“Nah, Pops. Bring her. Can I bring my girl?”
“Lil nigga, this ain’t no double date,” Akeem says while trying to hide his amusement. “Besides, you gotta ask yo’ girl to homecoming. She ain’t yours yet.”
“That’s cold.”
“That’s facts. Get back to school. I’ll scoop you at six. Love you.”
“Me too,” Quise says and Akeem laughs before ending the call. Whenever he’s around his boys, like most teens, Quise skirts saying I love you.
When Akeem walks back inside, Sunjiya is indeed awake. She’s standing in the full kitchen, washing the small coffeemaker. He steps behind her and snakes his arms around her. At his touch, she leans into him, places her hands on his, then utters, “Good morning.”
Resisting asking how she’s doing, he merely responds, “Good morning.”
“You want coffee? I’m cleaning this thing,” she says.
“Nah and don’t you worry about that. They have full room service. We can order coffee and food.”
“Mm, that sounds so much better. Plus, we only ate breakfast yesterday. Is their food good? You’ve stayed here before, right?” she asks. To his delight, she sounds like her normal self thismorning. After everything that happened yesterday, she needed to sleep in.
“Yeah. I stay here whenever I visit Quise and the food is really good.”
“I hope you’re gonna see him this trip,” she says.
“I actually am. I’m taking him to his favorite restaurant in Miami for dinner tonight.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“And I want you to come with us if you feel up to it. I talked to him about it and he’s cool with it. No pressure though. I don’t want to push you to do shit you don’t want to do.”
Sunjiya drops her hands then turns to face him. After resting her arms on his shoulders, she squints then a smile forms on her beautiful, well-rested face.
“I’m up to it. Of course I want to go,” she says and he smiles. “I just need to get my clothes cleaned or something. I’m running out of things to wear.”
“We can have the concierge get our clothes to the cleaners. While we eat and you get your treatment, they can handle that,” he says and her eyebrow peaks.
“Treatment. What treatment?”
“The hotel has a spa. I booked you a signature experience,” he says, then pulls out the appointment card he had the girl at the spa fill out for him. He did not want to fuck up what he actually booked. “You’re getting this,” he says when he hands her the card.
“Akeem, are you serious?” she gushes as she reads the list of scheduled services.
The Conrad Spa offers curated treatments for ultimate relaxation. After the past several days, she deserves real relaxation.
“Yes. The spa is downstairs,” he explains.
“An eighty-minute herbal poultice massage and slow beauty manicure and pedicure. They sound wonderful,” she says, reading the card. “Thank you,” she says with a simper then softly kisses his lips. “For real, thank you. It’s the perfect way to start this off.”
“This off? What?”
“Us. Up until last night, we were together but not really, you know? We had Marcelin and…” she starts then pauses to gather the right words. In her mind, this refers to her completely living as Sunjiya but that thought can’t be expressed.It doesn’t need to be.“Just everything else to handle but us. Now, we can really do this couple thing,” she says, smiling.
“This couple thing, huh? I like that shit.” He smirks, then grips her ass. “Our first day of many.”
“So many,” she agrees.
“Order breakfast. The digital menu and pad are by the phone. I’m going to find the laundry bags and contact the concierge. I don’t want you to miss your spa appointment.”
“Oh trust, I’m not missing that.”
