn’t fixed anything.

I hadn’t promised what God hadn’t released.

But I had told the truth.

And from the way Celeste kept looking at me, like her heart had heard something before her fear could talk over it, I knew the truth had found her.

Friday Morning

By six forty-five Friday morning, my house had turned into a small nation with unstable leadership, missing socks, and a cereal crisis that somehow required my direct supervision.

The kitchen smelled like cinnamon waffles, hair oil, coffee, and the faint citrus cleaner JJ had used on the counters the night before because he was either growing into a responsible man or hiding something. Skye sat sideways in her chair with one knee tucked beneath her, eating waffles. Zuri stood at the island packing her lunch one grape at a time. Maya leaned against the refrigerator in oversized sweats, sketchbook under one arm, face arranged into the dramatic exhaustion only fifteen-year-old girls and retired actresses could execute before seven in the morning. Kayden hovered near the pantry with a bowl in his hand, tall, watchful, pretending he wasn’t watching me.

I moved between them with a coffee mug in one hand and a brush in the other, my robe tied crooked around my waist and my locs wrapped high in a scarf that had seen better days. “Zuri, put the grapes in the container, not on trial. Skye, both feet under the table. Maya, your uniform shirt is in the dryer because you left it under three hoodies and a tote bag with paint pens in it. Kayden, don’t just stand in front of the pantry looking grown and suspicious. Eat.”

Kayden turned his head. “I’m not suspicious.”

“You’ve been standing there stirring that cereal like you’re waiting on it to testify.”

Skye giggled with syrup shining at the corner of her mouth.

Kayden gave her a look. “Eat your food.”

“I’m eating my food.”

“You eating like you got all day.”

“I’m savoring.”

Maya lifted her eyes from the refrigerator door. “She learned that word yesterday and hasn’t stopped using it.”

“I’m savoring my vocabulary too,” Skye said.

I pointed the brush toward her. “That vocabulary better savor itself into your shoes in the next ten minutes.”

JJ walked in wearing gray sweats, a Self Ridge State hoodie, and the familiar half-awake expression that still made him look like my baby. He kissed the top of my head as he passed me and reached for the coffee pot.

I blocked him with my elbow. “Absolutely not.”

“Mama Cee.”

“You don’t need coffee.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“You’re twenty-one with finals and a bad habit of calling energy drinks hydration. Get orange juice.”

He looked wounded. “I’m an engineering student. Coffee is part of the major.”

“Then your department needs prayer.”