Page 99 of When Love Takes Root

Calista had been married just long enough to think she was the relationship elder. Cassia was single enough to believe every handsome man was either a blessing or a warning. Leilani sat by the window eating chips like pregnancy had made sharing illegal.

Calista stood in front of my bed, holding one of my black dresses with two fingers like the fabric had personally sinned against her. Cassia was halfway inside my closet, digging through my shoes with the focus of somebody searching for hidden money or a reason to judge me. Corinne’s face filled my phone screen from where it leaned against a perfume bottle on my vanity, her eyes narrow and her bonnet sitting crooked enough to let me know she had joined the call prepared for spiritual warfare and fashion correction.

Calista lifted the dress higher. “You’re not wearing this.”

I looked over my shoulder from the vanity mirror. “Why not?”

Corinne leaned closer to the FaceTime camera. “Because you’re going on a date, not testifying before the grief committee.”

Leilani snorted so hard she slapped one hand over her mouth and the other over her belly.

I turned around with my mascara wand in my hand. “First of all, don’t disrespect black. Black is elegant.”

Cassia’s voice came from inside my closet. “Black is elegant. That dress is widow at a zoning meeting.”

Calista dropped the dress on the bed like it needed deliverance. “We’re loving. You just don’t like love with accuracy.”

Corinne nodded through the phone. “Exactly. And accuracy is telling you that dress looks like you’re about to deny a building permit and go home alone.”

Leilani lifted a chip toward me like she was making a toast. “And before you get sensitive, remember we’re doing this because we love you, because you deserve to look good, and because that electrician got them broad-ass shoulders.”

I closed my eyes. “Please don’t start with the shoulders again.”

Leilani leaned forward, her chips forgotten. “Them forearms were forearming. Tattoos sitting there all neat and grown, veins acting like they pay rent, hands looking like they know how to fix a breaker and a bad attitude.”

“Leilani.”

Corinne waved me off. “Be honest. What got you first, his forearms or his biceps? You can rebuke it after you answer the question.”

“I’m not answering that.”

Calista folded her arms. “That means forearms and biceps.”

Cassia nodded. “Definitely. She got that I done saw too much, and now I’m repenting look.”

Leilani fanned herself with one chip. “Lord, cover her. She ain’t been outside in eighteen months, and You done sent a six-six electrician with shoulders, tattoos, and home training.”

I tried to hold my face together, but laughter slipped through before I could stop it.

“I don’t know anything.”

Corinne’s voice sharpened with big-sister authority. “Celly, you know enough to be sitting over there glowing on one side of your face like that man said something to you and your spirit started acting brand new.”

My mascara wand paused. The room erupted so loud I was surprised Kayden didn’t sense disrespect from the gym and call home.

Leilani laughed until she bent forward and squeezed her thighs together. “Y’all need to stop before I pee, and I’m not even playing. I can’t keep risking my dignity because Celly got kissed by Current Events.”

My head snapped toward her. “Who said I got kissed?”

The room went silent for half a breath.

Then all hell broke loose.

Cassia fell against the closet door. “Nobody said kiss but you.”

Corinne pointed at the camera like she was reaching through the phone. “I knew it. I knew it. Look at your face.”

Leilani rocked back in the chair, laughing and rubbing her belly. “I said Current Events, and your mouth filed the kiss paperwork all by itself.”