Busted

Angeline blew out a breath. “The good Lord knows I’d like to tell you that you’re just being paranoid, but I know my girl too well. Okay, then. We’ll have to take her with us if you don’t have anybody who can watch her. I called everybody I know. Can you check with Farrah?”

“She’s working today.” Her heart thudded in her chest.

A sigh escaped her mother and she saw those slim shoulders slump.

Swallowing, Ressa cleared her throat. “I might be able to find somebody,” she said softly. “Just let me . . .”

She turned away. “Let me get dressed.”

She hadn’t turned away fast enough, because a few minutes later, while she was getting dressed, her aunt slipped into her bedroom.

Ressa looked over her shoulder at her aunt. “Mama Ang, that door was closed.” Closed, because she needed a few minutes to get herself together before she called Trey. “I need to shower, get dressed. Is Neeci eating?”

“You can shower and get dressed in a minute. Yes, Neeci is eating.” Angeline cocked her head. “You didn’t sleep again last night.”

Clearly the comment about the closed door didn’t matter. Closed doors, raging rivers, and the fires of hell wouldn’t matter, not if she thought the happiness of her girls was at stake. She hadn’t been able to help Kiara, although she’d tried. It had all but broken her heart, too, because she thought she’d failed.

Apparently hellfire, damnation, and closed doors weren’t going to stop her when it came to the other young woman she loved.

“I did sleep.” Ressa shrugged and looked away, moving to grab clothes from her closet since her aunt obviously wasn’t leaving. “I just haven’t been sleeping all that great since that last call from Kiara. Every time I think she’s going to get her act together . . .” She shrugged and hoped Mama Ang would let it go at that.

“Uh-huh.” The doubt was practically dripping from her aunt’s voice. “I might buy that, except you’re used to your cousin. You’ve dealt with her bullshit too well and you’ve never let it cost you sleep before. Now. Try again.”

“I’m fine, Mama Ang,” she said.

“Hmm.” That sound was loaded with doubt. A moment passed and then Angeline said, “Neeci tells me you sorta kinda have a boyfriend. Since you’re clearly so fine, I assume I’ll meet him soon?”

The words, delivered in a laid-back, neutral tone poked a hole through the wall she’d been constructing around herself. She didn’t even realize how precarious that wall was, or how brittle she felt, until the tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes.

Ressa turned away and clapped a hand over her mouth. Struggling to hold back the sniffles, she waved her aunt back when she saw her coming up in the mirror.

“Oh, don’t you go pushing me away,” Angeline said. She caught Ressa around the waist, oblivious to the fact that Ressa had four inches on her.

And Ressa let the older woman pull her in, dropping her head to rest it on Angeline’s shoulder as she fought not to cry. “We . . . we can’t do this now,” she whispered.

“We can take a few minutes, baby. Now, you tell me what’s wrong.”

Ressa shook her head. “But . . .”

“No buts. You’ve been holding this in too long. You always hold things in too long. We can take ten minutes and you will tell me what is wrong.”

Slowly, Ressa lifted her head and met her aunt’s eyes. She was a grown woman. She could handle her own love life, right? Opening her mouth, she thought about just saying that, explaining that . . .

But that wasn’t what came rushing out of her in a torrent.

“I met somebody, Mama Ang. I like him. Hell, that doesn’t describe him. I think I could . . .” She pulled away to pace, unable to stay still. That gaping hole inside her seemed to spread and it just got worse if she was still. “I can’t even think about it. I don’t want to think about it because it can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen and it hurts. I never should have let myself think anything should come of it.”

Dimly, she was aware of her aunt moving to settle on the edge of her bed, just as she’d done when Ressa had been struggling to adjust to a new life, a new home, a new school where she thought she’d never fit in.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t thinking. It wasn’t supposed to even happen, you know? Then it did, and it should have just been sex, and that was all well and good, but it ended . . .” Heat rushed up the back of her neck, but she ignored it. She’d been able to talk to her aunt about sex before—it wasn’t like she hadn’t already known what it was before Mama Ang had found her and brought her here.

But they were open about it. It made it easier. Still, she wasn’t going to tell the woman watching her with arched brows that Trey Barnes could fuck like a dream, and that he could do something simple like kiss her hand and melt her heart.

“It ended,” she finished lamely. “It was supposed to be a weekend thing. Then I ran into him again at Neeci’s school and . . .” She closed her eyes, stopping once more by the dresser. “I can’t quit thinking about him. He’s in my head. In my heart. Under my skin, all the time. And it can’t happen. At least, I don’t think it can. It shouldn’t. It’s too complicated, too messed up.” She finally stumbled to a halt.

“Okay,” Angeline said, her voice a soft, steadying presence in the uneasy silence. “Let’s set aside the it can’t happen part and focus on the rest. Does he feel the same way about you?”

She dropped her hands and looked at her mother. “Yeah. I think he does.” No, she knew he did. And that made it so much harder.

“Then why can’t it happen?” Angeline just looked curious.

“Because of who he is,” she said. As her aunt continued to watch her, she turned away, shame slipping its way inside. “And . . .”

Silence was an ugly thing. She couldn’t get the words now, but after a few taut, heavy seconds, she didn’t have to. Her aunt did it. “How much of this is because of your past . . . and how much is because of Kiara?”

“It’s all of it,” she whispered, unable to swallow down the shame.

A warm hand smoothed up her arm then came to rest on her shoulder. “And here I was thinking you just needed me to boot you in the butt because you’d fallen for a white boy. Oh, Neeci told me that, too, and you oughta know I’d smack you over that—it doesn’t matter who you fall for, not to me and it shouldn’t matter to you. Love is love and you know that.” Angeline sighed. “I’m sorry. Because it sounds like that’s where you’re at. Now if he’s ashamed to be with you because of your cousin . . .”

“He’s not.” The words came out in a snap and she spun to stare at her aunt, the anger boiling up inside her.

Angeline inclined her head. “Oh?” She nodded. “Okay, then you’ve told him about your past. About the mistakes you made and he isn’t okay with it?”

Ressa looked away as Angeline narrowed cool eyes on her.

Now she felt like she’d been caught sneaking out the window or something—and yes, she’d done that. More than once. Fighting the urge to fidget, she stared at her aunt, refusing to blink or look away. She was an adult, damn it.

“Please tell me that you are not the reason this can’t work out,” Angeline said quietly. “If he’s the kind of guy who has accepted you, and your cousin, then you had better figure out how to make this make sense to me. You had better not tell me that you are the one standing in the way. That you’re not letting your cousin or your past hold you back from a man who can make you happy.”

“It’s more complicated than that!” The knot that had settled inside her chest tried to take over, the emptiness inside tried to swallow her whole.

“Why? Because of who he is? Okay, then tell me who he is that makes this so impossible,” Angeline demanded.

That caustic tone left her floundering for words. “He’s . . . he’s . . .”