Page 5 of Playing for Keeps
“Yeah, it’s ours,” Del told him and despite the circumstances enjoyed the hell out of how that sounded.
He stood with his brother beside the bed and turned so that Lance could plop down onto the mattress. Del watched him immediately roll over onto his side, grabbing a pillow to tuck beneath his head. He was four minutes older than Lance. They were fraternal twins, but had similar body builds, the same sepia complexion, shared a love of all sports, and despised spinach and broccoli. They’d also both entered into law enforcement careers, only to have them come crashing down around them. His jaw clenched at the memory of the night he received the call that Lance had been shot. The sting of fear pierced his chest as if were just yesterday and not almost two years ago. Del couldn’t take losing another person he loved and was grateful every day since, that his brother’s life had been spared. Even if it meant Lance was sentenced to a form of living hell instead. The PTSD his twin suffered after the events of that fateful night was exacerbated by Lance’s stubborn refusal to take the prescribed medication. Add to that the bitterness Lance still clung to after learning his girlfriend of eight years had left him for her trainer, and his brother was like a ticking time bomb. Del vowed to be there the moment he blew.
Del eased his hand behind his back, tucking Lance’s gun in the waistband of his pants alongside his own. When he thought Lance was already asleep, Del removed his brother’s shoes and turned to leave the room.
“You think she’d be proud of us?” Lance asked, his voice as soft as a child’s.
Del stopped and hung his head low. They would both forever fight this same internal battle with guilt.
“I hope so,” he replied.
Seconds later, he closed the door to the guest room and returned to his own where he sat once again in the recliner across from his bed. Del did hope that their mother would be proud of the way they’d begun to rebuild their lives yet again. He actually prayed daily that she would, but he wasn’t certain. He knew he could never be certain because his mother was no longer here for them to ask.
On a heavy sigh, he picked up his phone. Still no response from MercedesGirl926. It was just as well. He was too tired to deal with any more conversation tonight. And he’d been through too much to think that meeting a woman online would help assuage the turmoil smoldering inside of him.
He got up from the chair and went to the nightstand to plug his phone into its charger. Then he climbed in his bed. He closed his eyes immediately and refused to let his mind wonder what MercedesGirl926 looked like, or how she kissed, or tasted. It didn’t matter. Knowing wouldn’t erase the past or change the future he knew he had to accept.
But it might ease the burning desire he’d developed for this woman whom he’d never seen. He could only hope.
3
“You’re so tough and opinionated, why don’t you buy it?”
Rylan hated a dare. And she definitely hated when it came from her older sister, Naomi.
“I’ve actually been considering that very option,” Rylan replied and pressed the knife down so hard on the softened sweet potato that she almost chopped off her finger.
Her mother would have totally freaked if that happened. Not because Rylan would have been fingerless and probably bleeding profusely, but because said blood would be splattered all over Estelle’s newly renovated, pristine kitchen.
“You are not buying that rundown body shop,” Estelle chimed in. “That’s just ridiculous and a total waste of your life. It’s bad enough you’ve spent the bulk of your formative years under the hood of a car wearing grease smudges instead of MAC products. But I will not stand by and watch you throw away your future to such a dingy and worthless effort.”
The judgmental and chastising tone was Estelle Janet Kent’s trademark. The former ballet dancer turned math teacher and in the last five years principal of Old Kenton Middle School, Estelle was the epitome of Black elegance. From the stylish clothes that flanked her still-svelte at fifty-eight figure, to her impeccably styled ink black hair and expertly applied make-up, she was educated, classy and not-to-be-messed with. Especially not by her youngest and most disappointing child.
Rylan retrieved the chunk of potato that had rolled across the marble-top counter, dropping it into the bowl in front of her.
“It’s our legacy,” Rylan said in a tone lower and more subdued than she was accustomed to using. Except for whenever she was around her mother and Naomi. They were a dynamic duo that Rylan had never quite adjusted to, even after being around them for all of her twenty-seven years of life.
“My legacy is not dirt and grime,” Naomi said. And as if her words hadn’t made her point clear enough, the way her sister crinkled her perfectly pert nose and rolled her pretty brown eyes, reflected every bit of the disgust she felt toward Kent Automotive.
“Fifteen pageant titles, domestic and international. Interviews in Marie Clare and Vogue. A degree in political science and dating Ellis Colby, star NBA point guard, is a legacy,” Naomi announced with a wink in Rylan’s direction.
Rylan shook her head and returned her attention to the sweet potatoes. Naomi was thirty-two years old. She was five feet, ten inches tall with amber-colored eyes and a tawny complexion. Her hair was in a messy but chic style today, dark brown with honey gold highlights. She wore a lacy top that tied in the back and hunter green slacks. The most casual thing she’d done since walking through the door of their parents’ house was take off the five-inch heeled natural-colored pumps and walk barefoot into the kitchen.
Naomi was everything Rylan wasn’t.
“Look, you have your interests and I have mine,” Rylan added. “It’s always been that way and that’s fine. I’ve worked with Dad at the auto shop since I was seven years old. It’s what I love to do.”
“You would’ve found something else to love if you’d gone away to college like I wanted you to. You were accepted into Spellman, UC Berkley, Howard, and Georgetown. And those were just the places I applied to for you. If you’d put your mind to it you could‘ve gone anywhere and become anything,” Estelle told her while reaching into a cabinet and taking out a glass bowl for the white potatoes she was peeling for potato salad.
“I like working on cars,” Rylan said in defense. “That’s why I went to trade school instead of college. I wanted to perfect all the skills Dad had already taught me. And since then I’ve taken business and accounting classes at the community college. I can run Kent Automotive in every aspect now.”
“And because of your father’s gambling and drinking, you’ve been doing exactly that for the last couple of years. But no more, I can promise you that, Rylan. This nonsense stops here and now,” Estelle said adamantly. “We’re selling the auto shop so that your father can reimburse me for the shares of his retirement fund that he gambled away trying to save that damn place.”
Rylan set the knife down because now her hands were shaking. She picked up the bowl of butter and put it into the microwave to melt. This wasn’t the conversation she’d wanted to have today. She’d come to the house where she’d grown up, that her mother now lived in alone, at ten in the morning to start helping with preparations for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner. She didn’t come here to argue.
“Dad’s been going through a lot in the past few years. I’m only stating a fact, not making excuses for him,” Rylan added because she knew what her mother was going to say even before she said it.
“The shop was losing money and he did what he thought he could to save it. Gambling wasn’t the right move. I’ve told him that. But I’m going to find a way to make this work, because it’s my livelihood now, Mama. It’s my life that you’re so vehemently talking about selling off,” she said.
