Her family doesn’t play…so neither can he.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter One
Naylani Grant had been told, on more than one occasion, that she had her father’s eyes.
The way they moved through a room like they were cataloging everything without announcing it. Slow. Complete. The kind of attention that felt like being measured without realizing you’d stepped onto a scale.
She was her father’s daughter in that way.
She was her mother’s daughter in the way she carried herself. The particular ease of a woman who had been beautiful her whole life and had decided it was the least interesting thing about her. Brown skin that caught light like it was made to. Long wavy hair that fell past her shoulders, usually down and loose because Lani had worn hers down and Nay had been watching since she was fourteen and wanted to be like her mom. A diamond pendant at her collarbone. It was small, understated, a gift from Nasir on her eighteenth birthday.
A body that had arrived in her late teens and that she moved through the world in with the same unbothered certainty she moved through everything.
Confident.
She knew she looked good and moved through the room with a confidence that said it without words.
And now, she was nineteen and she wasn’t playing.
•••
The coffee spot was two doors down from the internship building entrance on 48th. Narrow, high-ceilinged, the kind of place designed for people who needed caffeine and didn’t have time to want anything else from it. Glass cases. Two baristas. A line that moved fast on days it moved at all.
She had found it on her second day.
She had claimed it.
Her badge was already clipped to her tote bag, straight and visible the way her father wore everything. With intention. The tote was organized by things she needed. Her iPad in the main pocket, sketchbook in the side pouch, charger, two pens. She had been drawing since she could hold a pencil and she had learned from Nasir Grant himself that if you kept your tools in order, your mind followed.
She was first in line.
She liked being first.
She pulled out her phone and opened the thread with Milan.
Nay: if I don’t get caffeine in the next four minutes I’m going to do something that affects my permanent record.
Milan: it’s 8:11 in the morning
Nay: I know. Four minutes
Milan: you are the most dramatic early person I have ever met
Nay: discipline isn’t the same as happiness, Milan
Milan: get your coffee. You’re spiraling
She smiled at the phone and put it away.
The barista caught her eye. “Usual?”
She was nine days in and they already had a usual for her.
Nasir Grant would have approved.
“Please.” she said.
She stepped to the side to wait.
The door opened.
•••
She felt the shift before she processed it.
Not something she could explain, exactly. It was just a change in the air pressure of the room.
The way certain men entered spaces like they already owned it. She’d grown up around men like that. Rich, who walked into rooms and had them reconfigure around him without saying a word. Nasir, who never raised his voice because he never needed to. The crew. Smoke especially, who stood in the corner of every room and somehow made it his.
She’d learned to recognize the energy before the person.
She didn’t look up immediately.
She looked up when the barista paused mid-reach for a cup.
He was coming through the door.
Dark jeans that hung just right on his frame. A black shirt stretched across broad shoulders and a chest built for trouble, fitted in the way expensive shit fit. Not tight, just right. A thick gold chain sat heavy at his collar, simple but loud enough to say he didn’t need to prove a damn thing. Hands relaxed at his sides like they were too busy making money or making problems to be nervous. Ink peeked from the open collar of his shirt and crawled up the side of his neck.
He was hood.
That was the only word for it.
Not because of the chain or the fit or the way he moved. But because of the particular confidence that came from a specific kind of upbringing.
The kind where you either got broken or you got certain, and this one had clearly gotten certain. He moved like he’d already calculated the exits, decided none of them mattered, and would burn the whole place down before he ever used one.
He was fine.
So fucking fine, Nay thought.
Dark skin glowing under the lights, a jaw like it had been chiseled to make women stupid, eyes that scanned the room with the same slow, complete cataloging energy she use. Except his wasn’t subtle. It announced itself.
Full lips that weren’t smiling but looked like they could ruin a girl’s whole week if they decided to pay attention. He was the kind of problem you saw coming and still walked straight into.
She looked back at the counter.
Not her business.
She was here for coffee and then she was going upstairs to do something that would matter in ten years.
She heard the shift in line.
The brush was light.
Left shoulder. His right. Deliberate. The kind of graze that lingered. He stepped past her, around her, past the three people ahead of her like they were background noise, and landed at the front of the line with the ease of a man who had never waited for shit a day in his life.
“You straight.”
He threw over his shoulder.
Not even turned.
Not my bad. Not excuse me. Not any of the polite bullshit people muttered when they gave a fuck about other people’s space.
You straight.
Like her being straight was a mercy he was extending, and she should thank him for it.
She looked at the back of his head.
At the set of his shoulders, which were carrying some permanent certainty she hadn’t been consulted about.
“Watch where you going.” she said.
Flat. Even. The temperature of a woman who didn’t need volume to mean it.
He turned then.
Full turn.
And she got the whole face at once.
Which was, in fact, a problem.
She had known it was going to be a problem from fifteen feet away. Up close it was a different category of problem. The kind of face that made you forget your own name and then feel embarrassed about how quickly it happened. She didn’t let this register anywhere visible.
He looked at her.
Then his eyes dragged down her body slow, deliberate, and back up again, like he was sizing up whether she was worth the trouble. A lazy smirk tugged at the corner of his lips .
“Get the fuck outta here with that shit.” he said.
Not loud. Not aggressive exactly. The voice of someone who was used to that being enough. His voice was low, rough, the kind of register that settled in your chest and stayed there.
It didn’t land.
“You’re disrespectful as hell,” she said. Same temperature. “Like I said. Watch where you going.”
Something moved in his face.
Not offense.
Not embarrassment.
Closer to amusement. The split-second recalibration of a man who just ran into a woman who didn’t flinch and liked what he saw.
He looked at her for a second longer than a man who was about to dismiss her would, eyes locked on hers like he was memorizing the exact shade of her defiance.
“You got a smart ass mouth.” he said. Quiet. Specific. The way people got specific when they were paying attention — and enjoying the view. “Watch that shit when it comes to me, ma. Before I find a better use for it.”
She held his gaze.
She had been holding eye contact with men since she was nine years old watching Nasir refuse to look away from anything that needed looking at.
She didn’t blink.
“Okay.” she said simply.
And turned back to the counter.
Because okay — said flat, said with nothing behind it, said the way you said it when someone had just threatened you with something that sounded way too much like a promise — was the cleanest possible response to a threat delivered with that kind of smirk.
She heard him exhale through his nose, low and amused.
Then nothing.
Then the barista, in the voice of someone trying to keep the energy manageable, “What can I get you?”
And he ordered.
And the line kept moving.
And Naylani Grant stood with her badge clipped straight and her tote on her shoulder and her face composed and did not give him anything else.
•••
She picked up her coffee when it came and walked out.
The lobby was cool.
The revolving door exhaled her onto the sidewalk and she kept moving, coffee in hand, headphones around her neck, the morning doing what mornings did.
She was not thinking about him.
That was what she told herself.
She opened Milan’s thread.
Nay: I just met a problem.
The dots appeared.
Milan: define “problem”
Nay: fine as hell. rude. moves like he owns the air. I checked him. And almost smacked him when he came back at me but I kept my cool. You know me.
Milan: I’m proud. Also scared. Be careful mamas.
She looked up from the phone before she could answer.
Through the lobby glass.
He was on the other side of the building now. Not headed towards the exit, not headed towards the street. Headed toward the elevator bank on the far side. The one that went to the upper floors.
He had a badge.
Not an intern badge.
Something else.
He moved through the lobby the same way he had moved through the coffee spot. Like the floor plan was a suggestion he was choosing to ignore.
The elevator doors opened.
He walked in.
The doors closed.
Naylani looked at the number above the elevator.
It went up.
It kept going.
She looked down at her coffee.
At her own badge.
At her name on the cup in the barista’s handwriting.
He had seen that badge.
She didn’t like that.
She put the phone back in her pocket without responding to Milan.
She crossed the lobby.
Pressed the button for fourteen.
The elevator came.
She stepped in.
And as the doors closed she thought about the way he had turned. About the face that went with the shoulders. About him saying watch that shit when it comes to me, ma, and the way his eyes had dragged over her like he was already imagining exactly what that “better use” might look like.
He’s going to be a problem, she thought.
He knows it too.
The elevator opened on fourteen.
Naylani Grant stepped out.
Badge straight.
Coffee in hand.
Face giving nothing.
Back to business mode.
Her father’s daughter all the way.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Two
Sunday in the Grant house was its own kind of tradition.
The kind where everybody showed up, nobody was on time except the people who were always early, and by noon the kitchen smelled like whatever Kiyah had decided to make and the living room sounded like a small sports arena.
Nasir had been awake since seven.
He was in his forties now. His body had decided that sleeping past seven was no longer available to him regardless of what his schedule said. He’d stopped fighting it three years ago and started using the early hours for coffee, the shop’s books, thinking through whatever needed thinking through before the house woke up and demanded all of him.
He was at the kitchen island with his second cup when Kali came downstairs.
She didn’t say anything when she saw him.
She just walked straight to him.
Eleven years old, hair still wrapped from the night before, wearing an oversized shirt that was probably his, feet bare on the hardwood. She climbed onto the stool beside him without looking up, put her head on his arm, and closed her eyes.
He let her.
He put his phone down.
His hand went to the top of her head automatically, the way it always did with his kids. Not thinking about it, just doing it, the reflex of a father who had been holding children against his chest since Nay was an infant.
Kali sighed.
The long, satisfied sigh of a girl who had found the exact right place.
“Morning, babygirl.” he said.
“Morning, Daddy.”
He sipped his coffee.
She stayed against his arm.
Comfortable.
Content.
That was Kali.
His easiest kid in exactly one way. She knew what she wanted and it was almost always him. He was her safe place and she made no apologies for it. Since she could walk she had been following him through whatever room he was in, parking herself near him when she was tired, announcing his presence when he walked through doors.
“What you doing today?” she asked.
“Right now? This.”
She nodded like that was the correct answer.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs.
Cairo came down the way Cairo came down everything. With the energy of someone who had already been awake for two hours and had opinions about it. Fourteen now. Still announcing everything, but the announcements had evolved. He’d been spending time with a crew from his school that had a certain kind of energy to it. Nasir had been watching it, hadn’t said much yet, was still deciding what it meant.
“Yoooo.” Cairo said, walking into the kitchen. “We got food or what?”
“There’s cereal.” Nasir said.
Cairo made a face. “Cereal is not food. Cereal is a suggestion.”
“Then make yourself a suggestion and sit your ass down.”
Cairo went to the cabinet and pulled out the box with the resigned energy of a teenager who had lost this argument before.
Carter came in behind him.
Quieter entrance.
Carter moved like he had somewhere specific to be and was pacing himself to get there looking right. He was in fresh joggers and a clean white tee at nine in the morning on a Sunday because Carter dressed for everything. He had since he was five, had gotten that from his mother. She loved throwing on a good fit, even if she had nowhere to go.
He was fourteen, Carter. Growing into his face. Had Nasir’s jaw and Kiyah’s eyes and the combination was making his life extremely complicated in terms of girls from what Nasir had gathered from conversations he technically wasn’t supposed to be listening to.
Carter opened the fridge. Pulled out orange juice. Poured a glass.
Then poured one for Kali without being asked.
Set it in front of her.
Kali didn’t acknowledge it.
But she drank it.
“Nay coming today?” Carter asked.
“She said she was.” Nasir said.
Carter nodded. The nod of a teenage boy who was trying not to look excited about his sister coming over and failing at it.
Cairo, from behind his cereal box, “She better bring food. Not just herself.”
“She’s not a delivery service and I’m cooking, so why you worried about food.” Kiyah’s voice came from the stairs.
•••
Kiyah came into the kitchen in his sweatshirt and her own leggings, hair wrapped, feet in slippers. Late thirties and still the first thing he looked for when she entered a room.
He didn’t try to stop that.
He had long since accepted that he was going to look at his wife the way he looked at his wife, which was like she had done something to him a long time ago and he had never recovered from it.
She went to the coffee maker.
He reached out as she passed and caught her wrist. Easy, natural, just enough to stop her for a second.
She looked at him.
He pulled her in and kissed her.
Not quick.
Not performative.
The real kind. The one he gave her when the kids were in the room specifically because the kids needed to see that their parents were still like this, still choosing each other every day, still hot for one another.
“DAD.”
That was Kali.
“I’m right here, daddy.” Kali added, with extreme offense.
“Every single day.” Cairo groaned.
Carter, eating his cereal with dignified patience, “I’ve made peace with it. It’s whatever at this point.”
Kiyah laughed against his mouth.
He let her go.
She took her coffee and looked at all of them.
“Good morning.” she said.
“Morning. Can Nay bring some snacks when she comes?” Cairo asked.
Kiyah looked at Nasir.
He lifted his coffee cup.
Your child, his face said.
Our child, hers said back.
•••
Nas came down at nine-thirty.
He was nine.
He looked exactly like Nasir had looked at nine except Nasir had never been this chill at nine because Nasir at nine had been managing things he shouldn’t have been managing.
Nas didn’t manage anything.
He just existed. At a frequency that was lower than everyone around him. Not quiet exactly. Just settled. Like he had been born already knowing that most things were not worth the energy people spent on them.
He came into the kitchen, looked around at the situation, and sat down at the island.
He looked at Cairo.
Cairo was already in the middle of explaining something to Carter using language that had a certain texture to it. The particular vocabulary that lived at the intersection of being fourteen and spending time with people who’d been around the block.
Kiyah, who had radar for this, looked at Cairo from across the kitchen.
Cairo caught the look.
Dialed back.
It was the ongoing negotiation of their household. Cairo was going to talk how he talked because Cairo was going to be himself, but there was a nine year old watching and absorbing and filing it all away to deploy later, and that nine year old already had enough presence without additional material.
Nas watched Cairo switch registers.
He said nothing.
He just sat there eating a bowl of cereal Kiyah had put in front of him and observed the room the way Nasir observed rooms.
Nasir watched his son watch his brothers.
And felt something pull at his chest that was mostly pride and a little terrifying.
•••
CiCi came down at ten.
This was notable because CiCi had been awake since eight. Nasir had heard her moving around upstairs, but she hadn’t come down until now. Which meant she had been getting ready.
For Sunday morning at home.
She was twelve.
She came into the kitchen in a little matching set she had clearly chosen herself. The kind of thing Lani would wear on a casual day, that same easy aesthetic Lani had mastered as a teen and CiCi had been studying and absorbing since she was old enough to notice what her godmother was wearing.
She had her hair down.
Which was new. She had been wearing it down more lately, in those loose waves, because Nay wore her hair down and CiCi wanted to look like Nay, specifically, the way certain kids picked one person and made them their entire style reference point.
She sat down beside Nas.
Pulled out her phone.
Texted someone.
Nasir suspected he knew who.
“Nay awake?” he asked.
CiCi looked up. “Yeah, she just texted me.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said she’s on the way.” CiCi went back to her phone. “She always says that and then takes forever because she stops for coffee.”
“You told her to bring food?” Cairo asked.
“I told her to bring snacks.” CiCi said, with the patient authority of a girl who had been managing these logistics for years. “She knows what kind.”
“Respect. That’s why you’re my favorite little sister.” Cairo responded.
Cici rolled her eyes.
•••
Kali was helping Kiyah with the groceries that were delivered when it started.
Which was to say, Kali was standing near the grocery bags in the general vicinity of helping while Kiyah did the actual work.
