Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
From his plate.
Who am I right now?
I’m that girl, living out a fantasy on a half-a-billion dollar yacht floating on dreams along the coast of Italy. Forget Black girl magic. This is pure sorcery, and if it’s a spell, we’re both under it.
“I would love to know what’s going on inside that head right now,” Lotus says, chuckling and setting aside the sketches we were reviewing for her Carnival-themed summer line.
“What?” I bite into a smile. “Sorry. I lost my train of thought.”
“Hmmmmmm,” Lotus hums. “Wild, wild thoughts, judging by the way you and Naz have been acting.”
“Oh, my god.” I cover my face and peek through my fingers. “Am I that obvious?”
“Is that a serious question?” Lotus leans back in her chair on the deck and tips her face to the sun. “He’s down bad.”
“So am I.” My smile fades. “This feels like paradise, but there’s a lot of real world waiting for us when we get home.”
Lotus pushes oversized sunglasses atop her head and sets a sobering gaze on my face. “I don’t know the full history of your past with Naz, but I saw parts of that awful documentary SportsCo aired that mentioned your brother. They showed clips of that game, and I know that kind of brought Naz attention he hadn’t gotten before, at least in basketball.”
“Yeah. My brother resents Naz for what happened.”
“It was high school. A really long time ago.”
“It was, but that’s the point where my brother’s life started falling apart. In a lot of ways, he’s still there.”
“But that wasn’t Naz’s fault.”
“It’s irrational, but Cliff’s been through a lot. Most of it because of his own bad choices, but he’s just getting back on his feet and…” I swallow the emotion, the remembered panic of Mama’s frantic call when Cliff overdosed. “I don’t want to do anything that would derail him.”
“And you’re afraid your relationship with Naz would?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a relationship. It was supposed to be a fling because I’m attracted to him. I have been since the day we met. I’ve wondered more than once how things could have been different for us, had they been different for Cliff, but it’s all tangled up. You can’t separate the two.”
“And now?” Lotus asks. “No one seeing the two of you together would think this ends when we leave this yacht.”
“I know.” I close my eyes and release a troubled sigh. The thought of losing whatever Naz and I are building together, even at this early stage, stirs a pang of loss.
“Hey.” Lotus reaches across the table, her eyes compassionate. “You still have a few days. Enjoy. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We?” I laugh and lift my brows.
“Yeah, we.” Lotus winks. “You’re Naz’s girl. You’re one of us now.”
Naz’s girl.
That sings in my head and lights me up inside. I’m still processing the implications of what that could mean if it becomes true—if I let it be true—when Lotus’s business partners, Yari and Billie, walk up on deck.
“Hey, bitches,” Lotus says, her smile easy and loving. “I barely recognized you without your guys attached to your hips.”
“They have real jobs and couldn’t stay the whole time.” Yari sighs, flopping into an empty chair at the table. “And look who’s talking. You got a whole baby from your man.”
Lotus rubs her little stomach, oiled up with sunscreen in her bikini, and beams. “He got me!”
“I really like these,” Billie says, her green eyes widening as she studies the sketches on the table. “Is this for the Carnival theme next summer?”
“Yeah,” Lotus says. “Takira’s giving me the inside scoop. She’s from Trinidad and goes back all the time for Carnival.”
“That’s so cool.” Yari scoops her dark, curly hair into a messy bun, her arms even browner now from the sun than when we started our trip. “Can you teach us how to wine?”
“How to what?” Billie asks, peeking at us from beneath the wide-brim hat offering her fair skin shade. She’s a classic redhead and has been careful with the sun.
“It’s dancing.” I laugh. “And I’ve never tried to teach anyone how to do it. It’s just…in me. I grew up watching my mama and aunts, cousins, sister—it’s something in our blood, and as soon as the music starts, it catches me.”
“I actually think I’m pretty good.” Lotus makes a show of brushing her shoulders off. “If I do say so myself.”
“I’d like to see that big belly wining,” Yari teases.
“Sun’s out.” Lotus scrapes her chair back, stands, and smacks her ass. “Buns out. You got anything we can wine to?”
“Anything we can…” I giggle. “Oh, my god, Lo.”
“Music!” Her hands go to her slim hips. From the back, you can’t even tell the girl is six months pregnant. “Gimme a beat.”
Laughing, I look through the playlist on my phone and pull up some Soca to dance to. Within ten minutes, the four of us are lined up on deck in our bathing suits in various states of wine.