I rolled my eyes and cut the engine, stepping out. She was standing there in high-waisted jeans, a pink crop top, and her hair in a messy puff that somehow came out looking perfect. Only Hyacinth could look like she belonged on a magazine cover while threatening somebody’s life in a parking lot.
I shut the door behind me. “Why the hell you hitting my car like you paying the note?”
“Naw, let’s ask the important questions,” she snapped. “Since you out here duckin’ and dodgin’ me like you in witness protection. Girl, where you been?”
“Living,” I muttered.
“Lying,” she corrected. “Come on. We eating, and I’m getting every ounce of tea you been hiding.”
She latched onto my wrist and dragged me across the parking lot like I was a bad ass toddler. When we stepped inside the café, the smell of gumbo, fried catfish, and beignets smacked me in the face so good that for a whole second, I forgot I had complicated feelings, a dangerous man on my trail, and a man who drove me insane living under the same roof as me.
We grabbed a booth near the window, and Hyacinth flopped into her seat dramatically, leaning forward like she was about to interview me for a documentary.
“You look different,” she announced. “Your aura is—what’s the word? Disturbed.”
“So, you out here impersonating Epiphany?” I mentioned our cousin’s mystical, half-psychic ass. “I’m fine,” I insisted, picking up a menu.
“Oh yeah? Then why you dressed like you somebody’s kept woman?”
I paused, eyes moving down to the mismatched outfit I had thrown on when she had called all frantic, like her world was crashing down: joggers, a cropped tee, and Mekhi’s lightweight jacket, which still smelled so good. I’d thrown it on because I had mixed feelings about what my crop top and stomach were doing together, but I should’ve known the jacket would be a signal to Hyacinth Fulton, Amateur Private Investigator.
Damn it.
“Hyacinth—”
She gasped loud enough that three people turned around. “You stealing men’s clothes now? Sis, that ain’t you. You don’t wear no man’s jacket unless something untoward happened.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “‘Untoward?’ Really? I know you a teacher, but you doing absolutely too much. Who says that? And would you lower your voice?” I hissed.
“I would,” she said sweetly, “if you tell me why you look like you just left a man’s bed.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
A slow, evil smile spread across her face. “Oh. My. God.”
“Nothing happened!”
“Nothing? You got his scent all on you like y’all was rolling around in a cologne commercial!”
I dropped the menu on the table. “Can we order first before you jump to conclusions?”
She raised her hand at the waitress so fast her elbow cracked. “Two sweet teas with lemon, the sampler platter, extra beignets, and my cousin gon’ explain why she smell like grown man and danger.”
The waitress snorted and wrote the order down.
I glared. “I don’t smell like danger.”
“Girl, you lying. You smell like ‘don’t ask me where I was last night.’ You smell like ‘tell Hyacinth the truth.’ You smell like?—”
“I swear to God?—”
“No, you swear to lie!” she whispered, leaning in so close I could see every one of her brown freckles. “Now tell me what’s going on before I guess out loud.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
She mirrored me stubbornly. And waited.
