TRUTH
Iwoke up to the sound of birds arguing in a tree somewhere close, the smell of chlorine still clinging to my skin, and Amai’s arm heavy and warm across my stomach like it had been there all night, which it probably had.
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
I remembered the music, the blue lights, Honor’s cannonball splash soaking the edge of the deck, Amai’s chest rising and falling steadily behind me. I remembered being warm and full and safe in a way that made my eyes want to close. I did not remember making the decision to actually close them.
“I fell asleep,” I said, more to myself than to him, my voice cracked with sleep.
“You did.” Amai’s voice rumbled low against the back of my neck, still thick with his own sleep. “Face first. Mid-sentence, too. You were telling me something about Honor’s feet.”
“I don’t even remember having an opinion about Honor’s feet.”
“You had several.”
I turned over to look at him, and the morning light coming through the tall windows made him look softer than I was used to seeing him, hair a little wild, eyes still adjusting.
I hadn’t realized how tired I actually was until my body just gave out on me like that, like it had been waiting for permission to stop holding everything up.
“My sisters,” I said, sitting up too fast, panic climbing my throat before my brain fully caught up to my mouth. “Did they get home? Did somebody drive them? Did—”
“They’re here.” Amai caught my wrist gently, grounding me before I could spiral all the way. “Different guest rooms. All three of them.”
I stared at him.
“All three?”
“All three.”
“Honor?” I said it like her name was proof of something. “Honor stayed?”
Because Honor didn’t do sleepovers. Honor barely did dinner parties.
Honor had three kids and a husband and a whole schedule mapped out in her head at all times.
She loved Terrance messy and loud, but she loved her own bed more, and she’d told me more than once that she wasn’t the type of woman who “played around” when it came to getting back to her house at a decent hour, chaos or not.
“Honor,” Amai confirmed, clearly enjoying my shock a little too much. “In the room at the end of the hall. Snoring like she ain’t had a good night’s sleep in years.”
“She probably hasn’t.”
“She snores loudly. I heard it from downstairs.”
I fell back against the pillow, laughing despite myself, picturing my sister passed out in one of Amai’s guest rooms with her mouth probably open, no kids climbing on her, no Terrance asking where the remote was. “Lord. What happened after I fell asleep?”
“More wine happened.” Amai propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with that expression he got when he was about to tell on somebody. “Saroya found the good bottles. Raven encouraged her. It got loud out there for a minute.”
“And you just let them keep drinking up all the wine in your house?”
“I wasn’t about to be the one to tell three grown women no.” He said it plainly, like that had been the only reasonable choice available to him. “I carried you up here myself, though. You didn’t even wake up. Dead weight the whole way up the stairs.”
“I was not dead weight.”
“You were bricks, Truth. I love you, but you were bricks.”
I swatted at his chest, and he caught my hand and kissed my knuckles like it was nothing. Like it was just a normal Tuesday thing to do, and something about the casualness of it settled warm in my chest.
“Did Raven sneak off with Priest?” I asked. I needed to know, because Raven had been giving Priest a very specific kind of attention all night that had nothing to do with security detail.
“No.” Amai actually laughed at that, short and real. “Raven was a lady about it. Went straight to her room.”
“But?”
“But Priest told me he’s feeling her.”
“He told you?”
“Man to man. Last night, before he left.” Amai shrugged like this was the most normal exchange between grown men in the world. “He wanted to know if that was a problem. If it would be weird.”
“Is it weird?”
“Nah.” He said it easy, no hesitation. “Priest is good. If Raven likes him, that’s her business.”
“Is he a good guy?” I asked, genuinely curious now, propping my chin on my hand. “Or is he chaos, like you?”
Amai actually thought about that one for a second, which told me he was taking the question seriously and not just handing me a quick answer to move past it.
“Priest is my brother,” he said finally. “Not blood. But it don’t matter to me. He’s one of the only people I trust with my life.”
I let that sit for a second, the weight of it, because I understood exactly what he meant without him having to explain the difference between blood and chosen.
“Do you trust me with your life?” I asked before I could think too hard about whether I actually wanted the answer.
Amai didn’t rush it. That was the thing about him that I’d learned to appreciate, even when it was inconvenient—he didn’t give me pretty answers just because they were easier to say.
