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)
“Kimba,” Mona calls from the other side of the yard, looking between us. “Can you come help me with that thing in the kitchen?”
“What thing?” I murmur for Kimba’s ears only.
“That thing that will put me somewhere other than standing beside you.”
“Hey.” I grasp her elbow and bend my head to whisper in her ear. “Don’t forget to stick around.”
“Ezra.”
“Just give me a chance, Tru.”
“A chance for what?” She looks up at me, her smooth face crinkled into a frown. “I don’t think—”
“Hear me out for old time’s sake? If our pact ever meant anything to you, give me a chance to explain.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know, but this is just like chess. You are the most powerful piece on this board. All the power is in your hands.”
“I don’t feel like I have all the power.”
“How do you feel?”
“Honestly—” She breathes out a short laugh. “A little helpless.”
I know what she means. The pull between us is alive, is burning beneath my fingertips on her skin. Even surrounded by friends and colleagues who know I’ve been with Aiko for a decade, who know I would never cheat on her, who don’t know we aren’t together anymore and would judge me…even knowing the necessity of discretion, I can barely keep my hands off Kimba.
“Can I tell you something and you believe me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never cheated on Aiko, and I never would.” I dip my head to catch her eyes with mine. “Please trust me.”
She searches my face for several heartbeats and then gives a slow nod. “Okay. I trust you.”
“Kimba!” Mona’s tone is just shy of strident. “Please.”
“I better go,” Kimba says, starting off. She pauses and looks at me over her shoulder. “I’ll wait around, but only for a few minutes, Ezra. I don’t…I can’t…”
She shakes her head and walks away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kimba
“If this was Noah’s party at nine,” Mona says, “can you imagine this kid’s sweet sixteen?”
I laugh and scoop the last of the candy debris from Noah’s piñata out of the grass. “We’ll be that kid’s entourage by the time he’s sixteen.”
Mona glances around Ezra’s backyard and heaves a long sigh. “All done. Food’s put away. Place is clean. Everyone’s gone home. Ezra’s making sure four third-graders don’t kill each other and go to sleep.”
“Ezra’s lucky to have you.” I sit on the edge of the trampoline. “You’re like part of the family.”
Mona gives me a measured look before sitting beside me, the net enclosure at our backs. “Aiko, too. They’re all like family to me.”
“Well then, they’re all lucky to have you.”
Mona tips her head toward the fence that separates her backyard from this one. “Why don’t you come over for a glass…or bottle…of wine?”
“Raincheck?”
“You’re about to leave?” Mona probes.
“In a little bit, yeah.”
Her gaze drifts back toward the house. “This won’t end well, Kimba. It can’t.”
As much as she may be right, I hold on to Ezra’s frankness from earlier tonight. “You know him, Mona. Have you ever even suspected him of being unfaithful?”
“No, but you were never around.”
“That wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“I would have said that, too, before I saw him with you. Kimba, I know how a man looks at someone who is just a friend, and that is not how Ezra looks at you. I just hope no one else noticed. He’s a pillar of this community. A hero for these kids. I don’t want him throwing that away because he’s curious about what might have been.”
“I don’t want that either, and it won’t happen. We’re just talking, Mo. We haven’t seen each other in a very long time. We were best friends from the cradle. Just trust us, okay?”
“Okay.” Her one word lilts with notes of doubt and warning, but she turns toward the fence, unlatches the door and walks through to her side.
Once she returns to her house, it’s so quiet. Not even an hour ago, this yard was teeming with activity and music and food and partygoers. After Mona leaves, I only hear the lonely chirp of crickets.
“What are you doing here, Tru?” I ask aloud.
Ezra’s assurances, Mona’s warnings—none of them weigh more than the knowledge that lines the secret crevices of my own heart.
I want him.
But I would hate to hurt Noah, or tempt Ezra to cheat on Aiko. I don’t want to compromise my own convictions. So why the hell am I still here? He said I could trust him, but that’s not what I’m worried about.
I can’t trust myself.
I fall back through the split in the net enclosure, flopping onto the trampoline. The surface answers with a little bounce. That tiny hiccup of buoyancy lifts the heaviness, the doubt inside of me. With no audience but an empty backyard, I kick off my flats, stand on the trampoline and attempt one tentative hop. And then another. A bigger one that propels me higher and higher still. So high my arms fly over my head. My feet and legs absorb the shock, the energy of each bounce, and I’m soaring and landing and springing and laughing. For just a few moments, I don’t want to think about my ovaries betraying me, or that I’m never done proving myself, no matter how much I succeed. Someone still needs to see more from me before they give me a chance. I want to forget that the boy who used to feel like mine is now a man I can’t have. I leave all my problems on the ground and just jump.