Adrianne Byrd - King's Promise

“Were you going to use karate on him?” He shifted his gaze from the monsterless closet and stared up at her.

“You know it.” She tried to run her fingers through his thick blondish-brown hair, but as usual it was a bit tangled with its wayward curls. “When is your mother going to fix your hair?”

“She was supposed to do it tonight, but she fell asleep.”

Cheryl shook her head. “All right. Back in the bed you go, li’l man. You have school in the morning.”

Thaddeus poked out his bottom lip, but shuffled his way over to his twin-size bed where Cheryl peeled back the top sheet and waited for him. When he got close to the bed, he launched himself onto the mattress and laid his head on his cartoon-character pillow.

Cheryl couldn’t resist tickling his side to elicit one of his hilarious, funny-sounding giggles. Once she got it, she leaned down and planted a wet kiss on his chubby cheek. “Good night, li’l man.”

“Night, Auntie. When I grow up, I’m going to be a police officer just like you.”

Cheryl’s heart squeezed as tears quickly flooded her eyes. “And I’m sure that you’ll make an excellent police officer.” She stole another kiss and then tucked him into bed. “Sweet dreams,” she said at the door before turning off the light switch.

Her smile was still stretched across her lips as she walked from her nephew’s bedroom and headed toward the kitchen. There, her younger sister, Larissa, was slumped over her biology textbook and snoring softly into the pages.

Cheryl stopped at the entry to the kitchen and shook her head. She couldn’t help but be sympathetic to her sister’s hectic schedule. She worked full-time in a clothing store, while juggling being a single mom and going to college at night to become a nurse. It was a lot, and Cheryl was extremely proud of her sister. Because Larissa had her son so young, she could’ve continued her life making bad decisions. But when Thaddeus’s father decided not to be a part of his biracial son’s life—along with his well-to-do family—Larissa didn’t fall apart. She picked herself up, dusted herself off and got busy trying to ensure a better life for her and her son. A lot of times that meant having to lean on family members, but everyone in the Grier family was more than willing to help as long as Larissa was committed to doing what was right.

Cheryl was no different.

Three years after Thaddeus was born, the Grier sisters were thrown a major curveball when their parents were killed in an electrical fire in their family home. The fire occurred in the middle of the night. Larissa managed to save herself and Thaddeus, and their mother did manage to get out, but she later died in the hospital. Their father never made it out of bed. The fire department report said that there had been some bad wiring in one of the upstairs bedrooms—the room where their father had installed a ceiling fan two days earlier.

After such a devastating blow, Cheryl and Larissa relied on each other more than ever. As a result, Larissa and Thaddeus moved into Cheryl’s single-family ranch in the small Atlanta suburb of Marietta. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but the sisters were doing all they could to make the living arrangement work.

Cheryl placed a gentle hand on Larissa’s back and spoke just loud enough to break through her snoring. “Rissa, why don’t you go to bed?”

“Hmm?” Larissa lifted her head, but didn’t open her eyes.

“Go to bed,” Cheryl said, using the opportunity to close her sister’s schoolbooks.

“Can’t,” Larissa moaned. “I have a big test tomorrow and I’m not prepared.” She sat up and stretched.

“You’re not going to learn anything by drooling on your textbook. I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I knooooooow.” She dropped her head into the palms of her hands for a second and almost immediately drifted off to sleep again.

Cheryl put her sister’s book back on the table and chuckled when her sister jumped. “I’ll put on some coffee for you.”

“Thanks.” Larissa grabbed her book again and opened it up. “I can’t wait until this quarter is over with. It’s really kicking my butt.”

“Didn’t it just start?” Cheryl asked as she shoveled Folgers grinds into the coffee filter.

“What’s your point?”

“Hang in there. Next year this time, you’ll be holding that degree.”

“More like I’ll be falling out and crying, and calling out for Jesus,” Larissa corrected.

“Whatever. You just make sure that you get that degree, too.” Cheryl hit the brew button and then turned back toward the table. “About Thaddeus’s hair…”

Larissa groaned. “Oh. I’ll take care of it this weekend. Drae recommended this great barbershop in Atlanta and I’ll take him there.”

“Do you want me to take him?”

Larissa’s eyes widened with hope. “Will you have time? I thought that you were starting some new super-duper secret case tomorrow?”

“I am. But I can take Thaddeus Saturday morning, if you want.”

“If I want? Girl, if I had the energy I would jump up and kiss you. That means I can sleep late for once.”

“Not a problem.” Cheryl pulled out a chair and sat down while she waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

“I know that you probably can’t wait for me and Thaddeus to finally move out and find our own place.”

Cheryl frowned. “I never said that.”

“Oh, please. You don’t have to.” Larissa eased back in her chair. “Any sane single woman would love to have her place back—child-free, so that you can do what single women do with the opposite sex.”

“Give it a rest.” Cheryl stood and went to the cabinet for two coffee mugs. “I like having you and my Energizer Bunny nephew around. We’re a family.”

“True. But I imagine that one day—maybe one day soon—you’d like to start your own family.”

Cheryl glanced over her shoulder.

“Maybe with a certain lieutenant?”

“Oh, God, please. Just say you’re kidding.”

“What?” Larissa shrugged. “You know Jason still has the hots for you. He still calls—”

“What?”

“C’mon. Don’t play coy. You know that man is like a puppy dog around you.” Larissa laughed. “I don’t know what you put on him, but it’s clearly something that he can’t shake or take a pill for.”

Cheryl huffed out a long frustrated breath and poured their coffee. “I tell you what. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I hooked up with that man. Maybe I bumped my head or something.”

“You mean to tell me that you don’t feel anything for him?”

“Zip….nada….nothing.” She quickly added French-vanilla creamer and sugar to their mugs and headed back to the table. “You know it all happened so soon after Mom and Dad died and… Maybe I was just weak. He caught me at a vulnerable time. Insert standard cliché here.”

“Sounds like it makes life real interesting around the department,” said Larissa as she carefully picked up her coffee mug. “Was he at least good in bed?”

“Excuse you.”

Larissa shrugged and refused to retract the question. “Hey, I can’t remember the last time I even had sex. So you’re going to have to forgive me for getting all up in your Kool-Aid. I have to get my jollies off some kind of way.”

“You know…if you want to go out sometime, I can babysit Thaddeus.”

“Ughh. The last thing I need in my life right now is the complications of a man.” Larissa shook her head. “Maybe after I get at least one thing off my plate.”

“So does that mean that you’re going to take a rain check?”

“Is the offer good until next summer?”

“As a matter of fact it is.”

“Then, yes, ma’am. I will.” Larissa straightened up in her chair and flashed her sister a silly grin as she thought about a potential date she might have…a year from now. “Now all we have to do is find you a new man.”