Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
This was what he got a load of right then.
So this was why he turned his wide shoulder to me and gave her his full attention.
Her smile got big and her come hither blasted out farther than her Hollywood looks.
Right, I’d lost Toni.
I did my own scan, some people shifting, giving me a direct shot to the back of the bar, and I froze.
The people shifted back, hiding me from her, but I’d seen her.
And she’d seen me.
Darius’s Aunt Shirleen.
Okay, now it was official.
This was a bad idea.
“We’ve got to go,” I told Toni.
Her head jerked. “What?”
I pulled some money out of my wallet, threw it on the bar for our drinks and slid off the stool, all the while repeating, “We’ve got to go.”
“I’ll take you home,” the guy said hurriedly to Toni.
I straightened my spine and tapped his arm to get his attention.
He twisted my way.
“No, you won’t,” I told him. “Like a gentleman, you’ll ask for her number. You’ll then call her, not in three days, so she’ll have to wonder for those three days if you’re into her. You’ll call her tomorrow. You’ll talk and see if you vibe. If you vibe, you’ll ask her out to dinner and take her someplace nice so she can dress up. Bonus for you, you’ll want to see her dressed up. And then you both will take it from there.”
I thought he’d get upset about me being so bossy, but he grinned, returned his attention to Toni and said in a soft voice, “Can I have your number, baby?”
In my opinion, he could have lost the “baby,” but I could see from Toni’s face it worked on her.
She fished a receipt out of her purse, and at her request, I fished a pen out of mine. She gave him her number, and they did a lot of checking each other out, Toni doing it twisted to look behind her as I pulled her out of the bar.
I would have advised against the finger wave she sent his way right as we walked out the door, but it happened before I could stop it.
“Something else is official,” she announced when we were in the car. “You are now my official wingwoman. You rock that shit.”
Well…
Duh.
What were friends for?
“Wanna tell me what our swift exit was about?” she asked after I’d started up the car and headed through the parking lot toward Colfax.
“Darius’s Aunt Shirleen saw me.”
“Okay, I might be slow right now. I got a little dazzled by the attention of a good-lookin’ man, but weren’t we there looking for him?”
“Looking for him, yes.”
“Not sure I understand the emphasis,” she noted. “But just to say, she’s his aunt. Wouldn’t she know where he is?”
“Looking for him, Toni. Not finding him. I didn’t want him to know I was looking, remember?”
“You were just at a bar, Malia. You’re allowed to be at a bar.”
“Not legally.”
“Hmm,” she didn’t quite agree, even if she agreed.
“And it’s a bar everyone knows he hangs at.”
“Because his aunt and uncle own it,” Toni stated. “Which would stand to reason, since she owns it, she’d be there.”
Something else was official.
“Okay, I get it. I’m an idiot,” I told the street.
Toni reached out and patted my leg, saying, “Hon, you aren’t an idiot. You love the guy. You miss him. Shit went down, and I can see that time has passed, so now you think it’s time he sorted himself out and stood up for you and Liam. There’s nothing idiotic about that.”
I should have known my girl would come through for me in the end.
“Thanks, Toni,” I whispered.
“Just call him,” she whispered back. “Finding his phone number’ll probably be a lot easier than tracking him down on the mean streets of Denver.”
Darius lived on the mean streets.
I didn’t usually take those.
“I’ll think about it,” I told her.
“I hope you do, because, don’t forget, I was around during the great love affair of Malia Clark and Darius Tucker. I know it was high school, but some things transcend high school, and you two were one of those things. Everyone knew you were the real deal. Everyone knew you two were going to make it. Thick and thin. Life smacked you both in the face way before it ever should have. You’re in thin. I know that boy and the man he’ll become. He’s Mister Morris through and through. He’ll do right by you.”
Even though I knew she was right, I still hoped she wasn’t wrong.
* * * *
I laid my sleeping son in his crib, marveling at how beautiful he was, reveling in how peaceful he slept, pleased he hadn’t woken up when I picked him up from Mom and Dad’s house after I dropped Toni, and thinking I was crazy for missing him being awake and driving me crazy by learning his way around the child-protection latches Dad installed on the cabinets.