Chapter 7
Pulling my truck to a stop near the little pod of food carts, I grab aspirin from a bottle I keep in the cab. I wasn’t drunk last night but damn if I don’t feel hungover today. I guess I didn’t get enough water in my system before I went to sleep. I chase the pills down with a bottle of water as I get out on the street.
From here, I can see downtown South Shore and the silhouettes of two construction cranes. That would be where my brother Cole is building a hotel to service the training camp that he’s building with Rex.
I keep an eye on the construction as I head toward the food carts. That’s the origin of my planned resort. If the town is already going to be getting a huge boost in tourism, the next step is to capitalize on it by adding a resort.
I wince as I hear a heavy saw whirring in the distance. I’m usually used to the bangs and high-pitched whines that are the sounds of construction.But my hangover is pretty dire by now.
Thus, the agreement to meet Lucy for lunch here, at my favorite pho cart. It’s my go-to after I’ve spent the preceding night making not the greatest decisions.
The carts are arranged in a loose circle, with shaded picnic tables in the middle. As I walk through the circle, I shade my eyes against the bright midday light, looking for Lucy. It’s pretty packed here at lunch time, and nearly every one of the fifteen tables is occupied by hungry townspeople.
I make a note of how full the pod is. When the resort is complete, we will draw a lot of this lunch hour traffic away from it. But Pho Queen will have a permanent spot at the resort.
They just don’t realize it yet.
“River!” Lucy waves at me from a crowded table. “Over here!”
The most amazing pho I’ve ever had in my life will have to wait a few minutes. Diligently, I head over to Lucy’s table. She’s eating a big bowl of pho already and she slurps up a noodle as I approach. My soon-to-be sister-in-law sits across from her, looking as blonde, bubbly, and lovely as ever. Next to Lucy is a young woman with thick black hair and warm brown eyes tilted at a sharp angle. She is getting up to leave as I arrive. Savannah rushes to make the introduction.
“River, this is Grace. Grace, this is Lucy’s brother, River.”
“Hello. I think I saw you at Savannah’s engagement party.” She checks her watch before giving me a hurried smile. “Sorry to run, but I’m due for a shift at the hospital. Lucy, text me about that philosophy project if you want.”
Savannah stands up with a smile and picks up a tray. “I should get moving too. Charlie has a half day at school today, and I’m supposed to pick him up soon. River, nice to see you.”
She gives Lucy a little hug and then the two women hurry off, whispering to each other.
A smile tugs Lucy’s lips as she watches them go. “Pearl’s going to be disappointed that she missed them.”
I squint. “I know she’s friends with Savannah, but that’s all I know about Grace.”
Lucy slurps another noodle. “She’s another Agnes Glen grad. We’re all in a coven together, pretty much.”
I snort at Lucy’s joking reference to being a witch. Being witchy is cool these days, I guess.
But the mention of Pearl has me sitting up and eagerly looking around. “You said Pearl’s going to be here, right?”
Lucy nods and jerks her head toward the line for Pho Queen. “Turn around. She’s in line already. She just walked over here after doing the breakfast shift.”
My head whips around and I lay eyes on Pearl. She’s wearing a billowy white dress and clutching a stylishly oversized brown purse.
I want to lift up her skirts and see what’s underneath. If she is trying to look extremely fuckable, well damn. Mission successful.
I may have been less than sober last night, but I remember every word I said. I meant them too. Including my hope that she is wearing nice underwear.
“Excuse me while I go woo a woman,” I tell my sister. Her eyebrows fly up but I don’t stick around to hear her response.
I steal around behind Pearl, feeling like I’m on the hunt. My little mouse doesn’t seem to realize I am here until I get right up behind her and whisper in her ear. “Have you been a good girl since last night?””
Pearl’s shoulders jump toward her ears. Then she whips around and glares at me. “You scared the bejeezus out of me!” she shrieks.
I wince at her high-pitched protest. “A little softer, if you don’t mind.”
Her face softens and her lips twitch as she looks me over. “You do look a bit like a run over possum.”
“I could be your run over possum if you’d let me.”
She smirks. “And here I thought you were just having lunch with your baby sister.”
“A man knows how to multitask.”
“Uh huh.” Pearl turns around as the only person ahead of her in line moves out of her way. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that much.”
I look at her figure in that dress. My persistence has a very important reason. I can’t see her ass, but the dress does bare her shoulders and give a hint of cleavage. Damn, I must be hard up for a date if I’m practically salivating over Pearl’s body in such a modest dress.
When I finally get a tray with hot soup and sit down, Lucy is getting up. “I’m going to go get some ice cream,” she says, looking distracted.
I look over my shoulder and spot Walker Harrison waiting in line behind a few customers at the ice cream van. Walker hit the whiskey bottle really hard yesterday. He’s almost definitely way more hungover than me, though I can’t see his face from here.
