And when he finally finished, when the last hard strokes went ragged and his weight came down over me and his breath turned rough against my skin, I lay there blinking up at the ceiling and realizing he had done exactly what he said.
Nothing hurt anymore.
Not there.
Not anywhere.
twenty-five
. . .
By Labor Day,the whole weekend had already started to feel like a blessing I was trying not to stare at too hard in case it vanished.
I met Micah’s family yesterday.
He kept insisting it wasn’t a full production, but it felt plenty official to me.
His mother watched me kindly from the kitchen. Pops called out from the den. Ciara was already grinning like she planned to learn all my business, Marcus stood beside her with the relaxed expression of a man who knew better than to interrupt, and Ari looked me over with open curiosity.
It had gone better than I let myself hope.
His mother hugged me before I left. Pops told Micah not to mess up a good thing loud enough for me to hear it. Ari decided we were friends somewhere between her second coloring page and dessert, climbing into my lap like I had been invited there specifically for her. And Ciara? Ciara had exchanged numbers with me before the night was over, which made Micah look between us like he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or start praying.
“What y’all need each other’s numbers for?” he had asked, suspicious as hell.
Ciara had smiled. “Women’s business.”
I had added, “Family planning.”
Micah had stared at me. “That better mean holidays.”
So this morning, I was more than ready for my family to meet the Micah that was in my heart .
They were getting the man after I had already seen him around his people, after I had watched him kiss his mother’s cheek, laugh with his sister, argue with Pops about sports, and look at me from across his parents’ kitchen like he knew exactly what it meant to have me there.
My family didn’t know all of that.
Not the details. Goodness, no.
But the glow? That part had apparently become public information.
My mother noticed it first, of course, because mothers lived to humble daughters who thought they were moving discreetly through joy.
“You’ve checked that lipstick four times,” she said from the kitchen island where she was lining up deviled eggs like she had a contract with order itself.
“I have not.”
My aunt Denise looked up from the watermelon she was cutting and made a noise. “You did it twice just carrying the tray.”
“That is not four.”
My mother lifted one brow.
“Three,” I muttered.
That only made both of them smile harder.
Labor Day at my parents’ house always started before noon and there was no such thing as ending early. By one o’clock, there were foil pans across every available surface, my father outside over the grill acting like fire itself had been waiting on his instruction, my mother moving through the kitchen with that serene authority women earned after years of feeding people who loved to act surprised by what consistency looked like. Music drifted from the Bluetooth speaker on the deck. Somebody’s child was already sticky. Somebody’s uncle was already loud. A cooler sat open by the back steps losing ice by the minute.