Rekindled Love (Welcome to Emancipation #3)

Chapter 1

He snorted, his breath making a little cloud in the chilly air as he mugged me.

“Welcome home, with yo’ weak ass. You gon’ whine like this all day?” he groused, yanking open the front passenger door of the vehicle and climbing his tall ass in.

I took the driver’s seat before shooting him a nasty look.

“Ay, you can take yo’ irritable and irritating ass right back in that house—” I started.

He scoffed as he adjusted the seat. “You invited me for this ride along, my guy. Don’t threaten me with a good time. I be happy in my little house, in my own space.”

It was my turn to jeer at him and his rosy little description.

“All right, old ass ‘my home is my sanctuary’ nigga. Gon’ back in there and bake some cookies to offer the mailman or something, then,” I dared him.

We sat at a standoff for a minute before he sucked his teeth.

“Drive the damn car, Jay,” he finally grumbled.

“That’s what the fuck I thought,” I shot back, preparing to pull away from his house.

“You leave for a few years and get amnesia, huh, bruh? Welcome back to North Louisiana. Just FYI, I will still DDT yo’ ass and put yo’ head through this floorboard. And I’m the same grouchy dude you been knowing, so stop acting brand new,” Truth threatened.

I shook my head as we passed the changed-but-familiar scenery of little Emancipation, Louisiana, population nine thousand in a good year. Truth wasn’t lying. He’d been grouchy since we were young, but he was a stand-up guy, the kind of man you wanted on your team if you got caught up or jammed up.

“Hell we goin’?” he grumbled.

“Town Hall first. My Aunt Alayna wants to see me.”

“The mayor?”

“The one and only.”

He grunted and then relaxed into his seat.

Our ride to the seat of Emancipation’s government was quiet except for the sound of The Alchemist flowing from my speakers.

Truth was busy on his phone as I took in the hometown that I hadn’t set eyes on in nine years.

It was decorated for the holidays, the light poles strung with lights and a variety of big stockings, angels, bells, dreidels, and lamps that would be brightly illuminated at nightfall.

A big Santa Claus waved from the field that would hold picnics and concerts in the spring.

The decorations themselves were new, but they were the same theme from my childhood.

It made me realize how much I missed this place, even though I’d met up with family and friends elsewhere.

The only reason I was home now was because my great aunt Ola Katherine—aka Ms. Ola Kate—swore she was near death.

Ms. Ola Kate had raised my mother and Aunt Alayna when my grandparents died in a house fire, apparently looking for each other.

I was the closest thing she had to a grandson, and she had issued one order: “Jabali Christopher, stop running and come home!”

Now, my ol’ lady was tripping a little. Jabali Christopher ran from no one and nothing. Just because I knew being in Emancipation without her would feel strange—

“I know you ain’t been gon’ so long you forgot where Town Hall is. Put that blinker on and swing this left, man,” Truth spoke up, breaking into my thoughts.

“Oh, shit!”

I really had been about to miss my turn. I slid into the left turn lane and barely made it before the light changed.

“The cold got you acting like that? Wasn’t yo’ ass stationed in Quantico for a minute? I know it got colder there,” he harassed me as I pulled into a spot on the side of the building, fronted in red brick like everything else on historic Main Street.

I gestured toward Town Hall. “You going in or you gon’ stay out here talking shit?” I asked him.

Truth’s lip curled in a sneer. “You ain’t neva struck me as a dude with a death wish,” he spat.

But he climbed out when I did. We strolled into the building, past gawking interns and clerks, up to the divided desk where one of the people working the huge desk stepped to the window with a cheerful smile and a Santa hat and asked if she could help us.

“I’m here to see Mayor Shipley-Melrose. Tell her it’s—"

“I know who you are, Jabali Christopher. Give me a minute.”

I stared at her for a moment, feeling bad as hell because I truly couldn’t place her, and the name tag reading “Genie” didn’t help. NineTen years was a long time. Add on the trauma I’d faced…

“I’m sorry, but what’s—” I started.

“It’s okay! You probably knew me as Eugene Craig. I have a new outside gender expression, but the same bad habit of cutting people off,” she interrupted again, showing all thirty-two.

I stared, caught off-guard. This was Eugene Craig?

I’d had to save Eugene from tired ass bullies at Emancipation High a few times.

Eugene had been a quiet kid, didn’t bother anybody, and I couldn’t stand a fucking bully.

I guess I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t realize how much time had passed.

Truth elbowed me in the side, and I coughed to play off my rude behavior. I opened my mouth to apologize.

“I’m—”

“Jabali! Thank God you’re finally here!” Aunt Alayna exclaimed, marching out of one of the hallways that branched from the main room.

Hell, the fact that she seemed frazzled threw me off, too. I had to get shit together around here. I turned back to the desk.

“Eu— I mean, Genie, it was good seeing you again. Take care,” I said before giving my aunt all my attention. “What’s up, beautiful?”

“Y’all follow me,” she ordered, then headed back in the direction she had come from.