“I have to go. Um… over there.” Lucy’s eyes are glued on Walker as she gets up.
Catching glances with Pearl, I manage to wait until Lucy wanders away from the table before I chuckle.
Pearl smiles and turns to watch her walk away. She wrinkles her nose and gives a sympathetic shrug. “She’s got to know that following that guy around like a puppy is not going to work.”
Squirting hoisin sauce into my soup, I smile slyly. “I don’t know exactly what her plans are concerning Walker. But seeing as how he’s Rhett and Rex’s best friend, I don’t think he’s going to do anything so stupid as kiss her anytime soon. When you ask him about Lucy, he mumbles and avoids the question.”
Pearl puts fresh basil in her soup and stirs it with chopsticks. “Smart man. I wouldn’t want Rex Bennett mad at me.”
I pick up my oversized soup bowl and carefully take a sip of the salty brown liquid. It’s burning hot as it slides down my gullet and I ease the burn with a gulp and a frosty lemon-lime sports drink.
“Ah.” I sit back, my initial itch in the process of being scratched. “This is the best pho in the state.”
“It’s pretty good. I like International Delight in Decatur.”
That gives me pause. For some reason, I didn’t expect her to list some place in Atlanta as her favorite pho restaurant. It trips me up for a second. “That’s near where you went to college, right?”
“Yep. It was right up the corner from Agnes Glen and it hit the spot every time, without fail.” She slurps up some noodles and taps her lips with her napkin.
“Interesting.” I eye her, thinking that there are probably a lot of things about her that I don’t know. Things I’d like to discover.
My mouth curls up at the corners when I start thinking about stripping her down and discovering her body with my lips.
I turned things decidedly sexual between us last night. But that’s just a precursor to the big ask. See, I need to be taken seriously as a committed adult before I can use my trust fund.
So the real question is will Pearl pretend to be my fake fiancée so that my stepfather will take me seriously?
I’m thinking that if I date Pearl, that puts me first in line when her aunt is looking for a way out of financial straits. It just leaves me with one big question.
How do you ask someone to be your fake fiancée without sounding insane?
Pearl’s expression pinches as she looks over my shoulder. She sighs. “Great. The gang’s all here.”
I turn to look and spot Bishop helping her cousin Anitta down from a big red truck. Anitta is wearing a clingy blue bodycon dress and a white wool cloak. Bishop is dressed casually in jeans and a pair of Timberland boots, but it only seems to highlight the fact that Anitta is wearing a pair of dainty heels.
Bishop keeps putting his hand over Anitta’s stomach in a protective gesture. His eyes dart around, glinting, as if daring someone to ask about it.
They head into the circle of food trucks. Bishop hasn’t even noticed Pearl yet, but he smirks at the world around him. The guy has got to have one of the most punchable faces I’ve ever seen.
“Is Bishop trying to announce that he’s going to be a daddy?” I ask Pearl, turning back to her.
Pearl’s shoulders droop. She gasps and then clenches her jaw. “I don’t know. I try not to hear about his life, if at all possible.”
I take another sip of my soup and chew some glass noodles while I try to think of how to respond to that. She looks so sad.
Is it possible that Pearl didn’t know before now? If so, I want to punch Bishop in the face.
Pearl glances over my shoulder and mutters, “Damn. He spotted me. Shit, he’s coming over.”
I raise my brows. “Want me to tell him to fuck off? It would truly be my pleasure.”
“No. Bishop walks around just looking for a fight. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
Then Pearl’s expression goes completely blank. Bishop and Anitta walk up to our table, hand in hand. Bishop rubs his open palm over Anitta’s flat stomach.
“Hey, Pearl. Did you hear my amazing news?” Anitta purrs.
Bishop doesn’t give Pearl time to reply. “We’re just starting to tell people today. Since you’re family, Anitta wanted me to make sure that we told you that she’s going to make me a daddy.”
“Oh.” Pearl blinks languidly. “Congratulations.”
“I would expect more excitement for your cousin. I know that babies are a pretty big occasion for your family. It’s been, what? Five years since Felicia had little Zami?”
Pearl looks at Anitta. She shrugs noncommittally. “Mmhm. Maybe.”
Bishop swings his gaze to me, obviously frustrated that he’s not getting the rise out of Pearl that he expected. “You still dating this fool?” He sucks his teeth. “It’s a pity that a beautiful Black woman needs to run around with some White boy. That’s diluting the bloodlines.”
I stand up casually, my gaze hard on Bishop. Shooting Bishop and Anitta my most threatening smile, I spread my hands. “Pearl doesn’t seem interested in your news. Now I suggest you go on about your day.”
Bishop sneers. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Stop it!” Pearl pleads, standing up. “I’m serious.”
