It’s more than enough weed for one person and too much money to keep inside a jar in his kitchen cabinet.
I scoff. “Some things never change?—”
“You lost something?” a rugged voice booms over the music.
I gasp.
The jar falls from my hand in a slow tumble and shatters against the floor with a loudthudthat makes my body jerk forward.
“Oh shit,” they mutter.
It’s him.
I don’t have to turn around to know it. So I stare at the shards of glass next to my foot instead.
Oh shit is right.
He doesn’t sound anything like 50 Cent.
“You straight, mama?” he asks.
He sounds good.
I can’t believe he’s been hiding his smoky voice from Uncle Kenny, but I doubt Uncle Kenny would even appreciate it as much as I am right now, even though I really shouldn’t be.
“You Faye’s niece, right?”
A lazy dip sits between each of his words and makes me want to groan in response to his questions. Since I’ve been back home, I’ve realized that men don’t sound like him anymore. They all have these generic accents that can blend in anywhere, but not him. He sounds exactly like the men at home are supposed to sound.
“I ain’t know you was still gon’ be in my house.”
He still drags his words and talks in a slow cadence that probably makes women’s toes curl. All of his “ow’s” sound like “ah’s” and assure my overactive brain that it can finally relax because we actually made it. We’re back home—for real.
The glass crunches beneath his feet as he moves closer to me. Every time he takes a step forward, I take one too, because he’s still a fighter no matter how good he sounds. Uncle Kenny always says fighters have to be a little crazy because it’s the only way they can survive. It’s in their genes.
I can’t even turn around to face him.
I actually want to crawl inside his pewter cabinets.
I run my trembling hand across the drawer handles beneath the counter until I brush a drawer that I hope has silverware. I yank it open and find a handful of loose forks and knives.
Thank God.
I grab a fork out, whirling around with it, just in case, but as soon as I lay eyes on him, my stomach drops.
I pinch my eyes shut then open them back as if it’ll change the fact that he’s shirtless and looks nothing like the images my silly imagination conjured up.
He’s built like all of those dudes who showed up on our porch every now and then, but better. His limbs are as long as vines, and his body looks like it was sculpted out of hickory-colored concrete.
I feel like I’m back in anatomy and physiology at Lockwood.
I can see his pectoralis major, his biceps, his triceps…and his rectus abdominis.
I swallow a croak.
AJ has a six-pack too, but his came from four world-renowned trainers and a chef who tracks micronutrients in his sleep. Rich’s has to be homegrown.
A bead of sweat trickles between the hard lines in his stomach and makes a woozy feeling come over me because I’m breaking another one of AJ’s rules—I’mlookingat another man.