Truth and I looked at each other. He raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. I really had no idea what was wrong. We didn’t make it far before she was sidetracked.

“Mayor, did the committee decide what tree we’re going to decorate?” one excited citizen asked as we passed her.

My aunt laughed, not quite sounding like herself.

“Not yet. Stay tuned,” she said brightly.

We kept marching.

“Mayor, I need your signature on—” The voice stopped, gasped. Then, “Jabali Christopher, is that you? Boy, come give me a hug!”

I looked at the origin of that particularly enthusiastic greeting and tensed. Shayla Lassiter. Fake blonde bombshell. I’d made the mistake of knocking her down once in high school and had paid for it dearly. The bitch was manipulative. Vindictive. And as fake as her wheat-colored weave.

“Shayla,” I greeted tightly, skipping the hug.

She ran a speculative eye over me. She liked what she saw, if the way she stuck those expertly-installed double-Ds in my direction was any indication. She let out a husky laugh as Aunt Alayna quickly scanned the tablet she was holding, then signed it.

“Still funny-acting. Call me if you decide to let bygones be bygones,” she invited.

Truth scoffed. “You got a better chance of getting into Heaven, and we all know the devil got your suite reserved.”

The smile disappeared. The march continued.

“Oh! Mayor, Allison and I need to talk to you. We got the sponsorship for the hot chocolate and hot cider for everyone in case there’s a tree lighting,” Sol MacKenzie, who ran a local grocery store, called out.

Aunt Alayna laughed nervously again.

“That is so generous, Sol, as you always are. We’ll reach out ASAP,” she promised.

“All right. Good to see you home, Jabali. Bout time,” he said before turning back to my aunt.

I just nodded.

“Don’t forget, Mayor. We’re happy to do it. Grandkids are looking forward to seeing the trees all done up.”

After a couple of more interactions like that, I could tell she was agitated. She held it together until we made it to her office. Once we were all inside, she slumped against the door and beat on it with her fists.

“Ooh, Grindley the Grinch is getting on my damn nerves! I wish there was an eminent domain issue, because this would be so much easier!” she spat.

Any other time, I would’ve been tripping on her uncharacteristic behavior, but the name she mentioned had my head snapping up.

I paused, mid-sit down to look at my aunt.

Even though I knew it couldn’t be that Grindley, couldn’t be her, shit caught me off-guard.

If I were honest, I’d say my heart sped up, but I wasn’t admitting no shit like that.

“Damn, bruh, just the name get you shook up like that?” Truth jabbed.

I mugged him before sitting down.

“What’s going on, Auntie? Gon’ and vent so you can tell me why I’m here,” I said as she walked behind her desk.

“Well, those two things are kind of related. As my unprofessional tantrum may have alerted you, the town is having some difficulty with Ms. Grindley. You may know that she owns the land that holds the trees we decorate for the holidays. She sent us a letter a few weeks ago expressing her regret that the town would not be able to use any of the trees. After all these years! Ugh! And it’s just one more insult in a long string of insults while she sits up there, in her big ol’ house, buying town properties while she refuses even to associate with us.

I swear she has representatives for everything,” Aunt Alayna ranted.

I frowned, not recognizing the description of Mrs. Amanda that she painted. Yeah, she’d had a lot of oil money, but she’d never been stuck up and she loved Christmas. She was a sweetheart. I didn’t want to think it, but maybe dementia or something was changing her.

“I hate to hear that, but where do I come in? I don’t see—”

She looked at me with bright eyes and the biggest smile.

“She doesn’t seem to have any friends left in town, but rumor has it that she once had a soft spot for you. I was hoping you’d try—”

I blew out a deep breath, rubbing a hand over my beanie.

“Auntie, that’s been ten, eleven years. She was cool, but she may not even remember me, and if she does, town gossip probably got her not liking me. I’ll try for you, but honestly, this don’t even sound like Mrs. Amanda—”

She made a soft sound. “Mrs. Amanda? No, baby. Mrs. Amanda is darling. She’s living her best life in a luxury senior living place right off 167. I’m talking about her granddaughter, Kyleigh, the Grindley who stole Christmas!”

Truth smiled, with his raggedy ass. “She talking about Kyleigh, yo’ ex.”

Hell, nah. I shook my head, already denying the crazy request my TeTe was making.

“That lady hates me,” I said, voice tight.

Aunt Alayna shook her head. “I doubt that. I really need you to do this.”

“Auntie—”

“You know that piece of land you been looking at, where our parents house was?” she asked suddenly.

Yeah, I knew that piece of land. It was the center of the vision of what I had come back to Emancipation to build, the center for veterans who had suffered the kind of trauma that robbed you of happiness, of sleep, of sanity, of life.

It was heir property now, and while my mama was okay with my having it, Aunt Alayna still needed to sign off.

I could tell where she was going, sneaky self.

“TeTe—” I started again.

“Go talk to her. Get her to agree to let us use the trees. I’ll sign over my rights to the land, no questions asked,” she said.

I dragged a hand over my face. “And when she says no?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me. “She better not say no.”