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)
“Yes, Josiah Wade,” she breathes. “I’ll marry you.”
My body comes back to life and I pull her into me by the curve of her hips, press my palms into the warm suppleness of her back. She’s all tight heat and temptation. In the absence of a ring, I seal our pledge with a slick tangle of tongues and tears.
The kiss is hot and sweet and ravenous. This, this must be how forever tastes.
I’m sure of it.
Chapter One
Yasmen
You rarely see good things in the rearview mirror.
A lesson I should have learned by now, but I flick a glance to the back seat anyway, watching my daughter break the rules. Her brother in the passenger seat beside me is just as bad.
“Guys, you know it’s not screen time.” I split my attention between the interstate and the two of them. “Put your phones away, please.”
“Mom, seriously?” My daughter Deja’s sigh is heavy with a thirteen-year-old’s exasperation. “I just finished school and dance lessons. Gimme a break.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Kassim says, lowering his phone to his lap.
Deja expels another breath, like she’s not sure who irritates her more, me for making the rules or her brother for following them.
“Brownnose,” she mutters, gaze still fixed to her screen.
“Deja,” I say. “That phone is mine if you don’t put it away.”
Her eyes, dark and gold-flecked, clash with mine in the mirror before she sets the phone aside. It’s like staring back at myself. We’re so much alike. Skin as smooth and brown as polished walnut. Her hair, like mine, prone to coil and curl, always contracting at the slightest bit of moisture in the air. Same stubborn chin hinting at a will to match.
“She’s just like you,” my mother used to say when as a toddler Deja barreled into mishaps despite my warnings to take care. When she’d pull herself up to run off again with fresh scrapes and bruises. “Serves you right. Now you’ll see what I had to put up with raising you.”
I always thought it would be a blessing, mother and daughter, two peas in the proverbial pod. And for a long time, it was…until thirteen. God, I hate this age. I can’t seem to get anything right with her anymore.
“So how was your day?”
I ask because I want to make good use of all this time we have in the car commuting. They’ve only been back in school for two weeks, and I should start this year as I mean to go on.
“Jamal brought his lizard to school,” Kassim says, his amused eyes meeting mine in a brief sidelong glance. “And it crawled out of his backpack in class.”
“Oh, my God.” I laugh. “Did he catch it?”
“Yeah, but it took like twenty minutes. He’s fast. The lizard, I mean.” Kassim twists a button on the crisp white shirt of his school uniform. “Some of the girls started screaming. Mrs. Halstead stood on her chair, like it was a snake or something.”
“I might have freaked out too,” I admit.
“This one was harmless. It wasn’t like a Gila monster or a Mexican beaded lizard,” Kassim says. “Those are two of the poisonous types found in North America.”
I catch Deja staring at the back of her brother’s head like he sprang from Dr. Who’s TARDIS. With Kassim’s constant stream of factoids and fascination with…well, everything…it probably sometimes seems like he did.
“Never a dull moment with Jamal,” I say with a chuckle. “What about you, Deja?”
“Huh?” she asks, her voice disinterested, distracted.
When I check the mirror again, I only see her profile. She’s studying I-85 through her window. The six o’clock traffic is basically a parking lot, a fleet of Atlantan commuters inching forward and negotiating tight spaces in a game of vehicular Tetris.
“I was asking how your day went,” I try again.
“It was all right,” Deja says, eyes fixed on the traffic beyond her window. “Dad’s at the restaurant?”
So much for connecting.
“Uh, yeah.” I tap the brakes when a Prius cuts in front of me. “You guys can eat dinner there and your dad’ll take you home once you’re done.”
“Why?” Kassim asks.
“Why what?” I wait for the Prius to decide what he wants to do.
“I mean where will you be?” Kassim presses.
“It’s Soledad’s birthday,” I tell him, carefully switching lanes. “We’re taking her out to dinner. Make sure you get your homework done. I don’t want you to fall behind.”
“God, Mom,” Deja sighs. “We’re barely back from summer and you’re already up our asses.”
I ping a sharp glance from Kassim in the front seat to Deja in the back.
“Day, don’t cuss.”
She mumbles something under her breath.
“What was that?” I flash a look at her in the mirror as I pull off the exit. “You got something to say?”
“I said it.” Defiant, resentful eyes snap to meet mine.
“I didn’t hear it.”
“Is that my problem?”
“Yeah, it is. If you’re big and bad enough to say it, say it loud enough for me to hear it.”