Page 6 of Overdue Feelings

I watched from the track as Ares walked a limping sixth grader back inside the building.

“He said it might be sprained,” Zee muttered, jogging up beside me, looking like Brittney Griner.

“At least it ain’t broken,” I said, eyes still on Ares. “Malachi okay otherwise?”

“He good. Kept askin’ if he could still try out.”

“That sound like him. That boy just wanna hoop.” I shook my head, hoping this little sprain wouldn’t end his season.

I turned back to the track. “Last two laps,” I said to the squad.

Day five of middle school basketball tryouts was in full swing, and we’d barely gotten through warm-ups before Malachi was lying on the ground holding his ankle.

I was thankful that Ares was still in the building to take care of him.

I scanned the track before my eyes drifted to the school doors just as Ares and Malachi made it inside.

“So… You really not gon’ speak to him?” Zee leaned against the bleachers. “Like at all?”

“Here you go.”

“What? The tension is thick as hell. Don’t act like you can’t feel it.”

“I don’t feel shit,” I lied, fanning her off.

“I just ain’t got time to acknowledge a nigga who disappeared without even looking back.

” I sat back, making myself comfortable on the bleachers.

I couldn’t control Ares popping up here, but I ain’t have to be buddy buddy with his ass. Our friendship had expired long ago.

“He still used to be your best friend.” She shrugged. “It’s kinda weird that you can’t even be cordial. Are you going to spend the entire year using your little sister as a translator?”

I stared at Zee, but I didn’t respond. I didn’t like him being here.

Didn’t like what him being here was doing to Creek.

Didn’t like what it was doing to me. I’d never been a jealous nigga, never held grudges or been worried about minding another man’s business.

Ares’s return, though, was fucking with me.

“What you think he back for?” Zee joined me on the bleachers. “You think it’s Creek?”

“If he came back for her, he should’ve moved faster.

” I shrugged her off even though I’d been thinking the same thing.

The way he looked at her made it obvious he still had feelings for her, but the way she avoided looking back was what had me tripping.

I wasn’t scared of losing Creek, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pissed he still had a pull on her.

“So, no chance of The Three Musketeers making a comeback?” She smirked. “Cause y’all always had that weird ass, low-key throuple energy.”

I cut her a look. “We were just close. We were never a damn throuple.”

“Mmhm. Could have fooled me. As a kid, I always thought y’all were a threesome.”

“You need help.” I laughed.

“Maybe. But I’m not wrong. If Ares hadn’t ghosted y’all, the three of you would probably have been Harvest Hill’s first poly power couple.”

“Man, whatever. Creek’s always been my girl.” I meant that.

Zee sucked her teeth. “Is that why Ares is the one who took her virginity?”

My head swiveled in shock. Nobody but the people involved knew that.

“How you know that?” My jaw clenched, and my eyes cut to her.

“Lil’ sisters know everything,” she said with a shrug. “Heard y’all talkin’ one day. I mind my business, but I know what I heard.”

“Well, forget it.”

She laughed. “Aww. Look at big Isaiah gettin’ territorial.”

“Don’t play with me.”

“I’m not,” she said, her voice dropping low. “I know you love that girl.”

I didn’t say anything for a second. Just looked at her—my annoying, loyal, nosy ass sister. Somewhere in the last few years, she’d turned into my best friend.

“I don’t know, Zee. Me and Creek solid… but seeing him back?” I shook my head. “Got me thinkin’ too much.”

She didn’t crack a joke this time. She just stared at me the way she always did when she knew I needed space to say the shit I didn’t want to admit.

“I know she loves me,” I said quietly. “But the only dude I’ve ever known who could shift that is him. Creek loved him. Like... she ain’t say it back then, but I could feel it. They crossed that friendship line long before we ever did.”

“You trust her?” Zee folded her arms, mouth tight.

“Yeah, of course.” I hesitated. “It’s the past I don’t trust. I don’t feel like fighting it.”

“What if he ain’t come back for a fight? What if he came back for peace?”

I sat up again. I could tell by the look on her face that she had more to say.

“Maybe it’s not that you’re afraid she’ll leave, but maybe you’re scared to admit you have some unfinished business with Ares too.”

I blinked. What type of unfinished business was she referring to?

“I’m not talking about that, you nasty. I mean, Ares was your boy.

You two were like brothers. It’s okay for Creek to miss him, and it’s okay for you to miss him too.

You’re grieving a friendship and pretending it’s all about Creek, but friendship, just like love, is hard to forget. You can miss both, big bro.”

I looked away. That truth was hitting too damn hard.

