Chapter 21 Farrah
Hyacinth was already talking before my car even turned into the parking lot.
I knew she was talking, because my phone had been vibrating nonstop for ten minutes straight with eight text messages, three voice notes, and one meme of a Black girl pacing while holding her wig like she was about to interrogate somebody’s son.
Translation: Hyacinth Fulton wanted answers.
Hyacinth was my cousin and other best friend. And right now, she was my headache.
I pulled into the lot in front of Darnita’s, the one spot she insisted had “the only real food in this town.” She claimed it was better than her own cooking.
I thought they were evenly matched, but I let her have it.
Before I could even grab my purse from the passenger seat, she was banging on the hood of my car like she was trying to repossess it.
“Farrah Gray, if you don’t bring your light bright ass out this damn vehicle right now, I swear to God!” she ranted.
I rolled my eyes and cut the engine, stepping out. She was standing there in high-waisted jeans, a pink crop top, and her hair in a messy puff that somehow came out looking perfect. Only Hyacinth could look like she belonged on a magazine cover while threatening somebody’s life in a parking lot.
I shut the door behind me. “Why the hell you hitting my car like you paying the note?”
“Naw, let’s ask the important questions,” she snapped. “Since you out here duckin’ and dodgin’ me like you in witness protection. Girl, where you been?”
“Living,” I muttered.
“Lying,” she corrected. “Come on. We eating, and I’m getting every ounce of tea you been hiding.”
She latched onto my wrist and dragged me across the parking lot like I was a bad ass toddler.
When we stepped inside the café, the smell of gumbo, fried catfish, and beignets smacked me in the face so good that for a whole second, I forgot I had complicated feelings, a dangerous man on my trail, and a man who drove me insane living under the same roof as me.
We grabbed a booth near the window, and Hyacinth flopped into her seat dramatically, leaning forward like she was about to interview me for a documentary.
“You look different,” she announced. “Your aura is—what’s the word? Disturbed.”
“So, you out here impersonating Epiphany?” I mentioned our cousin’s mystical, half-psychic ass. “I’m fine,” I insisted, picking up a menu.
“Oh yeah? Then why you dressed like you somebody’s kept woman?”
I paused, eyes moving down to the mismatched outfit I had thrown on when she had called all frantic, like her world was crashing down: joggers, a cropped tee, and Mekhi’s lightweight jacket, which still smelled so good.
I’d thrown it on because I had mixed feelings about what my crop top and stomach were doing together, but I should’ve known the jacket would be a signal to Hyacinth Fulton, Amateur Private Investigator.
Damn it.
“Hyacinth—”
She gasped loud enough that three people turned around. “You stealing men’s clothes now? Sis, that ain’t you. You don’t wear no man’s jacket unless something untoward happened.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “‘Untoward?’ Really? I know you a teacher, but you doing absolutely too much. Who says that? And would you lower your voice?” I hissed.
“I would,” she said sweetly, “if you tell me why you look like you just left a man’s bed.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
A slow, evil smile spread across her face. “Oh. My. God.”
“Nothing happened!”
“Nothing? You got his scent all on you like y’all was rolling around in a cologne commercial!”
I dropped the menu on the table. “Can we order first before you jump to conclusions?”
She raised her hand at the waitress so fast her elbow cracked. “Two sweet teas with lemon, the sampler platter, extra beignets, and my cousin gon’ explain why she smell like grown man and danger.”
The waitress snorted and wrote the order down.
I glared. “I don’t smell like danger.”
“Girl, you lying. You smell like ‘don’t ask me where I was last night.’ You smell like ‘tell Hyacinth the truth.’ You smell like—”
“I swear to God—”
“No, you swear to lie!” she whispered, leaning in so close I could see every one of her brown freckles. “Now tell me what’s going on before I guess out loud.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
She mirrored me stubbornly. And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Fine,” I said.
She grabbed her chest like she was struck by the Holy Spirit. “Hallelujah!” she exclaimed, sliding out of the booth.
“If you get up and do a holy dance, I ain’t telling you shit,” I spat.
