“Are you propositioning me for a one-night stand? Is that what you’re asking for?”
Adam tilted his head and lifted a questioning eyebrow. “Actually, I was offering my arm for a dance, and a cup of coffee at the diner afterward.”
She laughed then and it broke her tense aura down enough that her shoulders shook, and her eyes crinkled with amusement.
“But don’t worry, once we have our coffee, if we want to explore other options, I’m down for that too.”
She tugged her sexy bottom lip between her teeth, making him ache to run his thumb across it. As a teenage girl, Janae had had his nose wide open even if she didn’t know it. But the flash of desire in her eyes as she took in the sight of him indicated that this grown woman understood her power. If that spark of naughtiness in her eyes was anything to go by, he’d say she was willing to use it on him if only for one night.
“All right, Adam.” She hooked her arm through his. “Let’s go have a good time.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of her friends. “Let me go tell my girls we’re gonna head out at the end of the reunion.”
Without another word, she turned around, her hips swiveling in the sexiest rhythm he’d ever witnessed before.
And just like Loretta Devine’s character inWaiting to Exhalewhen she walked away from Gregory Hines, Janae stopped halfway across the room to look over her shoulder and see if Adam was still watching her.
He sure as hell was. Considering the way his heartbeat spedup at the barest hint of her smile, he was almost certain he always would.
“Damn that woman is fine.”
She certainly was.
“This classroom was the bane of my existence.” Adam watched as each of his friends, excluding Vanessa, burst into laughter at Michael’s admission. This was the room they’d had calculus in and poor Michael had struggled from the first day to the last.
“What happened in this room, baby?” Vanessa’s voice was soothing and compassionate as she rubbed Michael’s arm.
“It’s the room where his inability to do math finally caught up with him.” Derrick stopped laughing long enough to speak. “Mrs. Glenwood would not give him a break. If he didn’t pass, she wasn’t letting Michael walk for graduation.”
“That’s how Janae and Adam ended up tutoring me.” Michael wore the same pained expression he did back then when they were trying to explain the concepts of calculus to him, the one where he looked like he either had a headache or was constipated, or both.
They’d each began sitting down on the metal chairs with desks attached to them. Back in their day, they had seemed heavier and sturdier and you had to put your whole back into moving one. Now, a gentle nudge with their hands and the sets moved this way and that.
When Adam looked around, they’d all managed to find their assigned seats from all those years ago, meaning he had to look across the room to find Janae. He’d hated that she was so far away from him then, and he didn’t much like it now, either.
“Janae, do you remember what Ms. Glenwood said when she told us to tutor Mike?”
Janae threw her head back, chuckling at the memory. Her full cheeks sat high on her face and her mouth spread into a big brightsmile. Goodness, she was so alluring. How he’d managed to hide his interest in her as a kid he’d never know because even sitting on opposite sides of the room didn’t dim her light, the light that drew him into her orbit every time he was near.
“She said you and I were the two smartest kids in school. If one of us tutored Michael, he might pass. But his only chance of actually passing was if the both of us tag-teamed him with our brilliance.”
Even Michael had to laugh at that. “She wasn’t wrong. I can do simple operations, but once they started mixing the alphabet with strange symbols and in weird orders, my brain tapped out. After tenth-grade algebra, my brain was pretty much tuned out on high school math.”
Vanessa shook her head. “I don’t care what y’all say. My baby couldn’t have been that bad.”
Derrick howled again. “Vanessa, Michael was so bad at math, he proved the belief that all Asian people are good at math is a whole lie.”
They all laughed again, and Michael stood up, pulling Vanessa into his arms. “I still don’t know what limits and continuity are, but I managed to snag the most beautiful woman in the world. I still won if you ask me.”
Vanessa melted in Michael’s arms, and they all shared a collective “Aww,” as Vanessa placed a sweet peck on Michael’s mouth.
Their love and loyalty shone bright whenever they were together. He doubted anyone could see them together and not hope for something like that for themselves. He looked across the room and saw the same longing he felt on Derrick and Cree’s faces. She hid it a lot better than Derrick did, expertly using sarcasm to throw people off the scent. But just like the heaviness that hounded both Adam and Derrick, he could see the same haunting in Cree’s brown eyes too.
Adam ached for someone who would support his dreams, support him, no matter what the rest of the world said. Vanessa wasdefinitely that for Michael. Looking at the two of them, he couldn’t help but wonder when it would be his turn. When his marriage ended, it took him a long time to put that part of his life behind him. Could he finally be ready to seek out more?
In that moment, his eyes locked with Janae’s, and he saw something flash in her eyes. Was she hoping for the same as Adam? Could she be ready to seek something new with him?
“Y’all realize this is the first time all five of us have been in the same room since my parents’ passing, right?”
There was a small glimpse of sorrow that flitted across his face before a genuine smile washed the shadow away.