“This why I don’t like talking to yo’ ass.”

“Whatever. You love me.” She stood from the bleachers and blew the whistle, letting the kids know they could bring it in. “You’re going to have to face it, Bro.” She bumped her shoulder against mine. “The past. Him. Her feelings. Yours. Y’all need to hash it out.”

“Yeah.” I looked back toward the building. Ares was already inside but looked anyway. “Eventually, but it ain’t today.” I dismissed the conversation and stood to meet the kids on the track. “Not today,” I repeated to myself.

“Gigi, would you sit down? You don’t have to set the table. Zae got it.” I heard Creek fussing from the kitchen just as I made my way into the dining room. I shook my head from the doorway as Gigi grabbed four Christmas glass plates from the cupboards.

“Huh, girl. I know how to host dinner in my own house.” Gigi huffed, laying the plates out on the dining room table.

“Gigi, you’re not at your house. You’re at ours,” I said, walking up behind her. “I got this.” I pulled out a chair and helped her lower herself into it.

“Y’all think just cause I’m a little older, I don’t know how to do nothing?”

“Grandma, you got forks on the left, knives upside down, and spoons sittin’ in the sugar jar,” Creek said as she handed me the right dishes for the table.

“I’ve been servin’ meals since before y’alls mama was born.”

“And we love you for it. Now sit yo’ beautiful self down so I can serve you.”

“I don’t need a valet for the table.” She huffed, swatting at my hand. I grinned and kept setting her place anyway, laying the napkin across her lap like it was for a Queen because she was. She was all Creek had left, and that made her precious cargo to me.

“I can place my own lap napkin.” She snatched the napkin out my hand, and I held my hands up in surrender.

Gigi never sat still easily. She didn’t care that she was nearly eighty-years-old and had suffered two strokes.

She didn’t care that sometimes her days ran together.

She hated being taken care of. On good days, she was reading folks for filth, but on the not-so-good ones, she barely knew who or where she was.

We’d learned not to correct her much anymore.

Just held the moment long enough for her to find her way back.

“Dinner’s almost done,” Creek announced from the kitchen.

“I hope it’s better than your last attempt. That chicken was dry as a Popeye’s biscuit,” she mumbled as she laid the napkin perfectly on her lap.

“You overcook one bird two Thanksgivings ago, and you never live it down,” Creek mumbled.

“You sure? Could’ve sworn it was yesterday.”

“It was two years ago, Gigi,” I said gently. “But it was so dry we both still got PTSD.”

Gigi chuckled, and Creek threw a wash rag at me.

“What? You gotta start somewhere.” We all burst into laughter as Creek and I placed the food on the table. Greens, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese. My girl could cook, but if she was cooking like this, it meant that she was spiraling.

“Connie, who taught you how to cook? Last time I checked, you burned water,” Gigi asked, calling Creek her mother’s name. Her gaze drifted from the plate to the wall behind me and stayed there. The table quieted as Creek took her seat. Gigi was drifting again.

“Hey, you still with us?” I touched Gigi on the hand, causing her to blink slowly.

“Where else would I be?” Her voice was sharp again.

“Good, come on. Let’s eat before you blame me for the chicken getting cold,” Creek said as I sat down in my usual spot beside the woman I loved.

“Here.” Creek handed me the hot sauce. She knew I had to have a little kick with my food.

“Thank you, baby.”

She nodded, smiling at me. The kind of smile that didn’t need words but said everything I needed to hear. I tapped her thigh under the table as Gigi mumbled something about how folks always forgot to bless the food.

I looked around the table, and my mind drifted to a time when Gigi used to make a plate for anybody who showed up with an appetite.

Back when dinner meant Ares’s folks, my family, and everybody squeezing in all at once to enjoy a meal together.

It hit me then just how much of my childhood was shaped by this kitchen. This table. Ares and Creek.

Creek leaned into me like home as Gigi tried to butter her cornbread with the back of a spoon.

It was all so familiar, but still, something felt off.

For the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel complete.

A piece of the puzzle was missing, and just like clockwork, out the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse through the kitchen window.

Ares, walking past slowly, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

He didn’t look over. Just kept moving, hands buried deep in his pockets, as he stared at his old family home.

He was part of those dinners too. Part of my childhood memories, and even if I wouldn’t say it out loud, I felt the gap his absence had left behind.

“You’re going to have to face it, Bro. The past. Him. Her feelings. Yours. Y’all need to hash it out.” Zee’s voice rang out in my head as I took a bite of my chicken wing.

“Soon,” was all I could whisper under my breath.