Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Let’s talk about it when we get back, yeah?” Harvey leans into Josiah’s window, brows arched questioningly.
“Okay.” Josiah gives a little salute and rolls up the window. Harvey pats the car twice and strolls back into the restaurant as we pull off. I let my head loll against the seat.
“So what’d you think?” I ask, watching him through the slits of my lashes, eyes growing heavy with fatigue.
Josiah rests his head on the leather seat behind him, linking his hands across the tautness of his stomach. “I think it’s a great opportunity.”
“Agreed.”
“We have to weigh what it will cost financially, of course, but also what it will require of us.” He turns his head to look at me. “I would have to be here a lot in the initial stages. If I’m not around as much, more falls on you with the kids.”
“I’d be fine with that, I think. It’d only be for a season.” I catch his eyes in the dimming light of early evening. “It could be great for us. Help us set up the kids well.”
“Yeah. I did think of that, of course. College fund, money to help with their first car, first house.”
“Mama couldn’t afford any of that. I was lucky to get a partial scholarship, and paying back those student loans was rough in the beginning. I want better for them.”
“Byrd definitely didn’t have the money to help me with my car, that secondhand Honda.”
“Secondhand?” I laugh. “That was more like fourth- or fifth-hand.”
“Hey.” He fake frowns. “I worked at a car wash all summer saving for that thing.”
I bend forward a little, giggling. “And had the nerve to pick me up for our first date in that death trap. I should have gotten a tetanus shot after sitting in that tore-up front seat. Literally tore up from the floor up.”
“I can’t believe I drove you around in it.” A smile bends his lips, and his shoulders shake with a silent laugh. “Or that there was a second date.”
“Remember we had to rig the seat belt?”
“And we got stopped by that cop?”
“Um, we didn’t get stopped by the cop,” I remind him. “We were parked behind that fried-chicken spot that caught fire over off Moreland.”
“Shit.” He runs a hand over his head, laughing. “You’re right.”
“He banged on the windows with that flashlight because they were all fogged up and we were…”
Fucking.
Steam-drenched memories waft around us. Me on top in the front seat, thighs spread over him, dress pooling at my waist, panties pushed aside so he could get in. We couldn’t make it home. Josiah had pulled into the abandoned lot when it was late and there was no one around because we had to have each other. Urgent heat had burned through common sense and caution.
My heart hammers a frantic beat and my lungs are breath-starved. I lick my lips, and he tracks the movement, heavy-lidded eyes smoldering from the memory or from this moment, I’m not sure.
I cough and sit up straight. Josiah turns away to look out the window, effectively shutting down the conversation. The last few minutes of the ride we spend in silence, the city a whir of bright lights and holiday optimism strung through branches and suspended from the stars like tinsel.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Josiah
So room service for dinner?” I ask Yasmen, poking my head into the bedroom.
In the last few hours since our meeting, we’ve both been chilling in our own corners. She’s lying on her side, one pillow beneath her head and one between her knees. The braids splay out around her, rippling over her shoulders and down her back. She’s changed clothes since our lunch meeting and scrubbed her face free of makeup. In her sweatpants and Aggie pride T-shirt, socked feet tucked under her, she could be that college girl I fell for practically on sight.
“Yes, please.” She rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling and groaning. “I don’t care if you bring the food to me in a trough, as long as I don’t have to leave this room.”
I walk in and sit on the edge of the bed, handing her the room service menu. “The steak looks good.”
“Already had steak. I’m trying not to eat red meat more than once a week. I may have to make an exception because you know I’m trash for a good mushroom sauce.”
“Still medium-rare?”
“Yup.”
“All right. Well, lemme get this order in.”
While we wait for the food to arrive, I change clothes, too, putting on sweatpants and one of my Morehouse hoodies. When I leave the bathroom and reenter the bedroom, Yasmen sits propped up against the pillows.
“I’d love for the kids to have the kind of college experience we did,” she says wistfully.
“An HBCU?”
“I’d settle for anything with Day at this point. She keeps saying she doesn’t need college at all. Kassim will probably end up at MIT or Harvard or somewhere.”