Page 69 of The Sweetest Return

He stepped back and shook his head at me. “You look good, baby girl.”

“Thank you.”

I meant that softly, because hearing him call me that almost took my knees out from under me.

Mrs. Jones looked past me. “Where are your friends?”

“Camille is…” I glanced toward the bar where Malcolm was leaning slightly closer than necessary while Camille looked irritated enough to be interested. “Occupied.”

Mr. Jones followed my gaze. “That boy still bothering that girl?”

I nearly laughed. “It appears mutual.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And Noelle saw one of her old professors.”

“Good,” Mrs. Jones said, tucking her hand through my arm. “Then you’re sitting with us.”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude.”

“Imani.”

There was enough mother in the way she said my name to stop the sentence immediately.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s better.”

Their table sat close to the stage, one of several reserved for honorees and their guests. Most of the seats were already filled by people who turned with welcoming smiles when Mrs. Jones guided me toward them. I recognized Dre’s sister Danielle immediately, though she was grown now in a way that made time feel personally disrespectful. She had her mom’s eyes and her dad’s mouth, her hair cut into a sleek bob that brushed her jaw, and she hugged me hard enough to make me remember the teenager who used to sit between my knees and ask me to braid her hair because she didn’t trust Dre with beauty-related tasks.

A few family friends greeted me too. An auntie whose name returned right before panic could set in. A cousin I remembered vaguely from cookouts. Familiar faces attached to a life I had once assumed I would keep knowing.

There was only one empty chair.

It sat between Mrs. Jones and the place card marked Andre Jones.

Of course it did.

I looked at the chair, then at Mrs. Jones. “I can find another seat.”

“You found one.”

“This is Dre’s table.”

Mrs. Jones’s brows lifted. “It is also mine.”

Mr. Jones pulled the chair out. “Sit down, Imani.”

The two of them had always been a terrible team when they agreed on something.

I sat.

My pulse did something inconvenient as I placed my clutch beside my plate. Dre had not seen me yet. At least, I didn’t think he had. For all I knew, he was somewhere being congratulated, photographed, or held hostage by a donor with a building proposal and no sense of timing.

Still, sitting next to his place card felt like crossing some invisible line. Not because I was doing anything wrong. Because if Dre walked in and saw me beside his mother with my name nowhere near the seating chart, he would know.

His mother had chosen this.