Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The “Kaged” Saint
A few days later
K age’s lips crimped beneath a curtain of salt and pepper hair. His unruly mustache and mountain man beard made him appear older than his years, yet gave him an uncanny sophistication. A thick layer of long blond hair streaked with premature silver covered one of his mischievous light blue eyes as a curl of thick cigar smoke escaped his crooked mouth. He tapped the ashes into a dark brown ashtray, then fidgeted around in his worn chair, half the stuffing coming out of the cushion. Stretching a long leg forward, he slumped down a little and half of his body was gobbled up by the shadows.
“You can stop lookin’ at yer phone, Lennox. Ain’t no good signal out here in my neck of the woods, lest I turn it on.”
“I can’t believe you live like this. It’s like a time machine…” Lennox looked around his cousin’s two-room, ha nd-built, off-the-grid abode. “A dirty, small, strange time machine.”
“And I can’t believe you ain’t on steroids, with your big, beefy, bison Burger King lookin’ ass! Ya look like a white-skinned gorilla. More importantly, where I live should be the least of your fuckin’ worries, brawny boy. Take a piss test for me. What’s your blood type? Vanilla protein shake?” Chuckling, Kage grabbed a small plastic trashcan and spit into it.
Lennox took a deep breath and slipped his phone in his pocket, staring at his cousin.
“We gotta do something about Grandpa.”
Steely eyes met his. The mood turned suddenly cold and somber.
“I tried. More than once. He’s got too much protection around him, and he’s attempted to kill me at least twice. What was his ultimatum to ya?”
Lennox paced the small house, darkness beginning to consume him, too. He moved closer to a small window that allowed a few meager streams of light into the dwelling. Outside, past the bright red curtain, he could see the forest. It was beautiful. Peaceful. Like something that would be on a postcard with a picture of Bambi frolicking in the woods with butterflies. On one wall of the room, about eight guns hung on a log wall, near them a big box which he presumed was filled with ammunition. A small electric refrigerator buzzed, but knowing Kage, it was probably only full of beer and wilted produce.
“He’s threatened to tell my mother’s family some things about her… some things that will get her buried body dug up from the family cemetery and sent to a place they reserve for evil people. That’s a big deal where she’s from.” Kage brought his cigar to his mouth, and rested it along his lips. “He’s also threatened to get me tossed into prison for that murder way back when. The same strings he said he pulled to ensure I had no record and didn’t serve a day in jail, after my dad begged for his help on my behalf without my knowledge, he said he’ll tie those same strings in a knot that’ll never unravel, and never be turned loose.” He dropped his gaze and fiddled with his cuticles for a moment or two.
“Well, he might be able to swing it if you don’t do something.” Kage exhaled a dense cloud of smoke that sailed past his blue peepers real slow, like lazy storm clouds. “Lennox, your problem is, you’re now the good guy. You got this thing about not wanting to go back from where ya came. New age therapy. Spiritual journey shit. The motherfucker that was out here bustin’ heads open with baseball bats and cussin’ everyone out is now some yoga master with a gun.” Kage smiled big and wide as if he much preferred that version of him.
“Something had to change. I was a danger to myself more than anyone else.” Lennox crossed his arms and sighed. “He’s hellbent on destroying my mother, too. Even beyond the grave. Really, he doesn’t give a damn about her, but she’s just collateral damage. He knows my mother is my weakness, so,” he shrugged, “he’s using it.”
“Does this have something to do with why Grandpa is always callin’ your mother a whore?”
Lennox cracked his knuckles, then rolled his shoulders. “ Yeah.” They were quiet for a spell. “The place my mother is buried in was important to her, Kage.”
“Why? She’s dead. Just like my ol’ man. What does it matter now?”
“It’s a cultural thing. She talked about it a lot. How she wanted her family’s forgiveness.” Lennox began to pace back and forth. “She finally got it, and I believe in spite of what happened, she died peacefully because she knew my father would honor her wishes and have her sent back to Lebanon to be buried, as she and her parents requested. She got to lie next to her grandmother and grandfather. Considered an honor. It’s a sacred cemetery for good souls and all of her family is there. She got a beautiful ceremony and the whole nine. My father, sister and I are accepted as family now, too.”
“Silva and you talk to your Lebanese side? I never knew that. I thought y’all were still estranged.”
