Still Waters

Chapter 59

"Kenney...what are you doing here?"

I ran a hand over my leftover hairdo from the day before and looked back into the kitchen at Sammie, who was sitting at the table, totally involved in her snacks. The girl loved her snacks. When I watched Kenney walk out of the rec center the day before, I figured that was just that. So I tucked the little heartstring that had somehow gotten pulled out of place neatly back where it came from and went on about my day.

But now here he was...at my doorstep.

Life.

I shook my head at the circus of it all and stepped back to let him in. There were toys all over the place.

"Tenney!" Sammie called like he was Norm from Cheers, and waved. "Hi Tenney!" She had the sweetest voice. If you ever wanted to feel like someone thought you were the greatest ever, all you had to do was swing on over to our place.

Kenney smiled. "Hey Charlie Brown." He said it so softly that she probably didn't hear him. She waved again, anyway, before turning back to her snack. It was good that she was strapped into her booster seat or she probably would have tried to jump down and run over to him, not realizing how high up she was.

"Kenney...what are you doing here?" I asked again, thoroughly confused.

"I came over to check on you."

I smiled and took another step back. "Your aunt told me to stay away from you."

He grinned. "She told me to stay away from you, too. And yet, here we are..." he gave me a quick hug. "She's not the boss of us."

I just stared at him. I didn't know what else to do.

"Jasmine told me where you were staying." He answered the unasked how the hell do you know where I live question. "She had to have known that I would come out here when she told me..." His confidence waivered, I guess mistaking my surprise for my not wanting him to be there.

"Kenney..." I hugged him again, hard.

"Tenney!" Samantha repeated from her little front row seat in the kitchen.

"I'm just...really happy to see you." I grinned dazedly up at him.

He grinned back. "I'm happy to see you, too."

"You are?"

"Yeah, of course." He cleared his throat excessively. "But a brotha is a little parched." He dramatically tapped at his throat and cleared it some more.

I smiled and walked toward the kitchen. Kenney closed and locked the door behind him and followed. When he walked past Sammie, he gave her the secret shortcake handshake. That must have been something that he and Drama thought up the night we left them alone with the baby.

Guys.

"Kenney, how did you even get in here? We have a gate."

He kind of looked at me for a minute, realizing that he may have just made me feel like we weren't as safe as I thought we were in there.

"Jasmine told me that you had a gate, and that visitors could either call you from the gate or dial the code...and Shayna gave me the code..." He looked like he was definitely having second thoughts about the surprise visit now. "I hope that's ok..."

I nodded and turned to busy myself in the refrigerator, using the door to hide my face. "We have milk, water and juice."

"Hey," he put his hand on my arm and I turned back to him. "I'm serious. Are you ok with me being here?"