Chapter Two: Introductions

The man outside looked in my direction and the introduction of our gazes felt magnetic. Not only that but he looked familiar, like we had met before. I definitely couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone in Riley’s family besides her mother. 

Suddenly I was pulled away from the window by Tillie. “You should probably put a shirt on if you’re gonna be in the window like that,” she said.

I looked down only to see my lace push-up bra… I forgot I was shirtless. No wonder he was looking at me so hard. Not only was I in a bra but there was still glitter on my boobs from the party. As my eyes fell down my body I had some bruising and scratching I didn’t notice that had to have also been from my wild night.

When I looked up I noticed Tillie’s red puffy eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked with my hand on her arm.

“I’ll tell you after we humor Aaliyah,” she said and pulled me into the bathroom. She grabbed a spray bottle to moisturize my hair and brushed it into a high ponytail. Then she added a little product to my kinky curls. “The guy Aaliyah found was cute, maybe this will be good for you.”

I rolled my eyes and proceeded to wash my face a bit before putting on my moisturizer, lipgloss, and a little bit of blush. For my daughter’s sake, I’ll at least try to look nice.

Aaliyah ran out of my room and into the bathroom with a shirt and a nice pair of shoes in her arms. “Momma put these on!” She exclaimed, practically throwing them at me.

I caught them and put the shoes on first. They were a cute pair of flats Tillie got me for my birthday last year. The shirt was a black corset top, a little sexier than I expected my eight-year-old to grab but maybe it looked fancy to her.

Aaliyah hanked me by my hand and rushed me out of the house and into the driveway. “This is my Mom!” Aaliyah exclaimed when we were face to face. “Isn’t she gorgeiaous?” she asked, pronouncing gorgeous wrong.

Riley’s uncle looked at me and smiled, absolutely charming. “Absolutely stunning,” he said.

 It wasn’t easy to make me blush but he somewhat achieved it. The kind of man I typically ended up in bed or say, in a street race with after a long night was nothing like the man my daughter chose to bring to me. He was cleaned up and looked responsible instead of rugged and grungy.

My eyes followed my daughter as she ran back to his car and opened the door to his backseat. “Liyah?” I called for her, confused.

“You said I can sleep over for Riley’s birthday!”

Oh yeah. I was worried about oversleeping for nothing. The realization that instead of going straight to Riley’s Aaliyah convinced him to stop by for us to meet hit me. I turned my attention back to the man in front of me. “Um hey,” I said with an awkward smile. “Sorry about the free show I gave you in the window. Also, we haven’t met before have we?”

He suddenly became a lot more calm. “No worries I enjoyed it, and Unfortunately no we haven’t met,” he answered. “I’m Augustine but you can call me August.”

“Clementine but you can call me Clem or stupid because that’s how I feel right now,” I said and he gave me a puzzled look. “Since you’re only here because my daughter is trying to find me a husband.” Something I didn’t even want.

August shook his head. “I think it’s adorable, it’s not like Aaliyah is a random kid. She’s talked about you a lot before. Actually,” he paused to run his hand through his hair sheepishly. “I’m pretty sure she’s trying to play matchmaker because of a comment I made last week.”

I looked at him blankly, blinking. “Comment about me?”

August chuckled and it was pretty sexy. “Yeah, she told a story about you and I made a joke, asking if you were single.” Ah, a joke Aaliyah took a little too seriously.

“And the story was…?”

“I’ll tell you another time, I don’t want to make things weird,” he said but it made me nervous that a story about me could make things weird… “The girl’s sleepover is gonna be at my house if that’s okay. The original plan was to have it at my brother’s house but Riley begged me. I have a soft spot for my niece so I gave in.” He shrugged. “You’re welcome to spend the night too, it shouldn’t be weird since I’m gonna be your new husband, or so I’ve been told.”

I laughed and said, “Trust me you doubt you want me for a wife.” I would have accepted his invitation, except Tillie needed me.

Our eye contact intensified as he replied, “How can you be so sure?”