“Not anymore. Not since I was like ten years old. They acknowledge us often, and my grandparents, uncles and aunts even call a few times a year to check on everyone. My father has forged a solid relationship with his father-in-law that exists outside of my mother. Something to stick to. They actually seem to like one another, oddly enough. Family was so important to my mother, Kage. This was all despite her choices to find out what life was about on her own. She wasn’t one to take orders from other people, even those she cared for, but she never lost the love she had for family, her religion, and the traditions she held dear. Mama was a little complicated, but at the same time, I understand her. Completely.” Dad was right. I’m just like her .
“Grandpa won’t let me close enough to him without ten guys in the room with guns.” Kage chuckled proudly. “I hate him with every fiber of my being. I’m no longer his golden boy, and haven’t been since I tried to off him. But you? He still trusts you. You may be the one to end this nightmare for all of us. Take him out.”
“But I don’t want to take him out. I just wish he’d disappear and leave me the hell alone. I don’t necessarily want him to die, just… go away. If I kill him, it’ll cause too many problems in the family. It’ll be taken out on Silva and Dad, too. Not only that, but I’d also probably have to go into hiding. He could ruin everything, Kage. Everything.” He threw up his hands.
“Well, all of that is hypothetical, but what he’ll do to you sure ain’t. Ask yourself what’s most important to you, man? Him still breathin’, or your mother’s wishes and her family name? He must have somethin’ pretty bad on her. Don’t let him dangle that over your head. Either tell him you don’t give a fuck, or do something about it. You can’t cut off a snake’s tail, cousin. Ya gotta cut off its head. There’s no half steppin’ with Grandpa. You either have to make things so hard for him that he backs off willingly, or make your choice to hurt him so easy that he fears messin’ with you. I chose the latter.”
“…And we all see where that got you.”
Kage laughed, a deep, raspy, rumbling laugh, then violently smashed his cigar in the ashtray. “Lennox, you say you came here to look me in the eye. You say you wanted to talk to me directly, pick my brain, cousin to cousin, man to man, because you know that I was close to Grandpa many full moons ago. You know I understand things about that man that some of y’all don’t. Six of my cousins, including you, are being blackmailed and threatened. He’s not fuckin’ around.” Kage’s eyes narrowed. “Every time I turn around now, I get strange, creepy phone calls, dead animals at my doorstep, or direct threats from the chief himself. He won’t kill me just yet though because he wants me. He had no doubt when he set my other home on fire that I would survive and rebuild. It was a challenge, a punishment and a test. He is aware I’m not stupid, and that I know how to survive.”
“So do I, but I have to be strategic about this! I also have to trust my heart.”
“And what’s your heart saying?”
“To trust the Lord. Always stay packin’. And by any means necessary.”
“Sounds like your heart is smarter than I thought.” Kage leaned forward and glared at him. “I’m tellin’ you that you can’t go halfway with him, Lennox. If ya swing on him, you better knock his fucking block off. If you miss, you’re dead. He told you straight out, in that letter, what he was gonna do. Now, I don’t know exactly what your letter said, the small details and all because I didn’t read it, just like you haven’t read mine, but you’re telling me the gist of it now, and I understand he’s got you over a barrel. Sounds like he knew what buttons to push. Do you wanna tell me what was on those buttons, or keep pussy footin’?”
“If my grandparents find out that my mother had sold her body for money soon after she moved here, it would be a disaster. This all happened before she became a wife. Mother. A doctor.”
“Well holy shit. She went to medical school?”
“Yeah. She was a family medicine physician. She decided to stay home and raise a family, so she left the clinic she was at and started a private practice, halftime. She became the doctor that she wanted to be. Her plan was to return to work fulltime after my sister and I were both out of high school. But, she died. If it gets out what she did, Kage, her life as an escort, that will cause enough chaos to remove her from the mausoleum. It would bring such shame to that side of the family that they may even be run out of town. I know it sounds like something from the 1800s, but this is just how it is. I can’t let him do that to them. I can’t let him ruin my mother’s name. Me going to prison pales in comparison to that. I can do time. I don’t want my mother to do time like that, from the grave, too.”
“So Aaliyah was a prostitute?” Kage smirked and shook his head. “I wonder how Grandpa got a hold of that tidbit?”
“I have no idea, but you know he can find out just about anything he wants.”
