“Was not.”
No, she wasn’t, but she’d been twenty-seven for a few years. Before that she was twenty-one. At one point, I wondered if I had robbed the cradle. I took her hand before she could get trampled by a woman dragging a carry-on the size of a studio apartment. Had the nerve to eye us like we wanted to cut. But she wasn’t theonly one. People were out here committing foot homicide with luggage wheels. Straight rolling over ankles and sacrificing toes.
Lip caught between her teeth, Madison glanced at me as if she had no clue she was testing my self-control on purpose. No sex, not even a little sex, until she entered our home?Dayum!Lord, help me.
“You already made it through this, huh?” she asked, voice soft, eyes brighter than the overhead fluorescents deserved.
“Yep.” Since it was a sinnotto look, my eyes lingered, tracing the contours of her body. That dress slid over her, painted on. Her perfume drifted up, warm and sweet, tightening every part of me. My gaze dropped to her lips again. I tugged a finger into the collar of my linen shirt. “Did your birthday dinner get canceled?”
“No, Lynetta and I tried this new Spanish place.”
What about her parents? They always canceled. Those two needed to grab some switches out of the bayou and beat the brakes off themselves.
We strolled toward the nearest airport restaurant with plastic menus and twenty-seven-dollar fries. I kept her tucked close because the crowd was wild and she smelled too good to release.
“Wash, you’re out here with the rest of us po’ folks, pinching pennies on a red-eye,” she teased.
“Nah, my pride goes into tailored suits, golfing, anything my woman wants.”
“Whatwoman?”
“Andmy man cave,” I said over her.
Laughter slipped out of her, soft, familiar, and tugging at the deepest place in my chest.
We sat at the edge of the restaurant. The lights were low. Her lipstick was perfect enough to ruin.
After glancing at the menu, we agreed to share red velvet cake for her birthday. “So why did you buy that Bentley?” she asked. “And for the record, you did nothing to warrant aWaiting-to-Exhalesituation on your car.”
“Why wait to exhale?”
She shook her head. “Even when you were a year into corporate law, you drove a Prius through the hoods of New Orleans. Didn’t give a crap if the wheels were naked.”
“No rims, don’t care.” I shrugged.
“See. I was always the best part of you.”
“Woman, you are my best half. My backbone. My rib. My good thing.” I pulled at my beer again, then set it on the wooden surface. “Missed you. The Bentley was your next car.”
“It was supposed to be.”
“So, it was a psychology grab for me,” I replied. “Didn’t even like that blue.”
“You love blue.”
“You still playing innocent? No jury around,bébé, but me in a light blue car? Baby blue, I think it was.”
“WindsorBlue. And I get it. You’re not with the bougie blues, like Tiffany.”
“Nah. No way in hell my cousin Tiff got a color named after her. She still sells weaves and weed. After the government passed medicinal weed, she asked if it was legal to invest in, paranoid ass.” I laughed.
“Oh, Tiff. Hood rich has perks, though.” Madison sighed, but then she said, “Anyway, I got a little jealous the first time I saw you driving one of my dream cars.” She shook her head.
The server came to our table, and I ordered the red velvet cake. After arguing with that man for a good three minutes, polite arguing but still arguing, about how he should “check the whole airport” for a candle, I turned toward her.
“Thank you, DOJ.”
“DOJ?” My brow lifted. If I had a gavel, I’d tell her to get that mess outta here. “You must be sleepy, Maddy. That stands for Depart?—”
