CHAPTER 1 #2
It took me another second to place him. Darius had been one of Smoke’s closest boys back then, part of the same group that was always around whenever I wasn’t glued to Smoke’s side.
They worked whatever jobs they could get, smoked too much, drank too much, and stayed fucking somebody, while Smoke was constantly on their asses about getting serious and figuring out what they wanted to do with themselves.
“Darius?”
He laughed. “You remember a nigga.”
“Oh, my God! Where’s your braids?”
He laughed, rubbing his bald head. “Nah, I been cut them shits.” I laughed and hugged him quickly, then he looked me over. “Been a minute.”
“Eight years.”
My mother sighed. “Go on now. Find your boss.”
Darius grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” He disappeared toward the back.
I turned to Mama. “Wait. Who’s your contractor?” She just looked at me, and something about her face made my stomach tighten. “Mama…”
“Now, Sol, you saw the truck outside.”
I waited, but she just stared at me. Then my eyes landed on the Cole Construction logo printed across a stack of boxes near the counter, and something clicked.
I glanced toward the front windows and finally put the black pickup truck I’d seen outside together with the same logo. “Cole Construction? Cole as in… Smoke?”
“Who else?”
My stomach dropped so quickly it pissed me off. “You… you hired him?”
“Well, he’s the best damn contractor in the county.”
“You couldn’t find another contractor?”
“For what?”
“For this, Mama!”
My mother gave me the side-eye. “That’s generally what contractors are hired for.”
“Mama, you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t know I needed your permission to renovate my own damn business.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what you saying?”
I stared at her, and her face lit up. She knew exactly what I was saying. “Don’t do that. Stop smiling.”
“I’m just happy my child is home.”
“You are messy as hell.”
“I’m fifty years old. I don’t have the energy to be messy.”
“That’s not even old!” She laughed and started walking toward the front. I followed her. “How long has he been doing this?”
“Construction?”
“The company.”
“Oh. Years.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Three years, maybe four.”
I frowned. “Four years?” She stopped and looked back at me. “So he has his own company.”
“A very successful one.”
I didn’t know why that surprised me. Smoke had always talked about working for himself. I remembered sitting on Bellhaven Hill while he told me he wanted his own crew. Apparently he’d done it. “Good for him,” I softly said, and my mother gave me a look. “What?”
“I’m just looking at you.”
“No, you’re analyzing me.”
“Baby, you’re not that complicated.”
“Wow.” I stood there trying not to make a big deal out of something that shouldn’t have been one. I had been gone eight years. I had dated other men, fallen in love, gotten engaged, and damn near married somebody else.
Smoke was my past, so finding out he happened to be somewhere in the same building shouldn’t have had my heart beating faster.
I adjusted my peacoat as I followed behind my mother toward the front of the diner, telling myself to get my shit together.
I almost believed it until a deep voice came from behind me.
“Loretta, that sink can’t stay where you got it on the plans.” My entire body recognized him before I physically laid eyes on him and that pissed me off.
My mother came through the swinging door behind me. “Why not?”
“Drain line ain’t where they said it was. I can move it, but it’s gon’ add another day, and you already on my ass ‘bout the time of shit.”
“Boy, watch that mouth. I need that sink.”
“Then I’m movin’ the line.”
“You don’t have to say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m getting on your nerves, boy!”
“You usually are.”
My mother sucked her teeth, and as I turned around, every coherent thought in my head disappeared.
Smoke stood about fifteen feet away. For one stupid second, I genuinely wondered if I had remembered him wrong because the man standing in front of me was not the twenty-four-year-old I had left.
That Smoke had been fine as hell, but this version was on a whole ‘nother grown man level of fine.
He wore dark work pants and dusty wheat Timbs, with a tape measure clipped at his waist and dust streaked across one thigh.
Then my eyes dropped to his hands. I shouldn’t have noticed them, but I did immediately.
They were more tattooed than I remembered, and rough-looking with veins running across the backs with fingers curled around a folded set of plans.
My body remembered those hands way too fucking well, and I quickly forced my eyes back to his face. Too late. Smoke had caught me looking, and his eyes moved just as slowly over me before coming back to mine.
