Remi ignored Angel’s glaring eyes and gave her attention to Joy. “Hey, Joy!” Remi cooed as she bent down and hugged her.
Looking up from her bike ride, Joy squinted as the hot June sun beamed down on her as it set. “Hi, Remi!”
Remi kissed her cheek. “I missed you, honey.”
“I missed you too!” she cooed.
I reached down and playfully pinched Joy’s cheek. “You ain’t speaking today?”
She giggled as she swatted my hand away. “Hi, Coop!”
“Hey, baby. Have you been good?” he asked her.
“Yep!” she promised with a nod.
“Good job.” Looking down on her was sweet sorrow. She was the spitting image of her father, but I saw True so much in her smile that it hurt while making me smile at the same time.
As Joy took off on her bike down the driveway, I asked Angel, “What’s going on?”
She had insisted that I come over right then, so I was eager to know what was going on. I had made sure that Remi came with me because now that I had had her, I couldn’t get enough of her. I finally felt whole again. Life finally felt right and like I was missing nothing except True. However, standing there with Angel, Joy, and Remi, I felt like True was still in my life to some extent.
“You tell me,” Angel insisted as she continued to look between me and Remi with a smile.
I taunted her by ignoring her subliminal question with my usual crass attitude. “Maaan, why you call me over here,?”
Suddenly, Angel’s eyes filled with concern. “Where is Keyes?!”
“Chill,” I insisted. “He’s with Rakim.”
“Oh hell no!” Angel snapped as she shook her head.
First, Angel gave me the middle finger. Then she started to beam as she announced, “I got custody of Joy.”
Remi gasped and shrieked, “What?!”
Angel jumped a bit from the excitement. “Yes, full custody. The judge was going to give us shared custody, until I played him a tape of Jameel acting a fool in her house a few months ago.”
“That’s dope, Angel,” I told her as I took her into my arms and hugged her. We rocked from side to side for a moment before I let her go.
“I’m so happy for you,” Remi told her as Angel wiped a lone tear from her eye. “And… Oop!… Is that an engagement ring on your finger?”
Following Remi’s eyesight, I peeped the phat-ass rock as well and grinned with pride, happy that True’s wishes were coming true. Her mother was being taken care of.
Just then, Russell came out of her house, and she looked back at him with a smile. “Yes,” she gushed. “He asked me to marry him yesterday, and I said yes!”
“Awwwww!” Remi squealed as she hugged Angel tight while Russell approached us.
Remi grabbed Angel’s hand and checked out her ring, which she seemed to instantly envy. The ring was beautiful and sparkled blindly in the sunlight.
As Russell shook up with me, I told him, “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He grinned.
“Okay, soooo, enough of that,” Angel pressed as she again looked between me and Remi. “What’s going on with you two showing up here together?”
Remi lowered her head, blushing. I confidently held her hand as I replied, “This my baby.”
It was time that I stopped fighting and running. Clearly, this was the path that I was supposed to take in my life. It had been a dangerously rough path that had led me to a place I didn’t know I needed to be.
“Yes!” Angel shrieked as she brought Remi and me into a united hug.
“Good looking,” Russell told me with a prideful smile.
As Angel released us, she told us both with tears in her eyes, “Thank you.”
I shook my head. “No,” I insisted. “I thank True for even giving me Remi. True was right. I need Remi. I love her.”
Angel’s eyes bucked as Remi’s widened even more as she looked up at me. “You love me?” Remi asked.
I smiled down on her, admiring her as I put my arms around her, bringing her into the place where I always wanted her to be—under me. “Yes, I love you, baby.” Then I looked around, realizing how complete I finally felt. “I love all of you. We went through something together that created a bond between us that will never go away. Angel, you, and Joy will forever be my family. I will always be here for you. I lost True. We lost True. But I realize now that I finally have the family I never had.” Tears slid down Angel’s face as she leaned into Russell. He put his arm around her as she clung to his waist, crying happy tears for once. Then, I looked down on Remi’s joy-filled, tearful eyes with the same admiring, sincere look that she was giving me. “Remi, I will always love you. This love developed from something different and deeper. It wasn’t from intimacy, but the bond and chemistry we have is stronger than lust. And I know it won’t be long before I’m madly in love with you.”
Grinning into my face, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the lips slowly. “I love you too.”
Squealing, Angel wrapped her arms around us both, bringing us into a bear hug once again. “I love y’all too!”
I grinned into their embrace, knowing that this was where I needed to be.
And True was there with us. She would always be there…with us.
True was now my angel that had saved me from my old self. Even after experiencing her untimely, traumatic death, I was like brand new. She had lost her life while giving me a new one.
Every once in a while, in the middle of chaos, life gives us a fairy tale.
THE END
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