Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Her protracted silence tells me she doesn’t.
“Never mind. I wouldn’t expect you to—”
“Nutty Buddy.”
My eyes meet hers in the dimming light, and I’m transported to the night of our first kiss when we promised to always be friends no matter what.
“I should have tried harder to find you.” I shake my head. “I was so caught up in—”
“Moving to an entirely new country?” she interrupts, touching my hand. “I was still here in this one, and high school was rough. Just surviving took all my focus. It’s natural for people to lose touch with friends they knew that young as they start new phases with new people.”
I flip my hand to link our fingers. “Not for us it wasn’t. We should have always been in each other’s lives somehow.”
She hooks our pinkies. “Pact,” she whispers.
“Pact.” I nod, holding her stare and her hand. The air between us thrums like a heartbeat. Her lips part on a breath, and it takes all of my restraint not to lean forward, wipe away the lip gloss and kiss her again like I did once before.
“Here you two are.” Mona’s words dent the tension building between us, but nothing could shatter it. “I told you not to monopolize each other, and what do you do as soon as my back is turned?”
Her good-natured smile slips when she sees us holding hands. Her glance bounces between our fingers and our faces. She and Aiko are friends, but I know Ko didn’t talk to her about the break-up before she left. Mona thinks it’s wrong for me to hold Kimba’s hand. By the way Kimba jerks away and the guilty expression on her face, so does she.
Before Mona can voice the question and the disapproval her expression clearly conveys, Noah walks up, balancing three small plates.
“I got ‘em!” he says triumphantly. “Red velvet for you, Kimba.” He passes a plate to her and then another to me. “German chocolate for you, Dad.”
“Thank you, son.”
“Yeah, thanks, Noah,” Kimba says, slicing into her huge wedge of cake.
“Is Daddy being a Kimba-vert?” Noah asks, his grin widening even as Mona’s frown deepens.
“He was,” Mona says, her tone firm, a warning. “But I’m here to break that up. Come on, Kimba. There’s some other people I want you to meet.”
Kimba stands from the wall, her skirt floating around her legs. “Sure. Why not?”
When I saw her at the funeral, I knew it would be like this for me—that I would crave her. That I would want to know her this way again. She knew it, too, and she shut it down. I wasn’t free to do anything about it, to cultivate it when I saw her two years ago. Now I can.
Isn’t there someone you’ve been attracted to?
When Aiko asked me that question a few weeks ago, I didn’t see a path to do anything about my response to Kimba, but now she’s here. I should have tried harder to keep her in my life before. I was a boy then, but now I’m a man.
And there’s a napkin in my head with Kimba’s name scribbled all over it.
Chapter Twenty
Kimba
“So this might be bold,” Barry says, “but could I have your number? Maybe we could get together while you’re in town?”
I should.
For one, I haven’t had sex in a very long time, and I’m tired of doing all the heavy lifting to keep myself satisfied. Also, if I do decide to have a baby in the next year and a half, I haven’t exactly been out there fostering relationships. I’m infamous for the no-strings, hot-and-dirty package. Last but not least, why not? I’m here a few weeks and some companionship wouldn’t be awful. He does have that really lean biker body that I’m afraid if I straddle, I might break, but he’s attractive in a very kale greens kind of way. He’s smart and funny. Seems kind. Focusing on a date with an available man makes more sense than fixating on someone who is taken and has a family. It doesn’t matter that I felt more alive, more seen talking with Ezra than I have in years. I can’t let it matter. I need to do the right thing, and avoiding time alone with Ezra is the right thing.
“Kimba?” Barry frowns, his voice uncertain. I’ve left him hanging.
“Oh, sure. Sorry.” I fish my phone from the pocket of my skirt and we exchange numbers.
“I gotta go.” He grins. “But I’ll call you this week.”
“Great,” I force myself to reply with a smile.
He isn’t gone for two seconds before Mona takes his place by my side, grinning hard. “Did I see you and Barry with phones out?”
“You’re worse than Facebook. I just clicked on him, and you’re already flooding my timeline with ads for wedding dresses.”
“I know. I know.” She giggles and pulls her locs back from her face, knotting them at the crown of her head. “I’m just excited to see you connecting with someone.” Her smile falters and she licks her lips. “Someone available, I mean.”