“Kali, can you put the stuff from that bag into the fridge?”
“In a minute.”
“Now, baby.”
Kali looked at the bag.
Looked at the fridge.
Looked at the window.
“I’m tired.” she said.
Kiyah’s face did the thing it did specifically with Kali. The inhale of a woman practicing patience in real time. The younger kids had all tested the boundaries in different ways over the years. Cairo was loud about it. CiCi was strategic. Nas barely tested anything because Nas didn’t seem to require much from the boundaries.
Kali was a full-contact sport.
Not mean. Not disrespectful. Just…she had a very clear internal hierarchy of whose instructions she was available to receive, and Kiyah’s name was not at the top of it.
“Kali.”
“I’ll do it in a second, Mama.”
“You’ll do it now.”
Kali looked at her father.
Nasir didn’t look up from the paper he was reading.
“Kali,” he said, voice even. “Go help your mother.”
Kali was off her stool in two seconds.
Kiyah looked at her husband.
He turned a page.
She picked up her coffee and said nothing because this was also an ongoing negotiation of their household and she had made peace with the fact that Kali required a specific routing.
Kali put the groceries in the fridge.
Then came back and attached herself to Nasir’s side like she had completed her assigned task and was now clocking back in at her preferred station.
Nasir put his arm around her.
She put her head on his shoulder.
Business as usual.
•••
The doorbell rang at eleven forty-three.
CiCi was off her stool before anyone else moved.
She was already at the door before Nasir could set down his cup.
“It’s Nay!” she announced, which was not information anyone needed since she had been tracking Nay’s ETA for the last forty minutes.
She opened the door.
Naylani Grant stood in the doorway.
She had a coffee in one hand and a bag in the other and she looked exactly like what she was. Their sister, their big one, the first of them. Except something about the nineteen year old version of her was different from the last time Nasir had seen her two weeks ago.
He couldn’t have said exactly what.
He just knew.
CiCi launched herself immediately.
Nay caught her with the practiced ease of someone who had been catching this girl since she was learning to walk.
“CiCi, my favorite pretty girl.” Nay said into her hair. “I just saw you last week.”
“That was eight days ago.” CiCi said.
“That’s a week.”
“Eight days is more than a week.”
Nay pulled back and looked at her.
“You got your hair down.”
CiCi’s chin came up slightly.
“I’m trying something.” she said.
“I like it. It’s cute.” Nay said.
CiCi’s whole face changed. The chin came down. Something warm moved across it and she tried to keep it composed and failed, because CiCi at twelve was still learning to hide the things that made her happy when they came from the people that mattered.
Kali appeared at the door three seconds later.
“NAY.”
“Hey, Kali.”
“Come here.” Kali grabbed her arm. “I need to tell you something. It’s important. It involves Daddy and it’s actually not that serious but I need to tell someone and CiCi already knows.”
Nay looked at CiCi.
CiCi shrugged. “She exaggerates.”
“You always say that.” Kali said.
“Because it’s always true.”
Nay let herself be pulled inside.
•••
Cairo stood up when she came through the living room.
Not dramatically.
Just stood, in that way teenage boys stood when someone arrived who they actually wanted to see.
“Ay, sis.” He pulled her in for a quick hug, that one-arm thing. “You look different.”
Nay looked at him.
“Different how?”
Cairo shrugged. He studied her for a second with eyes that saw more than fourteen year old boys were typically credited for. “I don’t know. Just different. Something happened.”
“Nothing happened.” Nay said.
Cairo looked at her for one more second.
Then decided not to push.
“You got the snacks?”
“In the bag.”
He took the bag.
Looked inside.
“Okayyyy, big sis came through.” he announced to the room.
Carter was on the couch. He looked up from his phone, saw Nay, and stood up.
“Hey.” He hugged her properly. Carter hugged people like he meant it. He always had.
“How’s school?” Nay asked.
“Good.” He sat back down. “I scored twenty-two points Thursday.”
“Facts?”
“Facts.” He said it simply. Not bragging. Just reporting.
Nay sat beside him.
“And the girl?”
Carter went very still.
Looked at her sideways.
“What girl?”
“Carter.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Carter.”
He exhaled. Looked at his phone. Looked at the TV.
“She followed me back.” he said quietly.
Nay smiled.
“Okay, that’s a start.” she said.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t tell Mom.”
“I’m not going to tell Mom.”
Carter looked at her.
“She followed back though.” he said, and the corner of his mouth moved.
Nay smiled and patted his knee once.
•••
Nas appeared from upstairs.
He came down the stairs and into the living room and looked at Nay with the calm, measuring look that Nasir recognized because he had looked at people that way himself and was unsettled to see it on a nine year old.
“Hey, Nassie.” Nay said.
“Hey.” He sat down on the arm of the couch. “How’s the internship?”
The room shifted slightly.
Not dramatically. Just everyone’s awareness adjusting.
Fourteen, twelve, eleven — those ages were interested but had already moved on to snacks and phones and their own things.
Nas was asking about the internship with the focused interest of someone taking notes.
“It’s good,” Nay said. “Hard. But good.”
“What kind of hard?”
“The kind that means it’s worth it.”
Nas considered this.
Nodded once.
He went to get a snack from the bag Cairo had set on the table.
Kiyah, from the kitchen doorway, watched her youngest son process this interaction with the exact face Nasir had given Tone that time twelve years ago when the twins were three and had said something that made him pull Tone aside and say they’re watching us.
She caught Nasir’s eye.
He nodded.
I know.
•••
The afternoon moved the way Sundays moved.
The table loud and full, everyone talking over everyone, Kali making a formal case to Nasir about something that Kiyah had already said no to, which was standard procedure.
“Daddy.”
“Ask your mama.”
“She said no.”
“Then no.”
Kali stared at him.
“You didn’t even hear what it was.”
“Mama already heard it.”
“But I want to tell you.”
Nasir looked at Kiyah.
Kiyah was eating her food with the expression of a woman who had heard this routine enough times to know exactly how it ended.
“Kali.” He looked back at his daughter. “What your mama says goes. I’m not a second vote.”
Kali looked at her food.
“But you’re my favorite person.” she said, to the plate.
“I know,” he said. “And your mama is mine. So there’s that.”
Kali was quiet for three seconds.
“That’s manipulation.” she said.
“She said manipulation like she’s not the Queen of it.” Cairo said.
“That’s actually the right word though.”
Kali looked at Carter. “I know it’s the right word.”
Nas ate his food and said nothing.
CiCi was watching Nay across the table, the way she always watched Nay. Not staring, just checking in. Making sure Nay was still the same person she was the last time she looked. The small habit of a girl who had been keeping track since she was old enough to understand that people she loved could change.
Nay caught CiCi looking.
She smiled at her.
CiCi looked back at her plate.
But she was smiling too.
•••
Kiyah and Nasir were in the kitchen alone.
The kids had dispersed. Cairo and Carter were somewhere upstairs, Nas had followed them, Kali was watching something on her iPad in the living room, CiCi had gone with Nay to her old room to look at something. CiCi always had a reason to follow Nay somewhere, always a specific destination that was mostly just proximity.
Kiyah was washing dishes.
He came up behind her.
Arms around her from behind, chin on the top of her head. Not hurried. Not going anywhere.
She kept washing.
His hands spread flat on her stomach.
The gesture he’d been making for years, through pregnancies and after, that she’d stopped trying to decode and had just accepted as the way he said I love you in the specific language his body spoke.
“Nay seems okay.” Kiyah said.
“Mm.”
She paused.
Turned her head slightly.
“You don’t think so?”
He was quiet for a second.
“I think she’s fine,” he said. “I think something happened.”
Kiyah set down the dish.
She turned in his arms and looked at him.
“Cairo said she looked different.” she said.
“Cairo’s right.”
She studied her husband’s face.
Nasir looked at the window over the sink, at the Brooklyn street outside, at nothing specifically.
“She’s not upset,” he said. “She’s not in trouble. She’s just—” He paused. “Her air changed. Something shifted it.”
Kiyah held his gaze.
“She met somebody.” he said. Not a question.
Kiyah was quiet.
Because she had thought it too, from the moment Nay had walked through the door. Had seen it in the way Nay was carrying herself — not differently, exactly. Just with one more layer of something. An extra awareness. Like someone who had added a new piece of information to their understanding of the world and was still deciding where to file it.
“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.” Kiyah said.
“She won’t say anything until she knows what to say. You know that.” Nasir said. “That’s her.”
They stood in that.
Because it was true.
Naylani Grant didn’t share things until she understood them. She had been that way since she was six years old.
Whatever this was, she was still figuring it out.
“You gonna say something to her?” Kiyah asked.
Nasir thought about it.
“Nah.” he said.
“No?”
“Not yet.” He looked at Kiyah. “She’ll talk when she’s ready. Until then I’m just watching.”
Kiyah looked at him.
At the jaw. At the eyes. At the man who had been reading the people he loved since he was old enough to understand that reading them was how you kept them safe.
She reached up and put her hand against his face.
He leaned into it.
“She’s going to be okay. She’s growing up.” Kiyah said softly.
“I know.” he said.
He covered her hand with his.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not still watching.”
•••
Nay left at eight.
CiCi walked her to the door.
All the way to the door and then stood in it as Nay went down the steps, arms crossed, watching her go the way you watched someone go when you weren’t ready but you understood that you didn’t have a vote.
Nay looked back from the sidewalk.
“I’ll call you tonight.” she said.
“You always say that.”
“And I always do.”
CiCi considered this.
She nodded once.
“Okay.” she said.
And stood in the doorway until Nay turned the corner and disappeared.
•••
Upstairs, Cairo was telling Carter something.
Nasir passed the room and heard the particular quality of the conversation. The half-lowered voices of teenagers who knew adults could hear and were lowering their voices approximately forty percent, which was not enough.
He stopped outside the door.
“She was different,” Cairo was saying. “Like. Something happened. I clocked it.”
“You always say you clock things.”
“Because I do.”
“What do you think happened?”
A pause.
“I think she met somebody,” Cairo said. “And whoever it is, it got her thinking.”
Carter was quiet for a moment.
“She didn’t say anything about it.” Carter said.
“She wouldn’t. Come on, Bro.” Cairo said. “That’s Nay. She doesn’t talk about stuff until it’s a whole thing.”
“You gonna ask her?”
“Nah. She’ll tell us when she tells us.”
A pause.
Then Carter, quieter,”I hope he’s not an issue.”
“If he is, you already know what’s up.”
“Yeah.”
Nasir stood in the hallway.
Listening to his fourteen year old twins reach the same conclusion he had reached three hours ago.
He stayed there for one more second.
Then he walked back downstairs.
•••
That night, after the kids were down and the house was quiet, he sat on the edge of the bed.
Kiyah was behind him, her hand moving in slow circles on his back, the thing she did when something was sitting with him.
“She’s fine, baby.” Kiyah said.
“I know.”
“She’s nineteen and she’s smart and she grew up right.”
“I know.”
“Nasir.”
He looked over his shoulder at his wife. At almost sixteen years of choosing each other, she was still the most certain thing in his life.
“I know.” he said again.
Kiyah moved closer.
She pressed her lips to the back of his neck.
“You raised a good one.” she said. “We all did.”
He nodded.
He did know that.
He knew all of it.
He just also knew that knowing it didn’t stop you from watching.
It never stopped you from watching.
He laid back.
She came into his side.
His arm went around her.
Outside, Brooklyn was doing what Brooklyn did.
Inside, Nasir Grant lay in the dark and thought about his daughter’s face.
About the thing that had shifted in it.
About Cairo saying something happened.
About the fact that his kids had his eyes too.
And about the question that didn’t need an answer yet but was already sitting there, patient and quiet, in the back of his mind where the things he watched lived.
Who is he?
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Three
The internship was on the fourteenth floor.
Open layout. Big windows. The kind of office that was designed to look like it was full of smart people doing important things, which it was, mostly. Twenty interns split between three departments. Nay was in creative development, which meant she was the youngest person in the room by about six years and the only one who had shown up on day one with a full sketchbook already half filled.
She had learned a long time ago that being prepared was the only kind of impressive that lasted.
Everything else was just performance.
•••
Sloane had been watching Nay since day three.
Not in an obvious way. In that passive aggressive way that certain girls had, where the attention felt like shade but was deniable as shade. A comment here. A look there. The kind of thing that if you pointed it out sounded dramatic but if you ignored it kept coming.
She was polished. Well-dressed. Smart in the way that made her dangerous in certain rooms. She had worked for this internship in a way that was visible. She talked about it, about the process, about how competitive it was, about what it meant to her.
Which was fine.
Except the way she talked about it made it sound like other people hadn’t worked for it.
Like Nay specifically hadn’t.
They were in the intern workroom on a Tuesday morning, two weeks in, when it happened.
Nay was at her corner desk going through her concept sketches for the Mercer project. She’d been working on it since she got assigned to it. She was reading everything, researching the client, filling pages with ideas and crossing them out and starting over the way she always worked through things.
Sloane walked by.
Stopped.
Looked at the sketches spread across Nay’s desk.
“These are cute.” she said.
Not good. Not impressive. Cute.
“Thanks.” Nay said, without looking up.
“Must be nice.” Sloane said.
Nay looked up then.
“What must be nice?” she asked.
Sloane smiled. The kind of smile that was doing something else underneath. “Walking in here with connections already. Makes the work feel different, I’d imagine.”
The workroom wasn’t empty.
Three other interns had heard that.
Nay looked at Sloane.
She didn’t feel the fire that some people felt when they got checked. She felt something cooler than that. A calm that came from knowing exactly who she was and not needing someone else’s opinion to confirm it.
“I don’t know what connections you think I have,” Nay said. “But I’m here every day before you. My sketches speak for themselves. And my name didn’t get me here, sweetie. My portfolio did. Check my resume.”
Sloane’s smile stayed but her eyes shifted.
Nay turned back to her work.
“Confidence is usually what happens when you know what you’re doing.” she added. Simple. Final.
She went back to her sketch.
The workroom was quiet for a second.
Then someone cleared their throat and conversations started back up, and Sloane walked to her own desk without saying anything else.
Nay kept her face still.
Nasir Grant’s daughter all the way through.
•••
The morning briefing was at ten.
All the interns on the Mercer project had been called in, which was not standard. Standard was the seniors presenting to clients. Standard was interns submitting work and getting feedback and waiting to see what happened with it.
Being called into the actual briefing meant something was different today.
The conference room was long and glass-walled. Black leather chairs around a dark table, city view on one side, a screen for presentations on the other. The senior team was already seated when the interns filed in. Nay found a seat on the left side, third from the end.
Her supervisor, Marcus who was in his late forties, gray at his temples, the kind of man who talked fast and meant every word, stood at the head of the table.
“Today’s a different kind of meeting.” he said. “We have a partner coming in on the Mercer project. Big client. Development deal. They’re bringing their own perspective and we need to show that our creative side can match their vision.”
He looked around the table.
“I’m going to have a few of you present your early concepts. Think of it as a live pitch.” He looked at his tablet. “Grant. You’re up first.”
Nay nodded.
Sloane, two seats down, did not react visibly.
Nay looked at her sketchbook.
She was prepared.
She was always prepared.
•••
The conference room door opened at 10:04.
