The Reinvention of the Rose - Christina C. Jones Page 0,38

daughter out in a store in the middle of what I thought would’ve been a school day. “Why aren’t you at school?”

Her eyes had gone wide behind her hot-pink glasses at the sight of me, and when she opened her mouth to answer, nothing came out.

“Uh, who the fuck are you?” I heard, and shifted my attention to Kiara’s left, as another woman approached, scowling as she left her basket to get between me and Kiara.

I realized very quickly that Kiara and Tristan didn’t look as much alike as I thought.

Because Kiara looked just like her mother.

Von, I remembered him calling her.

Von was… excessively pretty, with big brown eyes and long thick natural lashes, high cheek bones, cute nose. Like Tristan – and Kiara – she had locs, but hers were a pretty copper that contrasted against her deep brown skin.

Perfect skin.

“You hear me talking to you, right?” she asked, snapping her fingers in a sharp pop. “What did you have to say to my child that you couldn’t say in front of me?”

I blinked. “I… um…”

“This is Tempest, mama,” Kiara spoke up. “Daddy’s girlfriend.”

Those big brown eyes went damn near black, flashing in anger as she snapped her head back in my direction. “Excuse me? I don’t know what Tris told you that has you all comfortable addressing my child, but let me tell you something – you don’t know her until you know me, and I don’t fucking know you. And you can tell Tristan I thought he learned his lesson with the last bitch he had around my daughter – don’t let yourself be another lesson he has to learn with me, ‘kay?”

All that came pouring out of her at what felt like lightning speed, and I was still so dazed I could barely process what was happening.

I did hear the menace in her tone, though.

“Who the fuck do your call yourself threatening?” I asked, unable to keep a smirk off my face. “You’re right – you don’t know me, or you’d know better.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, so he got a bitch with some backbone this time, okay, that’s cute. But you’re still trash for being around my kid without even the courtesy of having said hi, bye, kiss my ass, whatever, beforehand.”

“She hasn’t been around me, mama,” Kiara spoke up again, before I could give the ugly response that was right on the tip of my tongue. “We ran into her one day in Urban Grind, and I could tell he liked her, so I made him tell me. That’s all. And she asked why I wasn’t at school,” she explained, clearly trying to diffuse the tense situation. “I had an orthodontist appointment, so I got to skip school.”

“Oh.” That was Von’s dry ass response. “My bad.”

Without anything more, she turned and walked away – not an apology, nothing. Kiara gave me a sympathetic shrug, then ran off to follow her mother, leaving me to wonder what the fuck had just happened.

Well, obviously I knew what had just happened, but damn.

What a mood killer.

I left grown without buying a single grocery, because by mind was reeling now.

Of course this thing between Tristan and I was very new, so it was sensible – smart, even – that he hadn’t had me around his daughter.

But to not have even mentioned me to his child’s mother over the weeks he’d spend working himself into my presence… kinda bothered me.

You’re probably tripping.

Right.

That was probably it.

But… just in case, since I didn’t end up with the things for cooking… I decided to pull something different from the list.

Instead of wallowing in confusion, I set my sights for the tattoo parlor, knowing – hoping – that seeing him in person would cheer me up.

A quick drop in to surprise him could be a perfect midday energy boost for both of us.

It was quiet when I walked into the tattoo parlor.

Most likely because it was midday and the people who were in there now for their ink were people who had set up appointments with their individual artist.

Which was why Tristan was here in the first place - an appointment he hadn’t said too much about.

That gave me a little bit of pause about this whole “surprise” thing, especially since it said nothing about popping up at someone’s job. I didn’t want to be too big of an interruption or distraction while he was trying to work, but...still.

After that little run-in with the mother of his child, I was feeling a little