“You’ll find out how much of a mess I am,” I said, trying to make it sound like a lighthearted statement. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” August said with a smirk as he handed me his phone. He created a new contact he put my name in as “Wife” on his phone, he was really entertaining this whole thing… “I’d love to stay out in the sun and talk to you all day but my niece will verbally abuse me if I waste any more of her special day,” he explained as I gave his phone back with my number in it.

When he got in the driver's seat I waved to my daughter and watched him pull off. 

I took a deep breath and tried to shake off my weird smile. Then, I walked into Tillie’s unit and she was waiting for me on the couch. “So what’s up?” I asked.

“Brooklyn was killed last night.”

Oh shit.

That's why I recognized the woman on the news. It was Tillie’s cousin Brooklyn. It wasn’t like I didn’t know her. I’ve been friends with Tillie since we were in elementary school. I practically grew up with her family, including cousins. Tillie had fallen out with that side of her family and hadn’t been in touch with Brooklyn since we were in middle school. So I didn’t know what she grew up to look like.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Do you know what happened?” Tillie asked. “Did you talk to the police?”

I paused, taking a moment to figure out why she was asking me but I couldn’t. “Why would I?”

“Because,” she started and pulled her phone out. She opened our text messages and held her phone out in front of me. “You were with her and her fiancee Evan last night, at least at some point.”

Fuck… “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“Yeah,” she said with a disappointed sigh. “You were fucked up last night, I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“Tillie— “

“It’s okay,” she said cutting me off. “Evan didn’t mention you so I don’t think you were around when it happened.” She sniffled. “If you remember anything, please tell me.”

I nodded and grabbed her phone, reading our messages so I could jog my memory. Our conversation was short. It was just me telling her how crazy it was that I bumped into Brooklyn and that she missed her. I even asked ifI could give Brooklyn her number so they could reconnect.

I stayed in Tillie’s unit with her all day and slept over. We spent some of the time reminiscing about Brooklyn and the rest relaxing.

In the morning I woke up early and went to my unit to do this manic routine. I wasn’t sure where all this energy came from but I did the kind of maintenance and nourishing shit my beautiful friends went on about doing every day. The ones who said they were in their, “healthy girl era” or something like that. Basically, I wanted to look good for when I picked up Aaliyah but I wouldn’t admit that to her. 

At most, I hope to look good enough for someone like August to want to fuck. That was all I wanted and nothing more since I couldn’t imagine us getting along romantically.

I loved my free-spirited lifestyle.

I drove to the address August sent me and the neighborhood gave off this uptight suburban vibe. The house I ended up at was huge and the lawn screamed money. No wonder Riley insisted on having her sleeping here, it was a little girl’s mansion.

I heard music talking coming from the back as I approached the house so I followed it. I looked between the cracks of the gate and saw the group of girls dancing and playing in their pajamas. My attention was quickly drawn to August who was talking to a woman. She was stunning and matched the settling of his home. She also looked familiar but I couldn’t place her.

Maybe her type was what he was looking for, put together classy businesswoman.

August’s eyes wandered over to me and he walked straight to the gate. He pushed the latch and opened it, letting me in. “Hey I wasn’t excepting you so early,” he said. “Trust me Aaliyah isn’t going to want to leave yet but you should join us.”

My eyes drifted over to the woman lying in a lounge patio chair. “Join you and…?”

August laughed, looking back at the women for a second. “My sister-in-law, Riley’s mom,” he specified.

“Oh.”

“Actually I’m not sure if she counts as my sister-in-law anymore since he divorced my brother,” he explained. “That’s not the point though, is it?” He raised his eyebrows. “You wanted to make sure I was single?” a smirk emerged.

I scoffed at his assumption that I cared. I didn’t even want a relationship, I just wanted to fuck. Whether or not he had a girlfriend mattered little to me. Well as long as I didn’t know about it. I wasn’t completely horrible… or maybe I was? This wasn’t the time to become self-aware.

“I’m joking,” August laughed. “But I don’t see the harm in seeing if there could be something between us.” Straight forward, I kinda liked that.

A smirk of my own appeared. “We’ll see.”

I wasn’t sure what I was really supposed to call August. All I knew was that my new… situationship I guess, was my daughter’s choice.

Hopefully, Aaliyah chose right.