Damali cocked her head to the side. Jose laughed and ran his palm over his hair.
"Your girl made Big Mike some ribs the other night before they announced another Houston trip, and uh - "
"Noooo..." Damali covered her mouth.
"Shabazz been in there doing Kung Fu on tables and shit," Jose said, laughing. "Anything wood is fair game for a brother's tension. Lost sections of the dining room in the backyard. So when Mike split, him and Mar was out a few nights ago. Marlene and Shabazz left this morning, too. You been missing a lot of drama while being over here checking on contractors, fixing stuff up, and then when you finally pulled out of the minicompound all hell broke loose." He laughed harder. "I don't know where they are now, truthfully. After you ran it all down and left, we started losing household. Guess everybody needed somewhere to go chill."
She covered her face and laughed out loud. "Oh, my God!"
"Berkfield ain't no punk, either. Rolled right after Shabazz and Marlene got ghost."
"Marjorie and Richard split and left their kids? You have got to be lying!" Damali walked in a circle, the blankets swishing behind her like a royal robe. "Everybody's all right, though? Nobody's seen anything weird and been touched by anybody outside of the house, right? For real, Jose." Her laughter had gone, her expression was tight.
"Naw," he said, giving her a hug. "They cool. Just blowing off steam like we always do before going into another big battle." He chuckled low. "You know that gladiator-type shit... good meal, good woman, good night's sleep, then get strapped and go to war."
She immediately relaxed and put her head on his shoulder. Jose's warmth felt so good, just like his hands against her back did. "All right. I'll stop being mother hen."
"Good," he murmured, rubbing her spine. "You're too tense, though I can understand why."
"You always make me feel better when crazy shit is going down," she said, sighing from the knots he was unfurling in her back. "Damn, that feels good."
He breathed out a contented sigh, and the warmth of it rippled through her hair. "It's all good, D. You ain't hear this from me, but earlier this week, Rider put a rifle on his lap while we was all playing cards and gave J.L. the eye. Gave him the don't-try-it-while-her-pop-is-out big-brother thing, feel me? That old equipment shed behind the house got stories we'll all take to our graves, but if J.L. had lost his mind and taken a walk in the moonlight with Miss Kris, and Rider had been roasted enough to try to stop a martial artist on a mission - hey, he mighta whupped Rider's ass. The house is a powder keg, D. I think the only thing that kept J.L. chill was the girl's brother ain't warmed up to the concept yet, and Dan has Bobby's back - so."
"Lawd have mercy." Damali shook her head and left Jose's loose embrace to go turn on the kettle again. "See, that's why a sistah had to be out."
"I can dig it," Jose said with a smirk. "Don't worry about your boy, Carlos, either. Rider had his back. That's why I came by, so you wouldn't worry. Brother is still fell out on the porch swing and sleeping it off, so like I said, it's all good."
The mirth peeled away from her once more. Oh, no, not yet. They had been back, the old them, now the moment had evaporated like steam.
While she appreciated Jose's update on Carlos's whereabouts, she really wasn't ready to interject that into the happiness he'd brought through her door. Mention of Carlos meant that she had to think about the thing she was trying not to think about. In a roundabout way, Jose had given her a full account of where everybody had been, except he and Juanita... Not that that was her business. And then she'd have to think about all sorts of other things, which returned her to the concept of sharing, which she'd successfully banished for five minutes of free thought. So she did what Marlene always did when the subject matter got thick, made tea.
"I've got green, mint, uh, strawberry, echinacea, uh, golden seal, and - "
"Mint's cool, but you got any Joe in the house?"
"Coffee, oh, yeah, sure. I forgot that you and Rider don't do herbals first thing, uh, not sure where it is, umm..." She sounded like a mad hatter, and knew it, but couldn't stop herself as she banged open cabinets and shut them, moving in jerky, confused, starts and stops.
"It's cool, D," Jose said, his voice mellow and amused as he neared her. "It really is cool."
His hands on her shoulders stopped her desperate search for coffee grounds. It stilled her body, but made her mind fly out of her ears and her heart nearly pound out of her chest. A simple nod without turning to face him was all that she could manage, and she understood what he meant by it all being cool - problem was, it wasn't.
"I'm glad you liked the blanket," he said quietly, his body close enough to hers to allow her to feel the heat of it adding to the blanket in its own distinct layer. "I kept it on my bed for years... and, uh, wanted to give you something that always comforted me when I was alone."
Oh, shit, she was gonna have a heart attack. No words formed in her mind or her mouth. Her vocal chords were frozen. She could only wrap the blanket closer to her body to both stave off the shiver his statement had produced and to acknowledge how sensual an act giving her the blanket had been. It was a profound gift, something to be cherished, and it had been offered with enough measure of respect, without totally crossing the invisible line. But the gesture was also beginning to print a license for him to do that. All those nights when he'd wanted her... wrapped in this... Didn't he understand that she was also a tactical sensor! His hands on her shoulders and touching the threads, was making the fabric practically come alive around her like a caress. Plus, hombre had a little vamp in him, too... Oh, Lord... Everything she was feeling the night before while standing in front of the refrigerator was waking up inside her.
"D, I have a confession to make," he said quietly, "and I hope you won't be mad at me."
She swallowed hard and was barely breathing. His hands trailed down her arms, but he might as well have run them down her back.
"I wouldn't have stopped by if I thought Carlos was here... I mean, unannounced like this."
She closed her eyes. "I know," she whispered.
He leaned his chin on her shoulder, his warm breaths coating her neck, making small tingles run down her spine and setting a slow smolder to her throat. He smelled clean, masculine clean, with an Ivory Soap foundation that she'd just begun to notice. She stood there, immobile, separating the scents of him in delicate layers. Mint mouthwash, Ivory Soap, shampoo, male chemical pheromone... Until this moment, she hadn't really understood just how sensual a creature Jose was... at least not the way he was making her understand it now.
"I don't know how to say it," he murmured and then sighed.
She kept her back straight and her body extremely still, not sure whether she should melt into the invitation and close the sliver of space between them. She struggled with a response. She couldn't say that honesty had always been theirs, because they'd been lying about this very thing to each other, as well as to themselves, for years. The word trust came to mind, and she seized upon it.