Honey

18.) A Reason to Try

Kara burst into Tristan's room without an invitation.

"Your sister wanna go to the barbecue wit everyone else. We not about to be sitting in this house. Let's go, boy," she ordered. "It's a holiday."

He looked at her boredly and turned away from her, lying on his side.

"Y'all don't need me to go. You grown. You know how to drive."

"Who you talking to, little boy? I know I'm grown. I don't need a reminder, and I don't care how grown you think you are, you betta watch how you speaking to me."

"Leave me alone," he growled.

"Me and Myia not about to be sitting in the house because you wanna sit here miserable and mope. It ain't my fault Honey gone. You did that. Not me. Now you best get up before I beat you. You ain't gon like me in a minute."

"I'ont like you right now," he mumbled, earning a punch in the back from Kara.

"You gon quit talking to me like you lost yo mind. Get up."

Tristan groaned, rubbing his back and sat up. "Ma, you do not need me. If you want to go, go. Bye. Have fun. Leave me alone."

Kara didn't know when her son had lost his mind, but she was from the old school when children, no matter how old they were, knew better than to talk to their parents the way he was talking to her. Something he would have never done if his daddy was alive. He had put the fear of God in that boy young.

She grabbed him by the ear. His daddy was gone, and her job of raising this man didn't end until she joined her husband. She just had to get a little tougher and be twice as much woman to fill in for the man missing.

"Get up before I twist it off," she said through clinched teeth.

"Ma! What the fuck?!"

"Get up. Now."

Tristan got out of bed, Kara dragging him to the bathroom.

"Wash your ass and be down them stairs in twenty minutes. Or you ain't go like me."

"'Cause you think I like you right now?" he asked incredulously.

Kara held her head, taking deep breaths, trying not to lay hands on him again because her next resort was weapons for his oh so grown ass.

"Tristan. Blake. Trueheart. Do not play this game unless you know you can win. Get your ass in the shower."

Tristan slammed the bathroom door and locked it before he got in the shower.

While he showered, he grumbled and complained about his mother, but he got dressed, grabbed his keys, and joined his mother and sister.

Kara just didn't want to see her son sitting there like the world had ended when he wasn't putting in the effort to prove to Honey he was her man. Sitting in the dark didn't do that for him.

"Will I get to see Honey?" Myia asked.

"Of course, honey. It's her barbecue," Kara told her, ushering her out to the car. Tristan mumbled under his breath that he wanted to be home.

He was sore from his and Honey's earlier talk. He wanted her back with him, and seeing her like he knew he would, without him... He wasn't in the mood for that.

"Shut up, Tristan."

***

Honey looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked at the way her jeans hugged her, her midriff top exposing the glint of her belly ring. She knew she looked good.