Page 146 of Cross the Line
“What?” Jayden flicks her nose.
“We’re going to drop you and Kayden like a sack of?—”
“Potatoes,” he cuts in quickly.
“No. We’re dropping you like a big sack of poofy sharts. Crush you into human Fun Dip…”
Brian bursts out laughing. Jayden’s uncle turns a shade of mortified tomato.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “Someone—” He shoots his son a glare, “—has been teaching his sister trash talk one-on-one.”
“Puh-lease.” Kayla rolls her eyes, clambering over me onto the island to snatch a handful of nougat. “That clown has more chance of tripping over his flippers than making a baby cry with his trash talk.”
Slipping off the island, she runs off, pulling a face at Jayden. She’s so intent on sticking it to him that she bumps straight into their grandma as she walks back inside the kitchen with Kailey at her side.
Aside from a quick introduction earlier, I haven’t spoken to her. The chaos swallowed her whole. But when her eyes find mine, she makes a beeline straight for us.
I glance across the kitchen. Finley’s perched at the breakfast bar beside Isla, between Jayden’s moms and his aunt. She looks perfectly at ease—smiling, glowing even. My chest loosens at the sight.
“Noor-eh-man,” Bibi coos, cupping Jayden’s face and rising on tiptoe to kiss him.
I’ve noticed she has an endearment for each of her eleven grandchildren, and every time she crosses paths with one of them, she pauses to show them affection. A smile, a kiss, a hug, or even just a simple touch to their face, a ruffle of their hair.
Finley’s grandma was sweet, but she wasn’t all that tactile. And my grandmother… I swallow the bitter taste the thought of her brings to my tongue.
“Bibi…” Jayden grumbles as she sets a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the counter. “That’s so bad for you.”
“Don’t start,” she huffs, batting his hand away when he reaches for them. “If you put them in the trash, I’m giving the little ones your secret stash of nougat.”
Her voice is husky with a deep rasp from years of smoking. Even her warm, floral perfume has the lingering scent of tobacco behind the hint of incense.
Jayden’s arm tightens around me as she says, “I’m seventy-five and I haven’t had one single health problem. I’ve smoked for over sixty years, and look at me. I have better lungs than some of you young sporty people. Right, Esgham?” She winks at Jayden’s cousin.
He shrugs. “Bibi, JJ’s not wrong. You should… I don’t know, maybe cut down.”
“What do you think?” Her eyes swing to me, sharp and playful. My blood turns to slush.
My throat locks. Every possible response feels like a trap. She’ssweet, but she radiates that kind of matriarchal authority that says she can and will roast you alive if you misstep.
“Don’t set him up,” JJ warns. “It’s not about what we think, it’s about what the science says. It’s bad for you.”
“Ey Khoda,” she mutters, fluffing thick, jet-black hair that slips from her scarf.
Honestly, she doesn’t look seventy-five. With her makeup and her glossy hair, she could pass for Jayden’s mom’s sister.
“Don’t bring God into it,” Jayden says with a mouth full of nougat.
“Always so cocky…” Her glare softens into a regal pout as she pats my hand—still on Jayden’s thigh. “Yalla, Delroba. I need another cigarette after all this blah-blah-blah.”
I blink, unsure what she expects. Jayden hides a laugh, shaking his head.
“She said, ‘Come on, heart stealer,” he tells me.
“Well?” Bibi cocks a dark brow. “Yalla!Yalla!Hurry…Come on.”
“Oh, no. No, no.” She plants her hands on her hips. “My grandchildren call me Bibi.”
Jayden exhales, half laughing. “She means you should call her Bibi,” he murmurs, slipping off the counter and taking my hand.
