“Dawn, you’re being totally selfish,” Eve told her. “Mama deserves to be happy.”
“I want Mama to be happy, too, but I never expected her to trade in Daddy for someone like Chip,” Dawn stated.
“What does that mean?” Eve asked.
“He’s hardly older than we are!” Dawn squawked.
“He’s way older than us! He’s already got gray hairs!”
“Do I?” Chip rushed into the bathroom and stood before the mirror, searching his curls for strands of silver.
“Chip’s a good guy,” Cory said. “Be fair, Dawn.”
“It’s embarrassing, having our mother running around campus with a white guy young enough to be her…her…”
“Go on and say it,” Zae challenged, her hands on her hips. “You might as well get your money’s worth.”
“Cousin!” Dawn spat, eyeballing Chip as he returned to Zae’s side.
“You’re being ridiculous.” Eve went to one of the twin beds. She snatched up the folded fitted sheet atop the bed, shook it out, and let it float over the bare mattress. “I don’t understand why you’re suddenly being so difficult.”
“What’s ridiculous is the thought of CJ being raised by someone who has no idea what it’s like to be a black man in America!” Dawn ranted. “Mama, you oshould be ashamed of getting so deeply involved with someone incapable of relating to CJ.”
“I like Chip,” CJ said through a mouthful of cheese puffs.
“How dare you!” Zae finally exploded. “Ever since your father died, I’ve spent every day of my life doing the best I can by you! Don’t I deserve to be happy? Don’t I deserve to be with someone who cares for me?”
“Yeah, it’s not Chip’s fault he’s white!” CJ butted in.
Zae glared at her son. “Do I look like I need help from you?”
“My bad.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I think you’ve got it under control. If you need me, I’ll be at the vending machines in the lobby.” With that, CJ left.
Zae turned back to Dawn. “I enjoy Chip’s company. That doesn’t mean I plan to marry him. And if I did, that’s my business, not yours, little girl. Don’t you dare judge or criticize me.”
“You could have found somebody more suitable,” Dawn grumbled.
“You mean somebody exactly like your father.” Zae’s voice broke.
Her lovely mouth pinched into a bow, Dawn fought to keep tears from falling. She lost the battle, bursting into loud sobs that brought her mother to her side.
Zae held Dawn close, guiding her to one of the empty beds. “I’ll never find another man like your daddy because God only made one of him.”
She looked up and met Chip’s gaze. In the past weeks, she had spent time with Chip as she always had, although she’d been careful to avoid being alone with him. She didn’t trust herself to keep her hands to herself, and until she understood her feelings for him, her physical attraction to him had to take a backseat. Her children’s needs had come first for so long, she was uncertain how to begin fulfilling her own now that two of her children were going into the world and her third no longer needed her constant attention.
Chip, her dear, wonderful friend, had slowly, easily become someone in whom she could trust. Someone on whom she could rely. In his company, she could relax and think only of herself but in the most unselfish of ways. He knew her children and he knew her in ways no one else but Colin ever had.
Long a part of their lives, Chip had become part of their family, someone so trusted and loved that Dawn felt comfortable targeting him for her wrath, knowing he would forgive her as only a family member could. Or would.
Zae pressed kisses to the crown of Dawn’s head. “I don’t know what the future holds, baby, but I have someone who makes me feel complete again. You’d begrudge me that?”
“I just miss Daddy so much!” Dawn sobbed. “Just when I think it won’t hurt anymore, something happens to make me miss him all over again. Daddy used to talk about how hard it would be for him when Eve and I left for college.”
“Your father wanted you girls to go to college, and here you are! He might not be here the way we want him to be, but he’s here.” Zae pressed her hand to her chest. “He’ll always be here. A Scottish poet named Thomas Campbell once said, ‘To live in hearts we leave behind is never to die.’ Remember that, baby. Always.”
With Dawn softly weeping in her arms, Zae waved everyone out of the room. Eve, wiping away her tears, allowed Cory to circle an arm around her as they left the room. Chip took his time, lingering to kiss Zae’s forehead, then Dawn’s, before he left, quietly closing the door behind him.