Pouting, she slid back into her seat. “You never let me have any fun.”
“It really ain’t that deep,” I began.
“Oh, it’s always deep when it involves… Mekhi Venzant.”
I glared harder. “How do you know—”
“Do you know what I had to do to get that information? Do you know there are men who can eat your pussy til you pass out? Do you know one of them is named Braeden Christopher?” she asked, frowning.
My jaw dropped for a second. “You let Brae do that to you?”
“How else was I gon’ get the information? Your ass certainly wasn’t forthcoming.”
That man wanted this fool so bad, and she wasn’t having it.
She must’ve been desperate to agree to that.
If Braeden knew, that meant I hadn’t fooled my cousin Ajani, his partner, with my lies about a scorned date.
But the fact that they were hanging back, letting Mekhi take lead when it came to my safety spoke volumes.
“‘Forthcoming’ is only slightly better than ‘untoward,’ FYI,” I muttered. “And I can’t believe you let Brae take you down.”
“All to hear about… Mekhi Venzant.”
She kept pausing before she said his name all dramatic. Hy was the best kind of messy and extra.
“Could you not say his name like that?” I requested.
“Oh, you mean the man you used to crush on so hard senior year that you almost failed AP Calculus because you kept daydreaming about his stupid eight-pack? You mean that… Mekhi Venzant?”
“Hyacinth,” I warned before pointing a finger at her. “And I passed that class with a B+.”
“You passed because TeTe Marian prayed and anointed you with that holy oil. But we not talking academics. We talking about how you look like somebody’s boo this morning.”
I wanted to flip the table.
She leaned forward, eyes wide. “Farrah Michelle Gray… did you sleep with him?”
“No!”
“Did you sleep next to him?”
I paused. Her mouth flew open. She knew she had me.
“Mm-hmm. Mm-mm-mm. You sneaky heffa. I knew it! I feel vindicated!”
“Would you chill with these words and these assumptions? It wasn’t like that.”
She grabbed her purse, pulled out a fan, and put it to work. “I need water. I need prayer. I need the ancestors.”
“Hyacinth.”
“Continue,” she said, waving her hand like she was presiding over a court case.
I sighed and leaned back against the booth. “Okay. So. First of all, everything that’s been happening the past few weeks has been weird. And stressful. And a whole lot of scary.”
Hyacinth froze. The smile fell from her face.
“Wait… huh?”
I hadn’t meant to drop it like that, but the words spilled out before I could stop them. “There was a drive-by.”
Her hand slapped over her mouth. “What? When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“And you didn’t call me, Farrah?”
She was serious, now, her light-hearted demeanor overshadowed with worry.
“It happened fast—”
“So do your deliveries, but you text me every time you get a package! You can’t text me when you almost get shot, though?”
Our food arrived at that exact moment, the waitress looking between us like she’d walked in on a breakup. Hyacinth made a scene of dramatically inhaling the food’s aroma and said in a sugary sweet voice, “Thank you, ma’am. This looks lovely.”
As soon as the waitress walked off, Hyacinth leaned across the table again. “Explain. Now.”
I started tearing apart a beignet to keep my hands busy. “Okay, so Brae told you about that black car that pulled behind me at MiMi’s house?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And the flowers that dude gave me?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“That wasn’t romantic… I don’t think.” I frowned. Trell had made some strange statements toward me at that gas station. “It was a message.”
Hyacinth put her food down. “A message from who?”
I swallowed. “Trell.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Girl, who the hell is Trell and what he want?”
“That’s what we tryna figure out.”
“Who is we?”
I hesitated.
She narrowed her eyes.
I chewed my lip.
She gasped.
“Hy, please don’t.”
“You mean… Mekhi Venzant.”
“Oh, my God,” I groaned.
“I bet it ain’t God you been calling.”
She said it so loud, the couple in the next booth stared. I covered my face.
“Hyacinth, chill!”
“Oh no, I can’t chill. I will not chill. You staying with him?”
“Yes.”
“And waking up next to him?”
“That was after a nightmare!”
“And your face is red.”
“It is not!”
