Secret Service.

Nathaniel.

I'm glad Imani wasn't with Harper anymore. I knew he got high sometimes with Isabelle, but I never thought he'd hit a female. Even though we grew up together and claimed to be best friends, I always felt Harper was a little jealous. I was handsome, wealthy and got all the women, including his baby mother/ ex fiancee Isabelle. It was all water under the bridge now, and that bridge was burnt.

Over the next few months, Me and Imani got closer, and she was getting stronger. I signed her up for mixed martial arts classes, got her a taser, a stun gun and pepper spray. I made sure she knew how to use them, in case something like that happened again. I don't know how I feel about her though. She tells me she loves me, I believe her, and I feel something too, I just don't know if its love. It's times like these when I wish I could talk to my mom.

My mom's birthday was coming up and I was freaking out, like I do every year. The day after tomorrow was gonna be here, and again, I had no-one to talk to.

Of course, this March 3rd had to be wet, rainy and gray. Maybe this is the worlds way of grieving.

I finished work late, I had 8 meetings lined up, then I got some tiger lilies and a box of her favorite candy. I left them at her grave. I knew I couldn't make it to the store, so I called Imani and told her to bring a triple layer German Chocolate Cake from Bateman's Bistros home. Imani was home when I came in from the rain. She was waiting on me in the kitchen with a cake from Cosmos Bakery and I got angry.

"I asked you to go to Bateman's. I specifically said Bateman's Bistros. If I wanted something from Cosmos Bakery I would have said so. This is the only thing I've ever asked you to do and you couldn't do that right? Today is too important for you to fuck up soooooooo bad." I yelled at her.

I knew I shouldn't have, and she didn't know, but this was really important to me.

"Nathaniel it's just a stupid fucking cake. What's the big deal about it anyway?" She yelled back.

That triggered something. "It was my mother's favorite cake. That's the big deal." I felt a tear coming down my face, and I saw Imani soften. I walked over by the window to look out at the rain.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'll go get one now." Imani said while she slipped on her jacket.

"My mom would turn in her grave if she knew I let you go out in this weather."

Imani hugged me. "I'm so sorry Nathaniel." We stood there for awhile, hugged up on each other.

"You wanna see her?" I knew I sounded like a little kid, but hey, whatever. Imani nodded.

"You get us slices of cake and wait here. Where's Isaiah?"

"He was really sleepy when we came home."

Oh. I'll save him a slice. I ran upstairs and grabbed a few items.

When I came back downstairs, Imani had the cake on the coffee table.

"Here is Anna Howard, a.k.a. Mama." I opened up the first photo album.

"Oooh, She's beautiful Nathaniel. You look just like her."

I blushed a little, it was true. We both had the same facial features, and same brown eyes, the only difference was she was a blonde and I had brown hair.

"You wanna talk about her?"

We snuggled up on the sofa with our cake, and I told her about my mom.

"Her name was Anna Lillian Howard, she was an only child and I was her only child. She loved books, mostly mysteries or crime novels, and she was a librarian. She married my dad when she was only 18, but they were married for 15 years until she died. My mom would've been 44 today."