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“Skai, it wasn’t a question.”
“Ma, I am fine. I am not moving in here,”
“Listen, menace, I agree with Savvy and Josh. Your safety is top priority.”
“I appreciate that, but I am safe,” I say, cutting my eye at Jabarri and can tell he wants to speak up.
“Oh yeah, how do you figure, what’s going to happen if they come for you in the middle of the night? Please, Sweets, give your mother a little peace of mind and move in and let us protect you until we can figure out if they know who you are and come for you.”
“Ma,” I start again and it turns into a full-fledged argument between me and everyone except Jabarri. Even the wives take their husbands side and feel like I should move in with my mom and DJ.
“I am not doing it!” I yell, making everyone shut up. The idea of being away from Jabarri for just one night makes me physically ill.
“Skai Nalani Errington! You need to think about this, if you go home, you are all alone all the way across town, at least twenty minutes away. Everyone has a wife or a wife and a kid or kids. They can’t be sleeping on the sofa to protect you. So what are you going to do? Who is going to protect you if you are not here?” She asks, and I release a deep breath dropping my shoulders in defeat before looking at Jabarri.
“I will,” he says, dropping the bomb in the middle of the room, and a blanket of silence falls over the room.
CHAPTER 16
Skai
This is not how it was supposed to go, and I am physically ill to my stomach. We were supposed to have a one-on-one conversation with my mom and DJ, but they kept pushing about me moving in with them and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Jabarri has been trying to get me to tell our family for months, and I kept dragging my feet, but now I wish I had. Oh well, it’s too late to change anything now. Jabarri walks over, pulling me in his arms, finally getting the hug I know he wanted to give me before, making me melt into him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jaasiel says.
“In here, NOW!” DJ says to me and Jabarri. I look at him and my mom to try and gauge their feelings, but they both have their faces set on neutral. Shit. I think. This is a cluster fuck. I disentangle myself from him, but he grabs my hand, giving it a little squeeze in support as we walk to the back room with them.
“How long has this been going on, Skai?” my mom asks, obviously hurt by the fact that I kept this a secret from her. This is one of the only secrets I have ever kept from her, and I feel like shit keeping this from her. When Jabarri continued to push to tell our family, I fought against it, but I did not think of the ramifications. I didn’t think about the look my mom would have when she found out I kept this a secret from her, the look that I am looking at right now, and all I want to do is cry. Goodness, how did I fuck this up so badly?
“Umm,” I hedge, biting my bottom lip.
“Spit it out, Skai,”
“Well, uh, it’s been a year,” I say so low it’s barely audible but my mom hears like a bat, so I am sure she heard me.
“A year!? You kept this a secret from me for a whole year?”
“Yes,” I once again whisper out.
“And Jabarri, what about Natalie?” DJ asks.
“If you could just sit down, we can explain,” Jabarri says, and luckily for us, they do, and we tell them how the past year went and Natalie’s secret.
“And you decided to keep this a secret? Why?” my mom asks.
“I wasn’t sure how y’all would feel, Ma. Technically, he’s my uncle, and we weren’t sure how you guys would feel. We didn’t want to take the risk of losing our family if you and DJ were against this, even if everyone else was okay.”
“Hmm,” my mom says, looking over to DJ as he holds her hand. Jabarri rubs my back as we sit on the sofa across from them. No one is saying anything.
“Ma, please tell me you are not mad at me, that you understand, please.”
“But I don’t understand, Sweets. You are my child, my daughter. How could you misjudge your mother so badly, twice now? You kept your sexuality a secret, you kept what happened with your cousin a secret, and now this. How could you think that I would turn my back on you or not support you?” she asks, and I know she has told DJ about my past because she asked me if I would be okay with her telling him and I said yes. I also know that she knows if I am with a man, well with Jabarri, that I told him about my past too.
“Ma,” I try.
“No, hush and listen. Jag and I knew for years that Jabarri was in love with you and truth be told you loved him too, but you weren’t ready to admit it. We were waiting on the two of you to come to us. We also knew that things had changed between you too, but I don’t think we thought things had gotten this far between the two of you,”
“You knew?” I almost screech.
