Chapter 7
The temperature in Skylar’s part of the house was always freezing. For someone who was always cold, she kept the AC on. Since she was a child, she loved a nice cold room and plenty of thick blankets to burrow under, not just when she slept, but any time of the day.
Damien pulled the hood of his Ellwood Inferno hoodie over his head and tugged on the strings before knocking on her door.
“Come in,” Skylar called out.
Damien walked into his daughter’s room, which was actually two rooms, but he knocked the wall down the year before to give her more space and her very own teenage hangout.
Her friends loved coming over here, and Damien prided himself on making his home a fun one for his daughter.
She mostly stayed with him during the off season, but that day, she and Jendaya visited him before he had to leave for his game.
Jendaya was currently in the family room watching a movie and eating up all his food.
“Hey, baby, I’m about to leave.”
Like he expected, Skylar was burrowed under a bunch of purple, pink, and light blue blankets reading a book.
He loved that about his daughter. Since she was old enough to read, she’d been a big bookworm.
He looked forward to reading books in tandem with her when he retired because he was a big bookworm too.
He loved all fiction, and when he was a kid, he would read for hours on end.
It was the little things like that he missed.
Skylar put her Kindle down and flipped some of the blankets off her, revealing a mass of jet black curls.
She got that pretty hair from her mama. The rest of her was all him.
Skylar was only a couple of shades lighter than his midnight skin, but her dark eyes, sharp jawline, and nose came from him.
The pout on her face at the moment was all her mama though.
“Do you have to go, Daddy?”
Damien walked further into the room, surprised he couldn’t see clouds of heat puffing out as he breathed. It was so damn cold in there. He sat down on the bed next to her and pulled her into his side.
“You know the drill, Sky. I’ll be back late tomorrow night. I promise to FaceTime you.”
She huffed out a breath. “I guess.”
“You know we only have a little longer of this, right? We almost there, girl. Don’t go getting pouty on me now.” He pinched her cheek, and she playfully swatted him away.
“I know. I just miss you is all. I want to live with you. I love Mommy, but I’ve been with her my whole life. I like your house better.”
“Aye, man, look out. You know I laced ya mama’s crib up real nice for you,” Damien joked, and he wasn’t lying.
Jendaya’s husband, Grayson, bought the house they lived in.
It was a nice house with plenty of room.
Damien made sure his baby had everything she needed over there though.
He went all out for her space at his home and at her mama’s.
Skylar really wanted for nothing, and she never would as far as he was concerned.
“Yeah, but still.” She sighed like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Damien kissed her temple, and they sat there in silence for a few seconds before Damien spoke. “Your mama told me you been catching a lil attitude. What’s that all about?”
Skylar stiffened and pulled away from him. She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You do know,” Damien insisted, bumping up against her with his side.
Instead of answering, Skylar said, “When you get back, can we go to Benihana?”
Damien shook his head and rose from the bed. “You ain’t slick trying to change the subject. You need to be nicer to your mother and to Grayson, you hear me? If they let me know you been good, I’ll take you fo’ sho.”
Skylar rolled her eyes, but she smiled up at her dad. “Fine, that’s a bet.”
“That’s a bet?” Damien asked, holding his hand out to her. She grinned and shook up with him, a variation of the handshake he and Jendaya shared. When they finished, he leaned down and kissed her head. “I love you.”
“More than what?” she asked, and in that moment, Damien saw her as a little girl, not the newly aged teenager sitting before him.
He chuckled. “More than the sky, Skylar.”
“More than all the birds?”
“And all the clouds.”
“And all the stars?”
“All that,” he replied, and then he took a step toward the door. When they were in a silly mood, they could go on and on for hours, coming up with crazy ass things that could be found in the sky, from airplanes to dust particles. “Be good.”
After giving his last warning look at her, he closed the door and headed downstairs where his bag already waited. He stopped in the family room and plucked Jendaya on the back of her head.
“Ow, boy. Cut it out.”
“Girl, go home and eat up your own food. And what are you watching?”
“ Love at First Sight , and I didn’t go grocery shopping,” she replied as she rubbed her flat stomach lazily while she sprawled out on his couch.