Nay was reviewing her notes when the room shifted.
Not from noise.
From the same thing that had happened in the coffee shop.
That change in air pressure.
She looked up.
He walked in wearing a black designer button-down, dark slacks, an expensive watch that sat heavy on his wrist. The silver Cuban link was there but tucked slightly, the chain catching light when he moved. Same tattoos creeping up the side of his neck. Same face. Same disrespectful calm. Diamond stud in his ear catching the conference room light.
He looked like money with a problem attached.
Marcus stood straighter.
“Everyone, this is Sincere Jones. He’s one of the partners attached to the Mercer project.”
Sincere Jones.
The room did the thing rooms did when someone walked in who mattered.
Nay kept her face exactly where it was.
He scanned the room.
Slow. Complete.
His eyes landed on her.
He didn’t smile.
Didn’t look surprised.
He just looked at her the way you looked at something you had already been thinking about.
There you are.
She held the look for one second.
Then looked at her notes.
He pulled out the chair directly across from her.
Not beside anyone. Across.
He sat down.
She could feel him looking at her without having to look back.
Which was its own kind of problem.
•••
Marcus moved through the project overview quickly. The Mercer development was a luxury mixed-use space in lower Manhattan. Nightlife component on the lower floors. Private event spaces. A members-only lounge. The client wanted the space to feel elevated without feeling closed off. Exclusive but not cold.
“Grant,” Marcus said. “Walk us through what you’ve been working on.”
Nay stood up.
She had her iPad and her printed concept boards. She laid them on the table and connected to the screen in one smooth motion.
She didn’t look at him.
She talked.
“The problem with most luxury spaces,” she started, “is that they design for look and forget about the feel. People walk in, take a photo, and leave. You don’t want that. You want them to stay. You want them to come back.” She clicked to her first image. “I started with the entry. If you control how someone enters a space, you control their whole experience. The ceiling height here, the lighting angle, the way the bar is positioned. None of it is random. Every element is doing a job.”
She walked them through it.
The flow of the space. The way she had designed it so that people naturally moved toward certain areas. The placement of the seating. The lighting that shifted based on time of day without anyone having to adjust it. The private room access that felt like a reward rather than a separation.
She talked for six minutes.
The room was quiet the whole time.
Even Sloane.
When she was done, Marcus nodded. “Strong instincts. Questions?”
Silence.
Then, “It’s pretty.”
Low voice. Across the table.
She already knew without looking.
“But pretty don’t always sell.”
She looked at him.
He was leaning back in his chair. Arms crossed. Not smirking exactly, but close. He looked like a man who was testing something and wanted to see how it broke.
“Good thing I wasn’t selling pretty.” she said. Same temperature as always. “I was selling control.”
Something shifted in his face.
“Control?” he said.
“When someone walks into a space and spends money without feeling like they were pushed into it — that’s control. The design does the work before anyone opens their mouth.” She looked at the screen. “Where they walk. Where they sit. What they see first. How long they stay. None of that happens by accident in a well-designed room. It’s all decided before the doors open.”
The room was quiet again.
Marcus was nodding.
One of the senior team members was writing something down.
Sincere Jones looked at her for a long moment.
Then he uncrossed his arms and leaned forward.
“Okay.” he said.
That was all.
But it meant something.
She could tell by the way Marcus relaxed at the head of the table.
She sat back down.
She did not look at him again for the rest of the meeting.
But she could feel him looking at her.
•••
The meeting ended at eleven-thirty.
People filed out. Side conversations started. Marcus pulled one of the senior team members aside.
Nay packed her concept boards, tucked her iPad, and moved toward the door with the focused energy of someone who had done what they came to do and was ready to leave.
She made it to the hallway.
Down toward the elevator.
She pressed the button.
The doors opened.
She stepped in.
And then a hand came through before the doors closed.
He stepped in.
She looked at the floor numbers.
He stood beside her.
Not too close.
But close enough.
The doors closed.
The elevator started moving down.
It was quiet for three seconds.
“You always got something to say?” he asked.
His voice was different in small spaces. Deeper. Like it had nowhere to go so it just settled in the air between you.
“Only when somebody gives me a reason.” she said.
She felt him look at her.
She kept her eyes on the doors.
He looked at her badge.
She felt that too.
“Naylani Grant.” he said.
Not like he was reading it.
Like he was keeping it.
“Don’t say my name like you know me.” she said.
He turned slightly toward her.
“I don’t know you yet.”
Yet.
The word sat in the elevator.
Small and heavy.
She kept her face still.
He took one step closer. Not aggressive. Not threatening. The specific step of someone who was seeing if she was going to move.
She didn’t.
She looked at him directly.
He looked back.
And then something shifted in his expression. Something that wasn’t quite the smirk and wasn’t quite serious — something in between, like he was recalculating.
“Grant, huh?” he said.
Less like a question.
More like something clicking.
“You know my family?” Nay asked.
His eyes stayed on her.
“Everybody who matters knows your father.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
He stepped out first.
He walked like he always walked.
Like the floor plan was optional.
He looked back over his shoulder as he went.
“Tell Nasir I said what’s good.”
The doors started to close.
She put her hand out and stopped them.
But he was already gone.
Down the hallway.
Moving like he had somewhere to be and had already decided this conversation was done.
Nay stood in the elevator for two seconds.
Then she let the doors close.
The elevator moved.
She stared at the floor numbers going down.
Her face was still.
Her heart was doing something completely different.
•••
She found the nearest bathroom and locked herself in a stall.
Leaned against the wall.
And called Milan.
Milan picked up on the first ring.
“What happened?”
Nay looked at the ceiling of the stall.
“The problem has a name.” she said.
A pause.
“Okay?” Milan said carefully.
Nay swallowed.
“And he knows my father.”
Silence on Milan’s end.
Then,”Nay.”
“I know.”
“How does he—”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sincere Jones.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
“Do you want me to—”
“Don’t Google him.” Nay said.
“I’m already Googling him.”
“Milan.”
“I’m almost done.” A few seconds. Then, quietly, “Nay.”
“What?”
“He’s twenty-three.”
“Okay.”
“He has a daughter.”
“Okay.”
“And he’s — ” A pause. “Damn. He’s extremely fine. That’s not relevant. But I needed to say it.”
Nay pressed her hand over her mouth.
“This is not funny.” she said to her god-sister.
“I know,” Milan said. “But you’re smiling right now. I can hear it.”
She was.
She hated that she was.
“He told me to tell my dad he said what’s good.” Nay said.
The smile went away.
“He told you to—”
“Yeah.”
A long pause.
Then Milan, quiet, “So he really knows who Nasir Grant is.”
“Yes.”
“And he still said it to your face.”
“Yes.”
“While being rude and disrespectful and attractive the whole time.”
“Milan.”
“I’m just — I’m mapping this out.”
Nay pushed off the stall wall.
Looked at herself in the mirror above the sink.
Face calm.
Eyes wide.
“He’s not somebody my dad is going to like.” she said.
“Probably not. But why does that matter?” Milan said.
“I don’t know and I don’t even know him, so I don’t know why I care.”
“Also true.”
“And he’s twenty-three with a whole daughter.”
“Noted.”
“So this is not a thing.”
“Obviously.” Milan said.
Another pause.
“Obviously.” Nay said again.
Neither of them said anything for a second.
Then Milan, “So why are you still in the bathroom?”
Nay looked at herself one more time.
Brown skin under the fluorescent light. Diamond pendant at her collarbone. The same calm face her father had given her.
Except her pulse had been going since the elevator.
Since I don’t know you yet.
Since tell Nasir I said what’s good, delivered over his shoulder like it cost him nothing.
She turned off the faucet she’d turned on without meaning to.
“I’ll call you later.” she said.
“Nay.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you are,” Milan said. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Just… be careful.” Milan said. “I know your type. Just be careful.”
Nay thought about his eyes in the elevator.
About the way he had said her name like he was keeping it.
About the fact that he was standing in a conference room attached to her internship and knew her father’s name and had said it to her face without flinching.
About the fact that none of this was simple.
“Yeah. ” she said.
She unlocked the stall.
Walked out.
Looked at herself one more time.
“I know.” she said.
She hung up.
She straightened her badge.
And she walked back out onto the fourteenth floor like the last forty minutes had not just changed the shape of her whole summer.
Her father’s daughter.
All the way through.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Four
Karon “Killa” Jackson didn’t do soft.
He’d been in the streets since he was fifteen. And fifteen in Brownsville didn’t leave room for gentle. Eight years later, he was twenty-three and the block still ran the same way it always had. Fast money, short trust, and everybody watching everybody.
He was posted on the corner of Rockaway and Livonia a little after noon, leaned back against his matte-black Tahoe like he owned the air around it. And he kind of did. Six-foot-two, built like somebody had been putting him together on purpose since birth. His wide chest, broad shoulders, and arms full of ink. Smooth dark brown skin, the kind that made every woman turn when he walked by. Face tattoos crept along his jaw and up toward his cheekbone, the kind that made regular people nervous and the right kind of people nod. His neck was covered in names, dates, scripture, a tribal piece that wrapped all the way up behind his ear. Diamond stud in his left ear. Heavy silver Cuban link sitting at his collarbone like it was always supposed to be there.
He looked like trouble.
Because he was.
His phone buzzed.
Tasha. Again.
He already knew before he looked.
He answered anyway.
“Yo.”
Her voice came through the speaker sweet and impatient. “Killa, baby, where you at? You said you was sliding through last night.”
He sucked his teeth. “I was handling something. You know how it go.”
“You always handling something when I want you.” she said, half laughing.
He smirked even though she couldn’t see it. “I’ll pull up when I pull up. Stop blowing up my line.”
She giggled.
He let her.
Tasha was easy. Loud, available, no questions. She didn’t ask about his day or need him to sit still for longer than an hour. She was everything Milan wasn’t.
Which was exactly why she didn’t matter the same way.
He told himself the logic made sense.
Milan was still a virgin. His. And until he actually gave her that part of him, none of the other girls were really taking anything from her.
The logic was trash and he knew it.
He used it anyway.
“I’ll slide through later, aight?” he told Tasha. “Be ready.”
He hung up before she could respond, pocketed his phone, and handled the rest of his business. Three more stops before sundown. Product to move. Money to collect. A quick meeting with his connect who liked to talk in cash and code.
By the time the Brooklyn sky turned that deep purple, he was pulling into the garage of her building in Brooklyn Heights.
He sat in the Tahoe for a second before getting out.
That switch.
It always happened right here in the quiet between the street and her door. He rolled his shoulders back and cracked his neck and let all of it. The block, the money, the phone calls. He slid it off him like a jacket he only wore outside.
Three soft knocks instead of his usual pound.
Her voice came through the door first.
“One second!”
•••
Milan Rivera answered the door looking like exactly what she was.
Nineteen and soft and completely unaware of how beautiful she was.
She was wearing a big chunky camel-colored sweater that slipped off one shoulder. The kind of comfortable that still somehow looked good on her. Black leggings. Barefoot. Hair pulled back in a high ponytail that swayed when she moved.
Her skin was a warm golden-brown, smooth and glowing even under the dim hallway light. Big dark eyes that saw everything. Lips she barely ever put anything on because she didn’t need to. She was the kind of beautiful that didn’t announce itself. It was just there.
She smiled up at him and it hit him in the chest every single time.
Like she was actually glad he was there.
Like she’d been waiting.
“Hey, baby.” she said.
Killa stepped inside, closed the door, and pulled her straight into his chest before she could say anything else.
She smelled like vanilla and whatever candle she had going tonight.
He put his face in her neck.
“Missed you, beautiful.” he said.
“You saw me two days ago.” she said, laughing a little.
“Two days too long.”
She wrapped her arms around him, small hands flat on his back, and held on for a second like she felt the same way.
From the couch, Mylo lifted his head.
Mylo was a caramel-colored toy poodle with curly fur and an attitude that did not match his size. He wore a little gold name tag that said $MYLO$ because Milan had let Killa pick the tag and Killa thought it was funny. He weighed maybe six pounds but moved around the apartment like he was much larger and much more important.
He looked at Killa.
Killa looked back.
“What you looking at, man?” Killa said.
Mylo put his head back down.
Milan laughed for real this time.
Her boys.
•••
Her apartment was everything she was.
Small but well put together. Organized without being boring. Psychology textbooks stacked on the coffee table with sticky notes on the pages. A whiteboard on the wall by her desk with her weekly schedule written out in different colors. The class times, study blocks, office hours, a therapy appointment on Thursdays that she’d been going to since her freshman year because she believed in doing the work even when nothing was technically wrong.
She had candles burning. Three of them. Different heights on the window ledge.
It was the calmest place Killa had ever been.
He sat on the couch. She curled under his arm like she fit there. Because she did.
She picked up her textbook off the coffee table and opened it to a chapter she’d marked with a purple sticky note.
“Okay so this whole section is about anxious attachment,” she said. “And it’s kind of blowing my mind.”
Killa tilted his head toward her. “Talk to me.”
She read out loud, voice steady and clear, pausing to explain the parts that needed explaining. She had a way of breaking things down that made even the complicated stuff land easy. She’d been like that since they were kids, always able to take something big and make it small enough to hold.
He listened.
Actually listened.
“So what you saying is,” he said when she paused, “if somebody grew up in a house where love wasn’t steady, they’re gonna keep picking people who make them feel that same kind of unstable?”
Milan looked up at him.
“Yeah,” she said. “Basically. They confuse the chaos for passion. It feels like intensity but it’s actually just—”
“Fear.”
She stared at him.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.” She smiled. “You’re so smart, baby. You just hide it. I hate that you do but I understand it.”
“Don’t tell nobody.”
She laughed and turned back to her page.
He stayed quiet for a minute, thumb moving slow circles on her shoulder.
“You trust me?” he asked.
It came out before he thought it through.
She looked up at him again, no hesitation, those big eyes steady and certain.
“Yeah, Karon. I do.”
The name.
She always said his real name. Not Killa. Not the street version. Just Karon. Like she was talking to someone nobody else got to see.
He pulled her a little closer.
Didn’t say anything else.
Later, when she fell asleep with her textbook still open on her lap and Mylo snoring from the floor and the candles burning down to almost nothing, Killa stayed.
He didn’t pick up his phone.
He didn’t move.
He just sat there with her weight against him, warm and trusting, and let himself be still for once.
He told himself he deserved this.
He told himself she was safe with him.
He told himself a lot of things in that quiet apartment.
An hour later he eased her down onto the couch, tucked the blanket around her shoulders, and kissed her forehead.
“Sleep good, baby.” he said.
He locked the door behind him on the way out.
The elevator doors closed.
He pulled out his phone and hit callback on Tasha’s number before he even reached the garage.
She answered on the first ring.
His whole demeanor flipped like a switch. His shoulders back, jaw tight, that low dangerous voice back in full.
“Be at the spot in twenty. Don’t make me wait.”
He hung up.
Stepped outside.
The streets swallowed him whole.
•••
Milan was still asleep upstairs.
She didn’t know either version of him existed.
And one day soon, both of them were going to crash into each other right in front of her.
•••
The dinner was the next evening.
Harper had called at noon, “Come at six. Don’t be late. I’m making your favorite.”
Milan had smiled at her phone and said yes, and then spent the next four hours pretending she wasn’t nervous about sitting at a dinner table full of people who paid attention to everything.
