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She looked up from the People magazine she had propped up on a reading table in front of her. The glasses she never wore outside the house sat low on her pointed nose. If the sight of her struggling to get comfortable with her bright pink casts weren’t so dismal, it might have been funny.
“You have a good time?”
“Yep.” He moved to sit on the other side of the couch, knowing it would make her sad if he shuffled off to his room immediately. “Aja says hey.”
Gram’s lips twitched into a smirk, and he had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Injured or no, that foolishness wouldn’t be tolerated.
“Gram, please…”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, but I know what you’re thinkin’, and it ain’t like that,” he lied through his teeth. “We’re just hangin’ out. She’s helpin’ me get more bingo practice in because I’m tired of you pinchin’ my ears every time I move too slow for your likin’. That’s it.”
The words sounded unconvincing, even to him. She didn’t seem to buy them either.
“Does that mean you aren’t goin’ to ask her out?”
He threw his head back on the couch with a groan way too juvenile for a thirty-year-old man.
Gram kept going. “Because you could do far, far worse, you know. Aja is beautiful, and kind, and she has her own job. Some kind of internet nonsense, but still, it makes her good money I think.”
“And she lives in Greenbelt.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Gram sniffed.
“In a little over a month, when I go home, how am I supposed to date somebody who lives in a place I hate? How are we supposed to go on dates when I refuse to step foot in this place after I’m gone?”
“When you left twelve years ago, you told me you’d never come back, and here you are.”
“The only reason I’m here is because you need me and I love you,” he argued. “And because you refused to come down to Charleston while you recovered.”
She completely ignored the second portion of his statement. “Well, what if you—”
“Please don’t say it,” he cut her off.
She was obstinate. “What if you fell in love with her? Would that be enough to make you stay?”
“I’m not goin’ to fall in love with Aja, Gram, because we are not dating. I’m goin’ to bingo with her, not courtin’ her.”
“You never know,” she insisted. “It’s not like love is something you can plan. Maybe you and Aja will fall in love, and she’ll convince you to stay right here where you belong.”
His last nerve had officially been worked. He sighed, standing up from the couch, schooling his face as much as possible so that he didn’t show every bit of the fury he was feeling.
“I don’t belong here, Gram. I spent my entire childhood not being sure of anything other than that I did not belong here. I don’t care if Aja Owens turns out to be my one true love or the best woman to ever walk the face of the Earth. Nothing can convince me to stay in a place I hate as much as Greenbelt.”
Ignoring the sheer devastation on his grandmother’s face as he walked away was hard, but he managed. He’d done it before, after all.
He had FaceTime up on his phone before he even had the door to his old room shut. His first call went unanswered, making his jaw tighten in stress. His second call was picked up within seconds.
“What’s going on?” Adya’s light brown face was pressed close to the camera. There was music playing in the background and dishes clinking together.
“I called Corey and he didn’t pick up.…”
Adya rolled her eyes, her chin-length brown hair swishing back and forth. “Corey,” she yelled. “Our very tall white son is nervous because he can’t get ahold of you.”
“I’m not—” He stopped himself at the lie. He had been nervous when Corey hadn’t answered. There had been no logical reason for that nervousness. Corey was a grown man who obviously had his own life and shit to do. But Walker’s other emotions—namely anxiety—always got harder to control when he was agitated.
“What’s wrong, man?” Corey’s face appeared in the camera next to his longtime girlfriend’s. His shirt was off, he had on his favorite purple du-rag, and he was drying a plate with a printed cloth.
