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“Are you saying the pop-upSweetsis phoning it in over there? You better talk to the manager…”
“Don’t play with me lil’ girl.” She chuckled. “You know what I mean.”
Yeah.
I did.
She was talking about how I’d been avoiding my usual routine of popping into the flagship store a couple times a week to see her face. I could have always grabbed my favorite pastry there at the store, but I went out of my way to see my aunt and for her to see me.
It was important.
There was a few years of age between them, but they’d been close as long as I could remember, and they looked just alike. Even their kids had been a mirror. My cousin Sheila was born the same year as me, Preston was born the same year as Soren, and we’d all been thick as thieves.
Now though, it was just me, Aunt Lucy, and Soren.
We’d lost the others.
Gut punch after gut punch after gut punch.
LosingNectarwould just be another, except I coulddo somethingabout that one.
“What are you trying avoid telling me, lil’ Rena?”
Even though her tone was stern, I smiled. She always called me that, my mother’s mini me, when I was on the cusp of getting fussed out.
“Nothing I can say with this many ears around,” I admitted, still moving through my job, while she’d stopped. “Let’s do dinner or something though, before New Year’s.”
“Mmmhmm,” she muttered, accepting being put off. There were a few minutes of quiet, steady work, and then she spoke again. “You know that damnEJis running around here today?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I didn’t see him, but I saw his… people.”
His people being a bunch of all-black clad men with visible guns at their waists.
Every year, they showed up making people nervous.
Every year, the organizers let it slide.
With good reason, if I was honest about it, despite the way it irked me.
Law enforcement volunteers creating a security team aside, it was the presence of EJ and his “people” that kept the people who didn’t give a fuck about the cops on their best behavior. For the most part, Blackwood was safe, but criminals existed everywhere.
EJ was, in fact, a fucking criminal.
The kind that other criminals knew about all too well, so they gave him a wide berth.
Which was why he was allowed to stay.
He wasn’t into the kind of petty, individual crime that might need prevention today.
“You gonna go speak?” Aunt Lucy asked — pried, really — but that wasn’t unexpected.
I shook my head. “I’m sure he’ll find me, doesn’t he always?”
Sure enough, I’d just left the kitchen after crimping the last pie and was hunting down an audience with one of the event organizers wearing bright greenBlackwood Community Centercrewneck when EJ himself sidled in front of me, looking and smelling criminally good, as always.
“Lani Stark,I knew I’d see your big pretty ass today,” he crooned, opening his arms for a hug.
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that a compliment, Eric?”