Harper and Tone’s house was a brownstone in Fort Greene that Harper had decorated like she meant it. It had warm wood, good lighting, art on the walls that actually made you stop and look. It smelled like whatever was cooking and whatever candle Harper kept in the entryway and something that was just — home.
Milan knocked at six on the dot.
The door opened before her hand dropped.
Arielle.
Sixteen years old and dressed for a completely different occasion.
She was wearing a fitted cream set and little heels like she’d been somewhere important before this, her hair in a sleek high bun that sat perfect at the top of her head, gold hoops, gold necklace, a tiny designer bag she was still holding like she hadn’t decided to put it down yet. She was stunning in the way certain girls were stunning before they fully understood it. All jawline, cheekbones and attitude.
She looked at Milan.
Then at Milan’s camel sweater and Converse.
“You wore that here? And that sweater in this beautiful spring weather?” she said.
“Hi, Ari. I missed you too.” Milan said.
“I did miss you. Don’t get me wrong, you look comfortable. That’s a compliment. I’m being positive.” She stepped back to let her in. “But we’re taking pictures tonight and I’m just saying.”
“We are not taking pictures. Who said that?” Milan said.
“We are.” Arielle turned and disappeared into the house. “MILAN’S HERE!” she announced, like the whole neighborhood needed to know.
•••
The kitchen smelled like Harper had started cooking at noon.
Harper Grant-Rivera stood at the counter in a fitted burgundy top and jeans, hair down in those big natural waves she and Harlow shared, moving around her kitchen with the specific energy of a woman who loved doing this and knew she was good at it. She was in her late thirties and the same beautiful that had always been there, just more settled in it now. She had the Grant bone structure with a strong jaw and sharp and beautiful hazel eyes.
She turned when Milan came in and opened both arms.
“There’s my girl.”
Milan went into the hug easy.
“Hey, Mimi.” Milan had started calling Harper, Mimi, when she was twelve and started to look at her as a mom but not wanting to disrespect her biological mom, so they agreed on a nickname that stood for mom…Mimi.
“You eat anything today?”
“I had lunch.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Milan laughed. “I had a snack.”
Harper looked at her like she had a whole opinion about that and was choosing not to voice it. She pointed at the barstool. “Sit. I’ll fix you something while the rest of it finishes.”
•••
Tone was in the living room watching film.
Antonio Rivera looked exactly like what he was — a man who had made good on what he promised himself years ago. He didn’t carry extra weight in any direction, including in his energy. He was even. Steady. The kind of man who could sit in the same room as chaos and lower the temperature just by being there.
He looked up when Milan came in.
“Mi.” He stood up and hugged her properly. The real kind, where someone actually puts their arms around you and means it. “How’s school?”
“Good. Got an exam Friday.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah. I’ve been studying.”
He looked at her for a half second longer than the conversation required.
She knew that look.
She had grown up with it.
“You good?” he asked.
“I’m good, Daddy.”
He nodded.
Filed it.
•••
A.J. came sliding in from the hallway in his socks.
Eleven years old. Harper’s eyes. Tone’s jaw. His own particular brand of energy that was best described as spoiled in the best possible way and aware of it.
He had a soccer ball tucked under his arm that he absolutely was not supposed to have inside.
“MILAN!” He said it like an announcement.
“Hey, A.J.”
“I scored a hat trick at practice today.” He said it with the confidence of someone who expected this information to be celebrated immediately.
“That’s three goals.” Milan said.
“I know what a hat trick is.” He bounced the ball once on the wood floor.
“A.J.” Harper said, from the kitchen, without looking up.
He caught the ball.
He looked at the kitchen.
Looked at the ball.
“I was just—”
“Put it away.”
He tucked it back under his arm and shuffled toward the stairs, muttering something under his breath about how people didn’t appreciate soccer.
Arielle appeared in the doorway.
“Nobody cares about your hat trick. You keep telling everyone. I promise you. We don’t care.” she said.
A.J. pointed at her. “You’re jealous.”
“Of what? Running around a field?”
“It’s not just running—”
“A.J.” Tone, without raising his voice.
A.J. went upstairs.
Arielle looked at Milan.
“He does that every time,” Arielle said. “Every dinner. Hat trick or a goal or a save. Something. Like we should clap.”
“You could just clap. He loves it. Support him.” Milan said.
“I could. But I’m not going to.” Milan shook her head.
•••
They sat at the dinner table at six-thirty.
Harper had made marry me chicken, white rice, and green beans with garlic because Harper cooked food that tasted like love and didn’t need much conversation to prove it.
Tone said grace.
Short and real the way he did everything.
Then the table came alive.
A.J. had brought the soccer ball back downstairs and set it next to his chair like a guest.
Arielle was already on her phone under the table which Harper pretended not to see.
Milan was in her usual spot. To Tone’s left.
It was warm.
It was loud.
It was hers.
She loved these people in a way she didn’t always say out loud.
“So how’s the internship stuff going?” Harper asked, serving herself rice. “Nay still out there killing it?”
“She’s doing really well.” Milan said.
“And you? What are you doing this semester besides class?”
“Group research project on adolescent behavior patterns. And I picked up a volunteer slot at the youth center on Tuesdays.”
Harper pointed at her across the table. “See. That’s what I’m talking about. Doing the right things.”
Arielle, without looking up from her phone, “The youth center is right across from the nail salon I like. Small world.”
“How would you even know that?” Harper asked.
“I know where all the nail salons are. That’s basic life skills.”
Tone looked at Harper.
Harper looked at the ceiling.
This girl.
A.J. knocked over his cup with his elbow.
The table moved fast. Tone steadied it, Harper grabbed a napkin, Arielle lifted her phone out of the way with the reflexes of someone who had been at this table a long time and knew the risks.
Milan caught the cup.
“Nice save, big sis.” A.J. said.
“Always.” Milan said.
“Better than anything Arielle would’ve done.” A.J. rolled his eyes at Arielle.
“Yupp! Sure is! I would’ve let it spill.” Arielle confirmed. “That’s not my cup and you should’ve been more careful.”
•••
After dinner, when A.J. had disappeared with his ball and Arielle had claimed the living room TV, Milan helped Harper with the dishes.
This was their thing.
Had been since Milan was a child.
Harper washed. Milan dried. The kitchen went quiet in a way it only did when everyone else had moved to another room.
“Something on your mind?” Harper asked.
“No,” Milan said. “Why?”
Harper handed her a plate. “Because you’ve been somewhere else half the night.”
Milan dried the plate.
She thought about Killa.
About the way he held her every night.
About the way he listened to her when she read.
About the way he made her feel like the only person who mattered.
“I’m just tired,” she said. “Exam season.”
Harper looked at her.
“Milan.”
“I’m fine, Mimi. I promise.”
Harper handed her the next dish.
She didn’t push.
But she didn’t fully believe it either.
She knew her step-daughter and she was definitely hiding something.
•••
Milan drove home at nine.
Her apartment was quiet when she got in. Mylo lifted his head from the couch and put it right back down when he saw it was her.
She put her bag down.
Changed into her pajamas.
Lit one candle.
Got into bed.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Killa.
You home mamas?
She smiled at the screen before she could stop herself.
Yeah baby. Just got back from my dad’s.
He responded in seconds.
Good. I miss you. Sleep good, baby girl.
She put the phone face down on the nightstand.
Stared at the ceiling.
He made her feel things her psychology textbooks could explain perfectly.
She just didn’t want to read that chapter yet.
Mylo jumped up on the bed and circled twice before collapsing against her leg.
She turned off the lamp.
And in the dark, she thought about the way Killa said her name.
Not loud.
Not performative.
Like she was the only person who got the quiet version of him.
She told herself that meant something.
She was right.
It did.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Five
Arielle Rivera had been lying since she was old enough to master it .
Not big lies.
Smart ones. The kind that kept her life hers and kept everyone else out of her business.
Tonight’s lie was simple, “I’m hanging with Meagan. Movie night. Probably crashing there after. Don’t wait up.”
Harper had narrowed her eyes for exactly half a second. But Arielle hit her with the big smile. The one that had been getting her out of things since she was six and added the “I already cleared it with Meagan’s mom” follow-up, and that was that. Tone told her to text when she got there and went back to his game.
Easy.
She was out the door by six-forty.
•••
She had changed twice before leaving.
The pink set she wore to hang with her little brother at the park earlier was cute but it wasn’t tonight cute. Tonight had a specific dress code in her head and she was going to hit it right or not go at all.
She settled on a butter-yellow floral mesh long-sleeve crop top that was delicate and fitted, showing just a strip of smooth brown skin at her waist. Under it, a soft yellow layered ruffle mini skirt with a bow at the center that was feminine without trying too hard. Butter-yellow Nike Dunks on her feet. Fresh out the box. A small yellow Dior bag on her shoulder. A gold Cartier bracelet on her wrist that her mom had bought for her birthday.
She looked at herself in the mirror one last time.
Sleek high bun. Clean baby hairs laid down with a soft brush. Light makeup. It was just enough to bring out her cheekbones and make her eyes pop, because her eyes were her best feature and she knew it. Long lashes. Glossy lips. Gold hoops in her ears.
She looked like springtime and money.
She smiled at herself and left.
•••
Khalil Morris was already outside the theater when she came around the corner.
She saw him first.
He was leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket and his eyes down on his phone, not looking for her yet. Which meant she got the full picture before he did.
He was eighteen and he looked like trouble that came with a warning label.
Six-foot-one. Dark skin, deep brown, the kind that looked good in any light. Locs pulled back and tied at the base of his neck, a fresh line-up that made his jaw look sharp enough to cut something. Face tats: small script under his left eye, a ghosted teardrop near the corner. His neck was tatted, his knuckles were tatted, the backs of his hands covered in ink that she loved to trace with her fingers.
He had on a black hoodie with white graphics across the chest, clean black jeans, and fresh white Forces. An iced-out watch that caught the city lights every time he moved his hands. A thick diamond Cuban link sat heavy at his collar, and a diamond pendant hung off it with something she’d asked about once and he’d smiled at instead of answered.
He was a problem.
A really, really fine problem.
He looked up from his phone.
Found her.
And the second he did, his whole face changed.
Not a big dramatic reaction.
Just softer. Something in his expression opening up the way it only did when she was the one walking toward him. His eyes went over her slow, from the bun to the yellow Dunks, and when they came back up to her face they stayed there.
He pushed off the wall.
“Arielle.” he said. Just her name. Low and warm like it meant more than just her name.
She stopped in front of him.
“Hey.” she said.
“Damn.” He tilted his head slightly, eyes moving over her face. “You always look like this, even when I’m not around?”
“Obviously. You know I don’t play about my fits.” she said, lifting her chin.
He smiled. The real one. The one that was only for her.
“Come here.” he said.
•••
He didn’t wait for her to close the distance.
He stepped forward and his hands found her waist first. Both of them, big and warm, pulling her in like she was already supposed to be there. His thumbs pressed gentle into the sides of her waist through the thin fabric of her top and she felt it everywhere.
He dipped his head.
Kissed her.
Slow at first, just his lips on hers, testing, like he had time. Then deeper. One hand slid up her back and stayed between her shoulder blades, holding her in place like he needed to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere.
Arielle’s hands went to the front of his hoodie.
She kissed him back, soft and nervous and warm all at once, and he made this low sound against her mouth that made her stomach flip completely over.
When he pulled back he looked at her face up close.
His thumb came up and brushed her cheekbone.
Just once.
“Your eyes are crazy.” he said. Soft. Honest. Like it slipped out.
She blinked. “What?”
“The way they sit in your face.” He was studying her like she was something to figure out. “Like, I’ve never seen anybody look like you before. You know that?”
Her cheeks went warm. Which was embarrassing because she was supposed to be unbothered. She was always unbothered.
She was not unbothered.
“Stop.” she said.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m allowed to stare. You’re my girl.”
She looked at his chest instead of his face. “Come on. The movie’s starting.”
He laughed. Low and quiet.
His hand moved to the small of her back.
He kept it there the whole way in.
•••
Inside, he paid for everything before she could open her mouth. Tickets. Popcorn. The big drink she was definitely going to end up finishing on her own. He did it without making it a moment. He just handed his card over and moved, the way people moved when giving wasn’t something they needed credit for.
They took the back row.
Dead center, the way he always liked.
The lights went down and the previews started and Arielle watched exactly none of them.
His hand found her knee in the dark.
He didn’t look at her when he did it. He was watching the screen, completely casual, like his hand being on her knee was just where it lived.
She kept her eyes forward.
His thumb started moving in slow, easy circles on the inside of her knee.
She shifted.
He noticed. He always noticed.
“You good?” he asked, eyes still on the screen, voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m fine.” she said.
He turned his head and looked at her for a second.
In the dark, with the preview light flickering across his face, he was even harder to look at directly. The tattoos on his jaw. The line-up. Those eyes that were always watching her like she was the most interesting thing in the room.
“You’re lying.” he said.
“I’m not.”
“Your ear is turning red.”
She touched her ear. It was warm.
She hated him.
She put her hand down.
He smiled and turned back to the screen.
His hand slid just slightly higher up her leg.
She stared at the movie and thought about absolutely nothing else for the next two hours.
•••
He couldn’t leave her alone the whole film.
That was the truth of it.
Khalil wasn’t the type to sit still well. His brain always moving, hands always doing something, but with Arielle he was different. He liked being near her. Liked the small sounds she made when something on screen surprised her. Liked the way she tucked herself into his side during the scary parts even though she’d never admit she did it on purpose.
But it was her face that got him every time.
He’d been around a lot of girls. A lot of pretty girls. But Arielle Rivera had something different going on. Those cheekbones sitting high and sharp under her smooth skin, those eyes that were somehow soft and sharp at the same time, this mouth that was always either saying something devastating or curving into something that made him forget what he was thinking.
She was sixteen.
He knew that.
He also knew she was the most mature girl he’d ever met in his life. She could walk into rooms and run them. She could check grown men with three words and walk away looking unbothered. She had opinions about everything and she wasn’t afraid to say any of them.
She just turned soft for him.
Only him.
That did something to him he hadn’t expected.
He reached over halfway through the movie and tucked a piece of her hair back that had come loose from the bun. She looked at him.
“You had a piece that fell.” he said.
“You could’ve just told me.”
“I wanted to touch it.”
Her lips pressed together like she was trying not to smile.
He put his arm around her.
She leaned in.
•••
Outside after, the night had cooled down to that perfect late-spring temperature where the air felt like it was doing you a favor.
She walked beside him with her yellow Dior bag on her shoulder and her head tilting slightly toward him, not quite touching, that quiet version of herself that only came out here.
He walked her toward the train.
“You coming to my graduation?” he asked.
She looked at him. “When is it?”
“Three weeks.”
She thought about it for half a second.
He stopped walking.
He turned her toward him right there under the streetlight. Both hands on her face this time, thumbs at her cheekbones, tilting her head up toward him.
She went still.
“I want you there.” he said.
He looked at her face the way he always looked at her face. Like he was trying to figure out how she worked.
“You’re beautiful, Ari. You know that?”
She looked at his chest.
“You always say that.”
“Because it keeps being true every time I look at you.” His thumb brushed her cheekbone again, that same slow motion. “I’m not playing when it comes to you. You know that, right?”
