“We’ll be back in a little bit, babe.”
When I have the kitchen to myself again, I blow out a long breath. With my emotions once again under control, I really do want that slice of pie. The door swings open as I’m taking my first bite, and I almost choke when I see Jade. The last time we stood in this kitchen, she revealed just how much resentment she still harbored about my relationship with Grip. I’m sure she blames me for how things have been between them.
“What’s up?” She flicks her chin like she would to a stranger on the street, not like we’re family—because I guess we aren’t. I smile a little uneasily as a reply.
She makes a direct line for the sweet potato pie I just sliced into, and it’s silent in the kitchen while she plates one for herself. She’s on her way out, plate balanced in one hand, back to the door pressing it open when she pauses and looks at me from under the brim of her baseball cap. Even today she still wears her typical uniform of baggy jeans and Raiders gear.
“I guess you got him now.” A bitter twist of her lips accompanies the words.
“What?” Confusion stills my chewing mid-bite. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She takes a few steps back into the room and looks me over, dislike plain in her eyes.
“Once you got a kid with a man, you’re linked to him forever,” she says. “Can’t fault you for that, I guess. Well played.”
“Wait a minute.” I set my fork, loaded with a hunk of sweet potato pie, back onto my plate. “You’re saying you think me getting pregnant is strategic somehow? So I can stay in Grip’s life even if we—”
“When you break up, yeah.”
I cling to the fraying strands of my patience with the tips of my fingers.
“You can be such a bitch.” It’s not what reasonable Bristol had planned to say, but she left the building as soon as Jade started spouting this nonsense, and I can’t for the life of me get her back.
Vodka could get her back.
I need a drink badly, and that is one thing I can’t have in my current condition.
“What’d you say to me?” Jade’s expression shifts from disdain to outrage.
“What I should have said a long time ago.” I stand to face her eye to eye. “I’ve been patient. I’ve bitten my tongue when you’ve said rude, judgmental shit to me, all because I know what you mean to Grip, but you won’t get away with accusing me of trapping my own husband.”
“I didn’t say trap.” She grimaces, looking as close to contrite as I can expect. “I just meant—”
“I know damn well what you meant.” My voice elevates with the emotions still close to the surface. I swallow some of my indignation and try to rein my temper. I will gouge my tear ducts before Jade sees me cry.
“I’m not, nor have I ever been, afraid of or intimidated by you,” I say. “In case you were wondering if your bullying tactics work on me, they don’t. The only thing I was afraid of was coming between you and Grip.”
We stare at each other unblinkingly, perpetrating the same war of wills that began the day we met.
“He loves you.” My voice is softer because I know it’s the truth. My husband has a soft spot for his cousin. He lets her get away with things no one else would, but I was the line he drew in the sand, and things haven’t been the same between them since she crossed it. “He hates it when there’s distance between you.”
“He doesn’t hate it that much.” She shoves her hands in her pockets. “He said he would choose you, would cut me out of his life if he had to.”
Her throat moves with a gulp of emotion.
“And he did that,” she says, glancing down to her Chuck Taylors. “He showed me.”
“He doesn’t want this any more than you do, Jade, especially now when you both have great things going on. Don’t you want to share it?”
“So, what?” She cocks one skeptical brow. “You want me to try for the sake of the baby?”
“No, I want you to try for the sake of trying.” I haul in a frustrated breath. “Try because maybe you’re wrong about me. Maybe your preconceived notions about me are just that—notions, not even true. I love Grip more than anything. If we have nothing else in common, we have him in common.”
Jade shifts from one foot to the other, the same look on her face that Grip gets when he’s wrapping his mind around something new.
“I guess.” She gives a subtle shrug and meets my eyes with lingering ire. “It’ll be easier if you ain’t one of them white folks raising Black kids who don’t know where they come from, who don’t understand their own culture and can’t even stand to be with their own people.”
I toss an arm toward the kitchen door, where on the other side is a houseful of people Grip has known all his life.