Page 4 of Where Is the Love

“A’ight. See you later.”

I got in my car to head home but saw my mama turning in the diner parking lot. She’d told me that they extended their hours on Thursdays to have a family night. They stayed open until eight. I glanced at my phone to see it was only five. I turned in the parking lot to go in and say hi to Aunt Chrissy. I noticed her car was there.

When I walked in, there was so much laughter it caused me to smile. I walked in the kitchen to see Aunt Chrissy and Aunt Tiffany nearly doubled over from laughing so much. Uncle Jasper said, “That nigga gon’ be coming for me in a minute, so y’all better have my back. I didn’t make those signs by myself.”

I joined in with the laughter, and they all turned to me. My mama ran to me like she hadn’t seen me in years. We talked almost every day. Since my breakup with Decklan, we’d been talking more. I had a real problem with talking to her about relationship drama. Watching her endure abuse from Joseph for over twenty years made me somewhat dislike her. I loved her as my mother, but her allowing that man to demean her and me, bothered me. He was the reason I had issues with the way I looked.

’Til this day, although he’s been dead for six years, his hateful words came to my mind, and I sometimes had nightmares about him. He was also the reason I had a problem trusting people. He was my father, despite my ability to refer to him as such. He was the man that should have loved me the most. When Uncle WJ killed him, I felt a sense of relief. It was like my mother was in bondage as long as he was alive. She was free to live her life on her terms, and that freed me. I never went to that house to visit after I moved out.

I refused to visit him, especially since he was still treating my mother like his slave. I threatened to tell my uncles several times, but my mother told me she would never forgive me if I did. She taught me to endure bullshit. That was something I had to rid myself of. It wasn’t hard to do that, though, because it was never something I wanted to do.

After hugging and kissing everyone, the smell of the food had my stomach growling loud as hell. I went to the steam tables up front to fix myself a plate, only to see they had a customer waiting. Just as I was about to call one of them up front, he said, “Jess?”

I stared up at him with a slight frown, then suddenly, realization of who he was came to me. “Brix?”

He smiled, and his eyes narrowed to slits as they always did. I ran around the steam table and gave him the biggest hug. We went to school together, from kindergarten to twelfth grade, and took plenty of classes together. We were good friends until we entered the dating phase. It was like the people we dated thought we had a thing for each other when we were truly just friends. He picked me up and swung me around, causing me to squeal. He always did that shit.

I laughed as he put me down. “My God! How have you been? It’s been like twelve or thirteen years since I’ve seen you! You never came home to visit?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ve come home. It just seemed we always missed each other. What you been up to? You looking good,” he said as he scanned my body.

My nipples hardened a bit, and I was confused about that. Although I had been slightly attracted to Brixton, we were friends. He was a nice-looking guy. We just never went there. Now, he was an even better-looking man. He looked like he lived in the gym. His muscles were visible every-damn-where.

“Thank you. I’m modeling now. Best decision I’ve ever made. Besides living in the gym, what are you doing?”

He chuckled and gave me an under-eyed look that he used to give to girls in school all the time. “I’m a personal trainer, and I own a gym in Austin. So I guess I don’t do anything besides live in the gym.”

“Well, what brings you back?”

“My dad died a few months back, and my grandparents’ land has just been sitting there going to shit since he was an only child. I decided to come home to work it and get it back up to par. I mean, it ain’t on the level of the Hendersons and all, but it made him a little money.”

“There you go, being a hater. How’s your sister?”

“She’s good. She lives in New York.”

“Damn. She stayed there after college, huh?”

“Yeah. She loved it.”

“Okay, so what do you want to eat?”

“Stuffed chicken. They’ve done a great job expanding the place. It looks really good.”

“Yeah. They expanded a couple of years ago.”

He nodded as I fixed his plate. I could feel him staring at me, and that shit had me antsy. Brix was a forward guy in school. I wondered if he was still that way. I could see him watching my every move like he was memorizing my features and mannerisms. I looked up at him and said, “Go ahead and get you something to drink.”

He smiled and nodded as I added beans and greens to his plate. I fixed myself a plate, then took them both to the table. Chrissy and Mama could complain about him getting a free meal all they wanted to. They should have had their asses on their jobs. When he returned, he set a glass of Fanta orange in front of me. I smiled hard as hell and immediately took a sip of it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for fixing my food. You ain’t finna get me in trouble for not paying though. You know yo’ mama don’t play about her money.”

I chuckled. “She doesn’t, but they are too busy back there laughing about Uncle Storm and forgetting that they have a business to run.”

“What’s he up to? Is he still mean?”

“Hell yeah. That’s just Uncle Storm. He’s lightened up a little over the years, but he’s still crazy as hell.”

Brix nodded and reached for my hands. I smiled slightly and put them in his so he could bless our food. I glanced at him to see he’d closed his eyes. I chose to keep mine open so I could look him over the way he’d done me. God had done a work on his ass.He was somewhat on the thin side in school and had a clean face. He still had a young-looking face, but that beard said he was a grown ass man.