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“You need to get yo’ mama on the same page as you.”

“How did y’all skate by for so long without putting two and two together?”

“I mean, I’ve talked to her briefly about Mom but never used her first name. Not that it would have mattered. Even if I mentioned Ma’s first name, Nyx probably wouldn’t have thought much of it and would have assumed her last name was Luck.”

“To this day, I’m convinced Ma chose to keep her maiden name just to piss Pop off.”

“You’re probably right.”

“This is partially your fault. You know that, right?”

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I glared at it for a moment, as if Jude could see. “My fault. Nigga, how?”

“I told you that you’ve always been so wrapped up in what they think and living the way they want you to live, that they’re not used to you doing your own shit. Ma might not have been as bad as pop, but she’s still bad.”

Judah had a point. Our mom was just as nitpicky and controlling as our father. The only difference was that she considered what we wanted to do. She just had to be in charge when and how we did it.”

“I know,” I agreed, sighing again. “I don’t know how this shit flipped so quickly. First it was Pop, then we fixed that and now, Ma is losing her damn mind.”

“As long as you’re happy, none of that shit matters. They’ll be alright. They’ve lived their lives, and this is our time to live ours. With or without their approval.”

“I hear you, Jude.”

“For as much drama as you just brought into my life, I hope you do. It took damn near an hour and a plethora of lies to get her off my phone.”

“You’re aggravating,” I chuckled. “Consider it payback for all my years of dealing with yours.”

“Touché,” he conceded before changing the subject. “Anyway, I was joking when we were at Pop’s house but, I’ve been thinking we really should hire someone else to help out around the store.”

“I’m not against it.”

“I don’t know the first thing about interviews, though. So that’s your job.”

“Who comes up with a plan and then forces someone else to execute it?”

“Me. You’re welcome.”

A security alert pinged on my phone just as I started to respond to him. “Goodbye, Jude.”

Hanging up on him, I checked my camera to see who’d popped up at my spot unexpectedly. My stomach clenched when I saw it was Nyx.

I was trying to give her space to work out whatever she was feeling but, I missed her and missed my days being filled with our petty banter and shit-talk. Overall, I missed her. So I hoped she’d stopped by to at least try to give us a chance to work out the speed bump we’d encountered instead of walking away from me completely.

Pushing to my feet, I trekked to the door and pulled it open.

“Hey,” she greeted me mildly.

“What’s up?”

“May I come in?”

Stepping back, I gestured for her to come inside. As she swept past me, her favorite earthy perfume invaded my nose, damn near knocking me to my knees. Yeah, I had it bad. There was no use in even pretending anymore.

“What’s going on, Nyx?” I wasted no time in getting straight to the point. “Everything was good and then⁠—”

“Jamie,” she interrupted, pushing her hand through her hair. The tone she used let me know immediately that I would hate whatever direction this conversation was going. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the other day. Mainly about the things your mother said and⁠—”

“Nyx—”