Page 12 of Her BRATVA Protector
“Stop it. And stop eating that. You’re disgusting. It was on the floor for ages.”
“ I amsohappy for you.”
“Stop.”
She comes around and hugs me tight. “You deserve this.”
I wiggle out of her arms, but I’m smiling. “I deserve to be leftalone.”
“You deserve a hot Scottish man who saw you and decided.”
“Jas’.”
I stare at her.
She stares back.
And I cannot keep my face straight any longer. The laugh comes out of me in a rush, halfway to a sob, and Jasmine starts laughing too, and we sit at the kitchen table laughing for a full thirty seconds while my heart is in my throat and the sun is getting lower outside the window.
When the laughter stops, she reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine.
“Mama,” she says, gentle now. “Are you scared?”
I think about it.
“Yes,” I say finally. “But not the way I should be.”
She squeezes my hand.
“I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too, baby.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with him tonight.”
“Thank you.”
“And if he is as hot as you are making him sound…”
“Stop talking.”
She winks, laughing again, and gets up to find actual food. I sit at the table, watching her rummage through the freezer. The sun islownow. The light coming through the kitchen window has turned golden.
I look at the clock.
It says a quarter to eight.
He said tonight.
Jasmine makes us pasta, and we eat, but I cannot taste anything. She talks the whole time, refusing to let me dwell, narrating her day, occasionally circling back towas his hair short or longorwhat was he wearing...
After dinner, she insists on doing the dishes. I sit at the kitchen table with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, watching my daughter rinse plates with her shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter every few minutes, and I am full of love and dread in equal measure.
The light outside goes from gold to orange to that deep dusty pink that means we have, maybe, ten more minutes of daylight.
Jasmine wipes her hands on a dish towel and turns to me.
“I’m going upstairs to change.”