“Yup. He’s a resourceful son of a bitch. I remember he hated Aunt Aaliyah somethin’ fierce, too.”
“He hated my mother because she was strong-willed and told him to fuck off. She didn’t like his ways, or his politics. She disagreed with my father working for him, too. She saw that Grandpa was taking interest in me, and she made sure my visits were supervised from that point on. You know how grandpa is. He doesn’t like strong women. He doesn’t like independent women. He doesn’t like anything or anyone that stands up to him. She walked into a hornet’s nest when she met and fell in love with my father.”
“Speakin’ of dear ol’ dad, what does my weaselly Uncle Scott have to say about all of this?”
“He wants me to sing like a fucking bird. He is terrified of me going to prison, his only son, and he doesn’t want his wife’s name dragged through the mud. He called me and begged me to just do what Grandpa says so we can move past this. But I can’t, Kage.” His tongue was heavy with burden and grief. “I just can’t.”
“And you shouldn’t. All I can tell ya, because each of our situations is a little different, is that you have to play the hand the way he doled out the cards. The key to winning this game with Grandpa is to get a running head start on your next move. One thing I know about him is this: He hates defiance, but he respects a calculated maneuver. So much so that if you figure out how to get him off your back, he’ll let you go, top dog. He lets us know that in his own way, too. Double check the paperwork.”
“That means I need to figure out his weaknesses, just like he figured out mine. I know his ego is inflated. That’s a weakness. He’s narcissistic. That’s a weakness, too.”
“Yeah, but those aren’t the type of weaknesses that can be exploited and dismantled quickly though. You have to find something personal to you and him, Lennox. Look at the shit you two have in common, versus how you differ. Think outside the box. Your situation, in my opinion, is less complicated than mine, because there’s far less bad blood.”
“That might be true but I’m not backing down, and he hates that. ”
“Wouldn’t matter anyway. Backing down from him doesn’t work.” Kage stood up slowly. The man was tall and lean, with a muscular build. He was so sinewy that when he stood in that semi-dark room with only a few lanterns and candles lit, and the setting sun’s rays filtering through the window, he looked like an eerie tree. His eyes were electric with hatred, and his smile infused with evil joy.
“How would you know? I can’t ‘magine you backin’ down from nothing. Not even from a mudslide sure to suffocate you with a cold, clammy hand.”
Kane ran his tongue along his upper teeth as if trying to fish out a piece of gristle. “It’s elementary, little cousin. We know he don’t respect no fuckin’ body who follows his commands. He didn’t like your mother, my Aunt Aaliyah. But he damn sure respected her backbone. Few ’round here have one.” He slipped a knife out of his jeans pocket and began flipping and flicking it around like some toy.
“He don’t respect her or he wouldn’t be pullin’ the stunt he is now.”
“You said it yourself. This ain’t about her. It’s just a way to get to you .”
“I read that love kills hate. That’s gotta be the bullet in my gun, Kage. Every cell in his body is filled with aversion. I don’t love him, I can’t love a demon, but I know how to love, and he doesn’t. No matter my past… all the men I’ve injured and killed. The ones he knows about, and the few he may not, I’m still filled with love.” He placed his hand over his chest and bowed his head as if in prayer. “And no matter my mama’s past, she’s worthy of being buried in a beautiful place. She’s a wife and a mother. A sister and a fr iend. She’s a queen. I have always loved my mama. Grandpa can never take that away from me, Kage. If I work for him, I’ll go back to my old ways. I’ll lose my soul.”
“And that’s what he wants. He’s like a vampire. Suckin’ the life out of everyone who foolishly crosses his path. He’s just about destroyed my life.” He cast his eyes downward. “He can sniff out softness, Lennox. Soft men make him sick. Me too, matter of fact. My mama is soft. Your daddy is soft. Pliable. Able to be manipulated like putty.”
“Every now and again, he calls me dog, or top dog, Kage. He’s called me that since I was kid. Dogs are loyal. They do what they’re told. He’s made it clear how he sees me, and since I didn’t follow the command, he wants to break me. Like some stray puppy.”
