“That’s Monie, my cousin.”
Cousin?They’d been friends since they were shorties. Who was this cousin?
“She’s flying in from Chicago. Moms insisted.”
“Moms? So, you didn’t want her coming to your wedding?”
“Nah, it’s not like that. Monie is good people—the best—it’s just…”
Tommie got quiet.
Silence between them had always been comfortable. Tonight, the quiet screamed with emotions Maurice couldn’t remember Tommie ever showing. Whatever this Monie meant to Tommie was so heavy it left an indentation.
Tommie took a long pull from his drink and shook the moment off, like he always did. “Lemme ask you something?”
Maurice leaned in.
“You been home what, twelve, thirteen years? Why haven’t you ever dated? It’s not like you took a vow of celibacy.”
Not this again?
“I’m just saying, B. Aren’t you lonely?”
There had never been a reason to examine that particular question.
His life was full. There were always people around. Folks who needed something, work that needed to be done.
Maurice shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want for anything.”
Tommie pinned him with a look full of challenge.
“What?”
“You don’t think you need to be taken care of?”
“Between you, Auntie Don, Deb, and Lanie, I’ve got all thetaking care ofI can handle.”
Tommie sucked his teeth. “If loving you is trippin’, then we just trippin’,” Tommie said. His pecan-brown skin glowed warm, and it wasn’t just from the aged scotch.
“That look on your face means I’m gonna suffer…” Maurice said in warning.
Tommie had the nerve to look indignant. “My brother, you wound me.” He clutched at his heart. “I would never actually make you suffer.”
And Mauricewasconfident he never would. In their decades of friendship, Tommie had never left him to suffer alone. When he’d been a shy kid, hiding beneath his headphones and backpack, Tommie had never once hurt him, not even by mistake. It took weeks, but he’d broken through Maurice’s protective shields. And now, here they were, two lifelong friends about to embark on another adventure that would forever change them.
They’d been there before, on this precipice of life-altering decisions. At least Maurice could see this one coming and brace himself.
He was about to stand at the front of a room and officiate the permanent redistribution of the one constant he had in his life. It was right. Lanie was good. But this thing making itself known at the pit of his chest—he’d file under things that didn’t need further examination.
He loved Lanie like a sister, grateful for the calm and order she brought to Tommie’s life. And she wasn’t stingy with it. The low lights, the incense, the records. Lanie built a home that cared. Maurice was just as much a beneficiary. He visited often.
“B, you’re no Paul. Frontin’ like being single is a choiceyoumade.”
But it was. Maurice had taken a life and would spend the rest of hisworking out his own salvation.
“You don’t have to eat the same thing every day. Wear damn near the same thing every day. Do the same things at the same time every day. I swear, one day that hot plate of yours is gonna short circuit just to spite you. There’s a whole stove in your place.”
There he was again, body checking Maurice out of his comfort zone. “It’s more manageable that way. I’m just too busy to have to think about all these other decisions.”