Heads are turning our way. The people gathered seem to notice the tension. Bishop’s gaze slides to the watchers, then back to me.
“This isn’t over,” he hisses. “The next time I see you, I’m going to teach you a lesson about being rude.”
I’m a fighter by nature. Pearl is standing right here and I’m not looking to cause her problems, but I am usually the first one to throw a punch in any altercation.
“Bring it on.” A malevolent grin spreads across my face. “You name the place and time.”
Bishop’s jaw tenses. His hands ball into fists. He eyes me, sizing me up, weighing his chances of getting his ass beat if he decides to throw down right now.
I lean forward, inviting him to throw the first punch. Begging him to be the spark that leads to the firestorm and ends with me laying this motherfucker out.
Anitta pulls on Bishop’s arm. “Come on, baby. You promised me you were going to get me a cheesesteak.”
“All right, all right,” Bishop mutters. He points at me. “I’m going to see you around. Make no mistake.”
As he turns away, I call, “Can’t wait!”
He fires back, “Can’t wait to see you at our baby shower, Pearl!”
I flex my fists and sneer at him. “Motherfucker.”
Pearl swallows, her eyes shiny. Having grown up with two sisters, I know the signs of incoming tears when I see them. She needs help right now.
I put my arm around her shoulders and lead us out of the circle of food trucks with her sheltered against me, shielded away from the curious gazes of the still hushed onlookers.
We make it as far as my truck before she really begins to cry.
I open the driver’s side door wide and lift her up into the seat. She wipes at the tears that stream down both sides of her face but doesn’t make a sound other than the gentle shuddering of her breath.
She also looks away into the distance, as if my presence isn’t helping.
I can’t stand her tears and I am itching with the need to put a stop to them, however I can.
At length, she says, “I knew that Bishop and Anitta were going to announce something sooner or later. They’ve been trying to conceive since they got together.”
“You handled it well, if it makes any difference.” I screw up my face. “Bishop is way too excited about getting to tell people. We get it dude, you had sex. Not that you can tell from looking at Anitta. If he wasn’t acting like an idiot, no one would know.”
“He’s trying to rub it in my face.” Pearl sighs. “I guess you don’t know the whole story. I broke up with Bishop for a lot of reasons. He was a liar and a cheater. I caught him sexting half the town. God knows who he actually met up with in the three years we were together.”
“He deserved to be dumped by you. You’re magic. He’s trash.”
She looks guilty for a second. “That’s actually not why I broke it off. My family liked him. I would have stayed with him, I think. The bigger issue that we couldn’t tackle was that he is sickle cell carrier.”
I squint. I think she’s talking about some disease, but I don’t really know that much about it. “Sickle cell? That sounds vaguely familiar.”
Pearl chuckles humorlessly. “Sickle cell anemia. It’s a horrible disease and it causes sufferers a lot of pain. My mom and Malik both have it.”
Whoa. That’s a lot of information. It takes me a minute to let it sink in.
“But not you?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “For someone to have the disease, both their parents have to be carriers. I’ve been tested and I’m a carrier. When I was with Bishop, I wanted to get pregnant. Because the disease mostly runs in Black families, I asked Bishop to get tested for the gene.” She blows out a breath. “It turns out that he is a carrier too. And he wouldn’t hear anything about adopting or using a sperm donor. So… I broke up with him.”
She turns away and wipes a tear from her face. This took a toll on her.
“Ahh.” Things suddenly click into place. “And because Bishop is a fucking asshole, he couldn’t wait to tell you that he’d gotten his girl pregnant.”
Pearl looks at me, swiping away a tear from her big brown eyes. “Not any girl. My cousin. A girl that could very well be a carrier too. They have both decided not to get tested. It makes me want to scream. I would say that they deserve each other… but I don’t wish sickle cell on anybody.”
“I see.”
Pearl”s lips twist. “Do you?”
I think, anyway. Pearl has more valid reasons than most for her breakup. And now her recent ex has knocked up her cousin instead. It’s a two-fer.
“I do,” I reassure her. Taking her hand, I give it a squeeze.
She licks her lips. “I doubt it. Having a family is all I’ve ever wanted. And if I want to have more than one kid, I have to get pregnant in the next year. Basically…” She looks at me, flushing. “I need a sperm donor ASAP.”
She grabs my hand and bites her lip. She arches a brow. Is… is Pearl asking me to be her sperm donor?
“Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”
She looks nervous. It takes a few seconds for her to answer. “Maybe.”
A slow smile spreads across my face. A sperm donor? Well, this sure makes will you be my fake fiancée sound a lot less wild.
“We should talk about it.” I slide my hand up to Pearl’s face and cup her chin. “Somewhere private.”
Pearl’s cheeks flush. But at the same time, I can see a glint in her eyes. We both have something we need from each other. And when that happens in business, it’s time to make a deal.