“Top dogs are leaders, man. You’re looking at this all wrong. He tells on himself every now and again because what he calls us gives us clues as to how we can survive his fucked-up games. You being able to love and being loyal as hell doesn’t make you soft, cousin. It makes you strong!” Kage beat his chest with a fist, forcing his thick beard to shake as he moved. “He can smell strength, too. He could sniff you out as soon as you were born. He’s a user, so he saw your potential immediately. That mother of yours was the key. She gave birth to a bad son of a gun.” Lennox couldn’t help but smile. “The seven of us smell damn good to him. Like tender meat on the grill. By us cousins standin’ up to him the way we’ve done, all it did was make him want us more.”
“We’re marked for life.”
“Ya damn straight, but each of us has to do our part, or he’ll never turn us loose. We can’t break. We can’t fall down and not get back up. You were the first one he called to the carpet. He’s hoping that if he can break you, the rest of us will fall in line. Out of all of us, he believes you have the most sense. The one we’ll imitate. There’s always a reason to this bastard’s madness.” Lennox leaned against the log walls, next to the guns. His guts churned with hot anger. It felt like there was a tangled ball of bloody tendons and he had to unravel it. Figure this all out.
“Kage, let me tell you something. No matter how high this mountain is, I’ve got a ladder. Somethin’ told me to not work my normal shift one night at the club, and take someone else’s. I did, and ran into a woman I hadn’t seen in over a decade, but have loved just as long. I got up this morning, full of rage, and somethin’ told me to be still. To calm down. Something said, ‘Talk to your cousin Kage.’ Something said, ‘That old man wants to keep you two apart.’ I listened to that voice and picked up the phone. Without hesitation, you told me to come to you. It took me over two hours to get out here, but if it took two hundred hours, I still would’ve made the journey.” Kage nodded, his eyes sharp on him. “You and I have more in common than I realized.”
“All seven of us have things in common. That’s why he chose us, even though we didn’t choose him. He called you Top Dog, and me a Lone Wolf… I’m your ancestor, and you’re the newer generation. Dogs come from wolves… you and I are related in his eyes, and I ain’t talking about just blood. We’ve got that leadership shit that he wants. We can sniff out an opportunity. We aren’t swayed by money, puss y, and power. We’re motivated by lovin’ someone that is now gone. We dig in the dirt for bones. The dead. For you, it was your mama, and now, this woman that you feel something deep for. We love out loud. We defend it in public. We hurt over it in private. That’s our weakness.
“When we think ain’t nobody looking, we’re howlin’ at the moon. You gotta make some noise, but this time, not behind closed doors. You need a jury of your peers. That’ll be us, your cousins. And you’ll need someone to vouch for you. Bear witness. Maybe this lady is your witness, little cousin. Maybe she gotta be sworn in, so she can defend what she knows to be right, just, and true.”
A chill ran down Lennox’s spine. Though it was a simple metaphor, the fact that Nadia wanted to be a lawyer and had been going to college for that before she began dancing gave Kage’s words an uncanny quality.
“Our blood makes him believe we are bound to him, Kage. I’m bound to no man. My loyalty does have limits. He knows that he’s the reason for the season. The brainchild behind the mayhem and money. He likes the chase. Just like the dog and the wolf.”
“He sees a bit of himself in all seven of us. You’re nothin’ but a pretty, shiny thing to him.”
“I know that.”
“Then if you know that, use it to catch him in his own snare. What you’ve told me makes it clear in my mind.” Kage pointed to the side of his head, his brows rutted as if slightly annoyed. “I know what you need to do, you just gotta figure out how. That is what I don’t have the answer to. ”
“Survivin’ Grandpa Wilde. Coming to Netflix.”
They both had a mirthless chuckle at that.
“Look, Lennox, you’ve been out of drama and bullshit for a while now. It makes you a bit out of practice for these things, but you better get your head back in the game, and you better get it in there fast. Keep focused, and hold on to this frame of thought. Make it so that when Grandpa grabs you, like the pretty shiny thing you are to him, he’ll find out you ain’t no golden toy buried in the soil after all. You’re a gotdamn grenade.”
