“You the boss,” he teased.
“No, you just listen well.”
“That too.”
She snorted. “Shut up!”
He laughed and leaned beside her…too close. So close their arms brushed. Meadow felt a spark run through her body so fast she almost flipped the toast onto the floor.
Zaire lowered his voice. “You nervous around me?”
“Not even a little.”
“You sure?” He smiled that beautiful Colgate smile that earned him the Sexiest Man alive award in Black Excellence Magazine two years in a row.
Her phone rang.
The name flashed across the screen:HANK BELL PROPERTY GROUP.
Meadow sucked her teeth. “Oh Lord.”
Zaire stepped back. “Who that?”
She didn’t answer him, just rolled her neck, hit accept, and put the phone to her ear. “I told you to stop calling me,” she snapped.
Zaire froze mid-movement, watching her energy shift hard and fast.
“I ain’t selling my Black ass land!” she yelled. “Stop calling my damn phone before I kill you and your whole bloodline!”
Zaire’s eyebrows shot up. A slow grin spread across his face. Oh, he liked that. Loved when women went hard…as long as it wasn’t on him.
“Yes, I know what I said last time. No, it ain’t changing. No amount of zeros gon’ make me budge. Now leave me the entire hell alone.” She hung up so hard the phone bounced.
She didn’t breathe for a second…didn’t look at Zaire either. Her cheeks were pink. Her chest was rising rapidly. Something about that call hit a nerve deeper than she expected.
“You good?” Zaire asked carefully.
Meadow flinched. “Yea, I’m fine.”
She was lying.
He saw it.
She felt it.
Without warning, she turned off the stove and bolted toward the hallway. “Watch the food…please…I’ll be back.”
Zaire nodded but didn’t move until she was out of sight.
Then he turned off the last burner, slid the pan to the back and stood still for a beat.
Something was pulling him…something in her voice…something in the storm she was trying to hold down.
He followed it.
Looking around the kitchen, then at the trail of heat Meadow left behind, Zaire decided to go check on her. The old place creaked as he made his way through the modest sized home. Photos of a young Meadow lined the walls. Her smile was so big and bright in all of them, except for one where she looked like she just finished crying and tried to smile for the picture. She was with another girl who looked nothing like her.
As far as Zaire knew, Ray only had one child. But he didn’t really know much about them, which reminded him why he kept his gun tucked. If Crescent hadn’t taught him anything else, it taught him to keep his head on swivel at all times. It was why the league felt he wasn’t clean enough to play on their green…to win on their green.
