I thought about it for a real second. “Both. But the making part came first. I started because I needed something that worked for my skin and nothing on the market was doing it. Then otherpeople started noticing and wanting what I had and it just grew from there.”
Whitley nodded like that confirmed something for her. “Then the business isn’t broken. The packaging around it just needs work.” She shifted in her seat to face me more fully. “I can build you a website. A real one, with a store, product pages, everything. You could keep selling while you’re in school without needing a physical location at all.”
I leaned my head back against the headrest. “I’ve always done everything face to face. The flea market before the shop, then the shop. I don’t know if I know how to sell to people I can’t see.”
“You already do,” she said simply. “Every time you post about your products people respond. You just don’t have a place to send them. Give them somewhere to go and they’ll go.”
I let that sit. I had been so locked into the failure of the physical shop that I hadn’t considered the business could exist without the lease, without the overhead, without any of the weight I’d been carrying. The product was good. I had always known that. Maybe that was enough to build from.
“I didn’t think about it like that,” I admitted.
“That’s what little sisters are for,” Whitley said, patting my hand. “To see the stuff you’re too close to notice.”
As the van slowed and the entrance to the cenotes came into view through the jungle I felt something loosen in my chest. I had spent sixteen years being stubborn about this girl and she had just spent forty minutes on a van ride giving me more useful perspective than most people I’d known my whole life. She had reached out to me years ago wanting to connect and I had done her exactly what Stella had done to me. Made a promise I never kept.
Looking at Whitley now, I realized Stella might have been the enemy, but my siblings were innocent. They shouldn't have had to pay for a debt they didn't owe. Now, my mind was racing,trying to figure out how to keep them in my life without having to deal with Stella’s shadow hanging over every moment. I wanted a sisterhood that was mine, built on my own terms, away from the mess of the past.
I stepped out into the Tulum heat and looked back at Whitley one more time. She had just spent forty minutes on a van ride giving me more than most people I’d known my whole life ever had. That was on me. That was completely on me.
Chapter twenty
Cross Currents
The staff didn’t play about their water. Before we could even catch a glimpse of the cavern they marched us over to a row of outdoor showers carved into the rock. “No chemicals,” the guide kept repeating in a thick accent. “Rinse everything. Hair, skin, clothes.”
I stood under the cold spray, the water cutting through the sun’s heat but doing nothing to cool what Amina had stirred up in my chest earlier. I watched Nique step under the shower head beside me. She didn’t hesitate, just let the water drench herleopard print suit and those denim shorts until the fabric turned dark and heavy, clinging to every curve she had.
She caught me looking and wiped the water from her eyes, giving me a small smile that didn’t seem genuine. I wanted to step over and check on her, but Whitley had been glued to her side all morning. It was good to see the two of them finally building something real, so I kept my distance and let it breathe.
“I hadn’t planned to get my hair wet,” my mom said from the rinse station, standing with Aunt Maxine and Aunt Lynn looking like she was reconsidering her whole decision to come.
“I told you to get it braided like us,” Aunt Maxine said, flipping her curly braids with a smirk.
“Girl, I only have a teaspoon of hair,” my mama snapped back, raking her damp pixie cut with her pink nails.
“I know a young girl in Maysville that can grip anything,” Maxine insisted.
I couldn’t help myself. “What she gonna grip? Her thoughts?”
My aunties cackled, the sound bouncing off the limestone. My mama cut her eyes at me and planted one hand on her hip. She looked over at Amina, who was just walking up to the showers. “Get him before I do,” she said, half joking.
Amina laughed, sliding up beside my mother with that easy familiarity she had been performing all morning. “Oh trust me Mama Nash, I've been trying.” She cut her eyes over at me with a smile that was meant to look playful but had an agenda sitting right underneath it.
I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. I just kept walking toward the edge of the water where the crew had already gathered.
“I got a hundred dollars for the first girl to jump!” Kam announced, standing near the ledge with that same reckless hype man energy he slipped into whenever he was feeling himself.
London peered over the edge and immediately stepped back. “Absolutely not.”
“I value my life,” Paris said flatly, not even bothering to look down.
Then Nique said “I’ll jump” like it was the most casual thing in the world.
I was beside her before she could take another step toward that ledge. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She looked at me. “You’re Demi’s daddy. Not mine.”
The air went still for a half second.