* * *
Eve pulled a reluctant Dawn by the sleeve of her black leather car coat. “When I told you I’d make my little outburst up to you, I didn’t think it would entail eating in the campus cafeteria,” Dawn complained upon reaching the round table Chip shared with Braeden.
“I’m glad you could make it just the same,” Chip said. He smiled, pleased that the twins’ arrival was having the desired effect. Eve, in a form-fitting russet cashmere dress draped with a chocolate cape, and Dawn, in stretchy blue jeans topped with a cream turtleneck, beautifully represented the textures and colors of fall. Eve wore her long hair in a loose knot at her nape while Dawn’s fell to her shoulders in a fishtail braid. The twins looked like contemporary young goddesses of the harvest—and a crop of hormonally-challenged young men sprouted around them. Their beauty heightened by the fact that they seemed oblivious to the attention they received.
Chip had accepted Dawn’s apology for her behavior the previous afternoon, and he’d also accepted her offer to make it up to him. A few emotionally-charged words from Dawn were a small price to pay for the expression on Braeden’s face at the sight of the twins.
“Braeden, these are two of my former students,” Chip said, standing to seat the twins. “Eve and Dawn Richardson. Prof. Richardson’s daughters.”
Braeden wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans. Struggling to chew and swallow a big bite of his Coney Island hotdog, he half-stood and offered his hand to the twins.
“What’s good on the menu?” Eve asked. Her luminous brown eyes and warm smile instantly put Braeden at ease.
A feeling Dawn quickly vanquished. “What won’t kill us?”
Braeden ummed and erred, unable to form words with the twins staring at him. Chip was about to suggest the All-You-Can Eat salad bar when a shadow darkened their table.
“Sionne,” Chip greeted warmly, clasping hands and exchanging manly shoulder bumps with the big Samoan. “What brings you here today?”
Sionne nodded toward Dawn. “We were s’posed to have lunch today, but she said she had to come here to meet you. Thought I’d tag along.”
“You’re Sionne Falaniko,” Braeden gasped before Chip could make proper introductions. “I saw you on ESPN. I saw you on Masters of Human Weaponry, too!”
Sionne flashed his high-beam smile. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Haeden Brayes,” Braeden said. He shook his head. “I mean, Braeden Hayes.”
“Good to meet you, finally,” Sionne said. He stuck his hands in the front pockets of his fleece pullover after shaking Braeden’s hand. “I’ve seen you at Sheng Li. You’re lookin’ good for a beginner. You got good instincts.”
Braeden’s cheeks flamed red. “Sionne Falaniko thinks I have good instincts,” he muttered under his breath.
“Two-time national mixed martial arts champion Sionne Falaniko thinks you have good instincts,” Chip said pointedly.
Sionne threw a thumb in the direction of the buffet line. “I’m gonna go grab something to eat. Can I get you ladies anything?” he asked the twins.
“Soup for me,” Eve said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll pick off your plate,” Dawn told him. “I know you’ll come back with one of everything.”
“Can I get anything for you, Braeden?” Sionne asked.
Braeden’s eyes widened. He appeared to stop
breathing.
Chip sat him down in his seat. “I think he’s fine, for now.”
Sionne’s unexpected presence erased whatever concerns Chip had regarding Braeden’s ability to communicate in the company of two beautiful girls. Sionne returned to the table with what indeed appeared to be one of everything the buffet offered, and he had nothing to do other than chew and swallow once he sat. Braeden carried the conversation, asking Sionne questions about his career and training, sometimes answering them before Sionne could get a word out.
Chip excused himself to join Zae at another table, and Braeden dismissed him with no more than a hasty, “Later.”
“Is your master plan working?” Zae asked Chip after he took the empty seat opposite her and her tray of chicken noodle soup and Caeser salad. “Has Braeden instantly shed his nerd’s skin now that he’s been seen with two of the prettiest girls on campus?”
