Page 37

She swirled the wine in her glass. “Unofficially? Helping my mom secure a new husband. You’d be surprised how many men love being Captain Save-a-ho, especially when she’s a single mother. Officially? I was a hostess at this steakhouse in Midtown. Between my mom and that place, that’s how I learned how to read men. You can tell almost anything about a nigga by how he treats the waitstaff.”

“And what’d you learn?”

“That rich men tip well when they want you to like them and bad when they think you don’t matter.” She raised her glass. “Both are useful information.”

I was tempted to ask her what she’d learned about me but tucked that away for another time.

“What’s your middle name?” she asked.

“That’s a random question.”

“We’re getting to know each other, right?”

“Felix. It’s my mother’s father’s name.”

“Did you know him?”

I shook my head. “He died before I was born, but she told me he was a great man. What’s yours?”

“My name is ghetto as hell.” She threw back the rest of her wine. “It’s La’Belle Mafia Evans.”

“I mean, it is a little ghetto, but classy in a weird way,” I laughed.

She waved me off. “My mother’s a huge Patti LaBelle fan, so that’s where my first name’s from. Then Mafia—” she shook her head. “The lady just loves mafia movies. Goodfellas especially, that’s her shit.”

We cleaned up after we finished eating and left the dishes outside the front door for the hotel staff. Belle disappeared into the bathroom to get ready for bed, while I stripped down to my boxers and waited for my turn in the bathroom. She came out in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, and a bonnet on.

I went in and brushed my teeth. She was already under the covers when I came out.

“Make sure you stay on your side,” she reminded me.

I ignored her and got in bed.

She turned off the lamp on her side and stacked two pillows between us.

“Goodnight, Ms. Mafia,” I said.

“Shut up, Felix.”

We lay there in the dark as the ceiling fan whirled above us. The bed was big enough that we weren’t touching and wouldn’t be, even without the fake pillow barrier. I could hear her breathing and smell her lotion, which would be embedded in these sheets and my memory for the foreseeable future. I stared at the ceiling, listening as her breathing slowed and she drifted off to sleep.

I was too wired to fall asleep, hyperaware that I was sharing a bed with Belle. Not touching her took a level of discipline that I usually reserved for work. Every time I started to fall asleep, the sounds she was making in her sleep pulled me back awake.

I was starting to drift off when something that wasn’t the pillow pressed against me. Belle’s leg rested against mine, her arm draped across my chest. I tensed and started to move it, but she stirred and curled closer. With a sigh, I put my arm around her and pulled her in until her body settled against mine.

I fell asleep like that. Faster than I had in months.

I’d woken up to her still curled into my arms. Her bonnet had shifted in her sleep, letting some loose hair spill out onto the pillow.

It scared me how steady my heartbeat was with her this close. That was different. Feelings like that changed how you made decisions, and in my world, the wrong choices had consequences that went way beyond a broken heart.

I thought about the file on her at my desk back home.

Then I looked at Belle’s sleeping form, and none of that mattered.

“You look rested,” Yomi said when I met him for breakfast the next morning.

“You tryna say I look tired all the time?” I asked, sitting across from him