Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“Particularly Alice with Roman,” she mumbled, settling back into her old man, sounding amused, and although this didn’t amuse Moses, he liked to hear his girl was.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
She giggled.
He gave her another squeeze. “And the bottom line is, there’s nothing your mom can do about it.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s not gonna dream up something to do.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not your problem. It’s not mine. It’s hers.”
“She might try to make it your problem.”
God, his baby girl.
“Listen to me, honey,” he urged. “Don’t take this on. Definitely not before anything happens. And not after. It’s summer. You got that internship you’re doin’ and other than that, all you gotta concentrate on is havin’ fun and bein’ young. Next summer, you’re gonna be graduating and getting ready for college, and then you’re gonna be in college and then grown up and startin’ your life. After that, you’ll be in life and working for the money to pay your bills and findin’ your way to get ahead. You warned me. I love you for it. But now, your job is done. Hear me?”
“I hear you, Dad.”
“Wanna get your sister in here and watch a movie?”
She lifted up her head. “Wakanda Forever?”
“Haven’t we already seen that?”
“If we don’t pick one, Alice is gonna make us watch Judas and the Black Messiah again. It’s a great movie, but we need a happy ending.”
“Boomerang?” he suggested.
She shook her head.
“House Party?”
She rolled her eyes, then shook her head again.
“Waiting to Exhale?”
“God, Dad, get in the new millennium.”
He grinned at her. “You pick. Go get your sister. And popcorn. I need to text Shirleen we’re doin’ movie night and I’ll call her tomorrow.”
She jumped over him and hopped off the bed.
At the door, she turned and warned, “You two can’t gang up on me and make me watch Poetic Justice again.”
“That movie is a classic.”
“We’ve seen it seventeen times.”
“Maybe…four,” he contradicted.
“Whatever, we’re watching Girls Trip,” she decided then flounced out the door.
Oh shit.
He hadn’t seen that one.
He texted his woman that she had the stamp of approval, it was all good, they were doing a movie, and he’d call her tomorrow.
While he was looking up a rating and the trailer for Girls Trip, he got back, Love that for you, baby. Like I said, all good here too. Talk tomorrow.
So he was smiling when his girls, both of them this time, flounced back in.
Then he got another text with advice from Shirleen.
That movie…maybe fast forward through the grapefruit scene.
Oh shit.
He didn’t expect it.
Even with the warning.
They’d had a good run. Nothing like this had happened in a long while.
Though, if it was going to happen, he would have thought at least it’d start with a shot across the bow.
Not a hammering on the door the first day the girls were back with their mother.
Or…not day.
Evening, seeing as he and Shirleen were in his kitchen making dinner together.
No one should bother you at dinnertime.
Not even your crazy ex-wife.
Shirleen looked to him, and considering she worked in a place where she knew the protocol for a lockdown when someone was armed and intent to breach the office (he knew all about it because he read it in those books, but she did confirm it), she was conditioned to reacting to a different kind of danger than he was about to face.
And that was her response to the hammering.
“Yvonne,” he explained.
“Oowee,” she mumbled, her beautiful, tawny eyes growing large.
He’d told her about Judith’s warning. She hadn’t said much, although her eyes had blazed with hellfire. She reined that in and just commiserated. This wasn’t her way to share he was on his own, it was his cross to bear. It was her way to share she was as powerless to stop Yvonne as he was, so there wasn’t much to say.
The hammering kept happening.
Those gorgeous eyes grew larger.
Moses got close and put his lips to hers. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You need backup, I know a man who has grenades,” she offered, and close up, he could see the warmth in her eyes, the humor, but also the concern.
And it was then he knew he was in love with this woman.
He let that feeling settle in him, and somehow, the pounding at the door muted, everything around them grew hazy, and it was him and Shirleen in this world, and no other.
Moses snapped out of it when she tipped her head to the side and her gaze grew questioning.
“Keep Tex on standby,” he joked, feeling her strength seep into him, and something more.
It wasn’t that she was a survivor, but she was giving that to him too.
It was in her eyes. He realized it had been for a while.
She felt like he did.
Suddenly, he didn’t give two shits Yvonne was at the door, except the part where he had to leave Shirleen to go deal with her.