"Fuck you! I missed you, too." She stood to hug him but he pushed her away.
"Go'n on with that sappy shit now. The words was enough," he dismissed.
"You know what? Fuck you. How you miss me and won't let me hug you?"
"You not go'n hug me, you go'n try to put me in a headlock."
She laughed, "I'm not a child anymore. I know when I'm outmatched. And have you seen yourself recently? I'm not finna try my luck putting yo' swole ass in a headlock, 'cause the minute you start fighting back, I'm'a lose."
"Glad you know," he nodded.
"How old is Malakai?" she asked suddenly.
He thought for a moment, furrowing his brows as he tried to remember, "Thirty-three? Thirty-four? Somewhere in there."
"He got a girl?"
"He got a baby momma and two kids."
She winced silently, "I don't know if I wanna deal with all that. I just wanna fuck him."
"You ever plan on settling down?"
"Sure, when I'm fifty."
"You can't have no kids by then."
She furrowed her brows, "Nor do I want any more. My son finna graduate high school. After that, I just gotta send him to college and I'm done."
"How old were you when you started being his momma? 'Cause you, what? Just hitting your thirties and he already finna graduate?"
She nodded, "I'm thirty-two, I was fifteen when he was born... Let's see, he was three when I graduated high school and Trell died right after I started college and that was another three years for me to finish undergrad. I was twenty-one when we got that house in Corpus and that's around the same time I started filling in for A'merie as Kush momma. She left us a year later, and next thing I knew, I was twenty-two with a seven-year-old son."
"Damn," he muttered.
...-༄
Kush was sitting on the couch and scrolling pointlessly on his phone when Sojourner walked into the living room.
She was wearing an adorable pink, silk nightgown with lace accents that was just long enough to be considered acceptable to wear in front of company.
"Kush," she called. He looked over at her silently. "You ready to eat?"
He got up immediately, "Hell yeah."
She giggled softly as she led him back to the kitchen, "Hungry ass."
"You damn right," he snickered.
She pointed him to the table as she went to fix his plate for him.
"You know I could've did it myself," he offered.
"That ain't your place. This is my kitchen, I cook and serve the food so I don't have to worry about nobody making a mess." She turned and walked over to him, speaking in his ear as she sat his plate in front of him. "Your place is in my bed. We can make a mess there tonight."
He reached to grab her cheeks then turned his whole body to look at her, "You want me dead, too?"
She furrowed her brows and pushed his hand away, "What?"
"You know Huncho your pops, right? Like biologically."
"Yes. Does that matter?"
He leaned forward in disbelief, "Does it-? Girl, yes!" He sighed, "I'm sorry, but I ain't willing to die 'bout it."
