King's Promise. Adrianne Byrd

playful. Now since she’d had the pleasure of being in the same room with the man, she would testify on a stack of Bibles that Xavier King did indeed dominate a room. The power of his gaze, the line of his shoulders and the unmistakable strength in his bulging arms… “Whew!” She reached for her cold bottled water and downed most of its twenty ounces, trying to put out the fire of her own making.

      Something creaked and Cheryl’s head whipped around to her bedroom door. There standing at the threshold, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, was her six-year-old nephew, Thaddeus. A smile spread across her face again. “Heeey, li’l man. Whatcha doin’ up?”

      “There’s a monster in my closet,” he whined. His footed pajamas shuffled across the hardwood floor of her bedroom as he made his way over to her.

      “A monster?” she responded with wide-eyed shock. She circled her arm around his tiny shoulders. “Are you sure?”

      Thaddeus poked out his bottom lip and nodded.

      “Oh, no. That just won’t do.”

      “Will you come in my room and shoot it with your police gun?” he asked hopefully.

      “How about I just go in there and check it out for myself?” she suggested. “I’m tough. I’m sure that I’ll be able to handle that monster with my bare hands.”

      Her bravery made his eyes grow wider. “You sure? What if it hurts you?”

      “Are you kidding me?” Cheryl curled her right arm. “Check out these muscles,” she said, and waited for her nephew to give her Michelle Obama–like arms a good squeeze.

      “Wow. You are strong,” he said, awestruck.

      “I sure am.” She winked at him and stood. “Now let me at that monster hiding in that closet. We don’t have time for none of this foolishness, do we?”

      Thaddeus shook his head and then fell in line behind his aunt as she strolled out of her bedroom and headed into his room. “That monster is going to get it,” he declared confidently.

      “He sure is,” Cheryl agreed. “Just let me at him.”

      They stormed into his Spider-Man–themed bedroom together. Cheryl flipped on the light switch and made a beeline to the closet. At the last second before touching the doorknob, Thaddeus gave her a quick last warning, “Be careful, Aunt Cheryl.”

      She tossed him a confident wink and then threw open the door.

      Thaddeus gasped and covered his eyes. But when he didn’t hear any hissing, growling or Lord knows what else his active imagination had anticipated, he slowly peeked through his small fingers.

      “Huh.” Cheryl settled her hands onto her hips and looked around. “There’s no monster in here.”

      Frowning, Thaddeus raced over to the closet and mimicked his aunt’s stance. “Where did he go?”

      “I don’t know.” Cheryl pretended to be dumbfounded before suggesting, “Maybe he heard you going to get me and he got scared?”

      Her nephew nodded at the explanation. “Yeah.”

      “Well, he better run. I was really going to put a hurting on him,” Cheryl bragged as she dusted off her hands.

      “Were you going to use karate on him?” He shifted his gaze from the monsterless closet and stared up at her.

      “You know it.” She tried to run her fingers through his thick blondish-brown hair, but as usual it was a bit tangled with its wayward curls. “When is your mother going to fix your hair?”

      “She was supposed to do it tonight, but she fell asleep.”

      Cheryl shook her head. “All right. Back in the bed you go, li’l man. You have school in the morning.”

      Thaddeus poked out his bottom lip, but shuffled his way over to his twin-size bed where Cheryl peeled back the top sheet and waited for him. When he got close to the bed, he launched himself onto the mattress and laid his head on his cartoon-character pillow.

      Cheryl couldn’t resist tickling his side to elicit one of his hilarious, funny-sounding giggles. Once she got it, she leaned down and planted a wet kiss on his chubby cheek. “Good night, li’l man.”

      “Night, Auntie. When I grow up, I’m going to be a police officer just like you.”

      Cheryl’s heart squeezed as tears quickly flooded her eyes. “And I’m sure that you’ll make an excellent police officer.” She stole another kiss and then tucked him into bed. “Sweet dreams,” she said at the door before turning off the light switch.

      Her smile was still stretched across her lips as she walked from her nephew’s bedroom and headed toward the kitchen. There, her younger sister, Larissa, was slumped over her biology textbook and snoring softly into the pages.

      Cheryl stopped at the entry to the kitchen and shook her head. She couldn’t help but be sympathetic to her sister’s hectic schedule. She worked full-time in a clothing store, while juggling being a single mom and going to college at night to become a nurse. It was a lot, and Cheryl was extremely proud of her sister. Because Larissa had her son so young, she could’ve continued her life making bad decisions. But when Thaddeus’s father decided not to be a part of his biracial son’s life—along with his well-to-do family—Larissa didn’t fall apart. She picked herself up, dusted herself off and got busy trying to ensure a better life for her and her son. A lot of times that meant having to lean on family members, but everyone in the Grier family was more than willing to help as long as Larissa was committed to doing what was right.

      Cheryl was no different.

      Three years after Thaddeus was born, the Grier sisters were thrown a major curveball when their parents were killed in an electrical fire in their family home. The fire occurred in the middle of the night. Larissa managed to save herself and Thaddeus, and their mother did manage to get out, but she later died in the hospital. Their father never made it out of bed. The fire department report said that there had been some bad wiring in one of the upstairs bedrooms—the room where their father had installed a ceiling fan two days earlier.

      After such a devastating blow, Cheryl and Larissa relied on each other more than ever. As a result, Larissa and Thaddeus moved into Cheryl’s single-family ranch in the small Atlanta suburb of Marietta. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but the sisters were doing all they could to make the living arrangement work.

      Cheryl placed a gentle hand on Larissa’s back and spoke just loud enough to break through her snoring. “Rissa, why don’t you go to bed?”

      “Hmm?” Larissa lifted her head, but didn’t open her eyes.

      “Go to bed,” Cheryl said, using the opportunity to close her sister’s schoolbooks.

      “Can’t,” Larissa moaned. “I have a big test tomorrow and I’m not prepared.” She sat up and stretched.

      “You’re not going to learn anything by drooling on your textbook. I don’t think that’s how it works.”

      “I knooooooow.” She dropped her head into the palms of her hands for a second and almost immediately drifted off to sleep again.

      Cheryl put her sister’s book back on the table and chuckled when her sister jumped. “I’ll put on some coffee for you.”

      “Thanks.” Larissa grabbed her book again and opened it up. “I can’t wait until this quarter is over with. It’s really kicking my butt.”

      “Didn’t it just start?” Cheryl asked as she shoveled Folgers grinds into the coffee filter.

      “What’s your point?”

      “Hang in there. Next year this time, you’ll be holding that degree.”

      “More like I’ll be falling out and crying, and calling out for Jesus,” Larissa corrected.

      “Whatever.