“I don’t know about all that,” Chip said. “I just wanted to grow his confidence some.”
“That wasn’t his confidence growing when he saw my girls,” Zae said. “And I think he’s more interested in Sionne than the twins.”
“Yeah, that surprised me.” Chip yawned, raising his arms and stretching like a lazy cat. “I thought I was his idol.”
“It’s not enough that you have half the little girls on campus crushing on you, you want the boys, too?”
“Only half the girls?” Chip’s eyes twinkled. “All my gray hair must be more of a turn-off than I realized.”
“Dawn didn’t mean any of those insults she threw your way yesterday,” Zae said. She stirred her soup, sending tendrils of steam floating above it. “She strikes out when she’s in pain.”
“I get it,” Chip said. “It’s a big deal, moving away from home for the first time. The girls have each other, but Mama’s not gonna be right in the next room anymore.”
“No, I’ll be across campus.” Zae smiled.
“It’s still not the same as having you under the same roof. It’s doubly hard, for all three of you, since Colin isn’t here to see his babies go off to college or comfort you once you have to face that near empty house.”
Zae’s nostrils quivered, a sure sign that tears were near.
“Head’s up.” Chip tipped his chin toward Braeden and the twins. “Looks like something’s going on.” He started to rise when Elton and four other young men approached Braeden’s side of the table.
Zae stopped him with a firm hand to his forearm. “You have to let kids handle their own problems sometimes.”
Chip sat, but he kept an eye on Elton. Tall and blond, Elton put Chip in the mind of Hitler Youth. Elton always traveled in the company of four or more of his friends, who all seemed to share the same wardrobe of khakis, collared shirts and MU bomber jackets. As cats were to dogs, boys like Elton were the natural enemies of boys like Braeden.
“What if this isn’t one of the times we should keep our distance?” Chip asked, still eyeing Elton, who plucked French fries from Braeden’s tray.
“There’s a lethal, tournament-winning black belt at the table,” Zae assured him. “Three, if you count Eve and Sionne. They can handle this themselves. You really care about Braeden, don’t you?”
“He’s a good kid.”
Zae stared into her soup. “You’ll make a good father someday.”
He shrugged and ran a hand through his curls. “I’ve never really given much thought to having kids of my own.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “There was no point. I never met anyone I wanted to have kids with, so why think about having kids?” He leaned back in his chair and hooked his thumb through one of the belt loops on his blue jeans. ”It’s such a tremendous responsibility. I don’t know how parents sleep at night for thinking about all the things that can happen to their kids. Accidents. Illnesses. Dumbasses, like Elton Dye.”
“Sounds like you’ve given parenthood more thought than you realize,” Zae smiled. “Bad things happen, but you don’t think about them until they happen, and, God willing, they won’t. You think about the good things.” She gazed at her daughters. “Like their laughter from another room. The scent of their hair after a bath. When they learn something new at school and want to talk your ears off about it. The best is when they look at you and say, ‘I love you,’ especially when they don’t ask you to borrow the car, or to buy a three-hundred dollar gaming system afterward.”
Chip stared at her. Zae had never been more beautiful. He never knew motherhood could be so sexy.
“What?” Zae said warily.
“What what?”
“You’re looking at me oddly.”
“That’s just my face.”
“Well, stop it.”
Chip grinned. “Stop what? I’m just sitting here.” He rocked back, balancing the chair on two legs.
“Stop looking at me like that!”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like…I’m one of your secret treasures.”
He set the chair on all four of its legs and crossed his arms on the table. “You are.”
Zae leaned forward. “I know that, but I’d rather not have everyone here know it.”
“I don’t care who knows I love you.”
Stunned into silence, Zae slumped back in her chair. Chip had never said those words to her, and they held fresh surprise, like stumbling upon the solution to a particularly difficult problem.
Loud voices from the twins’ table returned their attention to Braeden, who was standing. Elton brayed like a hyena, pointing at the dark stain of wetness spreading over Braeden’s crotch.
“You did that on purpose!” Braeden charged.
