14. Current & Ground
Current it was charged, right before stepping into something new.
“You’ll come get me if I start drowning?” Rayna asked.
“I won’t let you drown,” I said, realizing it wasn’t just about dinner.
The screen door creaked before we hit the porch. “Boy, if that’s you, bring whatever you brought and close my door behind you. Jada’s letting my heat out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I called back. Rayna’s mouth curved like hearing me say it did something to her.
Inside was layered warmth—steam, butter, cinnamon, greens, lemon oil rubbed into wood.
Jada popped around the corner with a dish towel over her shoulder, smile already cocked. “So you finally brought your ghost.”
Rayna’s brows lifted. I touched her back, low. “My sister. Ignore her first three comments.”
“Rude,” Jada said, then offered her hand. “I’m Jada. And I’m glad you’re real.”
“Rayna.” She shook. “Very real.”
Jada looked her over, curious, protective. “You hungry?”
“Always.”
“Good. Grandma made the real macaroni, not the weeknight bake.”
“Jada,” Grandma warned, voice like a whip wrapped in lace.
Jada winked and stepped aside just in time for Grandma to appear—five-two, apron tied like armor, wooden spoon like a scepter, eyes keen and soft all at once. Those eyes landed on Rayna and did a full inventory: hair, posture, hands, the way she stood next to me without hiding.
“So,” Grandma said. “This the one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rayna answered before I could. “Rayna Whitaker.”
Grandma didn’t smile first. She nodded. “Pretty. Do you eat?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A flicker of nerves, but her voice stayed strong.
“Come on in, then. Save your nerves for something that earn ’em.”
The spread was memory and promise: fried chicken, collards talking low all afternoon, macaroni bubbled brown at the edges, green beans with ham hock, cornbread with a crust begging for butter, tomatoes sliced and salted, foil-wrapped peach cobbler waiting in the corner.
We sat. My knee brushed Rayna’s under the table and stayed. Jada slid across from us, mouth already slick until Grandma set down beans and said, “Bless the food.”
We touched hands. Rayna’s fingers threaded mine, sure. She bowed her head. Grandma’s prayer was short—gratitude, names for strength, a soft amen that felt like an instruction to keep going.
The first bites undid Rayna’s shoulders; I watched it happen. Chicken, then greens, then macaroni that made her eyes close for a breath. When she opened them, she caught me staring and tried to scold me with her brows. I shrugged like a man who couldn’t help it.
Jada fired the first question. “So, Rayna—what do you do when you’re not making my brother grin at text messages?”
“Work,” Rayna said, easy. “Electrician. Whitaker Electric.”
Grandma’s eyes flicked. “You work with your family?”
“Yes, ma’am. My daddy started his business thirty years ago.”
“Good,” Grandma said. “I like a woman with a trade in her hands. Keeps a house standing.”
Rayna’s chin lifted. “That’s the plan.”
“What you building now?” Jada asked.
“A boutique hotel in East Liberty. Third-floor bathrooms are mine this week.”
“Mmm.” Grandma tapped her spoon. “Fancy on bones.”
Rayna went still. Not offended. Honest. “Yes, ma’am. That’s been on my mind.” She was referring to the gentrification of the neighborhood. The people who had moved in didn’t even call it East Liberty anymore. They call it East Side.
Grandma nodded, satisfied. “As long as you see it. Work don’t wash your conscience. It just gives it context.”
“Grandma,” Jada warned.
“What? She grown. She can hold two truths. Most of living is two truths at the same time.”
Rayna half-laughed, half-sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
We moved on, as families do. Jada told a story about a parent meeting that ended in a parking-lot reconciliation. Grandma cackled. I threw in a punchline, dodged a biscuit. Rayna fit rhythm like she’d always been here. No auditioning. Just present.
Halfway through, Grandma set her fork down. Ruth Hale making space for truth.
“You work with your hands,” Grandma said again, like a thesis before a conclusion. “Good hands. Careful hands. You care about what you do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “A woman like you don’t just light a room. You pass light down.”
Rayna blinked, caught. Jada softened. I felt something flicker inside, the kind of ache that didn’t come from food.
Grandma leaned a little closer, voice dropping low, like she was saying it to the table as much as to us. “We don’t always get to choose when that light moves through us. The Lord’s calendar ain’t public. When it’s time, it’s time—ready or not.”
The spoon in my hand went still. Hope—or something shaped like it—sat up in my chest before I could tell it to stay down .
Across from me, Rayna dropped her eyes to her lap, then lifted them again. Heat. Fear. Something new, unspoken, lodged behind the calm she tried to wear.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said softly, but the words felt heavier than manners.
“Go walk,” Grandma ordered after dishes. “Porch won’t sit itself.”
Outside, even with our jackets on, the evening packed a chill. Rayna leaned on the rail, arms folded, jeans drawing every line I wanted memorized.
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “Your grandma is… a whole book.”
“Hardcover,” I said. “Big print. No pictures.”
She laughed, loosening the knot in my ribs. “I like her.”
“She likes you.”
“She read me,” Rayna murmured, gaze sliding toward the window glow. “Like a blueprint.”
“She reads everyone. Doesn’t always share the notes.”
Rayna angled toward me, eyes liquid in porch light, mouth soft. “You really think this isn’t too fast?”
“What, dinner?” My thumb traced her jaw.
“This.” She gestured between us. “Whatever we’re doing.”
“I think it’s honest. First thing I’ve done in a long time that doesn’t feel like managing. And—” I exhaled—“I don’t want to pretend I want less than I do.”
“How much do you want?”
“Enough to keep showing up. Enough to want you in rooms that matter. Enough to be patient with your fear and greedy with your time. ”
Her eyes flared at greedy, softened at patient. She stepped in, chest brushing mine. “Kiss me.”
I did. Found her mouth like I’d been heading there all my life. Sweet with peach and sugar, soft but sure. Her hand fisted my shirt, telling me not to stop.
When we broke for air, I stayed close.
“You’re dangerous,” she whispered.
“So’s electricity,” I said. We smiled, tired of the metaphor, still believing it.
“Take me home,” she murmured, husky.
We told Grandma we were leaving. She hugged Rayna without warning, patted my cheek like I was twelve. Jada mouthed text me with eyebrows high.
The ride was silent but charged. Two blocks with both hands on the wheel before her hand slid to my thigh and cracked me open. I turned east toward her place.
We didn’t make it to the bedroom.