She looked up.
His eyes were serious.
She nodded.
“I’ll come.”
He kissed her again.
Slower this time.
Both hands still cradling her face like she was something that needed to be held carefully.
When he pulled back he kept his forehead against hers.
“Text me when you get home.” he said.
“I will.”
“I mean it. Not an hour later. When you get there.”
“Khalil.”
“Ari.”
She laughed, small and warm, and he smiled against her forehead.
She pulled back, finally, and headed toward the station.
She made it halfway before she looked back.
He was still standing there.
Watching her go.
Hands in his pockets.
That look on his face like she was the best thing about the whole night.
She turned back around before he could see her smile.
But she was smiling.
All the way to the train.
All the way home.
She texted him the second she walked through her door.
Home.
His response came in under five seconds.
Good. Sleep good, Ari🤍
She put her phone face down on her desk and sat on the edge of her bed.
She thought about his hands on her face.
About the way he watched her walk away.
She told herself it was just a crush.
She knew it wasn’t.
She also knew her dad would lose his entire mind.
But right now, with her cheeks still warm and her heart still doing that stupid flip thing, she didn’t care.
She was sixteen.
She was feeling everything for the first time.
And it felt exactly as good and as dangerous as she’d always thought it would.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Six
The Rhodes household was always the calm one.
That was just the truth of it.
Nay had two households growing up. Two sets of parents, two sets of vibes, two completely different energies that she’d been walking between since she was old enough to understand that some families just looked like that.
At her dad’s house, there was always noise.
Loud. Full. Alive.
The Rhodes apartment in Tribeca was the opposite.
Not cold. Not empty.
Just settled. The kind of quiet that came from a household where everyone had agreed, mostly without saying it, that peace was the preference. Good furniture. Clean lines. Candles Lani had been buying from the same little shop in the West Village for ten years. Soft music playing somewhere in the background on any given afternoon.
Malia kept her room in perfect order and had a color-coded planner on her desk that Nay had stopped making fun of because it clearly worked.
Junior moved through the apartment like he was always conserving energy. Calm, present, never in a rush. He took after Malcolm in that way. Steady. Reserved. The kind of kid who said ten words where someone else would’ve said fifty and somehow communicated more.
Then there was Kayli.
Kayli Rhode was eight years old and she was the exception to every rule the Rhodes household had about being calm.
•••
Nay heard her before she saw her.
She had barely knocked when the door swung open from the inside and sixty-something pounds of little girl launched directly at her.
“NAY-NAY!”
Nay caught her.
The impact of Kayli hugging someone was always more than you were expecting even when you were expecting it. She threw her whole body into it, arms locked around Nay’s neck, legs wrapped around her waist, face pressed into her shoulder.
She smelled like whatever lip gloss she’d been getting into that she wasn’t supposed to have yet.
“Hi, baby.” Nay said, squeezing her back.
Kayli pulled back enough to look at her. Round face, warm brown skin like Rich’s, curly hair she’d clearly done herself this morning in two puffs that were not even, Lani’s eyes and Lani’s mouth and all of Lani’s dramatics packed into the smallest possible human body.
She was wearing a little pink matching set with a bow on the hoodie.
She looked at Nay’s outfit with the critical assessment of an eight year old who had opinions.
“I like your top.” Kayli said.
“Thank you.”
“Can I have it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s mine, Kayli.”
Kayli accepted this without argument and climbed down.
She grabbed Nay’s hand and started walking her inside like she was giving a tour of a house Nay had lived in.
•••
Malia was at the kitchen island when they came in.
Thirteen and already looking like the person she was going to be for the rest of her life. She had Malcolm’s height and her own particular grace. Straight-backed, calm, the kind of composure that didn’t need to announce itself. Long black hair in a neat low bun. A private school uniform blazer that she had not taken off even though it was Saturday, because Malia sometimes did that.
She looked up from her textbook when Nay came in.
“Hey, Nay.” Warm and steady.
“Hey, Mi-Mi.” Nay came around the island and hugged her properly. “How’s school?”
“Good. I have a presentation Monday. Thirty percent of my grade.”
“You ready?”
“I’ve been ready since Thursday.” She said it without any extra energy. Just a fact.
“That’s my girl.” Nay said.
Kayli, who had been pulling Nay toward the couch and hadn’t released her hand, looked at Malia.
“She said I can’t have her top.” Kayli reported.
Malia looked at Kayli’s outfit.
Looked at Nay’s top.
“It’s a different size.” Malia said.
“So!” Kayli said. “I’m still getting it because she’s my big sister and I can do that.”
Malia went back to her textbook.
Junior came downstairs the way he came everywhere. Quietly, without announcement, like he had timed his entrance to avoid being the center of attention.
He was thirteen. Tall for it. Clean low cut. Calm eyes, Malcolm’s jaw, the specific stillness of a boy who had decided early that most things weren’t worth rushing toward.
He looked at Nay.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Junior. You good?”
“Yeah.” He went to the fridge. Got water. Closed it. “Mom’s upstairs.” he said, like she’d been wondering.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and went back toward the living room.
Kayli tugged Nay’s hand.
“Come onnnn.” she said. “She’s getting ready.”
•••
Lani’s bedroom was at the end of the hall.
The door was half-open and Nay could hear her mom before she even got there. Not loud exactly, just Lani’s regular energy, which was always a few degrees warmer than whatever room she was in.
Nay pushed the door open.
Lani was at her vanity in a cream silk robe, doing her edges, hair down and loose the way she always kept it on her days off. In her early forties, she looked the way certain women looked when they had figured out who they were and stopped fighting it. She was glowing, relaxed, settled into herself.
She looked up in the mirror.
Her whole face changed.
“There’s my baby.” she said.
She was off the chair before Nay even cleared the doorway.
The hug was the Lani hug…full arms, both hands, face pressed into the side of Nay’s head. The kind of hug that had been the same since Nay was nine years old coming through the door and Lani opened her arms before she even asked how the visit went.
Nay held on.
“I was just at Daddy’s last week. I’m sure Ki-Ki told you.” Nay said against her shoulder.
“That’s your daddy’s house,” Lani said, pulling back to look at her. “I don’t care how often you go there. I miss you when you’re not here.” She held Nay’s face in both hands, studying her.
Then she said, “Something’s different.”
Nay stepped back.
She hated how easily her entire family could read her.
“Nothing’s different.”
Lani’s eyes narrowed.
“Naylani.”
“Ma.”
“Sit down, Naylani.” Lani said. She pointed at the bed. Not a suggestion.
Nay sat on the edge of the bed.
Kayli immediately climbed up beside her like she’d been waiting
for this moment specifically. She tucked herself against Nay’s side, grabbed her hand, and looked at their mom with wide, interested eyes.
“What happened?” Kayli asked.
“None of your business.” Lani said.
“I live here too.” Kayli said.
“Kayli.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Go find your sister.”
Kayli looked at Nay.
Nay mouthed go.
Kayli got up with the reluctant dignity of someone being removed from a meeting she felt she deserved to be in and left the room. She didn’t fully close the door.
Lani reached over and closed it the rest of the way.
Then she turned around and looked at her oldest daughter.
“Talk.” she said.
•••
Nay didn’t mean to tell her.
She had planned, on the train over, to say nothing. To eat whatever Lani was cooking and play with Kayli and let the afternoon be normal. The Sincere Jones situation was not a situation. It was a twice. A coffee shop incident and a conference room. That was it. Nothing to report.
But her mom was looking at her with those eyes that had been reading her since before she could talk, and the words just came out.
She told her everything.
The way she had looked at him and immediately understood that this was going to be something she’d have to manage.
When she finished, the room was quiet for a second.
Lani was looking at the wall.
Then she turned her head slowly.
“Oh lawd.” she said.
Nay’s eyes closed.
“Ma.”
“This sounds like me and your daddy.” Lani pointed at her own chest. “This is exactly — Nay, this is the same story.”
“It’s not the same story. You’re dragging it. Y’all met as kids and you basically approached daddy.”
“He cut in front of you—”
“He was rude.”
“And you checked him—”
“Which was the right response.”
“And then he couldn’t stop looking at you.” Lani sat back in her vanity chair and crossed her arms with the expression of a woman who had lived this and recognized it from the inside. “Mm-hmm.”
“I’m not interested in him.” Nay said.
Lani’s mouth curved.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Ma, I’m serious.”
“I believe you.” Lani said, in the tone that meant she didn’t.
“He knows Daddy somehow. He literally told me to tell Daddy he said what’s good. Which is — that’s a whole different thing. That changes everything.”
“It does change things,” Lani agreed, serious now. “That’s actually important.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know who he is in relation to your father.”
“I don’t.”
“And your father has a whole world that he doesn’t broadcast.”
“I know, Ma.”
“So that matters.”
“I said I know.”
Lani looked at her for a long moment.
“Are you going to run into him again?”
Nay was quiet.
“It’s an internship,” she said finally. “He’s a partner on the same project.”
Lani made a sound.
Low, short, the particular sound of a mother processing information she had not budgeted for.
“Okay.” Lani said.
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’m processing.”
•••
The bedroom door opened.
Both of them looked up.
Rich came in from wherever he’d been…running or the gym based on the gray sweats and the slight flush on his dark skin. Eight years of marriage and he still moved through the house like he owned exactly the right amount of it. Not sprawling. Not shrinking. Just solid. Present. The kind of man who had grown into his space the same way he’d grown into everything. Deliberately, over time, without making a show of it.
He saw Nay on the bed.
“Hey, Nay.” Warm and easy.
“Hey, Rich.” She smiled at her stepfather.
He’d been Rich since the beginning. She’d never called him anything else and he’d never asked for anything else. That was just the shape of it. He was Rich, he was her mom’s, he was present in her life in the way that didn’t overstep and didn’t disappear.
He crossed to Lani.
No hesitation.
He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her. Not quick. Not performative. The slow, deliberate kind that said I was thinking about you while I was gone and didn’t care who was watching.
Lani’s hands came up to his chest automatically.
When he pulled back she was smiling.
“Go shower.” she said.
“In a minute.” He looked at Nay. “She told you yet?”
Nay looked at her mom. “Told me what?”
Lani made a face at Rich like not yet.
Rich held his hands up. “I’ll stay out of it.”
He kissed Lani’s forehead and went into the bathroom.
Nay watched him go.
She watched her mother watch him go.
Eight years. They had been married eight years and Lani still looked at him like that. Like she was still deciding how lucky she was and kept landing on very.
Nay smiled without meaning to.
That was the thing about growing up with these two sets of parents.
Love was everywhere she looked.
Her dad’s hands on Kiyah’s face. The my wife is my home kiss that Cairo and Carter had been making gagging sounds about for years. Lani going soft when Rich walked into a room. Rich’s thumb on her cheek like she was still something he couldn’t believe he got to keep.
She had examples.
Real ones.
She knew what it was supposed to look like.
Which was, she thought, maybe the whole reason Sincere Jones was lodged somewhere in the back of her brain when he had no business being there.
She wanted the real version.
Not the performance.
The actual thing.
•••
“I’m calling Ki.” Lani said.
Nay looked at her.
“Ma.”
“I’m calling Ki. She needs to know.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
“Mm-hmm.” Lani already had her phone in her hand.
“It’s not a big deal,” Nay said. “I barely know him. I’ve spoken to him twice.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Nay sat back against the headboard with the resignation of a person who had accepted that some things were outside their control.
“She won’t tell your daddy.” Lani said. “I promise.”
“I know she won’t.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“I know who she is, Ma.”
“She’s basically your step-mom.”
“Basically? She is my step-mom.” Nay laughed. Lani and Kiyah acted like they knew each other before her dad. Nay always found that funny because they hated one another at one point.
“Then let me call my best friend and your step-mom.”
Nay put her hand over her face.
Lani called.
It rang once.
“BABYYY!”
Kiyah’s voice came through so loud that it was basically filling the room. Nay could hear it from two feet away.
“Y’all so gay for each other.” Nay mumbled under her breath.
Lani laughed. “Hey, Ki-Ki—”
“I was just thinking about you! It’s literally been three days and I feel like it’s been three weeks. I need you. These kids are being insane today, Nasir is at the shop, CiCi is being CiCi, and Kali told me this morning that I don’t understand her—”
“She’s eleven, Ki.”
“I know that! She’s eleven with a grown ass mouth.”
Nay looked at the ceiling.
She loved these two women.
They also drove her completely insane.
Kayli’s voice came from somewhere just outside the door, “Are you talking to god mommy? Tell her I said hi!”
“Kayli!” Lani yelled.
“TELL HER!”
“Hi, Kayli!” Kiyah called through the phone.
“HI KI-KI! I LOVE YOU!”
Nay put her hand back over her face.
“Okay so,” Lani said, settling herself in the vanity chair. “My daughter is here.”
“Nay?” Kiyah’s voice warmed. “Oh, hi baby! I miss you!”
“Hi, Mimi.” Nay said.
“She has a situation.” Lani said.
“I don’t have a situation.” Nay said.
“She has a situation.” Lani confirmed.
“Okay tell me everything.” Kiyah said, and from the sound of it she was already settling somewhere comfortable.
“There’s a man.” Lani started.
“There’s not a man.” Nay said.
“At her internship. And he’s—”
“He’s not anything.”
“Rude. Apparently.”
“He WAS rude.” Nay admitted.
“And she checked him.” Lani continued.
“Obviously.” Kiyah said.
“Because she’s her mother’s daughter.”
“And her father’s.” Kiyah said.
“Both.” Lani agreed. “But he keeps showing up. And he knows Nasir. Like — he told her to tell Nasir he said what’s good.”
The phone was quiet for one second.
Then Kiyah, “Oop.”
“Right?” Lani said.
“That’s not nothing.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
Nay looked at both of them with the expression of someone watching a conversation about themselves that they couldn’t fully stop.
“Is he fine?” Kiyah asked.
Nay went quiet.
She didn’t mean to go quiet.
It just happened.
Lani looked at her.
Nay looked at the wall.
“NAY-NAY IS HE FINE?” Kiyah said louder.
“She went quiet!” Lani announced, and then absolutely dissolved into laughter. The kind that bent her forward in the vanity chair, the kind that filled the whole room.
“AND IS!” Lani said, pointing at the phone like Kiyah could see her.
Kiyah screamed.
“I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!”
Nay put her hands over her ears.
“You guys are so embarrassing.” she said. “I’m literally leaving.”
She was not leaving.
She was smiling.
“She’s not leaving.” Lani said through her laughter.
“She’s smiling right now.” Kiyah said with complete certainty.
“She absolutely is.” Lani confirmed.
Nay pulled her hands down.
She looked at her mother, who was wiping actual tears from the corner of her eyes from laughing that hard, and thought about how they drove her insane and how she wouldn’t trade either of them for anything.
Her mom.
Her step-mom.
Her loud, nosy, completely embarrassing, ride-or-die-till-they-died people.
“He’s not even—” Nay started.
“Mm-hmm.” both of them said at the exact same time.
Nay shook her head.
Kayli appeared in the doorway again, magnetized by the laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“Nay has a crush.” Lani said.
“MA.”
“Ooooh.” Kayli said, stepping fully into the room now that she had information. “On who? Is he cute? Does he like you back? What’s his name? Can I see a picture?”