“No, man, it was an accident.” Elton laughed. “My hand slipped.”
“Maybe you should go on your way now,” Sionne said. He smiled, though the threat in his tone was clear. “Before my hand slips.”
“It’s cool, it’s cool,” Elton said, hands upraised in a gesture of conciliation. “No need to get your wig in a tangle.”
Sionne clenched his right fist. The crack of his knuckles sounded like gunfire in the crowded cafeteria.
“Okay, now is one of those times to intervene,” Zae said.
Sionne’s incredible mane of long, black, wavy locks was a point of cultural pride. The ordinarily good-natured Samoan rarely took exception to jests about his hair, but Elton’s insult could earn him a beating. Dawn handled the situation in her inimitably bold fashion just as Chip reached the table. She took Sionne’s big Styrofoam cup of iced tea and upended it over Elton’s head.
“Oops,” she said, her voice flat. “My hand slipped.”
Sputtering and gasping, Elton spat an expletive. “You’re going to pay for this shirt!”
“Glad to,” Dawn said, “as soon as you pay for Braeden’s pants.”
“Why don’t we call this even and break it up?” Chip suggested. He gave Elton’s shoulder a firm push, leaving no doubt that his visit to Braeden’s table was over.
“C’mon, dude,” one of Elton’s friends said. “You’ve got enough time to change before your next class. Just let it go.”
With an angry sneer, Elton stalked off, his friends in tow. One of them paused to ask Sionne for an autograph before scurrying after his companions.
Eve excused herself from the table to borrow a slop rag from one of the cafeteria workers.
“There was probably a better way to handle that, Dawn,” Chip said, leaning over the table.
“Probably,” she agreed.
Braeden finally managed a laugh. “I think she handled it just fine.”
* * *
The scent of maple-cured bacon roused Zae from bed before she fully awakened. Drawn by the mouth-watering aroma, she shuffled out of her bedroom, down the corridor, and down the stairs, wondering if it were her birthday or Mother’s Day—the only occasions for which her children prepared breakfast. She entered the kitchen and sunlight from a pair of French doors struck her like lightning. Squintin
g, she shielded her face with her hands.
“Good morning, professor.”
Zae halted at the wheeled butcher block in the center of the room. “Chip,” she said, her voice deep and froggy from sleep. She glanced at the time in the microwave console. “What are you doing here at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?”
“I needed to do some laundry, so I thought I’d make breakfast for you and CJ while my delicates are in the wash,” Chip said. He used a spatula to point to the cozy table in the breakfast nook. “Have a seat.”
“Chip made bacon, pecan pancakes and scrambled eggs,” CJ said. He dabbed up bacon crumbs with his finger. “It’s so good!”
Zae spent a moment scratching her backside, her oversized T-shirt riding up and down with the movement of her hand.
“You’re a real princess in the morning, aren’t you?” Chip chuckled.
“Feed me.” Zae held out her hand.
Chip gave her a plate piled high with eggs, bacon and saucer-sized pancakes. Zae took the empty place beside CJ at the table.
“I squeezed the orange juice, Mom,” CJ said proudly. He poured her a glass and set it in front of her.
“This is really nice.” Zae cupped CJ’s face and drew him in for a kiss on the cheek.
“Ew!” he winced. “Your breath smells like wet gym socks.”
“Thanks. Just for that, you get to do the dishes when Chef Kish finishes cooking.”
Grumbling under his breath, CJ left the table and started for the stairs to the basement.
Without turning around, Zae said, “I want your homework finished before you get on that Xbox.”
CJ made a U-turn at the top of the stairs and headed for his bedroom, still grumbling.
“You’re a real taskmaster, Prof. Richardson,” Chip said. He joined Zae with his own plate, sitting opposite her. Unbidden, he drizzled warm maple syrup over her pancakes. “Is that enough?”
“It’s perfect.” Zae picked up her knife and fork, but instead of tucking into her own meal, she watched Chip. Sitting in her sunlit breakfast nook with him seemed so natural. Too natural. “Did CJ let you in?”
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