“So you can do your job better?”
“So I can make you happy.”
His quick reply stunned them both into a brief silence. He could lie and say he didn’t mean it, but he knew better. It had been years since a woman had him as caught up as this woman did. He hadn’t thought about much apart from her since he saw her picture, and his thoughts weren’t just job-related. She seemed to be at a loss for words, so he continued.
“I didn’t like the way your father was talking to you today, and I didn’t like how your siblings had you reacting on that phone call. All that shit pissed me off, and my feelings about it made something real clear to me.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Keeping you happy is just as much of a priority for me as keeping you safe. You got a light about you, Nahla. It seems like your family wants to dim it, and I’m not with that. So I wanna understand, and I wanna fix it.”
There was another long pause, and a tear slipped from her eye.
Then, Nahla said, “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Explain your family shit to me.”
She sighed. “Oh, right. Uh, . . . my parents were pillars in the community. My mother worked in the education field until the day she died, and so did my father, until he got sick. They were both on several boards in the community. My father is a deacon in our church. They’re just very well known in Jasona.
“Image was everything to them, and I think they just had a plan for their children’s lives. A plan that I ruined.”
More tears fell from her eyes, and she wiped them away. Cannon had already surprised himself by being honest with her about how he’d been feeling. The fact that he now had an almost uncontrollable urge to wrap her in his arms was just as crazy. He wasn’t one to show affection to anyone, but he had a burning desire to comfort Nahla in this moment.
“I’m the middle child, and I was always too . . .muchfor my parents’ taste. I was too curious, too bold, and too unwilling to fake the funk. They wanted perfect kids who answered questions like, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ with answers like ‘A doctor, or a teacher, or a principal. That just wasn’t me. I wanted to have conversations, ask questions that no one had thought of yet, and tell stories. I wanted excitement. I wanted to dive into the gray areas of life and color them.” Nahla sighed again.
“So, that’s what I did. I wrote an op-ed when I was seventeen about police brutality. My English teacher loved it and submitted it toThe Citizen’s Eyefor publishing. They loved it, too, and that was how I started interning for the paper. My parents hated that essay, though. They didn’t speak to me for two weeks after that.”
“What the fuck was their problem with it?” Cannon asked, feeling himself get heated.
“They said that the paper offended several of their friends in the police department. They said they never imagined a daughter of theirs could be so thoughtless.”
Cannon shook his head in disbelief. “That’s fucked up.”
She shrugged. “That was my life. I became a disappointment while my older brother went on to follow in their footsteps. He’s well on his way to becoming a principal, and my younger sister has been teaching for the last four years. They’ve made my father really proud.
“I hated disappointing my parents, but Ialwayshated disappointing myself more. As hard as they tried to, I never allowed my parents—or anyone else—to trick me out of my dreams.”
Cannon chuckled. “I love that about you,” he said.
For the first time in a while, Nahla smiled. “I love that about me too.”
“You’re amazing at what you do, Nahla. I knew who you were even before I took the job, because I’ve been keeping up with your stories. You see through the bullshit. You press on where others look away. That’s a gift worth using.”
“I appreciate that,” she said before downing the rest of the wine in her glass. As soon as the bottom of the glass touched the countertop, she poured herself more.
She took a few sips before glancing at Cannon again.
“Can we talk about something else? Something happier?”
Cannon thought for a minute. “I’on know if this makes you happy or not, but I’ma need you to hook me up like this at least ten more times while we’re out here. This food is good as hell,” Cannon said, standing with his plate.
He headed over to the microwave and placed his food inside, since it had cooled while they had been talking.
“I can make that happen.”
Cannon was facing the microwave, so he was caught off guard when he realized Nahla was right behind him. He turned around, and she grinned.
“Can we go back to the stuff you were saying about making me happy?”
