Page 121 of The Sweetest Devotion

She held out the bags and I took them from her, finding each to be a good weight. “Just some oxtails and rice, and a jar of some peppers I canned from my garden.”

What a bounty. “For me? You too good to me.”

Betty Jean and my mother knew how to throw down in the kitchen. Leila liked to say that I was a good cook, often spoiling her, but I knew I’d never measure up to my mother and Betty.

I handed the food over to Dominique. “Want some?”

His greedy ass didn’t hesitate to snatch the bags and take off for the cafeteria. “Thank you, Miss Betty!”

Betty Jean beamed after him. She loved to feed people.

In a way, I owed my hobby for gardening and yard work to her.

After my mother had pulled me from school, I was still wound up, still angry, still raging. She hadn’t known what to do with me. Betty, her approach had been simple.

One morning, she’d taken me out back and pointed to her vegetable garden. She pointed to her flowers next and looked at me.

“Planting helps the environment,” she’d said. “Your anger, your wrath, destroys it, Big Man. Do something good. Create something, help it grow, nurture it and you’ll find peace. I promise.”

That day, we’d tended to her vegetables and then to her flowers, and in all the work, I found myself distracted, busy, losing some of my steam. At eighty, Betty still kept up with her beloved garden. Because of her, I kept my yard up too.

Dominique wouldn’t like it at first, but maybe I’d get him out in the yard this weekend if he was still staying with me.

“What’s up, Betty?” I asked as I steered her over to the bleachers for a seat.

She sat up, posture elite as she faced me. “I just wanted to stop by and see you, that’s all. Your mother saw you a couple of weeks ago and it’s been quiet ever since.”

I really had to do better on that. Outside of work at the garage, I was caught up at the community center or doing side gigs with clients.

Still, I couldn’t forget what my mother saw the last time I’d seen her, or,whoshe’d seen.

I scratched at my neck. “Yeah, I just been pretty busy. My fault.”

Betty Jean smiled knowingly. “Your mother mentioned seeing a friend helping you in the yard.”

Here we go. Kennedy wasn’t even a friend to me, and now I had to lie to my grandmother about it. “Something like that.”

“Your mother said she was dressed like a farmer,” Betty pointed out next.

Against myself, I smiled, feeling a jolt in my chest. I wondered what Kennedy would wear when I taught her to cook.

“She’s not used to doin’ a little manual labor. She wanted to look the part, is all,” I explained.

“Ah,” Betty Jean responded. “She sounds cute.”

My smile dimmed at the reality of how fucking beautiful Kennedy Nichols was. I was a hundred percent sure that was why her fiancé had pursued her. She was the type of beauty some men wanted to claim and show off, like a trophy after a well-fought challenge.

I liked how pretty Kennedy was, but I really liked how cute she was as a person, too. She wore white because she was heavenly, but she was humble as well.I was still readingNight Changeslittle by little, but I made sure not to lose her place in the book. She’d dog-eared her page, versus using a bookmark like I was with my receipt. A part of me wanted to know how Eden kept her place in her books and if she’d freak out over the corners of her pages being folded over.

“It’s not like that, Betty,” I confessed. “She’s a temporary friend. Nothin’ real or too serious.”

Betty frowned, pouting for me. “Doesn’t look like that’s what you want.”

I loved fucking Kennedy. In the bedroom she was submissive, which I liked, but assertive when she wanted it her way, and I liked that, too.

But I couldn’t pretend anymore that this was just about sex.

I didn’tknowKennedy to say that I wanted more, but Iwantedto know her. Because Ilikedher.

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