There were bags of chips, a glass of wine, some of the good chocolate he kept on hand, and an empty plate that looked to have once held a full course meal, judging by the crumbs and sauces left behind.
“While you’re laying there, you need to be putting in a grocery order to pick up on the way home.”
Jendaya shrugged. “Yeah, I’m sure Grayson would appreciate that.”
Damien shook his head and chuckled. “Where that nigga at anyway?”
“He’ll probably be home from work soon. He only had a few patients today and was just doing office work, mostly.”
Grayson was the chief of surgery at a hospital not too far from Damien’s house. He kept crazy hours, but he made a lot of money. Every moment he wasn’t at work, he spent with Jendaya and Skylar, which Damien appreciated.
“Aight, well, you enjoy eating up all my food, I guess. I’m about to get out of here. Shut down the house and lock up when you leave, and make sure you adjust the thermostat in Skylar’s wing too before she freezes the damn pipes.”
Jendaya held her fist out behind the couch for Damien to dap. “Got you. Have fun with your new girlfriend.”
Damien snorted. “She ain’t my girlfriend… yet .” He muttered that last word under his breath as he walked out of the house.
As soon as he got into the car, he texted Kenna and told her he was on the way.
When he pulled out of his driveway, excited nerves danced around in his stomach.
He had been thinking about Kenna ever since he met her.
He couldn’t help it. At practice, when he showered, in his dreams…
she was there. Before meeting her, he wasn’t too sold on the idea of love at first sight, but she made him reconsider that notion.
Kenna had sent him her address earlier, and he was happy to see they only lived fifteen minutes from each other. He easily turned that fifteen into ten, his excitement at laying eyes on her again giving him a bit of a heavy foot on that gas pedal.
When he pulled up to her townhouse, he was surprised by how nice it was and how quiet and manicured the neighborhood looked. It was then he realized he didn’t even know what she did for a living.
He brushed those thoughts aside as he reminded himself that was what this impromptu trip was for.
He wanted to get to know every little thing about her, and he prayed this wouldn’t be his last time seeing her, either, but he didn’t let that thought bother him too much because he had a feeling Ms. Kenna was feeling him just as much as he was feeling her.
Before he could get out of the car and ring the doorbell, she and Cam came out of the house fussing.
Damien sat back and watched them for a moment, noticing they acted a lot like him and Jendaya.
It was clear they loved each other fiercely, but they bickered like friends who had spent decades together and got on each other’s last nerve.
He finally got out of the car to help them with their bags. As soon as Cam laid eyes on him, he batted his long lashes. “Hey, Mr. Blaze, baby.”
Damien chuckled. “’Sup, Cam? How you?”
“Oh, chile, I am great , especially now that you’re here to whisk me away on a private jet.”
Damien thought Cam was amusing with his dramatic ass. “Nothing but the best for Kenna and her people.” His eyes finally landed on her, and he swore he saw her blushing. “How you, Ken Ken?”
“Ken Ken? And she ain’t punch you? Oh, y’all go together real bad.” Cam giggled and walked past them to give them a moment alone, but Damien stopped him.
“I got your bag. Go ’head and get in the car.”
“Oh okay, mister. You a gentleman too? Kenna, you better lock that down, boo.”
Kenna cut her eyes at him in embarrassment before looking up at Damien. “Remind me why I invited him again?”
Boldly, Damien pulled her into him by her waist. He loved that she wore sweats and a fitted purple crop top. She was sexy as hell in her comfortable clothes, and that turned him on something serious.
“I think because you’re afraid to be with me alone.”
This time, he knew she blushed, and he found it adorable. She avoided his eyes as she fidgeted in place and tried to hide her smile. “We should get going.”
“You’re the boss.” He gave her one last squeeze before letting her go and grabbing her bag. “Ladies first.”
She walked ahead of him, and damn if he wasn’t looking at her small but curvy ass through those baggy sweats.
Cam sat in the back while Kenna got in the front. After he placed their bags in the trunk with his, he got in and pulled away from her house.
When Cam tapped him on the shoulder, Damien looked in the rearview mirror.
“You really bringing us on a PJ?”