“Get out.” Nay said.
“I live here.” Kayli said.
“Kayli.” Rich’s voice, calm and final, from the direction of the bathroom.
Kayli looked toward the bathroom.
Looked at Nay.
Left.
Nay sat back against the headboard.
“I hate all of you.” she said.
Kiyah was still laughing through the phone.
Lani put her hand over her heart.
“That is such a lie.” Lani said.
She was right.
It was absolutely a lie.
And the whole room knew it.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Seven
Nay pulled up to the coffee shop on Montague Street and looked at Malia in the passenger seat.
“You look cute, Mi-Mi.” Nay said.
Malia checked herself in the visor mirror one more time.
She had on a white crop tee with small blue ribbon bows scattered across the front, a layered denim ruffle mini skirt that hit mid-thigh, and clean white sneakers. A light blue mini shoulder bag. A denim baseball cap sitting low over her loose, long black waves that fell past her shoulders. Blue-tinted sunglasses pushed up on the bridge of her nose.
She looked exactly like a thirteen year old who had very good taste and a stepdad who said yes to almost everything.
She flipped the visor back up.
“I know.” she said.
Nay looked at her.
Turned her head with a smile.
Then looked at her again.
“You just said that like Rich would say it.”
“I’ve been around him my whole life.”
“That’s fair.” Nay unlocked the doors. “Text me when you want to be picked up. Don’t make me wait.”
Malia was already out.
“I won’t.”
“Malia.”
She turned back.
“Don’t be out here acting brand new around some boy.” Nay said.
Malia blinked. “What boy?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mm-hmm.” Nay said it exactly like Lani said it.
Malia turned around and walked toward the coffee shop entrance before her face could do anything it wasn’t supposed to.
•••
The coffee shop was the kind that was made for exactly this.
Warm light. Plants in every corner. Little tables outside where the morning sun hit just right. It smelled like espresso and something sweet and the particular ease of a Saturday that wasn’t asking anything of you.
Malia pushed through the door and spotted her friends immediately.
They had the corner table in the back. The round one that fit six. Ava was already there, dark-skinned and sharp-featured with two braids down her shoulders, waving at Malia the second she walked in. Zara was beside her, light brown, curly hair in a puff, already on her second drink based on the two cups in front of her.
The three boys were across from them.
Marcus, who talked too much but was genuinely funny. Devon, who was quiet and spent most of his time on his phone during hangouts but showed up every single time without fail.
And then Eli.
Malia had been careful, very careful, to think about Eli in the exact same tone she thought about everyone else so that nothing showed on her face.
It wasn’t working.
•••
Elijah “Eli” Carter was fourteen.
A sophomore.
He played soccer. Started on the varsity team as a freshman, which the entire school had a thing about because that didn’t happen. He was quiet in that specific way that wasn’t shyness. It was more like he was listening to everything and choosing what to respond to. Dark skin, deep brown eyes, fresh cut every week. He had a stocky build, which Malia had noticed and then immediately tried to un-notice. Tall for his age. Clean. He dressed simple but everything he wore fit right.
He looked up when she came in.
He always looked up when she came in.
That was the thing she was trying not to think about.
“Malia!” Ava was waving like she hadn’t just seen her two days ago. “Finally. We’ve been here for twenty minutes.”
“I’m literally on time.” Malia said.
“You’re always on time. That means you’re late.” Ava pushed the empty chair out with her foot. “Sit.”
Malia set her bag on the table and sat down.
Across from her, Marcus was already mid-story. She caught the tail end of something about a teacher and a projector malfunction, and Devon was looking at his phone while somehow also fully tracking the conversation.
Eli was stirring his drink.
He looked at her when she sat down.
“What’s good?” he said.
Simple.
“Hey.” she said back.
Also simple.
Ava looked at Malia.
Malia looked at Ava.
Ava smiled slowly with her whole face.
Malia turned back to the table.
•••
She had known Eli since the beginning of this school year.
Whitmore Academy was the kind of school that was small enough that everybody knew everybody, which was mostly good and occasionally a problem. She had started there in seventh grade, which meant she was two years into it now and understood the social layout the way she understood most things…completely, without announcing it.
She was well-liked. Not in the desperate popular way. Just people liked her. She was easy to be around. She didn’t create drama. She asked good questions and remembered what people told her and showed up when she said she would. Her grades were the best in her grade without her being weird about it. And the fact that Rich bought her the latest of basically everything helped, not because she showed off, she never showed off, but because you couldn’t show up to school in fresh kicks every day and not have people notice.
Eli had noticed her back in September at a soccer practice she had walked by on her way to the library. He had called out hey and she had looked over and said hey back and that was it. But he had started sitting near her at lunch after that. And finding reasons to be in whatever area she was in.
He was not obvious about it.
She was not obvious about noticing.
They had been doing this for months.
•••
Marcus finished his story.
Devon laughed without looking up from his phone, which was his signature move.
Zara pushed her second cup aside and looked at Malia.
“Okay. What are we doing today? Because I’m not just sitting in here for two hours.”
“We could walk to the park.” Devon said, still looking at his phone.
“It’s too hot.” Ava said.
“It’s literally perfect weather.” Marcus said.
“For who? For you? Not for my hair.”
“Your hair is in a puff.”
“Exactly. And I want to keep it that way.”
Malia pulled her sunglasses off and set them on the table. Her hair was still loose under the cap, the waves soft from the slight breeze she’d walked through outside.
She looked at the board. “I want something cold. What’s good here?”
“The iced lavender latte is actually undefeated.” Zara said.
“I had the mango thing,” Marcus said. “It was okay. Kind of sweet.”
“Everything here is sweet,” Devon said. “That’s kind of the point.”
“I got the iced chai.” Eli said.
Malia looked at him.
“Is it good?”
He pushed it across the table.
“Try it.”
She looked at the cup. His straw was already in it.
She looked at him.
He shrugged.
One shoulder. Easy. Like it was nothing.
She picked it up and tried it.
It was good.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m getting.” she said, pushing it back.
He took it back and kept drinking.
Ava, who had witnessed this entire exchange, was staring at the table with her lips pressed together very hard.
Malia decided not to look at her.
•••
The morning moved the way Sunday mornings moved when you had nowhere to be and the company was right.
They ordered drinks and argued about nothing. Marcus tried to get everyone to rank the teachers from most to least chaotic and it turned into a whole thing. Devon contributed one strong opinion and then went back to his phone and refused to elaborate. Zara had an official ranking she had clearly prepared in advance. Ava kept interrupting. Malia watched all of it with the same quiet amusement she brought to most things.
Eli, beside her, was mostly quiet.
But he kept doing small things.
Handing her the menu before she asked. Moving his chair slightly when someone walked by so she had more room. At one point Malia reached for her sunglasses and her hand bumped his arm and he didn’t move it away.
Neither did she.
For about three seconds too long.
Then they both kept talking like nothing happened.
Ava was going to have so much to say later.
•••
Around noon they drifted outside.
The sun was doing exactly what May sun did in Brooklyn Heights. It was warm but not heavy, the kind that made everything look a little more golden than usual. They stood on the sidewalk trying to decide what came next.
Marcus wanted basketball.
Zara wanted shopping.
Devon wanted to go home, which was not a surprise.
Malia checked her phone. No texts from Nay yet, which meant she had time.
She looked up and Eli was standing beside her, hands in his pockets, watching the others argue about the plan.
“You always this quiet around them?” he asked. Low. Just for her.
She looked at him.
“I’m not quiet. I’m watching.”
“Watching what?”
“How it ends,” she said. “Zara always wins. Give it a minute.”
He looked at the group.
Thirty seconds later, Zara said something that made everyone laugh and they started walking toward the shopping block.
Eli looked back at Malia.
She raised her eyebrows.
He shook his head slowly, like he was filing something away.
They walked with the group, not quite side by side but close.
Not touching.
Just close.
•••
The block was good.
They hit three stores in an hour, which was Zara’s version of efficient shopping. Malia tried on a pair of sunglasses she ended up not buying but photographed because Nay would want to see them. Marcus spent twenty minutes looking at sneakers and bought nothing. Devon held everyone’s bags without complaint, which was Devon’s actual love language.
Eli held the door every single time.
Not just for Malia.
For everyone.
Which was somehow more impressive.
At the third store, Malia was at a display table looking at earrings when she felt him come up beside her. She didn’t look over right away.
“You always shop like this?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re studying it.”
“I’m deciding.” She held up two pairs. “Which one?”
He looked at them both.
Gold drops on the left. Small silver hoops on the right.
“Gold.” he said.
“Why?”
He looked at her face instead of the earrings.
“Goes better.” he said.
She put the silver ones back.
Bought the gold.
She told herself it was because she had already been leaning that way.
She almost believed it.
•••
Nay texted at one-thirty.
Nay: Where you at? I’m around the corner. Come when you’re ready.
Malia looked at the screen.
She looked at the group. Ava and Zara mid-conversation, Marcus doing something on his phone, Devon staring at the sky like it owed him something.
Eli was leaning against the wall beside her.
Not doing anything in particular.
Just there.
“I have to go.” she said.
Ava looked over. “Already?”
“My sister’s picking me up.”
Ava made a dramatic face.
Malia smiled and hugged her, then Zara, then waved at the boys.
Marcus gave a lazy wave.
Devon said later without looking up.
She turned.
“Malia.”
Eli’s voice. Behind her.
She turned back.
He was looking at her with that same calm, direct expression.
“We should hang out sometime.” he said.
Simple.
Like it was obvious.
She looked at him for exactly the right amount of time before she answered.
“Yeah,” she said. “We should.”
She turned and walked toward where Nay was parked, her blue bag on her shoulder and the gold earrings in the store bag in her hand.
She didn’t look back.
She wanted to.
She didn’t.
Because she was Malia.
And Malia moved like she had somewhere to be.
•••
She got in the car.
Nay looked at her.
“How was it?”
“Good.” Malia said.
“Just good?”
“It was a good Sunday.” Malia put her sunglasses back on and looked out the window.
Nay looked at her for a second.
The new earring bag in her lap.
The little smile she was trying not to do.
“Mm-hmm.” Nay said.
“Can we just drive?” Malia said.
Nay put the car in drive.
She was definitely going to tell Lani.
Malia knew that.
She didn’t care.
She put her hand on the door and let the warm air come through the window and thought about Eli.
She pulled the gold drops out of the bag.
Put them in right there in the car.
Nay saw and said nothing.
But she was smiling.
And so was Malia.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Eight
Brianna came to the door in a silk robe and an attitude she hadn’t bothered to put down since they ended things.
Sin saw it on her face before she even opened her mouth.
He stayed at the bottom of the steps.
He didn’t go up.
He didn’t give her the proximity to start something.
He had learned that lesson a long time ago.
She had Selena on her hip. Two years old, curly hair wild from her nap, little fists pressed against her eyes like she was still deciding if she was awake. She was wearing a pink two-piece set with ruffles on the ankles and she had one shoe on.
Just one.
Sin looked at the single shoe.
“Where’s the other one?” he asked.
Brianna looked down at Selena’s feet like she was noticing it for the first time.
“She took it off in the car. I didn’t feel like fighting her about it.”
Sin opened the back of the Tahoe and grabbed the backup sneakers he kept there specifically for this reason.
Brianna watched him with the expression she always had. Somewhere between resentful and testing, waiting to see if he would give her something to work with.
He never did.
She handed Selena over.
The second his daughter felt his arms close around her, she pressed her face into his neck.
“Daddy.” Small and certain.
He kissed the top of her head.
“Hey, baby girl.”
He turned and walked toward the car.
Brianna said something behind him.
He didn’t respond.
Not because he was above it.
Because Selena was right there and Selena was the line.
He buckled her into the car seat, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and got in the front.
By the time he pulled away from the curb he was already somewhere else.
•••
Selena woke up fully about ten minutes into the drive.
She came out of it the way she always came out of sleep. All at once. One second quiet and the next talking like she had a whole agenda.
“Daddy.”
“Yeah, baby.”
“My shoe.”
He reached behind him without taking his eyes off the road.
She took the backup sneaker and looked at it.
“This not mine.”
“It matches.”
She looked at it more.
“Mine has flowers.”
“We’ll get the flower ones back on Sunday.”
She considered this with the gravity of a two year old who had strong feelings about her footwear.
“Okay.” she said.
She put the sneaker on anyway.
He watched her in the rearview and said nothing.
She was his face on a smaller, softer face. Same jaw, same eyes, same particular way of going quiet when she was thinking about something. She was going to be trouble for someone in about fourteen years and he was going to have to figure out how to handle that.
For now she was two and she had one flower shoe and one backup shoe and she had decided it was acceptable.
That was enough for today.
•••
The park on Atlantic was one of the nicer ones. Wide open, clean, a good playground on one side and a smaller baby section on the other side with low equipment and soft ground.
He took Selena to the baby side.
She ran immediately.
Or her version of running, which was the determined trot of a toddler who had committed to a direction. She went straight for the small slide and climbed it with the focused energy of someone who had been waiting for this all day.
Sin stood at the edge of the baby playground, hands in his pockets, watching.
He was in a black tee, dark jeans, clean white sneakers. Silver Cuban link. Watch on his wrist. He had the diamond stud in — he always had the diamond stud in. His neck tattoos were visible above the collar, the ink that climbed from his collarbone up behind his ear.
He was completely out of place at a toddler playground.
He didn’t care.
Selena reached the top of the slide and looked for him.
He raised his hand.
She slid down.
Laughed.
Ran back to the ladder.
He watched her do it four more times in a row.
•••
He felt it before he saw it.
The same shift he noticed in the conference room.
A change in the air.
He turned his head.
She was on the other side of the park, walking down the path with a little girl beside her. The little girl was eight, maybe. Round face, curly hair in two puffs, talking with her hands at a rate that suggested she was always talking with her hands.
And the woman with her was wearing blush pink from head to toe.
Pink knit crop top, crosshatched fabric that wrapped across her chest. Pink knit midi skirt that hit mid-calf and hugged every curve it passed on the way down. Pink strappy heels that had absolutely no business being on a park path, but she was making them work because she was Naylani Grant and that was just what she did. A Van Cleef clover necklace at her throat. Gold and white. Gold teardrop hoops. A pink quilted Chanel bag on her shoulder.
She was stunning.
She was always stunning.
He had noticed that the first time in the coffee shop and it had not improved with subsequent viewings.
She hadn’t seen him yet.
She was looking at the little girl beside her, head tilted down, listening to whatever the child was saying.
Then the little girl pointed toward the baby playground and pulled her hand.
She looked up.
Found him immediately.
•••
Nay’s steps didn’t slow.
She kept walking exactly the same way she had been walking.
Because she was her father’s daughter and her father’s daughter didn’t break stride when the unexpected showed up.
But her stomach did something.
She couldn’t stop it.
Sin was looking at her with those eyes that didn’t give anything away easily, and she was in head-to-toe pink at a park she had brought her eight year old sister to on a Saturday afternoon, and this was not how she had planned to run into him again.
She kept her face still.
“Hey.” she said, when she got close enough.
He looked at her.
Then at Kayli.
Then back at her.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
Not a warm greeting. Not quite unfriendly either.
Just flat. Assessing.
“Same thing you’re doing,” she said. “Walking through a park.”
