Page 11 of Time Stops With You

The sharp afternoon sunlight causes him to squint. Mahogany-toned fingers sprint across the screen furiously.

With a deep sigh, I stomp back over to my little brother and flick his head.

“Ow!” He cries. Chocolate brown eyes swirling with annoyance shoot up to me.

“I’m talking to you,” I say without remorse.

Josiah’s nostrils flare. Just as quickly as he looked at me, he returns his attention to his phone and mumbles, “Yeah.”

“Did you hear about the stove?”

“Yeah.”

“And the microwave?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the oxtail? Heat it up for three minutes.”

“Yeah.”

I roll my eyes. My little brother’s got an insanely high IQ, but with all the power in his brilliant brain, his vocabulary is pea-sized.

“What are you even doing?” I sit on the arm of the sofa we dragged upstairs all the way from a local thrift store and try to peer at the phone.

Like an untied spring, he yanks the device flat against his chest. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’re concentrating that hard on ‘nothing’?”

“Yeah.”

That’s about as much as I can get out of Josiah, so I stop trying. He might be distracted and particular, but he’s a good kid. I doubt he’s watching or doing anything he shouldn’t.

At least I hope so.

I amnotready to give my little brother the ‘birds and the bees’ talk and, since he’s only eleven, I figure I have at least a few more years until the teenaged hormones kick in.

“If today’s anything like last week, we’ll sell out fast, so I’ll be back by four the latest. Call me if you need anything.”

Nothing. Not even a grunt of acknowledgment.

“You hear me, Josiah?”

“Yeah.”

There we go.

I pick up the large, paper bag by the doorway. It’s filled with three plastic containers, each the size of a large shoe box. The containers are filled to the brim with Caribbean-style coleslaw.

Closing the door behind me, I check the doorknob once to make sure the lock is secure and then rush down the dimly-lit hallway. An impossibly thin staircase looms before me.

“Alright, baby. Let’s go,” I hype myself up.

By the time I make it from the fourth floor to the ground floor, I’m winded. I really need to get back to my YouTube exercise videos. Affording the gym is out of the picture, but there are plenty of free cardio classes online.

“Hey, mama.” An overweight man wearing sunglasses unfolds himself from the wall.

“You’re still here, Big T?” I ask, maneuvering the paper bag over my elbow. With my hands free, I pull out my keys and unlock my trusty old sedan.

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