His Concubine (Book 2 of the Vanessa Solomon Series)

Chapter 18

         The next morning my mom was in the kitchen cooking breakfast and making coffee as we entered through the hallway. She turned to us in her comfy black sweater and jeans with a big smile on her face.

"Good morning honey!" She gave me a big hug before we took a seat at the bar. I didn't see my dad around anywhere, so I wondered where he had gone.

"Where's daddy?" I asked as I watched her cook and took in the wonderful smell of fresh coffee. It smelt just like home with the fresh food in the air and the smell of Jasmine. My mom always burned Jasmine incense ever since I was little, and I'm pretty sure she also had it in a perfume.

"He's out back getting the badminton set up. He thought you might want to play against him and Matt. That used to be your favorite game."

"Really? I haven't played in forever! That'll be so much fun!" I could feel my heart speed up with excitement. I remembered playing with my friends every Summer during high school, and even joined the team once our school realized it was a sport. I was beyond excited to play against my dad and Matt. I wondered if Damarius knew how to play...

"Have you ever played badminton?" I asked him. And even though he was sitting on the bar stool beside me, he was still so much taller than me that I had to look up to talk to him.

"No, how do you play?"

"Come on, I'll show you before the game starts!"

"Wait. You two should eat some breakfast first." My mom said as she put two omelets down in front of us with 2 glasses of water.

"Thanks mama," I said with a smile, and began eating so we could go and play. I couldn't wait to see how a demon did in sports. Was it bad of me to hope that I would whoop his ass? Nah.

We finished eating our omelets so fast that I hoped it would digest quickly so it wouldn't slow me down. We walked outside to the backyard to see my dad and Matt warming up with two of the rackets that we used to practice with. I'm surprised they've lasted this long without breaking. Matt smiled at me in his dark blue Under Armour hoodie and sweatpants. My dad was rocking the black biker hoodie and some black sweat pants. It was pretty chilly out here, but I didn't want to put on a jacket just to take it back off when I got cold.

"How are you both not freezing?" My dad asked as he looked at me like I lost my mind.

"I'll get warm when we start."

"I bet I can still beat you like I used to," Matt teased, but I didn't remember him ever beating me.

"You must of dreamt that because I don't remember you ever beating me."

"It's probably a memory that you've blocked out so you could move on with your life."

I shot him an exaggerated glare and he let out a laugh as I picked up the two rackets on the ground. I handed one to Damarius and then showed him the white shuttle that you had to hit.

"You want to hit this across the net into their court, and when they hit it back, you hit it again. You can't let it touch the ground, and don't hit it so hard that it goes outside of the bounds. If they hit it and it doesn't go over the net, then we get the point. But once the shuttle hits the ground, the rally is over." I tried my best to explain it to him, and he seemed to understand as he nodded his head and began bouncing the shuttle on his racket.

"We'll practice a few times between me and you so you can get a feel for it. Ready?"

He handed me the shuttle and gave a nod. I bent my knees to get in position and then tossed the shuttle up in the air. Embarrassingly, I missed.