His jaw shifted.
He was grilling her.
She could feel it.
She didn’t know why and she wasn’t going to ask.
Kayli, who had no awareness of the current tension, had already spotted the baby on the playground.
She tugged Nay’s hand and pointed.
“Look at that baby,” Kayli whispered, the way she always treated small children. “She’s so cute.”
Nay looked.
Selena was at the top of the slide. Dark curly hair, chubby cheeks, a two-toned sneaker situation that told its own story. She had her father’s face in every line.
“She’s yours?” Nay asked.
Sin looked at Selena.
“Yeah.”
“She’s beautiful.”
He looked at Nay.
Something in his expression did the slightest shift.
“Thanks.”
Kayli looked up at him.
Eight years old and completely unbothered.
“Can I play with her?” she asked.
Sin looked at Kayli.
Kayli looked at him with the open, hopeful face of a child who had never once been told no in a context she understood.
He was not a man who moved fast toward things he hadn’t calculated.
But he was also not the kind of man who was mean to children.
He looked back at the playground.
Selena had spotted Kayli too and was standing at the bottom of the slide, head tilted, staring with the focused curiosity of a toddler encountering something new.
He nodded once.
Kayli didn’t need anything more than that.
She walked toward the baby playground and crouched down in front of Selena. She was unhurried, at her level, the way kids who grew up around babies did it naturally.
“Hi.” Kayli said. “I’m Kayli. Do you want to play?”
Selena looked at her.
Then turned, ran and pressed her face into her father’s leg.
Kayli waited.
Selena peeked out.
Kayli smiled.
Selena’s face broke into a grin.
She ran back and took Kayli’s hand.
•••
Sin and Nay stood at the edge of the playground and watched.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
It was not entirely uncomfortable.
It was also not comfortable.
She was aware of how close they were standing. Not that close. Just — the baby playground was small and they were both watching the girls and it meant they were side by side without having planned it.
She kept her eyes on Kayli and Selena.
Kayli was narrating something. She narrated everything. Selena was listening with the serious attention of a two year old who had decided this person was trustworthy and was now fully committed.
“She’s a natural.” Nay said.
“She’s always like this around little kids?”
“Always. She has a gift for it.” Nay paused. “Your daughter is very brave for a two year old.”
Sin watched Selena drag Kayli by the hand to the slide.
“She’s not scared of much.” he said.
“She gets that from you.” Nay said.
He looked at her.
She hadn’t planned to say that.
She kept her face still.
He looked back at the girls.
Neither of them said anything else for a while.
They just watched.
The park around them had its usual Saturday energy. Kids everywhere, strollers, dogs, a pickup basketball game somewhere in the distance.
Nay adjusted the strap of her Chanel bag.
She could feel him not looking at her the way people specifically didn’t look at things they were aware of.
She didn’t say anything about it.
She had learned, in the conference room and in the elevator and in the coffee shop before that, that silence was safe with him in a way that it wasn’t with most people. He didn’t rush to fill it. He didn’t perform in it. He just let it be what it was.
She respected that.
She didn’t like that she respected it.
•••
Twenty minutes later Kayli ran over with Selena’s hand in hers and a very specific look on her face.
“Nay.” she said.
“What?”
“We want ice cream.”
“We?”
“Me and Selena.” Kayli looked at Selena. Selena looked up at her father.
“Ice cream.” Selena said. Definitive.
Sin looked at his daughter.
He looked at Nay.
Nay looked at the ice cream parlor across the street.
She had been in this position before. She knew what it was going to be. Kayli decided things and then announced them like they were already settled and waited for the adults to catch up.
“Come on.” Sin said. That was all.
•••
The ice cream parlor was small and cold and smelled exactly like it should.
Kayli went directly to the case and started her analysis.
Selena followed Kayli because Selena had decided Kayli was the person she was following for the rest of the afternoon.
Sin stood at the counter.
Nay stood slightly behind him.
He ordered for both girls without asking what they wanted, because he had watched them long enough to know. Strawberry for Selena, cookies and cream for Kayli based on her pointing at it three times.
He got himself something.
He looked at Nay.
“What do you want?”
“I’ll get mine—”
“What do you want?” he said again.
Not rude.
Just not asking twice.
She looked at the board.
“Mango sorbet.”
He ordered it.
He paid before she could reach for her bag.
She didn’t argue.
They sat at the small table by the window. Kayli was feeding Selena small pieces of her cone, which Selena was accepting with great joy. Nay watched them and felt something warm in her chest that she didn’t examine too closely.
Sin was eating his ice cream like it was a task he had been assigned.
Kayli looked at him.
This was the look that Nay knew meant something was coming.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Kayli asked.
The parlor was not large.
It was a very audible question.
Nay stopped breathing for approximately two seconds.
Sin looked at Kayli.
He was not rattled.
He was never rattled.
“No.” he said.
Kayli processed this.
She turned to Nay.
“You don’t have a boyfriend either.” she said, in the whisper that was not actually a whisper.
Nay pressed her lips together.
She was not going to look at him.
She absolutely looked at him.
He was looking back at her with the corner of his mouth doing the thing — not quite a smile, never quite a smile — but something adjacent.
Something that made the room feel smaller.
She looked back at her sorbet.
Selena patted Kayli’s hand.
Kayli patted Selena’s hand back.
None of them said anything for a moment.
The ice cream continued.
•••
When it was time to leave, Kayli stood up and looked at Selena the way she looked at things she had decided she wasn’t ready to let go of yet.
“Can I see her again?” she asked.
She looked at Nay first.
Then at Sin.
Because she had clocked that this was a situation where he was the deciding vote.
Sin looked at Selena, who was looking at Kayli with her lower lip starting to push forward the way two year old lips did when they sensed an ending coming.
He looked at Nay.
“Give me your phone.” he said.
She looked at him.
She handed it over.
He typed.
He handed it back.
She looked at the screen.
A contact.
Sin.
No last name.
Nothing else.
He picked up Selena and settled her on his hip in that practiced way. The easy, natural grip of a man who had been holding this weight for two years and knew exactly where it belonged.
“Use it.” he said.
To Nay.
Simple.
Definitive.
He walked toward the door.
Selena looked over his shoulder at Kayli.
Kayli waved big.
Selena waved back with her whole arm, the exaggerated toddler wave that was really just her whole hand opening and closing.
The door closed behind them.
The parlor felt different after.
Not empty.
Just — like the air pressure had changed.
Kayli looked at Nay.
Nay was looking at the contact in her phone.
“He’s really handsome.” Kayli said.
“Kayli.”
“What? He is.” She picked up the rest of her cone. “You should text him.”
Nay put her phone in her bag.
“Finish your ice cream.” she said.
Kayli finished her ice cream.
She was smiling the whole time.
So was Nay.
Just smaller.
Just to herself.
Just barely.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Nine
Naylani sat cross-legged on her bed, phone face up in her lap, staring at the contact.
Sin.
That’s it. Just the one word he had typed in himself and handed back to her like it was nothing.
It wasn’t nothing.
She wasn’t going to act like it was something either.
She looked up.
Kayli was stretched across the foot of the bed on her stomach, chin propped in both hands, feet swinging behind her, watching Nay with the patient energy of a child who had decided she was staying until something happened.
She had been there for eleven minutes.
“Text him.” Kayli said.
“I’m thinking.”
“You’ve been thinking since we left the ice cream shop.”
“That was twenty minutes ago.”
“Exactly.” Kayli tilted her head. “That’s a lot of thinking.”
Nay looked back at her phone.
She knew what she was going to do. She had known in the car on the way home and she had known while changing out of her heels and she had known when she sat down on this bed and stared at the ceiling for two full minutes before Kayli crawled up and installed herself at her feet.
She was going to tell the village.
Because she couldn’t not.
Because if she tried to hold this by herself it would grow into something she couldn’t manage alone, and the women in her life were going to find out eventually anyway and she would rather be the one who said it first.
She opened the family group chat.
The big one.
The VILLAGE (and Nasir when he’s brave).
She typed.
Nay: So. I saw Sin at the park today.
She sent it.
She put the phone face down on the mattress.
One second.
Two.
She picked it back up.
The notification count was already moving.
Kiyah: WAIT WHAT
Lani: SIN SIN?!
Shaye: The Sin from the conference room??? Yes, I know! Your step mammie told me!
Harlow: The tall one with the tattoos and the “I will ruin your life respectfully” energy???
Harper: NAYLANI GRANT YOU BETTER BE TYPING!
Bri: I’m literally in the car with Dame. I told him to pull over because I need to focus. NAY WHAT HAPPENED?!
Nay smiled before she could stop it.
She could picture all of them in real time. Kiyah screaming into a pillow. Her mom already off the couch. Shaye leaning forward somewhere. Harper’s voice getting exactly that specific way it got when something was happening she needed full details for.
She typed the rest.
The playground. Kayli and Selena bonding with each other. Watching them play while she and Sin stood side by side in whatever that was. The ice cream parlor. Kayli’s question.
She paused before that part.
Then typed it.
Nay: Kayli asked him if he had a girlfriend. In the middle of the ice cream shop. Out loud.
She sent it and waited.
Kiyah: KAYLI CAMILLA RHODES
Lani: Oh my GOD
Bri: WHAT DID HE SAY
Harlow: please say no please say no please say no
Shaye: I need to sit down
Harper: NAYLANI
Nay typed fast.
Nay: He said no. Then Kayli told him I don’t have a boyfriend either. Loud. And then he looked at me.
She attached the screenshot of the contact.
Sin.
Nay: He gave me his number. Before he left. Told me to use it.
The chat went fully unhinged.
Kiyah: I’M DECEASED. HE GAVE YOU HIS NUMBER. NAYLANI.
Lani: Baby. From what you described of him, I’m sure he does NOT give out his number like that. I’m protective AND impressed.
Shaye: Nay is out here collecting fine men like Pokémon cards and she doesn’t even know it
Harlow: I need pictures. Video. A detailed report. I have questions.
Harper: Arielle just said “He looks like he could fight Daddy and win.” I’m crying.
A second later a new name appeared.
Arielle: HE DO THOUGH. Malia showed me his picture. That man is dangerous. I respect it.
Kiyah: HOW ARE YOU IN THIS CHAT
Arielle: Cairo added me in April. Don’t come for me.
Lani: CAIRO?!!!
Nay covered her face with one hand and laughed.
Kayli, who had been reading over her shoulder for the last four minutes, was vibrating with excitement.
“They’re obsessed.” Kayli said, delighted.
“They’re a lot.” Nay said.
“Same thing.”
Bri was typing. The little dots went on for a long time, which with Bri meant it was coming in multiple paragraphs.
Bri: Okay real talk though. How did he look at you when Kayli said you didn’t have a boyfriend? Like describe the exact look. I need to know what we’re working with here.
Nay stared at the message.
She thought about the corner of his mouth. The way he had been looking at her before she made herself look away. The specific quality of him watching her without performing the watching.
She typed.
Nay: Like he was trying really hard not to smile.
Kiyah: THATS IT. THATS THE ONE. THATS THE LOOK.
Lani: Oh baby.
Shaye: That look has produced five of Kiyah’s children. Run.
Kiyah: SHAYE.
Shaye: I’m just saying.
Harper: That look means he’s already thought about you when you’re not in the room. I’ve seen it before.
Harlow: Boo gave me that look and here we are twelve years later.
Nay read all of it.
She looked at Kayli.
Kayli was grinning like she had personally orchestrated the entire afternoon.
“You’re welcome.” Kayli said.
“I didn’t thank you.”
“You should.”
Nay opened her mouth.
Her phone buzzed.
Not in the group chat.
A separate text.
She looked at the screen.
Sin.
She sat up straighter without meaning to.
Sin: Selena hasn’t stopped talking about Kayli since we left. She keeps saying “Kayli ice cream.” She wants to go back.
Nay read it twice.
Her stomach did the warm, slow flip thing she was trying to get under control.
She screenshot it immediately and dropped it into the group chat.
The response was instantaneous.
Kiyah: I’M SCREAMING INTO MY PILLOW
Lani: HE TEXTED FIRST???
Harper: THE MAN TEXTED FIRST ABOUT HIS BABY GIRL NAYLANI THIS IS SOFT
Bri: DAME PULL OVER THE CAR
Harlow: He likes you. Period. End of discussion.
Shaye: A man who is not interested does not text about his child missing your sister. Just so we’re clear.
Arielle: Somebody tell her Daddy asap. He’s gonna act normal and then run a background check by morning.
Kiyah: He already did.
Lani: Right after the conference room situation.
Kiyah: He called Tone that same night.
Nay stared at that.
Her father had run a background check on Sin.
Of course he had.
She wasn’t even surprised.
She typed back into the group chat.
Nay: Why is nobody concerned that he apparently already knows Daddy?
Lani: We’re very concerned. We’re also excited. Both things.
Harper: What do you mean he knows Nasir?
Nay typed out the elevator detail. The part she hadn’t fully shared with the whole group before. She had told her mom in person. She had told Milan. But she hadn’t put it in the chat.
She put it in the chat now.
The typing dots from every person appeared simultaneously.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
Kiyah: Okay. Okay. I need to talk to your father.
Lani: Same. Don’t text him back yet, Nay. Let us figure some things out first.
Nay: I wasn’t going to text him back yet.
Lani: You were absolutely going to text him back.
Nay looked at the message from Sin still open on her screen.
She closed the group chat.
Opened his thread.
Stared at it.
Looked at Kayli.
“They told me not to text him back yet.” Nay said.
Kayli considered this with great seriousness.
“Do you do what they tell you?” she asked.
“Usually.”
“Hmm.” Kayli looked at the phone. “What were you going to say?”
Nay looked at the message.
Selena hasn’t stopped talking about Kayli since we left. She keeps saying “Kayli ice cream.”
She typed.
Nay: Kayli has been saying the same thing. She keeps asking when she can see her “new little bestie” again.
She showed Kayli before she sent it.
Kayli read it.
Nodded once like an editor approving a final draft.
“Send it.” Kayli said.
Nay sent it.
She put the phone face down on the bed.
She lasted four seconds before she picked it back up.
Three dots.
He was typing.
She held the phone.
The dots disappeared.
Then came back.
Then the message came through.
Sin: Saturday works. Same park. Two o’clock. Bring Kayli.
Not a question.
Not if you want or let me know or think about it.
Just Saturday. Two o’clock. Bring Kayli.
She read it three times.
The warm thing in her chest expanded into something bigger and she had no good reason to fight it so she didn’t.
She screenshot it.
Sent it to the group chat.
Kiyah: HE SET A DATE.
Lani: Oh that’s a date wrapped in a playdate.
Shaye: He’s smooth. I’ll give him that.
Harlow: THE MAN SAID SAME PARK BRING KAYLI HE’S NOT EVEN PRETENDING
Harper: I love this for you. I love this so much.
Arielle: Tell him Kayli said yes but you need to think about it. Don’t make it too easy.
Lani: Arielle’s right actually.
Arielle: I know.
Nay shook her head.
But she didn’t reply to Sin right away.
She let it sit.
Because Arielle was sixteen and apparently wise beyond her years and Nay was not above taking advice from a sixteen year old who had a point.
She put her phone on the nightstand.
Stretched out across the bed.
