Rico.
And Christian.
My God. I didn’t know how we made it to yoga after that.
My mother looked like she was ready to bombard me with more questions, but thankfully my grandmother’s arrival derailed anything else she was about to say.
Rico was the first to greet her. “Hey, granny.”
“Hey, grandbaby.” She turned up her cheek, waiting for his kiss. When she got it, she beamed at me. “Hey, sweet pea!”
She hugged me tight before taking center stage between us with a sour expression.
“What’s wrong, mama?”
My mother’s question was all the prompting she needed.
She fisted her hands at her waist and huffed. “Willie over there smelling up the jewelry stand. We outside with all this open air and you wanna break wind around people?”
“Grandma!”
“What? I wanted to look at a necklace and damn near passed out.” She shook her head of gray curls, nose upturned. “I walked by and it sounded like he was shuffling a deck of cards. Just a stankin’.”
Theatrics aside, she sounded truly disturbed and that was the part that had my stomach hurting. My grandmother didn’t possess a lick of subtlety.
I peered around her and found Willie exactly where she said he was, walking away from the jewelry stall, hands clasped behindhis back and a lopsided grin on his face like he wasn’t offending people’s senses a minute ago.
Looping her arm through mine, my grandmother walked us over now that the coast was clear.
I didn’t care that my mom and Rico weren’t on our heels because the beaded jewelry display stole my attention the moment I was close enough to admire it.
Rico and I needed to pick out produce. And find Soul and Christian. But first, I needed these earrings in every color.
“Hey ladies, let me know if I can help you find anything. Everything on that table is buy one, get one thirty percent off. And custom pieces are available upon request.”
That voice. The syrupy southern notes were familiar even though I hadn’t heard it in years. My head snapped up and I locked eyes with Lyric Dawson.
She flipped her ash brown goddess braids over her shoulder, her smile genuine and bright. “Hey, Harlow.”
“Hi, Lyric.”
My grandma hadlong since left the stall after buying the necklace she wanted, but I was still here, spending money I hadn’t planned to spend.
“Hmm, I like the silver chains on you, but I could customize some waist beads for you too. Or we could add a string of cowry shells between the chains.” Lyric lifted herself from her kneesin front of me and stepped back to look at me with her creation snug around my waist.
We were behind a trifold partition in her stall for privacy while she fitted me.
I turned to face the mirror to my right and smiled at my reflection because something so simple made me feel so sexy.
“I love it. Add this to my stuff.” There was already a growing pile of jewelry boxes with my name on it, but I couldn’t pass this up.
Lyric’s eyes lit up. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Then she stepped back into my space and adjusted the jewelry around my waist.
“I’d take them off before I got in the ocean, but just in case you forget, you don’t have to worry about them tarnishing.” She kept adjusting the chain while I thought about how good they would look with my new nipple rings. Christian, Soul and Rico were gonna?—
“Oh, and all my waist chains are durable, so don’t be afraid to get rough.” She winked up at me as if she’d read my mind and yanked twice for emphasis.
I smirked.
