Date: June 5, 2440 Time: 8:15 PM
The farmhouse was quiet, save for the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of settling timber. Angelina stood at the kitchen sink, nursing a mug of reheated coffee that had gone cold again. She didn’t bother microwaving it. Across the room, Lola Rhea moved with unhurried ease, collecting empty dessert plates from the living room and stacking them with the practiced rhythm of someone who had done it a thousand times.
“You saw something today, didn’t you?” Angelina asked without turning.
“I see everything, Nak, even with these 137-year-old eyes,” Lola Rhea replied, setting the plates down and easing herself into a kitchen chair. “Man might be half Vulcan on the outside, but he was sweating like a field hand when L’tani brushed past him with that innocent little smile.”
Angelina finally turned. “I thought he wasn’t responding. I thought maybe the V’ren stuff didn’t work on him.”
“It works. He’s not just picking up on their pheromones, Nak—he’s seeing all three of them. Two sisters and their mother. And he’s seeing them not like a monk, but like a man with his own damn hormonal storm brewing under the surface. God help him—and the furniture—when he finally falls off the wagon.”
A pause followed as Angelina poured a fresh cup and slid it across the table. Lola Rhea took it, nodding thanks.
“He’s a better man than most,” Angelina said quietly.
“He’s also still a man,” Rhea replied. “You saw him today. He was trying not to stare at T’monn’s hips when she walked out the door to do her rounds tonight. Same thing this morning with L’tani—trying real hard not to imagine those painted-on jeans hanging from his bedpost—or wherever such things end up. But his eyes lingered. They always do, no matter how hard he tries. He is hungry, the way he used to hunger for Amy. Of course, the woman he loves isn’t here.”
“Amy is lost to us all.”
“Not Amy, Nak. All the V’ren women fascinate him because they’re playing scratch-and-sniff games with their pheromones, trying to get him to notice. But the one he’s fallen for won’t do what he can’t: make the first move.”
Angelina sighed. “God help us all.”
“Nak,” Rhea said with a faint smirk, “he used to look at you that way. Even after you shot him down—and your sister swooped in like a vulture.”
“We were barely twelve,” Angelina said, jaw tightening. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Didn’t say you were ready for what he wanted. But that didn’t change how he felt about you—or what your sister did. She slept with him at fifteen just to prove she was more of a woman than you. Then aborted his baby. That shattered him before he ever had a chance to grow up. The next week—his dad’s suicide, you might remember. He didn’t think he had anyone anymore after that.”
Angelina’s silence was bitter. Even thirty years later, she wasn’t ready to admit the real reason she told Matt “no” that day. She hadn’t ever admitted it to anyone. She wanted him to beg for sex—not just quietly move toward it while they got hot and heavy in the freezing cold of the air conditioner. He quietly disentangled himself, told her he loved her, kissed her on the forehead, put his jeans back on, and left. He never once tried again, brought it up, or ever kissed her again. She thought she had won. She thought herself so clever and told her big sister Kawami about her little game. Winning had never hurt so much or tasted so bitter.
“I would’ve been happy to see you two together back then, twelve or not,” Rhea said gently. “You made the right choice, though. Even if it meant I had to wait fifteen years to hold your baby—the way I once held you. MJ’s a good girl. Floyd’s a good man. Probably the better one for you.”
The clock on the wall ticked past ten. Neither woman moved to leave. The air was still and heavy, like a storm building just beyond the horizon.
“He missed dinner and barely touched his cobbler,” Rhea added, pushing up from her chair. “I made him a sandwich, Nak. Go talk to him. You both need it.”
She paused, hearing Peter’s footsteps at the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
And with that, she disappeared down the hallway—leaving Angelina alone with a cup of cooling coffee and too many memories.