“It is, sis! You look like a freckled tomato. Just thinking about him got you blushing?”
I slapped my napkin on the table. “Okay, look. It’s not what you think.”
Hyacinth folded her arms and reclined like she was getting ready for a good story.
“Is it not? Because it’s giving ‘romantic suspense with urban vibes.’ It’s giving ‘grumpy man, sunshine woman.’ You need to reach out to elle kayson, see if you could get this written up.
You know she like them college girl, street dude stories. ”
“Could you not narrate my life?” I sighed.
She snorted. “I’m your cousin. Narrating your life is part of my job description.”
“Anyway,” I muttered, “I’m staying with him until they figure out Trell’s motive and location. That’s all.”
She blinked. “And how’s that going?”
I stabbed a piece of catfish. “Annoying. Confusing. Terrifying. And—”
“Sexy?”
I glared. “I didn’t say that.”
“But did you feel it?”
I shoved a beignet in my mouth.
She cackled. “You did!”
I chewed slowly, glaring harder.
Hyacinth leaned forward, her voice softer for the first time. “Cuz. Real talk. You good?”
The question made the tightness in my chest loosen in a way I didn’t expect. I nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. Scared sometimes, but okay.”
“And Mekhi? He taking care of you?”
“Hyacinth—”
“Nah, for real. He protecting you?”
I thought about the way he held me when I slept. How he squeezed my hand after the break-in. How he stood over me at the ballpark like he could block the whole world.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “He is.”
She smiled, not teasing this time. “Then… stop pretending you hate the man.”
“I don’t hate him,” I muttered.
“You don’t even dislike him. You like him, like him.”
I sighed dramatically. “What are we? Twelve? I tolerate him.”
She laughed so hard she almost choked on her sweet tea. When she finally calmed down, she said, “Well, he always liked you, you know.”
My head snapped up. “Girl, what? No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did. Remember one time in undergrad, you came home and Seth had that party where it was hot as hell? Mekhi gave you a bottle of water.”
“That was not flirting!”
“He said, ‘Here.’”
I scowled at her. “So?”
“He said it with emotion.”
I burst out laughing. “You insane.”
“Maybe so, but I got eyes. And the way that man look at you? Girl, please.”
I pushed my food around the plate, feeling warm and stupid and caught. Hyacinth watched me, grinning.
“You really got… Mekhi Venzant losing sleep.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yes! Girl, the man let you sleep in his bed. Brae says Mekhi don’t even let people know where he lives. Now you in there cuddled up in his jacket like y’all newlyweds.”
I covered my face again. “Hyacinth—”
“No, I want the truth. What’s going on with y’all?”
I peeked at her through my fingers. “Everything and nothing at the same time.”
“Oh. I think that’s called foreplay?”
I threw a beignet at her. “Stop.”
She dodged it and laughed. “I will not stop!”
We ate and teased each other until my cheeks hurt from laughing. When we stood up to leave, Hyacinth bumped my shoulder. “Cuz?”
“Yeah?”
“If this turns into something real… I’m here for it.”
I rolled my eyes, but I smiled. “We not going there.”
“Yet,” she sang.
I groaned. Hyacinth wrapped her arm around mine as we walked out into the sun. Suddenly, she tensed, trying to push me behind her.
“Hy, what the hell—”
“Guy in that dark Chevy is watching you,” she said, frowning.
I peeked around her. “Oh. He good. That’s Steel.”
“That’s your detail?” she asked.
I sighed. “I guess.”
“He cute. Steel. Wonder how he got that name?” she murmured.
“Wonder what we gon’ have to do to reattach ya head after Brae knocks it between the washer and dryer.”
She kissed her teeth. “That ain’t my man.”
“You tell him, then.”
“If I play a stupid game, I’ma get a stupid prize. Come on, girl. Let’s go buy you some cute clothes so you not walking around looking like somebody’s girlfriend.”
“I’m not somebody’s girlfriend! And I gotta go home and study.”
She smirked. “Home? I know that’s right, sis!”
I pushed her. She shoved me back. We laughed hard as we crossed the parking lot.
I’d needed this.