TRUTH #2
I grabbed the plates from her before she could stack them wrong, because she always stacked them wrong, and busied my hands with something that wasn’t answering.
“So, what’s the deal with Kaisen?” Raven asked. She asked it easy, like she was asking about the weather.
I whipped around so fast I nearly dropped the plates.
“Shh.” I pressed a finger to my lips, glancing toward the stairs. The shower was still running, but voices carried in this house in ways I hadn’t fully mapped yet. “Not now.”
“Not now?” Raven’s eyebrows climbed. “Truth, it’s a simple question.”
“It is not a simple question,” I whispered, waving her closer. All three of them leaned in like we were about to pass state secrets. “I will tell you everything. Everything. But not while he’s upstairs, and not until you promise me something.”
“What kind of promise?” Saroya asked, already suspicious, because she knew me.
“You cannot tell Mama.”
The kitchen went quiet for half a second.
“Truth.” Honor said my name like a warning.
“I’m serious. Not one word. Not a hint. Not a ‘you’ll never guess.’ Nothing.”
“How bad is it?” Raven asked, and there was something careful in her voice now, something that told me she already sensed the size of what I wasn’t saying.
“It’s a lot,” I said. “It’s more than a lot. But I need to tell y’all on my own terms, and if Mama finds out before I’m ready, she is going to lose her entire mind, and I don’t have the bandwidth for that today.”
Saroya studied me for a second, then held out her hand, palm up. “Fine. Handshake.”
We’d had this handshake since we were kids, something Honor made up when we were little and swore each other to secrecy about stealing candy from the corner store.
It had evolved over the years into this ridiculous, elaborate thing that took longer than it should have.
Slap, slap, interlock, pull back, snap. We did it now, all four of us crowding into the kitchen, laughing under our breath because it still felt silly at our age and none of us cared.
“Sealed,” Honor declared. “Sacred sister law. If Mama finds out, it wasn’t us.”
“It better not be y’all,” I said.
“How is she, anyway?” I asked, because I actually wanted to know, and because it felt good to talk about something that didn’t require a promise first. “Mama.”
Saroya’s smile faded into something softer. “She’s been worried about you. Like, actually worried. Calling me every other day, asking if I’ve heard from you, if you’re eating right, if that man—” she gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, toward the sound of the shower, “—is treating you decent.”
“I’m going to go see her later today,” I said. “I should’ve gone sooner.”
“She’ll be happy to hear that.” Saroya reached over and squeezed my hand. “She just misses you. All this stuff with the house, the pregnancy, whatever’s going on with these Landry men—she feels like she’s on the outside of it.”
“I know.” Guilt sat heavy in my chest for a second. “I’ll fix it. I promise.”
“Good.” Honor clapped her hands together like she was closing a business meeting. “Now, while we wait for Fabio to finish his shower, can somebody tell me why there’s no coffee made in this house? What kind of hospitality is this?”
“I have a Keurig,” I said, already moving toward it.
“A Keurig.” Honor said it like I’d confessed to a crime. “In this economy?”
“It’s fast,” I said.
“It’s sad,” Raven corrected, but she was laughing, and Saroya was already pulling mugs down like she knew exactly where everything was, which she did, because she’d helped me unpack this kitchen two weeks ago.
We fell into easy chatter after that—Saroya complaining about a coworker who kept microwaving fish in the break room, Honor threatening to kick Terrance out again, Raven going on about a new client at the shop who showed up with her hair matted to her head.
Normal. Easy. The kind of noise that made a house feel like a home instead of just walls and furniture.
I heard his footsteps on the stairs before I saw him.
Amai came down in a charcoal suit that fit him the way suits only fit men who had them made instead of bought them off a rack.
The jacket lay perfect across his shoulders, his tie a deep navy that made his skin look even richer against it.
He moved like the suit weighed nothing, like he could take off running in it, and it wouldn’t wrinkle.
“Daaaamn,” all three of my sisters said in unison, at the exact same beat, like they’d rehearsed it.
I dropped my head into my hand. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” Amai asked, coming to stand beside me, completely unbothered, like this was just a normal Tuesday reaction to him existing.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
He kissed me again—shorter this time, but no less deliberate—and pulled back just enough to look at me. “Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious, Truth.”
“I heard you the first time,” I said, but I let myself soften into it for a second, let my hand rest against his chest before he stepped back.
