Fifteen Years Read Online Free Page B

chance to eat half of them. “Man, we just got here.” It was an overstatement to say the least. “I’m not done eating.”
    “We’ve been here plenty long enough for you to have finished your food,” Josiah said. “If you weren’t wasting time messing with those girls’ minds, then you could have been done by now. I’ve got to get back to work.”
    “So do I, but I don’t want to go back still feeling hungry.”
    Josiah flagged down the waiter that was passing their table. He barely looked old enough to legally hold down a job, and Josiah immediately thought of himself as a teen. He couldn’t help wondering if the kid was doing what he had done for years. Working to protect a mother and support a household. “Can you find our server and ask her to bring us our checks and a carryout container, please?” Josiah handed the boy ten dollars for his troubles.
    “Heck, yeah,” the waiter said, grinning, then folding the crisp bill before shoving it in the pocket of his uniform. He almost broke into a trot as he scurried to fulfill the simple request.
    Craig snatched his napkin from his lap and tossed it on the table. “JT, what’s up with you? I know we’re on the clock, but come on, man. We’ve got time to finish our meals.”
    “I
am
finished. I wasn’t gawking instead of eating.”
    “You got two strips left. You never leave any chicken on your plate.”
    “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
    “I ain’t even trying to believe this.” Craig mumbled. Then in what sounded like a last-ditch effort to change his friend’s mind, he picked up his fork and added, “Ribs don’t taste good reheated anyway. It’ll only take me a few minutes to finish up.”
    Josiah reached across the table and stopped him just as he was about to dig into the meat. In an unyielding tone, he warned,“Unless you plan to walk back to your job or get one of your weave-wearing groupies over there to give you a ride back, you’ll prepare that food for takeout.”
    Jerking away in matched annoyance, Craig said, “Get your hands from over my food. Didn’t your mama ever teach you any manners?”
    Josiah’s stare turned menacing and he could tell from the way Craig’s face fell that he immediately regretted his thoughtless words. An apology was forming on Craig’s lips, but Josiah didn’t even want to hear it. He slammed his napkin on the table and began vacating the booth.
    “Hey, JT, man, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
    “I’ll be waiting in the car,” Josiah said, avoiding the inquisitive eyes of the patrons around them as he stormed away from the table.
    “What about your bill?” Craig called.
    Without looking back, Josiah growled, “Pay it.”

    In the confines of his Audi R8, Josiah immediately switched on his stereo player and advanced it to the final track of the current CD. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and tried to think of more pleasant things. The music from saxophonist Antonio Allen’s CD
The Air I Breathe
always provided calmness, and his six-minute rendition of “I Love the Lord” was definitely the order of the day.
    Just two minutes in, the fires of Josiah’s temperament had been doused, and the resulting smoke had lessened significantly. With a clearer mind, he realized that he was far more frustrated with himself than he was angry with his friend. After twelve years, Josiah couldn’t believe that little mentions of his mother still ruffled him so.
    The smooth music massaged his soul.
    “I’ll hasten to His throne … I’ll hasten to His throne,”
the guest vocalist on the CD sang.
    Hastening to God’s throne was something that Josiah felt he’d spent the bulk of his life doing. But after all the prayer and fasting that he’d done from childhood until now, and with all of the success that he’d obtained since burying Reeva Mae Tucker, days like this one, where Josiah felt angry, lost, abandoned, and without identity, still surfaced all too often.
    “I’ll