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “I think I can. But I won’t know for sure until my life is actually in your hands, and I see what you do with it.”
It should have stung, maybe, hearing that kind of hesitation from a man who climbed rooftops for me. But it didn’t. It felt true. It felt like something I could respect.
“Do you trust me with yours?” he asked, turning it back around.
I hesitated, because I owed him the same honesty he’d just given me.
“Day by day,” I said slowly. “I’m not sure either. But I’m leaning toward yes.” I looked at him. “I know without a doubt you’d kill for me and these babies. That much I’m sure of.”
“Facts,” Amai said simply, like that settled the whole conversation, and maybe for him, it did.
We got up not long after that, showered separately because we had places to be and people downstairs waiting on us, and dressed quick—me in one of the outfits Amai had apparently arranged weeks ago without me even asking, him in something that looked effortless but probably cost more than my old rent.
By the time we made it downstairs, the smell of food had already taken over the whole first floor—bacon, biscuits, something sweet baking that I couldn’t place yet—and the chef had laid out a full brunch spread across the long dining table like she’d been expecting a crowd.
Raven was already seated, going in on a plate of eggs, talking with her mouth half full.
“Truth, I’m telling you, that man had a whole stylist drop off clothes for us. Designer. Like real, actual designer clothes. Just so we could shower and change before we left.” She pointed her fork at Amai like he was on trial. “Who does that?”
“Rich people,” Saroya said from across the table, sipping orange juice like she hadn’t already changed into a completely different outfit than she arrived in. “Rich people do that.”
Honor came in last, hair wrapped, walking like every step hurt a little, groaning as she dropped into her seat.
“I’m about to have to beat Terrance’s ass,” she announced to the whole table.
“Why?” I asked, already laughing before she even explained.
“Because I’m about to walk in that house looking like I been laid up with a shark all night, no call, no text, nothing. He gon’ have questions.” She shook her head, reaching for the biscuits like she needed the strength. “I don’t even have a lie prepared.”
“You won’t have problems,” Amai said, sliding into the seat beside me, calm as anything. “If you do, call me.”
Honor looked at him like he’d lost his whole mind.
“I am not calling your crazy ass on my husband, Amai.”
“That’s fair,” Amai said, and even he laughed at that one, easy and unbothered, reaching for his coffee like the whole exchange hadn’t happened. “Don’t call me if I can’t shoot somebody.” He shrugged.
And for a minute, just a minute, sitting there with my sisters, laughing around a table full of food I hadn’t cooked, in a house too big for the four of us but somehow warm enough to hold all of it anyway, I let myself believe this was just what mornings could look like now.
I knew better, even as I let myself enjoy it.
I knew the gate outside still had men posted at it.
I knew the quiet wouldn’t last past breakfast, not really.
But for right now, with Raven arguing about eggs and Honor plotting her lie for Terrance, and Saroya laughing so hard she nearly choked on her orange juice, I let the morning be exactly what it was.
Enough.
Saying goodbye to my sisters was never quick. It was never going to be quick, not with the three of them, not with everything that had happened in that house over the last day.
Raven hugged me first, quick and hard, the way she did everything, like affection was something you had to sneak up on before it got soft on you.
“Call me if that man do something crazy,” she said against my ear.
“And I mean crazy-crazy, not regular Amai crazy. I know regular Amai crazy is just Tuesday for y’all now. ”
“I’ll call you,” I said, laughing.
She pulled back, looked at me a second longer than she needed to, and I saw all the love and pride she had for me. Something soft she wasn’t ready to admit to. “Tell Priest I said bye,” she added, too casual, and walked off toward Saroya’s car before I could say a word about it.
She knew damn well she got that man’s number last night. I knew my sister.
Saroya’s hug was longer, steadier, the kind she’d been giving me since we were kids, and she was the one who made sure I ate breakfast before school. She held my face in both hands like she was checking for cracks.
“Go see Mama today,” she said. “Today, Truth. Not tomorrow, not when you get around to it.”
“I’m going today.”
“I mean it. She been asking about you every day like you fell off the earth.”
“I said I’m going.” I kissed her cheek. “I promise.”
She studied me a beat longer, satisfied enough, and let me go.