Raven, because she had no chill whatsoever, chose that exact moment to speak up. “So, real question. You got any more brothers?”
“Raven,” I said flatly.
“I’m just asking for research purposes.”
Amai actually laughed—a real one, low in his chest. “No more brothers.”
“Damn.” Raven looked genuinely disappointed.
“I do have a best friend, though.”
“Amai.” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. “Don’t.”
“What?” He looked at me, all faux innocence. “She asked.”
“I know she asked. I’m asking you not to answer.”
Raven turned on me immediately. “Truth. Stop hating.”
“I’m not hating, I’m protecting you from a life you don’t understand yet.”
“If she gets your blessing,” Amai said, addressing me now, that easy smirk pulling at his mouth, “I’ll set it up. I think they’d hit it off.”
“Get your butt to work,” I said, pointing toward the door, “and stop trying to play matchmaker in my kitchen at eight in the morning.”
“She asked me a direct question,” he said, holding both hands up. “What was I supposed to do, lie to my future sister-in-law?”
The kitchen went dead silent.
I stared at him. “Your what?”
“You heard me.”
“You said future sister-in-law.”
“I did.” He said it so simply, so matter-of-fact, like he hadn’t just detonated something in the middle of my kitchen with my sisters standing three feet away, holding coffee mugs.
“Amai.”
He stepped closer, and something shifted in his eyes—that intensity that always sat underneath the easy charm, rising up now, steady and unshaken.
“If you think we’re going through all this,” he said, low enough that it felt like it was just for me, even though my sisters were right there, “just for you to be the mother of my kids, you’re out your mind. ”
I couldn’t say anything. My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“As soon as this settles,” he continued, “all of it—I’m proposing. The right way. Not like this, not in a kitchen with juice on the counter. Properly.”
Then, he kissed me, slow, and I felt it everywhere—in my chest, in my knees, in the sudden ringing silence of my own thoughts.
When he pulled back, I just stood there. Speechless. Blinking.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, grabbing his keys off the counter like he hadn’t just rearranged my entire nervous system, and then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
The kitchen stayed quiet for exactly three seconds.
Then, Saroya set her mug down hard enough to rattle the counter. “Did he just—”
“He did,” Honor said.
Raven was already grinning, wide and delighted. “Girl.”
I still hadn’t moved. I still hadn’t found a single word.
“Truth.” Honor snapped her fingers in front of my face. “You good?”
I wasn’t. I wasn’t good at all. I was something else entirely—something warm and terrified and impossibly full, all at once, standing in my kitchen with my heart doing something it hadn’t done in years.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “I really don’t know.”
Saroya snapped her fingers this time, right in front of my face, harder than Honor had. “Truth. Snap out of it. Whatever it was you needed him gone to tell us—spill it. Now.”
I blinked, and the kitchen came back into focus—the counter, the juice, my sisters all staring at me like I owed them rent. I let out a long breath and pulled a stool out from under the island, sitting down before my knees decided to do something embarrassing.
“Okay,” I said. “So, Kaisen…”
“Kaisen,” Raven repeated, folding her arms, already leaning in like she’d been waiting for this the whole morning.
“He came by here a couple weeks ago.” I twisted my fingers together in my lap. “I told him I chose Amai. That’s done, that part’s settled in my head. But I also told him I’d keep him in the loop. Until we know some things about the babies.”
Honor’s eyebrows went up slow. “What kind of things?”
“Just—things,” I said. “It’s complicated which y’all are aware of. There’s testing that’s in the works. I don’t feel like getting into all of it again right now, but it matters that both of them stay informed. That’s all I’m gonna say about that part.”
Saroya studied me for a second like she wanted to push, but she let it go. That was Saroya—she knew when a door was closed, even if she didn’t like it.
“Okay,” Raven said. “So, he came by. And?”
“And he got disrespectful.” My annoyance flared just remembering it—the way his voice had changed, the way he’d looked at me like I was something he was owed. “Before I could even check him for it, he was on the ground. Shot. Right here.” I pointed toward the front door without looking at it.
“He was what?” Raven’s voice cracked up an octave, her whole body snapping straight. “Shot? On your porch?”
“Not the porch, exactly. The doorstep. Close enough.”
“Truth.” Honor’s hand came up to her chest. “You said that like you was telling us he stubbed his toe.”