Junie & Jackie - A Love Story

7

Jackie had Amelia on his hip, a bag from Donut Joe's in his hands, and Trey by his side, smiling at me.

"'Sup, Junie?" Trey walked in like he owned the place and wrapped me in a hug, a hug that made me tense up immediately. I wasn't used to being around men that I barely knew, and knowing there were two in my house was unnerving. They could do anything to me. I was home alone. I didn't expect Trey to come.

"Is it okay if Trey learns, too?" Jackie seemed genuinely concerned at my change in demeanor, which I appreciated. His brows were furrowed, and he was trying to keep my eye contact to make sure I didn't lie to him. "He was droppin' Amelia off, and I figured he should know, too. He can go home if it isn't cool."

I debated it for a moment, knowing I'd have a better chance of fighting off just Jackie and not the pair. But I knew Trey, at least a little bit, and I spoke to his lovely girlfriend, and I hoped to a higher power that these two would never do anything like that to me, especially in front of Amelia.

Plus, I didn't want Jackie to think I was trying to get him alone or anything.

"Um," I took a deep breath and tried to shake away my nerves. I couldn't be scared of men forever. "Yeah, sorry, that's fine. Just wasn't expecting it."

"I brought you a donut, Junie. Heard you had a long night last night," Trey was a little too smiley when he said it, as if anything remotely important had transpired between Jackie and I. "Like the hair, by the way. Never seen you with straight hair."

"Oh," my fingers found the ends of my soft, straightened hair. I never straightened my hair in high school and now only did on rare occasions. It was too much work for too little reward. "I thought it might be easier to practice some of the harder stuff on straight hair. But depending on how you two do, I'm not sure we'll make it to the harder stuff today."

The boys immediately protested that "offensive" statement, but they hadn't started yet, so they really didn't know. Jackie handed me a jelly-filled donut, which I ended up giving most of to Amelia since I was still feeling a little nauseous. I wondered how he knew jelly donuts were my favorite, or if he even knew at all.

I brought out my Walmart bag filled with different products, hair ties, bows, combs—really, anything I could think of that would be helpful in doing Amelia's hair. She was a little girl and she deserved to be cared for properly, so I didn't mind spending a bit of my savings making sure of that. Besides, I took care of her nearly four days a week at this point, more than any other kid I babysat, so she was practically like family to me. I cared just as much about her wellbeing as Jackie did.

Jackie was visibly upset when I showed him all of the things I had bought and offered to pay about a thousand times, but I didn't accept. It was my choice to help and Walmart wasn't that ridiculously priced.

We started with a tutorial on how to properly wash and detangle her hair, since I knew Jackie wasn't comfortable doing it already. Trey pulled out a little notebook from his back pocket and took notes, which I found very endearing.

We were working for about 3 hours just on parting, ponytails, pigtails, all the basics. Amelia sat very well for us considering her age (although the cartoon playing on the TV definitely helped), and both the boys got to try a few different hairstyles before she started getting fussy and we considered it time to call it a day.

"You know, Junie, now that I'm here, I've got a proposition," Trey gave me a sly smile. Then, his demeanor changed to that of a middle school boy as he excitedly said, "We can finally all smoke together on the roof!"

"Finally?" I laughed, knowing that Jackie had told me how Trey used to wish he could come smoke with me in high school.

"You always looked so badass over here, especially knowing you and what a goody-two-shoes you are," he explained. "I wanted to come so bad, but Jackie was still in his bullshit I-hate-Junie phase."