Page 22 of Kandie Shoppe

Watching him watch her as she passes out her sweet tea, the only thing she knows how to make well, tells me everything I need to know about Ulysses Shelby. He’s fucking her. I don’t know why that hurts my feelings, but it does.

“Sweet girl. U, isn’t she the sweetest thing?” Marlene beams as I lean over to put the cake in her lap because her dumbass son is too busy eye-fucking somebody who can’t do anything but make diabetes in a glass of iced-tea. I swear that tea has more sugar than a whole caramel cake. I don’t care how good it is, it needs a warning label: warning may cause you to lose your foot.

“Yeah.” This motherfucker looks past me like he didn’t just have his tongue down my throat hours ago, barely responding before taking his attention to Lashaun, the poisoner. I can’t stand his ass, I swear. “If you get a craving, let me know and I’ll bike it on over anytime.”

She nods my way, giving me a wave as Ulysses takes her away. Despite my present hatred for his sorry ass, I can’t help but watch as he takes her over to his brand new F-250. No electric for him, no, sir. He’s driving as much of a gas guzzler as he can even with the new efficiency standards Ford has on board. I hope they move up going all electric on their whole fleet just so he won’t have anything to drive.

Watching as he picks her up in big arms I can see rippling through his nice fitting dress shirt, I know I’m going to hell for lusting after him, for watching the way his back flexes as he places his infirmed mother into the cab of his truck. Not to mention the fact that my horny tail is doing it in the church yard like some loose Dalilah.

“And just what are you looking at, pretty girl?” my grandmother quizzes. Knowing I’ve been caught, I don’t bother answering. “Do you want the German Chocolate or the Seven-Up cake for dinner?” I ask, changing the subject.

“The Seven-Up cake should do it,” she says. “You know that’s your cousin’s favorite.”

“Mama-Pete—” I start, knowing which cousin loves my Seven-Up pound cake — Ozymandias. My cousin started out as a football prodigy, went to college on scholarship, somehow found out that he was the son of a notorious mob boss, then transformed into a cold-blooded killer with more money than even the Shelbys.

My mouth drops just thinking of the way he’s going to cut up on me about not taking my safety into account.

“Girl, hush. You knew the minute word got to us what them boys did to you. Your cousin was gonna be called to come lay ’em down. We can’t have people thinking they can treat Loves any kind of way.”

“By the time he gets here from Western Cape, Uncle Charles and them will have handled things anyway,” I plead, but she’s already shaking her head.

“He’s already here working on something with Delightful’s husband and his brother.” She waves me away. “He says he’s due for a visit, anyway.”

“Wow,” I say, knowing exactly how he’s going to make the most of his visit.

“Expect the state’s murder rate to go up,” I tell her dryly.

My grandmother laughs like that’s the funniest thing in the world.

Chapter

Six

Kandie

“Ouch.” The ache in my shoulder is a problem further aggravated by the large water can I’m wielding to feed my plants their much-needed nutrients. Down here, you have to water twice a day when the weather gets hot or all your hard work will be for nothing. The sun is unforgiving, and the soil is hard, but a little work and a lot of love will yield a blessing, as Pa-Pete always likes to say. Nobody’s sure if he means crops, gunrunning, the illegal liquor, or gambling he and Mama-Pete ran throughout the state, but it seemed to fit a little bit of everything.

“Look at your pretty self,” I say to the grape tomato plant I use for my house salad. Taking one, I pop it in my mouth. “Delicious,” I hum around the sweet tartness bursting on my tongue. This may be the brightest part of my day. Especially after Ulysses’ rude ass and Oz’s even ruder ass.

I can’t believe the way he yelled at me, and the way Mama and Pa-Pete sat there amening like he was the newly minted preacher at the Second Baptist Church.

His killing ass talking about him going to give all of us girl cousins a safety briefing. Obviously, he has way too much time on his hands.

Between him and Xander-Rafe LeRoi, all of us will be invincible. Not that we don’t have more male cousins who can look out for us, it’s just that Xander is part of a specialized unit on the Birmingham Police Department and Oz started out as a killer and even though he runs his business now he still likes his original job too much to give it up completely.

My family, like most down here, has folks on both sides of the law. That’s just the way it is. People do what they must to survive. We don’t judge them, we just love them. Hell, ain’t that what you’re supposed to do? Just be honest about it. What we can’t stand is folks like the Shelbys who pretend to be upstanding when they smuggle vulnerable people to exploit, then push legislation in the state to criminalize those very same people.

“There you go,” I murmur to the pretty Love Roses I transplanted from the bush I had at my little dollhouse behind my grandparents’ garden when I couldn’t stand to live there anymore.

My heart squeezes thinking back to that time years ago when I was so alone and afraid not knowing who I could turn to. I was lost for a long time after that. If Nikki hadn’t shown up when she did, I don’t think I would have ever found myself out of the hole I put myself in.

Which reminds me, I need to give her a buzz. Pulling the phone out of my back pocket, I press her icon.

“Hey, sweet baby, sis. Ready for your graduation?” I ask as soon as she answers the phone.

“Hey, pretty girl,” she pauses, I know trying to see if I’m drinking. I am, but she won’t be able to tell. I never call my sistertipsy no matter how sad I get at times missing Kerania, Daddy, and Mommy.

Focus on what you have — the only thing said to me that ever made sense. And it wasn’t from a therapist but my uncle, Spence who misses his sister, my mommy as much as I do, who told me those sage words.

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