Kayli immediately moved from the foot to beside her, squeezing in, linking their arms.
“You’re going to go, right?” Kayli said.
“To the park?”
“To see Sincere.” She said his full name very deliberately, like she had filed it away the second she heard it.
Nay looked at the ceiling.
“I’m thinking about it.” she said.
“You’ve been thinking since the ice cream shop.” Kayli said.
“You already said that.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
Nay turned her head and looked at her little sister.
Kayli looked back.
Eight years old, the same smooth skin as her dad, Lani’s eyes — those specific eyes that saw everything — and a face that was somewhere between the child she still was and the person she was becoming.
She was Rich and Lani in the most particular way. Her mother’s seeing and her father’s calm. A combination that made her quiet in the right moments and absolutely relentless in others.
This was one of the others.
“You like him.” Kayli said. Simply. Factually. The way she said most important things.
Nay looked back at the ceiling.
“I don’t know him.”
“You’re interested, then.”
“That’s different.”
“Not really.” Kayli said.
Nay had no answer for that because Kayli was, unfortunately, correct.
She turned her face toward the window.
The Tribeca evening was doing what it always did.
She could hear her mom downstairs. The particular rhythm of Lani in a kitchen, the low hum of music from the speaker by the stove.
Rich’s voice somewhere, the low register of a man who moved through the house with the same quiet authority he moved through everything.
This apartment.
This family.
The life she had grown up inside of.
Her mother choosing her father, then choosing herself, then choosing Rich and building something real.
She had watched all of it.
She knew what it looked like when it was genuine.
She thought about Saturday.
Two o’clock.
Same park.
Bring Kayli.
She reached for her phone.
She typed back.
Nay: We’ll be there.
She sent it before she second-guessed it.
His response came in sixty seconds.
Sin: Good.
One word.
That was all.
She looked at it.
Put the phone down.
Looked at it again.
Kayli was already asleep beside her, exhausted from the afternoon, mouth slightly open, one arm thrown up over her head the way she always slept.
Nay pulled the blanket over her sister’s shoulder.
Sat with the quiet for a moment.
Downstairs the sound of Lani’s voice changed. She was on the phone now, and from the particular pitch of it Nay knew exactly who she was talking to.
Laughter.
Then quieter, softer, the specific warmth that lived between those two women when they were talking about something real.
Nay smiled at the ceiling.
Let the village know.
She had nothing to hide.
Not this time.
She picked up her sketchbook from the nightstand and opened to a blank page.
She had her own place, a penthouse that her father got her but there was no place like coming home to your parents.
She decided to stay at Lani’s tonight.
She didn’t know what she was drawing yet.
She started anyway.
The way she always started.
Just moving the pencil.
Letting the thing take whatever shape it was going to take.
She thought about his face in the ice cream parlor.
The corner of his mouth.
Use it.
She drew.
And for the first time since the conference room, since the elevator, since the coffee shop where it all started with a shoulder and a you straight…she let herself exist in it.
Not planning.
Not protecting.
Just present.
Just a girl with a sketchbook and a name in her phone and a park date next Saturday.
Just Naylani.
Just this.
NOTICE ME: GROWN NOW
•••
Chapter Ten
She almost didn’t go.
She had sat in her car outside the Harlem shop for four minutes with the engine running, hand on the door handle, talking herself into it and out of it and back again.
It was a Sunday.
The shop was open.
Her father was there.
She had two options: she could wait until Sunday dinner and bring it up in a house full of kids and distractions and pretend it was casual, or she could go now while the thought was still sharp and she still had the nerve.
She looked at herself in the rearview mirror.
Pink fitted baby tee, soft and simple. Pink pleated mini skirt. Pink quilted Chanel slides, the ones with the gold CC logo she had gotten herself last birthday. A pink quilted Chanel bag on her shoulder. Cartier watch on her wrist. Diamond tennis bracelet. Gold hoop earrings.
All pink.
Head to toe.
She got out of the car.
•••
The bell above the door rang at 11:47.
The shop was in its Sunday morning state. The mid-busy, all chairs occupied, the playlist on something that made the room feel like it was breathing, the low hum of clippers and conversation that was its own particular sound she had been walking into since she was old enough to come up on her own.
D-Mo noticed first.
He always noticed first.
He was sweeping and he looked up when the bell rang and did a full stop.
“Nay-Nay.” He said it with the appreciation of a man who had watched her grow up and was still somehow surprised every time.
“Hey, D-Mo.” She came in, let the door close behind her.
Tone looked up from where he was between clients, leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, and gave her the smile he reserved for her. Tone was her godfather and he’d been around since before she was born, had taught her how to ride a bike, had cried at her high school graduation and refused to acknowledge it.
“There she is.” Tone said. Warm. Easy.
“Hey, Goddy.” She hugged him quick.
Smoke was near the back wall.
Standing.
He always stood.
He looked at her with the same expression he brought to everything.
“Naylani.” he said.
“Smoke.” She looked at him for a second. “You ever sit?”
“Not usually.”
She almost smiled.
Dre, at his station, glanced up, nodded once, and went back to his client. The Dre nod was the full greeting and everyone knew it.
They all were jokesters but they knew their limits with Nay.
Rico was in the waiting area eating chips.
He looked at Nay.
Looked at the outfit.
Looked at Nay again.
“Who you dressed like that for?” he said.
“I dress like this every day.”
“All pink?”
“I like pink.”
Rico looked at D-Mo.
D-Mo looked at Rico.
Neither of them said anything else but the whole conversation was on their faces.
•••
Nasir was at his chair finishing a fade.
He had heard the bell. He had heard D-Mo say her name. He had kept his eyes on his client’s head because the client was paying for his attention.
He finished the line.
Stepped back.
Let his client look in the mirror.
Then he looked at the doorway.
Naylani.
All pink, hair loose down her back, standing in the middle of his shop like she owned the air in it.
He didn’t smile but something in his face softened anyway. It always did with her.
She looked at him.
He nodded toward the back.
She shook her head slightly.
He understood.
She wanted to do this out here.
He handed the brush to his client, said a few words, took his money.
Then he turned fully to his daughter.
“What’s up, babygirl?” Even.
“I have a question.” she said.
The shop did a thing.
Not a full stop. Just a slight adjustment. The way certain spaces adjusted when the energy changed.
D-Mo’s sweeping slowed to approximately nothing.
Tone’s arms uncrossed.
Smoke peeled himself off the wall by two inches.
Rico stopped chewing.
Nay looked around at all of them.
“Y’all are so obvious.” she said.
“We’re just here,” D-Mo said. “Doing our jobs.”
“You haven’t swept anything in the last twenty minutes.”
“I’m conserving energy.”
Tone put his hand over his mouth.
Nasir looked at D-Mo.
D-Mo resumed sweeping.
Nasir looked back at his daughter.
“Ask your question.” he said.
•••
She told them about the coffee shop first.
Not all of it. The relevant parts. The brush, the you straight, the watch where you goingexchange. She kept her voice even, factual, the way she delivered most things.
D-Mo made a sound when she got to you straight.
“He said you straight?” D-Mo repeated. “Not my bad. Not excuse me. Just — you straight?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Arrogant ass nigga.” D-Mo said. He didn’t sound entirely disapproving.
“Confident.” Tone corrected.
“Both.” Smoke said.
That was three words from Smoke in one conversation, which was essentially a TED talk.
She told them about the conference room. The Mercer project. Pretty don’t always sell.Her response. The way the room had gone quiet.
Rico leaned forward.
“What you say back?” he asked.
“I told him I wasn’t selling pretty. I was selling control.”
The shop went quiet for a real second this time.
Then Rico sat back and looked at the ceiling.
“That’s a Nasir line.” he said.
“I was just telling the truth.” Nay said.
“Nah,” Rico said. “That was a line. Whether you meant it to be or not.”
She looked at her father.
Nasir was watching her with his arms folded.
Not performing calm.
Actually calm.
The kind that lived in his body now the way street instinct used to.
She told them about the elevator.
Tell Nasir I said what’s good.
The shop adjusted again.
This time it was different.
D-Mo’s broom stopped completely.
Tone stood up straighter.
Rico’s jaw shifted.
Smoke looked at Nasir.
Nasir looked at the floor.
“What’s his name?” Tone asked. Quiet. Direct.
“Sincere Jones.” Nay said.
Recognition moved through the room.
Not loud. Just present. The particular way people recognized a name they already had filed somewhere.
“Sincere.” D-Mo said. “From Brownsville?”
“I don’t know where he’s from.” Nay said.
“Young. Tall. Tatted up. Security and nightlife money?”
“That matches.”
D-Mo looked at Nasir.
Nasir was still looking at the floor.
“You know him?” Nay asked the room.
Tone exhaled through his nose.
“We know of him.” he said carefully. “His reputation.”
“Which is what?”
The men looked at each other.
The specific male silence of people who were deciding how much to say in front of someone they wanted to protect.
Nay looked at all of them.
“I’m not twelve.” she said.
Tone looked at Nasir.
Nasir finally looked up.
“Solid rep.” he said. “Quiet money. Doesn’t play games.” He paused. “But he moves heavy.”
Heavy.
She understood what that meant.
Not just business. Not just nightlife and development deals.
Heavy.
“He told me to tell you he said what’s good.” she said again, directly to her father this time.
Nasir held her gaze.
“I heard you the first time.” he said.
•••
He pulled her to the back.
Not the office. The back hallway. Enough privacy to talk without the whole shop in it.
He turned and looked at her.
She looked back.
This was the thing about Nasir Grant. He didn’t perform conversations. He didn’t ease into them. He just started.
“How many times have you seen him?” he asked.
“A few. Last time was at the park.”
“The park?”
“Yesterday. He had his daughter. I had Kayli.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“He gave you his number? Ki mentioned something about a number.”
“Kayli and his daughter want play dates now.” Nay said. “It was about the girls.”
“Was it?”
She held his gaze.
“At the time.” she said honestly.
He leaned against the wall.
Looked at the ceiling briefly.
Then at her.
“He’s twenty-three.” he said.
“I know.”
“He has a daughter.”
“I know.”
“He runs in circles that—” He stopped. Chose the next words. “He’s not the kind of man I want near you, Nay.”
She felt it land.
She felt the love in it and the fear in it and the weight of a father who knew what heavy men looked like because he had been one.
“I’m nineteen, Daddy.” she said.
“I know how old you are.”
“Then you know I’m not a kid.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you mean.” Her voice was not sharp. Not defensive. Just even. Her own kind of calm. “You mean you’re scared. That’s what this is.”
He looked at her.
She looked back.
The hallway was quiet.
Behind them, the muffled sound of the shop. Clippers. Music. D-Mo’s voice at a volume that said he was trying to be subtle and failing.
“Yeah.” Nasir said finally.
Just that.
Yeah.
“Why?” she asked.
He was quiet for a long moment.
“Because I see too much of who I used to be in him,” he said. “The way he moves. The way he talks. The way he looks at a room like he already calculated it.” He paused. “I was that at his age. And I hurt people before I figured out how to be better.”
Nay held that.
She let it breathe.
“You got better though.” she said.
“Yeah. Because your mother didn’t fold. And because Kiyah made me want to be something different.” He looked at her directly. “But it took a long time. And the people I loved in the meantime paid the cost for who I was while I was figuring it out.”
She understood who he meant.
Lani.
She always understood who he meant.
“I’m not Mama.” she said. “And I don’t plan to be in a position where I’m absorbing somebody’s growth process.”
“I know you don’t plan it.” He said it gently. “Plans don’t always hold up.”
She looked at her father.
At the tattoos on his forearms that she had been tracing with her eyes since she was small. At the jaw that was hers. At the eyes that were hers too.
The man who had sat on the floor of every room she needed him in.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid.” she said.
“I know that.”
“But I’m also not going to pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
She looked at him.
“Then what are you asking?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Be careful, Naylani.” he said. “Know what you’re walking toward. And know that I’m always going to be watching. Not because I don’t trust you. Because that’s my job until I stop breathing.”
She exhaled.
Not in frustration.
In something closer to relief.
“Okay.” she said.
He straightened off the wall.
He looked at her one more time. At the pink outfit, at the Chanel bag on her shoulder, at the nineteen year old woman who was his first child and his first proof that he could do this right.
He pulled her in.
One arm. Brief. The hug of a man who wasn’t naturally demonstrative and had learned it was worth learning anyway.
She leaned into it for exactly as long as it lasted.
•••
He walked her to her car.
She hadn’t expected that.
He came out of the shop with his keys in his hand and fell into step beside her without explaining it, and she just let him.
At the car, he didn’t leave right away.
He stood with his arms folded, looking at the street, and she waited.
“I knew his father.” he said.
She looked at him.
“Chicago. That’s what people called him. Chi.” He paused. “Chi Carter. Big man in Brownsville back in the day. Not the same business as my old life but the same world. Different block, same streets.”
She was quiet.
“Ruthless.” Nasir said. “Smart but ruthless. Built real money on top of the street money. By the time Sin was old enough to know what was happening, his father was out of it. Legitimate. Or as legitimate as that transition gets.”
“But?” she said.
He looked at her.
“Men like him,” he said carefully. “Men like me. Men like Chi Carter. We don’t ever fully get out. The world we came from — the people, the reputation, the history — it follows. Even when you don’t invite it. Even when you’ve changed.” He paused. “Sin grew up clean. Better than I did. But he grew up in that shadow and that shadow doesn’t disappear just because you’re standing in the light now.”
The street was doing what streets did on Sunday mornings.
Someone’s music from two floors up. A man walking a dog. A cab going by with the window down.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Nothing that matched the weight of this conversation.
“Does he know who you are?” she asked.
“He knows.” Nasir said.
“And he still told me to tell you he said what’s good.”
“Yeah.” Something moved across his face. “He did.”
She thought about the elevator.
About the specific way he had said it.
Not aggressive. Not a threat. Not a provocation.
Just said it.
Like a introduction.
Like an acknowledgment.
Like a man who understood exactly who she was and was saying it directly to the one person whose opinion on the matter would mean something.
“That’s either bold or respectful.” she said.
“Could be both.” Nasir said.
“Which do you think it is?”
He looked at her sideways.
“I think you should go slowly.” he said. “And I think if he gives you a reason to question yourself even once, you walk.”
“I know that.”
“I need you to know it in your bones, Nay. Not just in your head.”
She looked at her father.
At the man who had been getting better for years and understood exactly the cost of getting it wrong.
“In my bones.” she said.
He nodded once.
He gave her shoulder one brief squeeze.
Turned and walked back toward the shop.
She stood at her car and watched him go.
He pushed through the door without looking back.
The bell rang over the door.
The street kept moving.
She got in the car.
She sat there for a second.
She thought about the contact in her phone.
She thought about Saturday.
Same park. Two o’clock. Bring Kayli.
She thought about her father saying that shadow doesn’t disappear just because you’re standing in the light.
She thought about the corner of Sin’s mouth when Kayli had told him she didn’t have a boyfriend.
She started the car.
She didn’t know exactly where this was going.
But she was Nasir Grant’s daughter, Kiyah Monroe-Grant’s stepdaughter, Rich Rhodes’s stepdaughter and Lani Rhode’s first child, and she had the best possible examples of what love was supposed to look like when it was real.
She would know the difference.
She pulled away from the curb.
Storybookbybree 