“Good.”

“That’s great, did you miss me?”

The little boy nodded his head fervently and smiled. At that moment another child came bounding out from the house and started jumping up and down in front of Carmen. “Hi Kelly. Is your daddy home?”

Four year old Kelly nodded and ran inside yelling for her daddy to come out. Carmen let herself inside and shut the door behind her before putting AJ down. The house was relatively spotless save for the random toy on the ground. A cream colored leather sofa sat against a wall to the left and a big screen T.V. was on the right side of the wall next to a fire place. On top of the mantle were pictures of various people. One of Daren, his wife Tanya, and their two kids AJ and Kelly along with three other children. Another with a six year old Casey and the brother that Carmen never knew, Andre. Another picture was of Casey at seventeen and Daren at twenty with a woman who made tears threaten to spill from Carmen’s eyes. Her thoughts drifted as she stared at the smiling face of Casey’s sister Vanessa.

‘She was so beautiful and full of life. God I can’t believe it’s been so long since she passed away.’ Carmen sniffled and balled up her fist in a brief moment of anger. ‘She didn’t pass away, she was taken away.’

An enormous hand on her shoulder brought her out of her reverie as she turned around to see the gargantuan that was Daren “Scruffy” Young. He was at least 6’7 and nearly 300 lbs of muscle and a bit of a beer belly. His skin tone was much darker than Casey’s but they both shared the same nose and bright intriguing eyes.

Daren smiled sadly at Carmen, “I miss her too.” He pulled her in a warm hug and Carmen accepted it gratefully. The large man had always held a place in the DJ’s heart as a member of her family outside of blood relations. His warm smile relaxed demeanor made him one of Carmen’s favorite people. In fact it was Daren who curbed Vanessa’s wrath when she found out that Carmen and Casey were dating.