“I see you,” Von sang without looking away from his game.
Janita smiled and opened the door wider. “I was just making sure you were okay.”
“Dinner was great, sis. Hawk said so too. He loves your cooking. He was eating like there was no tomorrow.”
“I don’t think it was my cooking. I think it was because it was the first homecooked meal he’d had in a while.”
Von stopped his game and looked at her. “Why do you always sell yourself short? He loved your cooking, Nita. Period.”
“Okay. Dang. It’s not that serious.”
“But he is,” said Von as if he knew the least thing could tip his joy over to the wrong side. “Right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You think he really meant it?” Von asked.
“Do I think he really meant what?”
“Two for one? And that we belonged to him?”
“Oh that.” She smiled to reassure him. “He meant it.”
Von smiled too and slung his braids out of his handsome face. “When’s the wedding?”
His question slapped that smile off of Janita’s face. “What wedding? They postponed his half-sister’s wedding the same day we found Hawk half-dead, and as far as I know they haven’t rescheduled it yet.”
“I mean your wedding, Janita. You know what I mean.”
“My wedding?” She wished. “There’s no wedding and you know it.”
“But you said he was serious.”
“About us working for him, DeVontay. About us living with him.” Then she felt a sense of panic. She didn’t want him ever getting his hopes up high concerning her and a man. He knew her track record! “We work for him, Von. That’s all. That’s it. Okay?”
Von understood what she meant. He could be another dead-end for them too. But he was just hoping. He nodded his head. “Okay,” he said.
Janita smiled, said her goodbye, and left his room. She walked around the corridor again to her room. But just as she opened the door of her bedroom, which was next door to Hawk’s bedroom, she heard his voice. “Janita, come here.”
It didn’t sound like an order, but it sure felt like one. She hurried to his bedroom and stood at the open door.
“Close the door and come here,” Hawk said to her. He was lying in bed, on his back, and staring at her in her shorts and t-shirt as she closed his door and made her way to his bedside.
“You’re doing alright? You don’t feel bad or anything, do you?”
It was his time to reassure her. “Actually, I feel great. It’s been a long day and I’m a little tired, but other than that I’m good.”
“Oh good,” Janita said with relief in her voice. It was as if she thought his wellbeing was now her responsibility. And in some ways, that was exactly how she felt.
“Dinner was excellent,” he said.
Just like Von had said, she thought. And instead of making excuses or minimizing her abilities, she took it in stride. “Thank you.”
But then he removed his covers halfway off of his body and revealed a very fit, very bronze, very muscular, naked body with a very muscular, aroused penis. Just as he had hoped, Janita’s eyes went straight for the penis. Which, Hawk knew, gave him permission to keep going. “Get out of those clothes and hop in,” he said.
Janita had never met a man as forceful and certain of himself as Hawk. She’d met plenty of jerks who thought they were being forceful and certain but were really just being jerks. But nobody like Hawk.
And to prove that point, she did what she wouldn’t normally do on any given day and got out of her clothes and got in bed with him.