“Use what he thinks you are to turn it back on him. Like I said, I don’t have that advantage. He knows I’m a fuckin’ bomb. You, on the other hand, look more promising in his eyes, and agreeable. That also makes this all the eviler. He called you a dog? Yeah… He’s making you hunt for your own death. So, turn it around on him and serve him justice on a platter. Make it the worst thing he’s ever consumed in his entire life.” Kage placed his hand on Lennox’s shoulder. “Make your flavor bitter, your texture dry, and for God’s sake, you better be more poisonous than a witch’s kiss because the mission ain’t to make him sick, little cousin. It’s to make him regret the day he ever tried to dig up the top dog’s mama’s buried bones…”
Nadia stood in the book store, lost and confused while ‘L.I.E.’ by N’Dambi played. It had been a long time since she’d purchased a book anywhere other than online, but when her grandmother had stated she wanted a new cookbook for her birthday, it seemed like a great idea. Besides, she did miss the scent of books, new and old, and her Kindle simply couldn’t compare to that nostalgia. She made her way to the cooking section and found plenty of recipe books Grandma might enjoy. She got several of them to cover all bases. Grandma loved trying new recipes. It was the cutest thing. Now that she had what she needed, she still found herself practically rooted in place.
The mission wasn’t over. Over the past couple of days, she’d become obsessed with the whole question of, ‘What if?’ Had she buried her dreams in the ground and covered them up with fake peace of mind? Perhaps her last encounter with Lennox had sparked this feeling. The way he left her heated like an oven on a thousand degrees and didn’t bother to turn her off when the humiliation was cooked to a nice golden brown was downright diabolic. Sure, he’d called the next day like shit didn’t happen, but something had happened. Something major. He’d turned her down, but for all the right reasons. There was something else at play, too. She began to resent some aspects of her business. Her loyal OnlyFans client, Pedro, who’d she’d entertained for over four months, told her after he climaxed from her teasing gyrations that afternoon that she was the oldest broad he’d ever paid for a nut.
The sleepy-eyed son of a bitch had meant it as a compliment, stating she looked good for her age, but instead of taking it as nice words from a wealthy Hispanic man who just didn’t know any better, one who had a belly button fetish and money to burn, it fed into her concerns that the expiration date on this filming for funds ride was soon approaching. I can’t be doing this forever. I don’t WANT to be doing this forever… I can’t believe this, but I miss law school, too. I want to look into going back, and getting my degree.
She realized after that encounter with her client, tense conversations with her mother as of late, and a man who she was torn up about who had the audacity to walk away from her good, wet pussy, carting a full-fledged hard on to boot, that her feelings for Lennox were clouding things, too. She now didn’t have a strong desire to be naked in front of strange men. She had no feelings about it all, in fact. It didn’t feel bad, or good—just something she did, going through the motions.
Feeding their kinks, getting paid well for their weaknesses, and taking control of their libidos didn’t give her the zing she typically enjoyed. She’d mulled this last night as she stripped down to her bare flesh on that stage—a thought she’d never entertained before when her clothing hit the floor and her legs fell open into splits. It was as if Lennox was wielding some sort of spell over her now, and she’d never even fucked him. Frustration crawled up her neck like an insect, biting hard—an annoying tingling sensation that was now tapping on her shoulder and whispering bullshit in her ear. Reminding her that her journey wasn’t over. It had just begun.
Maybe that’s what they call a conscience? No longer fighting it, she made her way down the legal books aisle and studied the offerings. Some paperbacks offered textbook legal advice, others were self-help in nature, and a few were geared towards those going professionally into law. Students interested in a particular field. She picked up a book and read the title: The Tools of Argument: How the Best Lawyers Think, Argue, and Win by Joel P. Trachtman. Flipping through it, she discovered a few passages that caught her interest, then closed the book and placed it in her basket to purchase along with the cookbooks. Minutes later, she found herself in the romance book aisle.
Her body warmed as she checked out some of the steamy covers. She considered her reaction to be amusing, yet refreshing. It took a lot to get her turned on nowadays, but something about the glossy covers of smooching paramours in lust-fueled embraces gave her all the feels. Corny, cute, or sexy as hell, they called to her, bringing forth memories of her early teenage years where she and her girlfriends huddled together at the local Walgreens after school, giggling while reading sleazy words printed on off-white pages in romance novels, and flipping through cheap magazines that published poorly edited erotica aimed to titillate and arouse such as Bronze Thrills, and similar periodicals.
She stood there for a moment, eyes closed, traveling Memory Lane as the smell of hot coffee wafted around her. The magazines always smelled like wet newspapers, and the pages were thin . That drugstore smelled like perfumes, bubble gum, and cherry candies. That old Chinese pharmacist, whose head was shaped like a misshapen egg, would glare at us from over his glasses.
