I’d just finished up an oil change when my phone rang.
“What up, Ant?”
“Bruh, remember when I told you needed to set some boundaries with Junebug?” he said in lieu of a greeting and launched into a story that had me chest getting tight as soon as he finished.
Ah shit, here we go! I thought. Apparently my too nosy for her own good daughter decided that I was taking too long and ran up on Juniper and her sister in the mall. The girls and Ant were in the mall picking up a gift for Nina’s birthday and somehow got separated. All it took was a few minutes and a happy coincidence for the kid to have possibly set some bullshit in motion. I only had about half an hour left before I was supposed to be getting off and going to chill with Juniper, but I went and asked Prent to let me cut out a lil early. He gave me a lil bit of shit before telling me to get my rusty ass on outta his face. I made a quick pit stop home to shower and change my clothes and shot Juniper a text to let her know I’d be over a little earlier than we’d planned. She replied that was cool and she should be back at home by the time I arrived at her place.
Juniper and I wound up pulling up at the same time. I braced myself for…something when I got out of my car to greet her, but she said nothing beyond, “Hey you.” I pulled her in for a hug, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before following her up the pathway and porch into the house.
“You want some wine?” she said, walking toward the kitchen not waiting for an answer.
I trailed behind her, crossing the threshold of the kitchen as she pulled two large glasses and a corkscrew from the minibar cart near the refrigerator. I sat down at the breakfast bar where there was a bottle of wine waiting. Juniper walked back over to where I was sitting, set the glasses down, uncorked the wine and poured herself a glass before walking out of the kitchen and into the den. I grabbed the bottle of wine and my glass, following her. I sat down next to her on the couch and she immediately snuggled into my side, sighing. We sat there for a few moments in silence as she sipped her wine.
“Heard you had an interesting encounter today?” I said, finally breaking the silence.
“Yeah…”
“And how are you feeling about that encounter?”
“It’s fine, Q. I’m not freaking out.”
“I didn’t say you were. I just asked a simple—” Juniper cut me off.
“Yo, chill. I’m good. We’re good. I was a little taken aback because she caught me off guard, but it’s fine, baby. It was gonna happen one of these days, right?”
“Yeah, but on your terms. Not at my child’s refusal to mind her damn business,” I laughed.
“Baby. It’s fine,” Juniper said, leaning up to give me a kiss, “For real, I’m good.”
“All right.”
We sat in silence again. So many questions running through my brain but knowing that if I pressed we’d end up in a not so good place, so I was content to sit here with my girl in my arms, sipping her wine with a smile on her face. Wild how this all played out, how she snuck up on me outta nowhere and now I wasn’t sure how much my life had been missing until she appeared in it. I was fulfilled by my job, had more than two hands full fathering Junie, but Juniper’s presence brought that lil somethin’ somethin’ extra. I chuckled a bit, shaking my head, thinking about how a damn social media app, of all things, brought us together. I imagined our lives together, and one day having to tell our children or grandchildren how we met.
“What’s so funny?” Juniper asked.
“It’s mad corny.”
“You’re mad corny, so what’s up? I wanna laugh.”
“I was just thinking about how we got together.”
“Mmmmhmmm.”
“And what we’d tell our grandkids about how we got together.”
“Grandkids?”
“Mmmmhmm, I said what I said.”
Juniper bit her lip trying to suppress a grin before speaking, “So what’s the corny part?”
“The first thing that popped into my head to explain how we got together was started from a selfie, now we here.”
“Baby,” Juniper said, her tone quiet, but stern, “You can’t ever say that to anyone else. In life. That’s beyond corny…and I’m not having my life story summed up in a crib of a Drake lyric. A Drake lyric? C’mon Q.”
“Not a fan of the Poutine Prince of Toronto?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Hater.”
“I’ll be that,” Juniper said, lifting her chin to brush her lips against mine.
THE END.