“Let us know if he troubles you again, miss. I’m going to talk to his parole officer.”

Kanesha nodded. “He wants me to drop out of school and be his bitch, basically.”

“Doesn’t he realize that if you went to college and got a good job you could make sure he…”

“I’m a girl.” Kanesha cut in with, wryly. “Who’s getting distinctly tired of men.”

“You need to hang out with Bruce. He’s a good antidote.” I knew how she felt, of course, but I also wanted to find more examples of good men. Loki?

Neither good nor, technically, a man, I thought, wryly. But on my side, from what I could tell. Even if I wasn’t on his.

“Maybe I do. But he’ll be back.”

“He won’t come back here. His parole officer will tell him he’s going back to jail if he does.” My lips quirked. “I think he needs to be there.”

Tempting the guy into doing something? That didn’t seem…right, to me. Not ethical, really. But watching him until he did? That, I was up for. “What happened to the supernatural monsters?” I added, quipping.

She sighed. “He’s not a monster. He was in jail for a few thefts and dealing dope. Mostly marijuana, even. He just thinks I belong to him.”

I nodded. “So, he’s just an overprotective, sexist father?”

“Right. He wants me to keep house for him because he can’t find my mother.” She paused. “I can’t find my mother. He cheated on her.”

“Maybe you have some half-siblings out there,” I teased.

She made a face. “Not with another woman.”

Oh. I left that hanging, although I’d heard stuff about black guys who experimented or whatever it was with other men, or thought it was a safer alternative to cheating with a woman or…whatever. I wasn’t sure about any of the motivations that lay behind it.

Maybe they didn’t want to have to choose either. But then, if you wanted a relationship, you had to choose that person. And keep choosing them day after day. How was that different?

“Don’t worry. I’ll beat him up if he tries anything with me.”

“You were doing a fine job this time.”

“I was trying to use reason first. Come on. Let’s find some ice cream.”

I probably needed it as badly as she did.