19. 🔧 Alternator

**JUSTICE**

While Keke talks to Cam, I text Pip, asking if I can come over after the bar closes. She responds right away, saying she’ll wait up for me.
Xaver won’t be too happy about it, and he’s not, considering the dark look he gives me in the doorway. He’s wearing gray pajama pants and nothing else. I guess he wants me to know how late the hour is by looking like he is ready for sleep.
“You can cover up now, Sayle. I get the hint.”
“Justice,” Xaver says, shaking his head, “although my wife tolerates you, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
We’re even in height, so it is damn hard to intimidate him, but I give it my best shot by growling, “Shut up, Sayle, and go back to bed.”
Pippa comes around the corner in a cotton nightgown and fuchsia silk robe. Her belly sticks out more than the last time I saw her a few weeks ago. Pregnancy always seems to agree with Pippa. She looks radiant.
“Half my bed is up at this late hour, staring at your ugly mug. I hope you won’t keep Pi up too long. She has...uh things to do.” The look they exchange before Xaver heads down the hall makes the temperature in the room rise ten degrees.
Stuff like that used to bug the shit out of me when they first got together. Now all I do is laugh. Pip and Xaver are right for each other. He takes care of Pip like she deserves whereas I don’t even know where to begin, seeing as I screwed things up with Keke.
And that was without even trying.
I greet my friend with a “Hey, Pip,” and a quick hug, shelving thoughts of Keke for later.
When I’m bed, alone.
Pippa caresses her belly, her large eyes on me. “Do you want to go into the kitchen? I could use a cup of tea.”
“Sounds good.”
As we walk, I realize that a few years ago, I would have been staring at Pippa’s ass.
How times have changed.
Keke now fills my thoughts. All I can see is her.
I’ve stared at her flawless face, her lips, her ass, since day one, using my imagination on what I couldn’t see.
How soft she would be. How welcoming. How tight.
My thoughts whirl. I’m so damn torn; I don’t know which way is up.
If I think on it, and I have all damn night, I can still feel Keke’s lips meshed to mine. Smell her spicy scent. Still feel her warm embrace—the strength and comfort it gave me when I was hurting over Cameron’s pain. It tore me up to see him suffering, just like it does when anyone I love is distressed or sad.
And even though we hadn’t talked things through from when we kissed, Keke didn’t hesitate to show me she cared.
And what did I do?
I stood there, stiff as a board, afraid to give into what I was feeling. Afraid I would take her against the wall.
On the pool table.
Against the ice machine.
On the hood of the car she likes so much.
When she pulled back, I knew I hurt her. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice.
I had to distance myself. And I did, hurting her even more. I made her feel like she was the only one who felt something.
Bullshit.
I’m right there with her, wanting her so badly she appears nightly in my dreams.
“So, what do you want to talk about, Justice?” Pippa sits a steaming cup of Earl Grey on a coaster. I pick it up and take a sip, the fragrant warmth helping me to get control of my thoughts.
“There was an... incident today. Cameron got sent to the office for insulting his teacher. He was lashing out because his birth certificate doesn’t list his father.”
Pippa’s eyes grow wide. “How did he find out?”
Pippa knows some of Lilli’s story.
She knows Lilli got shot and is raising her dead sister’s kids.
What she doesn’t know is I’m the cause of Lilli moving from Oakland to Detroit.
Back then, I was a stupid teen, hanging out on street corners, trying to impress the loser friends I’d made. That day Duncan, Luke, and I boosted a car and drove it to Oakland. Duncan and Luke had to get out of San Francisco for a minute. They’d stolen a six-pack of beer from a convenience store the night before and they thought the cops were hot on their trail.
We dumped the car in an alley and walked a few miles to a food truck. After buying tacos with the money we scrounged up, we ate them on a street corner across from the truck, soaking up the sun and the atmosphere.
Girls would walk by, and to pass the time, I started rating them from one to ten. When Lilli came around the corner, she smashed the rating scale. We’d stared in shocked silence at her beauty.
To appear cool, I started making dumb, sexual, remarks.
I’ll never forget the fear in her eyes when Duncan, always an idiot, grabbed Lilli and started feeling her up. I forcefully removed his hands and dragged his ass away, Luke following.
Only years later, when Lilli moved down the street, did I learn how my attention brought her into harm’s way. A true narcissist, Duncan had shot Lilli because he wanted revenge on her for rejecting him.
The blame lies squarely on me for putting her on his radar.
“How did he find out?” I repeat Pippa’s question as if I’d been thinking of it instead of my stupid, childish act. “I’m not sure, Pip. He somehow found my hidden lockbox in the closet.” I shrug. “Trust Curious Cameron to be the one to open it.”
Pippa nods with the strength of a few years’ parenting behind her. “Curious Cameron is right. Little man gets into everything.” She gives me a leveled gaze. “What happened next? By you coming over here, I can tell it isn’t good.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her about Keke. I don’t. That subject is for another time.
Pippa and I text every day, yet I still have to tell her more about Keke other than she is helping at the bar and with the kids. The only reason I mentioned Keke at all is because Jenna told Pip about her and Pip questioned me.
I fobbed off my situation with Keke as being less than it was. Mainly because I still feel awkward about lumping them together.
Talking about Keke feels like I’m betraying Pippa, when nothing could be further from the truth. I squashed any romantic feelings I had for Pip years ago.
What keeps us close is our deep connection, something that transcends feelings of friendship.
Maybe it was the abuse we suffered as children that binds us. Maybe it’s because she’s wanted nothing from me... or maybe she’s just easy to talk to. Whatever it is, we’re comfortable around each other. More so than I’ve ever been with any woman.
And I’m feeling the same level of comfort around Keke.
I know I’ll miss her when she goes.
And she will go.
I overheard her talking to her brother Trey this afternoon. She gave him her flight information and said she could hardly wait to see him. She also said she was heading back overseas in the new year.
She has no plans to stay in New York.
Stay with me.
And dammit, I want her to.
“Cam went into my office and when I took him home, he laid on his bed and refused to come out. Even for dinner.”
Pippa looks at me with sympathy. “I know my time is coming, when one of my children will refuse my counsel.” She gives me a rueful smile and pats her belly. “Probably sooner than I expect. With that said, I can only advise you as a parent trying to find her own way.”
I nod at her to continue. I trust her advice. Experience isn’t everything. Someone who is well-meaning is.
She looks at a point on the wall, dispelling her wisdom in soft breaths. “Cameron has had a lot to take in. After his mother’s death, he’s had a complete change of lifestyle, not to mention the trials of puberty. To have his identity ripped out from under him must be overwhelming. He’s probably unsure how to proceed with his brothers...with you.” She plucks at the sleeve of her robe to cover her wrist, then raises her eyes to me. “What I suggest is giving him a break...a new outlook. Why don’t you bring the kids over on Monday and they can stay until Thanksgiving? We can all have dinner together and you know my parents are coming with Samuel. The kids adore him, what with Samuel being into the same video games as them.”
That’s true. The kids surround Pippa’s brother Samuel like he is some deity come to earth. Lilli could barely get the kids to leave the last time they were together. Their mouths didn’t stop complaining the whole way out the door.
“Thanks, Pip. I’ll take you up on that.”
Guilt invades me like ants marching to a vat of oil. I accepted Pippa’s offer with two thoughts in mind: to help the kids… and to give me some alone time with Keke.
With no distractions or interruptions, perhaps I can convince her to stay.