I couldn’t read him anymore, and that bothered me more than anger would have.
I had spent years wondering what seeing him again would feel like, but I never imagined I’d be the one standing there fucked up while Smoke looked completely fine.
Then again, I was the one who left and stayed gone for eight years.
I couldn’t expect him to still be affected just because I was.
My mother looked between us. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “Let me go finish helping Renee. I’ll give you two a moment.”
Smoke’s eyes stayed on mine, and I smiled because standing there staring at him like an idiot wasn’t an option. “Hi.”
His gaze dropped briefly toward my mouth before returning to my eyes. “What’s up?”
What’s up? I almost laughed, and not because anything was funny. “Nothing much. How are you?”
“Good.”
“I see.” His eyebrow lifted slightly, and I immediately hated that I’d said it. “I mean the business,” I clarified. “My mama was telling me about it.”
“Yeah. Business good.”
“That’s great.”
“‘Ppreciate it.”
This conversation was painful. We just stared at each other for whatever reason. Eight years deserved more than this bullshit, right? “I, uh… heard about your mom passing,” I said quietly. “A while ago. I’m sorry. I should’ve… you know, reached out.”
“Prolly.” He said it so casually that I almost wished he had given me some attitude with it. At least then I could have told myself there was still enough resentment left for him to be mad at me.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He glanced toward my left hand. It happened so quickly I might’ve missed it if I hadn’t been watching him so closely. His eyes returned to mine, and I shoved my hand into my peacoat pocket anyway. “How long you in town?” he asked.
“For a little bit.”
“Festival?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
“She’s here until we get this place back together,” my mother answered for me as she came from the back carrying a box. “Which means she ain’t going nowhere for at least two weeks.”
I rolled my eyes toward her. “I could’ve answered that myself.”
“I know,” she said, setting the box on the counter. “But you weren’t doing a very good job.”
He looked toward my mother. “Helpin’ wit’ what? PowerPoints and tellin’ people shit they already know?”
My mouth fell open, but Smoke’s expression didn’t change. Hearing him bring up something from that night caught me completely off guard. “You remember that?”
He shrugged. “Unfortunately.”
My heart did something stupid, but I ignored it. “I do considerably more than PowerPoints, Sherrod.”
“Aight.”
“And I’m helping with a new menu as well as getting the diner on FastDash for delivery.”
“Cool.”
“Well, don’t sound so impressed.”
“I ain’t.” The corner of his mouth moved, and God help me, that tiny almost-smile did more to me than it had any right to.
My mother clapped her hands once. “Great. Since everybody is caught up, Sol will be here with me everyday.”
I looked at her like she was crazy. “I took PTO, Mama. PTO includes the words time off. I need to rest too.”
“You can rest when you leave.”
“That’s not how PTO works.” Smoke looked down at the plans in his hand, hiding a smile. “You think something is funny?” I asked, hand on my hip. I finally saw that beautiful smile I remembered.
Before he could answer, Darius appeared behind him. “Aye, Smoke, I got that measurement.” Smoke turned immediately and cleared his throat. “I mean, uh… Mr. Cole.”
“What you get?”
“Thirty-six and a quarter.”
“Aight. Grab the saw. We can get that frame in before we leave.” He looked back at my mother. “I’ll move the drain line tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
“And stay out the construction side while we workin’.”
“This is my business, Sherrod.”
“And if somethin’ fall on yo’ head, it’s my insurance.”
“You are so bossy.”
He folded the plans and tucked them beneath his arm, giving me one last look before walking away.
I watched him push through the plastic barrier and immediately regretted looking.
He looked so fucking good, and I was already way too aware of it.
Those dark work pants fit his ass way too fucking well.
My mother cleared her throat, and I quickly looked away to see her staring at me. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.” She smiled and picked up a coffee.
“Thought you didn’t have the energy to be messy.”
“I don’t.” She walked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts and feelings.
I looked toward the plastic barrier just as a saw started somewhere on the other side.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time.
I’d been in Bellhaven less than an hour.
I had come home thinking the hardest part would be explaining why I no longer had a fiancé to go back to, but now I had to spend some time working beside the man I had once loved enough to run from.