On the covers of the magazines she and her friends found so amusing were people that never matched the descriptions in the stories printed inside the pages. Like older guys with greasy Jheri curls being passed off as the sexy lead role, while in the actual story, the guy was only twenty-two, built nicely, and had a fade. Pointing out the stark differences, they’d laugh hard, then point to the dirty passages and crack up all over again:
Jerome laid Delilah down on the small, rickety, iron bed in his prison cell, and said, “I’m gonna bust your tight little cherry tonight, girl. You about to take all dis dick, bitch. All ten inches. And you gonna like it.”
The probation officer was a virgin, but madly in love with the dangerous playa. Jerome was the sexiest and most ruthless man in the prison, and he stuck up for her when no one else cared. She owed him so much. She wanted Jerome to be her first, and now was the time to give herself to him before it was too late. He took her handcuffs from her belt and tied her wrists to the iron bars of his cage, then made her lick on her baton.
“That’s right. Suck it. Practice makes perfect.”
He tore off his prison shirt and her pussy got even wetter at the sight of his hard, chiseled hairy chest. All that chocolate was for her and her alone. At least for one night. He grinned down at her, exposing his gold tooth with the bright diamond in it.
Jerome was a big-time neighborhood drug dealer, and all the women around town had been talking about how good he was in bed. The one detail that stuck out the most though was when they were bragging about his big, long, juicy black dick… Jerome said his dick was always hungry, and that it had a mind of its own. Some of the girls had admitted how that big, swinging snake of his had sent several women to the hospital. She didn’t mind being taken away in a gurney and admitted into ICU if it meant she could finally be with the bad boy of Baton Rouge …
She opened her eyes and burst out laughing, then caught herself. I can’t believe I still remember that! Word for word! She’d stolen the magazine from the store, jamming it into the inside of her jacket. Me, Kim, Jeisha and Angie must’ve read that thing a million times, passing it between us! We were far too young to have such things. I masturbated to it a thousand times! She moved slowly down the lane, grabbing various books from the shelves based on cover alone. Oh, this looks good. She’d scan a few, put them back, but every now and again a blurb or two would have her intrigued enough to place it in her cart. ‘Chosen,’ by Darie McCoy, ‘Blind Spot,’ by Olivia Gaines from her Technicians series, and Bound Through Time: Past (A Viking Brothers Novel Book 1) by Twyla Turner, to name a few. She’d perused practically the entire store, enjoying herself, falling in love with the rare treat of pleasure reading, when she stumbled across the psychology and sex education books section.
Normally, she’d have kept it moving, but the name of one of the books as she passed by caught her attention: ‘Sweet Black Pussy’ by Dr. Saint Aknaten.
That has to be in the wrong section! Shouldn’t that be in the erotica area with the romance books? She snatched it off the shelf and read the cover again. It was a smooth, matte hardback cover, black with an embossed black rose on it, with a red stem and leaves. The title font was also raised, printed in red and gold. Gorgeous cover.
She flipped it open and began reading, not stopping until she realized her damn foot had fallen asleep. Tingly and all. She gasped when she looked at her watch. Oh my God. She’d been standing there, practically in a trance for over an hour, devouring the book. What had felt like ten minutes was in fact much longer. She’d drifted into another world.
A sex therapist, psychologist, and advocate for Black women by the name of Dr. Saint Aknaten had written this gem. When she turned to the back of the book, she saw his picture and hummed. Well, surprise, surprise. This motherfucker is fine as hell. Damn. A real zaddy. Where have I heard this dude’s name before? It was killing her, trying to remember. She placed the book in her basket, not caring about the price, and made her way to the register. As she was standing in line, she got a text message from Lennox.
I want to take you out for dinner and a movie soon, baby. Let me know your schedule.
She quickly texted him back: We can go out this Friday or Sunday. I’m going to pay you back though, and walk away just like you did me. LOL.
As she was pulling out her wallet to pay, he wrote back: Not so fast. When I’m done with you, you may not be able to walk anywhere. LOL. Jokes aside, we’ll see how the date goes. I still have to make sure that you’re mentally ready, and emotionally capable to handle all that I have to offer. I’m playing for keeps.
Her lips curled in a smile, and her stomach erupted in butterflies…