“Don’t offend me, Madden. Keep your money. This is my treat. After all, friends help friends, right?” That’s right, Jo, shove him in the friend zone. Make that shit known. He has been chanting it all week, after all!
Madden blushes, stuffing the cash into his wallet.
“I appreciate it, Jordan. I’ll catch you next week.” He rushes out of the gym, and I hang back, putting distance between us. I can’t help feeling in over my head when it comes to Madden Davenport.
*~*
Laney greets me with a lopsided smile when I reach the front door of her classroom. She is too smug thinking she knows something, but there is nothing to know. I’m doing a favor for a friend. Nothing else to see here or be smug about.
“Jo, you here to get Ken-man?” she asks, smile in place firmly.
“Cut the shi … crap, Laney.” I give her my most annoyed look. “You know I need to get Belle too.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Kenneth and Belle. Grab your backpacks, kiddos.”
I smile as my nephew rushes toward me and wrap him up in a bear hug. I love this kid. He’s my buddy, and he’s always happy to see me. “Hey, Ken-man!”
“Aunt JoJo!” He smiles as he hugs my neck tightly and then whispers in my ear, “We don’t have to take her to shoot hoops with us, do we?” I chuckle because he is still in the “girls are gross” phase. I offer my most serious face and instruct him to mind his manners.
“So, Healthy Lady,” Belle finally speaks, “guess I’m ’posed to go with you.” I laugh because it’s hard not to.
“Yep. Your daddy got called to a site.” I bend down to get eye level with her. She’s going with someone new for the first time, and I want to make sure she is as comfortable as she can be. I smile at her.
“You’re not going to make me exsiscise, are you?” she asks. “Daddy says you may be hell as hot, but you bust balls.” It rolls off her tongue matter-of-factly, but there’s no way she has any idea what it means.
“He did, did he?” I ask
“Bad word, she said a bad word!” Kenny emphatically announces, “Mrs. Waney, Mrs. Waney, bad word.”
“He’s so dramatic,” Belle rolls her eyes. “Hell is a plwace, not a bad word.”
The kids continue to argue as I grab their backpacks and attempt to wrangle them to my Jeep and get them buckled in. Oh good Lord, this should be one interesting evening.
*~*
Belle’s eyes light up like stars, and Kenny’s widen like saucers when we pull up in front of Mabel’s Cupcake Emporium in the Savannah Historic District. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive from the island, and we may pass half a dozen bakeries along the way, but you’re not living your best life if you’ve never had a cupcake from Mabel’s. It’s totally worth the drive, and I must admit, I’m almost as excited as they are. Like I said, my longest love affair has been with cupcakes.
“Healthy Lady,” Belle says, but Kenny is quick to correct her.
“She has a name, Belly.”
“I know that,” she spouts back to him, “and don’t call me Belly. Only my daddy calls me that.” Taking a long breath, she finishes, “Her name is hot as hell trainer, but I like Healthy Lady better.” She harumphs, crossing her arms over her chest as she’s made her point. Before I can even get my mouth open to tell her to call me Jordan, Kenny is already squalling, “Bad word, bad word, bad word.” While Belle is simultaneously squalling, “It’s a plwace, plwace, plwace.”
I hop out of the Jeep and open the back door just in time to interject. Ken-man’s face is tinged red, and his little hands are balled into fists. He’s quite the angry little preschooler, defending his favorite auntie. Belle, that kid couldn’t care if it snowed oats. She’s chill, the argument long forgotten in her mind. “Belle, your daddy told me to feed you before I take you to your grammy, and he specified something I would approve of.” Her brows furrow as she looks from me to Mabel’s, and I continue. “But Ken-man and I have a tradition, and I think you might be cool enough to be included.”
“Yeah, what’s that, Healthy Lady? This plwace have those healthy muffins disguised as cupcakes? You think you can twick me? I know my cupcakes, Healthy Lady.”
How do you respond to a five-year-old whose personality is sassy and brazen and pointed as Belle’s? I don’t know if she’s serious or annoyed, but it’s cute as hell. Yeah, she’s my soul sista for sure. Belle is a kid that women everywhere could learn from, and I’m not quite sure where she’s learned her strength, but damn. Kid has guts. It’s inspiring.
So, I give it back to her as good as she gives. “Kid, do I look like the kind of woman who would joke about chocolate ganache infused devil’s food cupcakes topped with cocoa buttercream frosting?” Her eyes twinkle, and she rolls her lip between her teeth, trying to bite back a smile. Belle’s being cautious with me, just a bit guarded, and it makes me want to earn her trust all the more.
“You actually look like a healthy lady who doesn’t even know what chocolate is,” she challenges me. Oh do I know what chocolate is, dear girl. At one point in my life it probably could have been my middle name.
&nbs
p; “Well, I did promise you a cupcake date, and I’m not one to skimp on promises. So let’s go, sass.” I reach in and unbuckle Belle’s seatbelt then Ken-man’s. I help Belle out of the Jeep, but Ken-man is used to the height, so he jumps down on his own.
We enter Mabel’s Cupcake Emporium, and I stop to inhale the sweet scent of chocolatey goodness. “Belly, why are you copy-catting my auntie?” Ken-man accuses, and I look down and notice Belle’s little chubby face with her nose scrunched in a deep inhale and euphoria sparkling in her gaze.