Stupid trolley.

Baylor waggled her eyebrows. “Wasn’t the first time, eh?”

“Baylor Irene!” Autumn scolded, and Baylor snickered as Mekena’s face burned.

“Sorry, Mom,” she said, but Mekena was pretty sure she wasn’t sorry.

“Are you waiting for Markus?” Autumn asked, changing the subject.

“Yes, ma’am. I think he said he had media.”

“He did. He did awesome too.”

“Crap, I missed it!” she said sadly, and Autumn waved her off. “I recorded it with my phone. I’ll send it to you.”

“Thanks! Did he do well?”

“He did wonderful.” Autumn beamed, like she was talking about her own boy. In a way, she was. Markus was hers, and she didn’t care who knew that.

“Except that he looked like he was going to puke,” Baylor teased and Mekena grinned.

“Did you see him before the game? He was green.”

Baylor laughed from her gut. “I know, right? I was all the way up here, and I saw it!”

Autumn rolled her eyes. “I think he did great, y’all leave him be. Hey, Yolanda, didn’t Markus do amazing tonight?”

Mekena froze as she slowly turned to where Autumn was looking, to find River with Markus’s parents. Her stomach dropped, and her eyes widened as they took her in. As before, the judgmental look was in their eyes, and she almost could hear them calling her white trash all over again.

She remembered being so excited to meet them. Her first real boyfriend’s parents, but that ended in a fiery crash when they decided she wasn’t good enough for Markus. She’d never forget the hate in their eyes or the words they spoke. Never in her life had she been so disrespected.

“Oh, yes, my baby did amazing! Surely, he’ll sign with them. Don’t you think, Lamar?”

“Of course, he will. He is awesome,” Markus’s father said as River nodded.

“I would be very surprised if he didn’t,” River added, holding Dawson in his arms as he slept quietly. “He played hard tonight.”

But no one could pay attention to the sweet baby, not when the tension in the air was as thick as a sheet of ice. Swallowing hard, Mekena looked from Yolanda to Lamar, who were both watching her. Almost challenging her. She hadn’t ever met two more frustrating people than Markus’s parents. They were so obsessed with each other and their restaurant that they didn’t even see the gem of a man they had as a son. From what Markus had told her, his grandfather was the one who raised him, and Mekena wished like hell he was there rather than these two.

But above all that, Mekena knew better than to ignore them. Her mother had raised a sweet Southern girl.

And a whore. But that was another matter Mekena really didn’t need to think about right now. Not when her stomach was in knots with the fear of being embarrassed in front of Baylor and her family. Clearing her throat, she said, “It’s good to see you both, Mr. and Mrs. Reeves.”

Yolanda smiled pleasantly, which was really odd since Mekena hadn’t ever seen the woman smile. She was tall like Markus, thick in all the right spots, with beautiful long black hair and caramel eyes. She looked like a sweet woman, but she was the one who had called Mekena white trash first and suggested he date a charming black girl from their church. Lamar, on the other hand, looked grumpy and was taller than his wife and son. He had a darker complexion and dark brown eyes, but Markus looked a lot like him. Handsome.

Mekena had liked Lamar when she first met him, but then he got behind Yolanda and it went to shit fast. But apparently, they had all forgotten about that. With a wide smile, Lamar said, “Great to see you, Mekena. Markus told us you’d be up here to meet us. We’re hoping you’re free for dinner?”

Shit. Did Markus want to go to dinner? Stuttering, she said, “If Markus isn’t too tired, that would be nice.”

“He said he wants to as long as you’re okay with it. We hope you are.”

She was going to kill him! How was he going to put that on her? Before she could answer, though, Dawson let out one hell of a screech that almost caused River to drop him as he ran to Baylor for help. Autumn rushed to help too, and just like that, Mekena was alone with Yolanda and Lamar.

Fucking fabulous.

Looking back to Lamar, she didn’t know what to say, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be alone with them. “Um, yeah—”

But before she could finish, Lamar moved closer, his eyes burning into hers. “Listen, we need to fix this, okay? I have gone over a year without hearing from my son, and when we wanted to visit him in Florida, he ignored us. That is not okay with us. I know we have made some mistakes, that maybe we haven’t been the best parents, but I refuse to allow some disagreement between us and you to keep us from our son.”

Mekena blinked as Yolanda bit out, “We love our son. He means the world to us, and we are so proud of him. Yes, we may have said some things to you that were a little wrong, but we did it because we love him and he deserves the world. Not some girl we thought would hold him back from his dreams. We were obviously wrong.”

“So before he comes up here, I want this fixed,” Lamar demanded, his eyes serious.

Mekena stared at them, her eyes narrowing as she looked from one to the other. Before, she knew she would have walked away crying. She wouldn’t have said anything, just agreed. But that was before she too went all those months without Markus. While she understood their concerns and could even understand why they thought she wasn’t the one for Markus, especially with all the money-hungry people out there, they had no right to disrespect her. She was nice to them, and she never gave them any reason to assume she would ruin his dreams.

She cleared her throat. “I completely agree that it is not okay for parents and children not to talk. But when said parents call the girl he loves ‘white trash,’ what is he supposed to do? I understand you have your own issues, and maybe you feel I’m not good enough for him, maybe you thought I was with him for the money or whatever else, but I wasn’t. I am with him because I love him and he loves me.”

“We didn’t realize that before, and we apologize for what we said,” Yolanda said, her eyes dark and narrowed. While Mekena wanted to believe her words, she didn’t, but she wouldn’t hold it against Markus’s mother. Her own bitter issues were her own. All Mekena cared about was Markus.