Page 16 of A Little Kissing Between Friends

This time around, I knew better. All opinions from outsiders were simply ignored.

Chapter Five

Jucee

Summatime Fine

The Thomases had a modest home on the southwest side of the city, in the Mission Bend area. Their particular neighborhood was full of older homes with two-car garages on larger-than-average lots. As cliché as it sounded, the grass over there was, without-a-doubt, greener. The air also smelled a little sweeter, cleaner. Maybe it was the mature trees that dotted the community, their lush canopies naturally shading the wide streets and providing a home to a bevy of raucous birds and skittering squirrels. It was beautiful to experience in the spring and fall months, but it was especially captivating in the winter, when the entire neighborhood came together to decorate each street with lights and displays for the full month of December.

I shifted the car into Park and twisted in my seat to find Amani already pulling his arms through the straps of his booster seat. Laughing, I turned off the car and stepped onto the street, using my hip to close my door before opening his and finishing the job of disconnecting his buckles before he got stuck.

“Wait, baby!” I urged when he began to lurch against the straps.

“Hurry, Mommy! Nana Cherry’s in there!”

The moment that the last buckle across his chest was released, he slid out of his seat and pushed past me to jump out of the car. As soon as his sneakered feet touched the grass on the embankment, he took off running, heading right for the Texas-shaped pavers that formed a path from the sidewalk to the front door.

“Careful!” I called out, knowing even as the word left my mouth that my determined baby would do no such thing.

He kept on, pace undisturbed, little arms pumping as he crossed the large lawn. The door flung open and Poppa’s septuagenarian grandmother crouched on one knee, her arms spread wide.

“My ’Mani!”

“Nana Cherry!” Amani shouted, somehow speeding up out of nowhere with no extra traction immediately visible.

My first instinct was to grab him or, once again, call out to him, this time with instructions to slow down. The last thing I wanted was for him to unintentionally harm the nearly eighty-year-old woman, but after Nana Cherry fussed me out good one similarly beautiful Sunday afternoon for attempting to “stifle his expression of joy,” I now just stood back and watched the marvel that was the bond they shared. Seven decades separated them, but Nana Cherry caught my baby and lifted him into the air as if he weighed four pounds instead of forty. The urge to tell Amani to get down was strong, but my good sense was stronger. There was no way I was about to argue with a woman who’d not only helped bring several babies into the world with her own hands as a midwife, but who also played a major part in the upbringing of one of my favorite people on the planet.

“Hey, Nana Cherry,” I murmured, bending slightly to press a kiss to the woman’s paper-thin cheek. Her eyes were glued to my giggling son, but I wasn’t offended that she wasn’t paying me much mind. The way she doted on him was healing for the part of me that still mourned my grandmother, who’d passed right after my eighteenth birthday.

“Hay is for horses, Juleesa,” she quipped. Though she hadn’t looked up at me, I could see her sharp cheekbones lifted in amusement.

“Yeah, Mommy!” Amani instigated, peering at me upside down from his perch in Nana Cherry’s arms. “You have to say ‘Good afternoon’ because it’s after twelve o’clock p.m.!”

Expelling an exaggerated gasp, I snapped. “You’re right, ’Mani! I completely forgot the time!”

Tilting my head so that I was in Nana Cherry’s peripheral, I smiled. Without a doubt, I knew that was something that she had taught him. Poppa’s grandmother kept Amani for me three days out of the week when his four-hour kindergarten class let out before I finished work, and also on Fridays since he didn’t have school and both Samir and I had to work. What she did for me was more than just babysitting.

Every day with Nana Cherry was essentially homeschooling for Amani. Just by nature of keeping him, she taught him so many things that they weren’t even concerned with at his school. While the other kids were identifying shapes and colors, my baby knew the difference between root and cruciferous vegetables from working alongside her in her garden, he knew that you couldn’t take certain medications with juice because it would nullify their effect, and he also knew what Victor Newman did for a living and how his trifling children could never do right. That last little tidbit had sent me into a wheezing fit of giggles when it had come out of his mouth.

Nana Cherry reminded me so much of my own grandmother that it made my heart ache. Mommie would’ve been a couple of years younger than Nana Cherry but just as animated and active.

“Good afternoon, Nana Cherry.”

This time, she looked up at me, watery blue-brown eyes full of mischief. Puckering her lips, she waited until I offered her my cheek to kiss before speaking. “Afternoon, Juleesa. Thank you for bringing my favorite great-grand to me. Cyndi’s been looking for you.”

As if cued by someone offstage, Poppa entered the foyer just as her name was called, looking good as hell in a yellow linen short set with the top unbuttoned showing off a white tank top with low lemon drop Dunks on her feet. My brows furrowed for a second because that yellow on her deep-brown skin was sexy as fuck—and that was a thought I shouldn’t have about my best friend.

Lips twisted to the side, Poppa gave her grandmother a side-eye.

“How you gon’ call ’Mani your favorite like Dougie ain’t get that Pomeranian down the street pregnant?”

Nana Cherry shrieked with laughter and shifted Amani to her hip as she swung out at Poppa, who jumped back before the slap could land.

“Hush up, you!”

Hands lifted in surrender, Poppa shook her head. “I’m just saying. Dougie is a part of this family—don’t ignore his children.”

Pursing her lips, the older woman flicked her fingers at her only granddaughter. “How about you worry less about what I said and worry more about feeding Juleesa. She looks hungry.” With that, she spun on her heels and left the foyer, my baby on her hip, grin big and wide as he waved me goodbye.