Page 121 of The Woman on the Jury

“You okay, sweetie?” she asked, all honey-sweet as she turned to the girl.

“Yeah,” the girl said, giving Halle a small smile.

“Melody, I sincerely apologize for how my sons have behaved tonight, making you feel uncomfortable in our home. I will think of a way to make them make this up to you. But until then, can I bring you home?”

“I can—” our younger son said.

The fire was back, making her turn so fast that both our boys stiffened.

“Excuse me, is anyone speaking to you right now?” she snapped.

“No, ma’am,” they chorused.

“I didn’t think so,” she said, then turned back to Melody. “Do you want me to walk you back to your apartment?” she asked, since Melody lived in our building.

“No, thank you. I’m okay,” she said, giving Halle a smile as she moved out from behind the couch. “Thank you,” she added, then started to cross the apartment.

“Mel…” our younger son started to say, but shut right the fuck up when the girl whipped her head in his direction, and pinned him with a look that made my blood run cold.

Hebigfucked up, it seemed.

“Don’t talk to her,” our older son snapped.

“Yeah,” Melody said when she reached the door. “Don’t talk to me.”

With that, she was gone.

But the boys were back to staring at each other like they were about to get into it again.

“Someone better start talking,” Halle said. Then, loud enough to make me fucking jolt, “Now!”

“My plans fell through,” our older son said. “So I came home early. Caught Mel in the elevator. So I figured she was coming up to see him,” he said, then glared at his brother. “But I opened the door to find his fucking ass—“

“Watch it,” Halle snapped.

“To findhimon the couch with Lani,” he said.

Fuck.

It was worse than I’d imagined.

Lani was our older son’s on-again-off-again girl.

And Mel was our younger son’s ex girl that he’d been trying to woo back for a week or two.

“We weren’t doing anything,” our younger son insisted.

“I know what I saw. Mel knows what she saw. Be a fucking man and own up to it.”

“Good men don’t settle fights with their hands in front of innocent women. I’m ashamed of both of you tonight,” Halle declared. “Go to your rooms. I don’t want to see either of you right now.”

With that, the boys climbed off the floor, and made their way down the hall.

We’d needed to convert a storage room into a living space, take down a wall of the guest room, then split the bigger space in two to give them each their own space since neither Halle nor I wanted to move. This place had too much meaning to us.

Halle waited for each door to shut before turning to me with a big grin.

“How’d I do?” she asked, bouncing on her heels.

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