Page 68 of The Sweetest Return

The black Saint Laurent silk gown was one of the few pieces from my YSL years I had loved enough to buy instead of borrow.

It fell simply from the front, skimming my body instead of strangling it, then dropped low across my back in a way that made turning around feel like an announcement.

Brown and gold warmed my eyes. Gloss sat on my mouth. Delina touched my wrists, throat, behind my ears, and lightly between my breasts because apparently I had decided subtlety was a suggestion other women could follow.

I looked good.

I knew it.

And I hated how much some part of me wanted Dre to know it too.

“Imani, baby.”

My chest tightened before I turned.

Rochelle Jones stood a few feet away in deep-purple silk that wrapped softly over her curves and made her dark-brown skin glow beneath the lights. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, swept away from her face in soft waves threaded with silver near the temples. Diamonds rested at her ears and throat, elegant but not timid, and her smile still carried that same warmth that used to greet me after games, Sunday dinners, and random visits when Dre decided feeding me was somehow part of being his girlfriend.

“Oh my goodness,” I whispered.

She opened her arms, and I went into them before I had time to decide whether I should.

Her hug felt the same.

That surprised me enough to sting.

For years, this woman had been part of my life in a way that had nothing to do with politeness. She had called me when Dre was being stubborn, sent food back to campus with us, remembered exams, birthdays, interviews. She had loved me because I loved her son, but somewhere along the way, she had loved me for myself too.

Losing Dre had meant losing her.

I hadn’t let myself think much about that.

Mrs. Jones pulled back and held my arms, her gaze moving over me with open affection. “Look at you.”

I smiled. “Look at you.”

“Don’t start lying to me this early in the evening.”

“I would never.”

“That is why I always liked you.”

Her palm touched my cheek, and the affection in the gesture brought that same ache back beneath my ribs.

“David,” she called over her shoulder, “look who finally came home.”

Mr. Jones turned from the man he’d been speaking to, and his whole face opened.

He was still tall, still broad, still built like work had shaped him before comfort ever got the chance. His close-cut hair had gone mostly silver at the sides, and his beard carried more gray than black now, but his skin was the same deep brown as Dre’s, his eyes just as direct. There were men who stood in expensive rooms and looked like the room had made them. Mr. Jones looked like he could build the room, pay for it, and tell you exactly which contractor had tried to overcharge him for the lights.

“Well,” he said, moving toward me. “Look who decided to come home.”

I laughed as he pulled me into a hug. “Hi, Mr. Jones.”

“Still calling me that after all these years?”

“You survived it before.”

“Barely.”