The smell of seafood as well as macaroni filled the house as Josiah made one of Lia's favorite dishes from him, cajun shrimp and crab macaroni.

Lia had gotten a promotion at work, and was now Walmart's general manager.

It was an upgrade from assistant manager, a position Lia didn't even think she could get. Josiah and his siblings basically forced her to take the opportunity to apply, nagging her until she did the application.

"Boy forget mama." Hassan stated looking in the oven, "Let's eat right now."

Neriah was sitting at the table on her phone like always, "You so damn greedy. I've never seen anybody eat like you and don't have a penny to their name."

"My brother and sister keep me fed. Shouts to them."

Josiah ignored their continued conversation and reached for his own phone to respond to Grace's message.

Something was bothering her and he was trying to see if it was his place to ask what.

The lines of their, whatever it was, were already blurred, and he didn't want to add to that confusion by asking personal questions.

But then again, friends ask friends what's bothering them.

"You texting Grace?" Hassan asked smacking loudly on the bag of hot Funyuns in his hand.

"Business." Neriah replied, "Getchu' some."

After sending Grace a message asking if everything was okay, he looked to his little brother, "Go text Ferrari and leave me alone."

"Her period on and she tripping, all in her feelings and shit. I'm straight on that."

Josiah laughed while his sister shook her head, "You so disrespectful Hassan. Get her some flowers or something."

"How that's disrespectful? She over there sending me long ass paragraphs about nothing. Matter of fact, Riah write her back some cute shit so she'll be happy."

"Ask if she wanna come over here." Josiah suggested, "I'll go get her."

The real reason he offered was because he wanted to invite Grace, and if Faelyn was here he'd have a reason to.

They text for some strange reason.

Neriah and Hassan looked at him in confusion, "What?"

"Just ask the damn girl."

Hassan did as he was told while Josiah asked Grace if she wanted to come over.

• • •

"So dude tryna guard me right? But I can't be guarded, so I broke that nigga ankles." Hassan spoke excitedly.

He was showing Grace his highlight tape from YouTube, Grace trying to understand what he was talking about.

"So that means you made him fall?" She asked, seeing the guy on the video get helped up by his teammate.

"Fae you must ain't been teaching her none?"

She giggled from her chair, "Yeah but I don't say, "break somebody ankles."

Lia was watching their display, wondering who the girl was Josiah brought into their home.

She knew her name was Grace, but didn't know who she was as a person, and was having trouble understanding her.

"So Grace," She began, waiting for her to make eye contact, "Where do you work?"

"Man mama that girl got a bag she don't gotta work." Hassan laughed, "Jo pimping ain't right 'cause I would've had all of us out here in Benz's or some."

Though her children didn't mind Grace not having a job, Lia felt it spoke to her being 'spoiled' of sorts, or entitled.

She didn't want her son with someone like that.

"You go to school then?" She continued.

Grace looked towards Josiah briefly, before returning her gaze to Lia, "I don't. I got into Columbia... but the timing wasn't right."

"When will the timing be right?"

"Mama." Josiah interrupted, giving her a pointed stare.

Wanting to take some of the negative attention off of Grace, Neriah inserted herself into the conversation, "I feel that Grace. I barely wanna go to school now."

Her efforts only made it worse as Lia said, "But you go because you don't access to unlimited funds, and you also don't have the luxury of being able to take time off since time doesn't wait for the less fortunate."

The dining room was silent as the awkwardness cascaded unto them, making Grace shift in her seat, "I'm just trying to figure things out, you know?

She didn't know why she even cared to explain herself to Lia, but she hated when people made it seem as if she did nothing with her life.

Because it was true.

"Grace paints." Josiah spoke up, "Like Picasso paints."

"How nice."

Faelyn knew Lia didn't like her, so she added to the conversation by saying, "I think art is dope. A lot of people don't understand the effort that goes into it, but those people are ignorant and you shouldn't worry about them."

Hassan choked on his food at his girlfriend's words, coughing violently into his shirt.

They all looked at their mama, waiting to see how she would respond.

Lia simply stood from the table and walked towards the sink, placing her dish there and turning to look at them, "Thank you for the food Josiah. I'll see y'all tomorrow."

When she left out, Hassan looked at Faelyn, "You outta pocket."

"So?" She shrugged, "She was rude for no reason."

"But that's still my mama. You wilding for no reason and she ain't even say shit to you."

Grace felt weird that they were about to argue about something she felt she'd caused, "It's my fault really. sorry Hassan."

Faelyn scoffed and stood up, "Jo can you take me home? Don't wanna disrespect your mama again, even though she treats everybody like shit except for her precious fucking son."

Josiah scratched his head awkwardly, "Yeah I guess."

"You can take me home too." Grace said while standing up.

He was kind of disappointed as he had intended on asking her to stay and making Hassan sleep on the couch.

Instead of voicing that, he got the keys from the counter and followed them outside.

______

thanks for reading 💕