Page 6 of Typa
I walked into the house, and Mama smiled at me. She was in the kitchen, as usual. She loved cooking and baking. Maui was seated at the island, watching her cook. After hugging my mama, I made my way to her. I leaned over and kissed her lips as my mama said, “Mythic, what happened to your head?”
My hand instinctively went to it as I frowned. “Nothing for you to worry about, Ma. I’m alright.”
Maui stood and walked behind me. “Mythic, you need to go to the hospital. You may need stitches. I can see blood coming through the bandage.”
I pulled the bandages from my pocket and went to the bathroom as Maui followed me. When I took the bandage off, she gasped.
“Mythic—”
“It’s fine. I can promise you he looks a lot worse.”
She swallowed hard and lowered her head while I changed the bandage. Opening the medicine cabinet, I took the bottle of Advil from it and popped four into my mouth, chewing those muthafuckas. My head was pounding. When I turned back to her, she lowered her head. “My parents and Remy are on their way.”
Remy was her youngest brother. He was still in grade school. “That’s it?”
“He said he was trying to get the twins to come, but they were busy at the clinic. Carter and Red may be able to get them out here later.”
“Well, I didn’t plan to be over here all night.”
She lifted her head and stared at me, causing my core to soften. I took a deep breath as she stepped closer to me. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Mythic. I’m not going anywhere.”
I nodded, then grabbed her hand, leading her back to the kitchen. She understood me so well. I just wished I could trust her words. I couldn’t be around those twins though. I’d mess around and forget they were women and fuck one of them up. Just the way Bali looked at me made me flip my razor blade in my mouth. That girl danced on all my nerves without saying a word. When we sat, Mama turned to me, and said, “Are you gonna go to the hospital?”
“Later.”
She slowly shook her head, knowing she would be wasting her breath to say anything more. I did what the fuck I wanted to do. I wasn’t easily persuaded at all. I grabbed Maui’s hand and kissed it, then just stared at it. This woman was about to be the mother of my child. I wanted to tell everybody, but she wanted to keep it under wraps for right now. I didn’t understand why. What was done was done.
I glanced at her, and it was like she knew what I wanted to say. She turned her attention to my mama, and asked, “Can we tell you something?”
My mama frowned slightly as she turned to us. She wiped her hands on a towel and sat across from us. “Yeah, of course.”
Maui glanced at me, so I said, “Maui’s pregnant.”
My mama rolled her eyes. “Chile, I already knew that shit.”
My eyebrows lifted, and Maui’s eyes widened as she continued. “Your dad and I were talking about it about a week ago. I have to assume your family doesn’t know, Maui. Did you plan to tell them when they got here?”
“No. I can’t tell them today. Tensions are already high. I need to let things settle down for a minute first.”
My mama nodded and went back to the stove. I stood and went next to her to see what she was cooking. When I saw the greens and sausage, I frowned. “Is that some type of greens stew?”
She smiled. “It’s a collard greens gumbo. I saw it on TikTok, and it looked so good. I had to try it. It’s almost ready. You wanna taste the juice?”
“Yeah. I’m curious.”
She giggled and got a spoon to dip some out. She blew it to cool it off and brought it to my mouth like she used to do when I was a kid. I sipped it off the spoon and closed my eyes, concentrating on the flavors. When I opened my eyes, I frowned at her. “Damn, Mama. That’s good. I don’t know why I expected anything less.”
She smiled big. “Thank you, baby.”
When I heard a car door close, I knew it was probably my dad. Had it been the Hendersons, it would have been more than one door to close. Sure enough, he walked in and went straight to my mama, kissing her softly on the lips. He swatted her on herrear end as I turned my lip up, then he came to me and slapped my outstretched hand.
“Fix yo’ face. That’s my cake, in my house. I can smack it if I want to.”
I shook my head as he hugged Maui. When he released her, he said, “So the Hendersons are about ten minutes away. Mythic?—”
“I’m cool, man. I’ve always been cool in their presence. I just don’t take fuck shit. Is he coming too?”
“Yeah, man.”
