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)
His lips curved. “Yeah, they are.”
Liam sauntered in. “What’s for dinner?”
“What’s for dinner is you getting on the corn, son,” Darius ordered. “The cast iron skillet. Melt the butter. Medium heat. Pour in the whole bag of frozen corn when it’s melted. Salt and lots of pepper. And watch that shit. I don’t want it burning. And let’s get a move on. You gotta get to the field.”
Liam had a game that night, and Darius was right. We were cutting it close.
“Gotcha,” Liam said, heading for a drawer and pulling out a Le Creuset skillet that had a matte blue around the outside.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Drink wine,” Darius answered.
It hit me then, like a bullet.
All this spoiling. No lugging suitcases and shopping bags or running out into the cold to get the purse and keys I left in my car my own self.
This wasn’t Darius making up for lost time, going the extra mile to show he was a protector and provider.
This was Mister Morris.
Miss Dorothea was A Mom, in caps, through and through. She cooked. She kept her house immaculate. She checked homework. She did school runs.
But she did not carry the groceries from the car.
She didn’t even waste a trip and bring in the first load.
She came in with her purse, and Mister Morris or Darius went to get the groceries, not a word spoken, it just happened.
And Danni nor Gabby did that kind of thing.
Just Mister Morris or Darius.
Back then, I thought it was sweet.
Now, I got it.
I got all of it.
Including the drug dealing.
Mister Morris was a protector and a provider.
He taught his son that.
And the way he did, it was by any means necessary.
I didn’t realize I was staring at my man until he asked, “What?”
I jerked myself out of it and took in his beloved face.
There was only one thing I could say.
So I said it.
“I love you.”
His expression grew soft. I noted out of the corner of my eye our son ducked his head.
But I was wildly elated when, for the first time since forever, our child was right there when Darius said it back.
“Love you too, baby.”
Happy…
Cloud…
Of goodness.
Darius got his son fed, and his woman, and Liam took off to the field. Darius and I followed later, and there was only a bit of uncomfortableness when Miss Dorothea joined Darius, my mom and dad, Lena, Toni, Tony, Talia and me (Kenneth didn’t do sports).
But she smiled brightly at us and kissed my cheek.
So I guessed it was water under the bridge, and I was glad for it.
And one could say I was fucking ecstatic that Liam’s cheer block was expanding.
Second best to our night at Carmine’s? (Okay, third best, after our first breakfast together.)
Sitting beside Darius, watching our boy play ball.
I’d never forget that either.
Not a second of it.
By the way, our team won, and Liam scored a touchdown.
So, yes.
Walking toward Fortnum’s after breakfast number three with my kid and my man, this meal longer, more laid-back, with all of us cooking together and eating together and lingering over coffee and giving each other stick and cleaning up together, I was walking on air.
We turned the corner to the door to Fortnum’s that was angled there, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to walk into my past that was also my future.
I shot Toni a bright smile that had her eyebrows reaching for her hairline before I pushed in, and the familiar sound of the bell over the door rang.
But once I got inside, I stopped dead.
Toni stopped dead beside me.
And we stared.
She was the first to break the silence.
And she did this by drawling, “Welllllll…shit.”
Chapter Sixteen
Swatches
Things had changed over the years at Fortnum’s.
There was an espresso bar against the side wall where the tables and chairs with the games had been back in the day.
There were new, but still worn-in and comfortable couches and armchairs scattered around, with some tables and chairs at the front.
And there were a lot more patrons than there used to be, and although some high-school-aged kids were there, they were no longer the majority.
But the field of books stretched off to the back just like they used to, and that musty smell I remembered so well mingled with coffee filled the air, permeating me with nostalgia.
The good kind.
The happy kind.
The wondrous kind.
However, sitting in the seating area in front of the large plate-glass window was what could only be every beautiful white woman in the Denver Metro area.
And, if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, among them was Dolly Parton, traveled forward through time, or a much younger lookalike, replete with a huge head of platinum blonde hair not even close to being contained by a wide pink Alice band. She was wearing a pink lace bustier out of which was bursting so much cleavage, entire sects of fundamental Christian churches had her on their watch list. Over this was a denim blazer, its lapels adorned with diamanté rivets. On the bottom were skintight, stonewash jeans, her calves and feet covered in bubblegum pink, patent leather, platform stripper boots.