CHAPTER FIFTY- FIVE
JACKIE
The live band had been playing for the last twenty minutes… and Jackie didn’t want to leave.
They were supposed to be gone already—check paid, coats on—but the music was too good, the vibe too warm, and the corner booth felt like the only place in the city that wasn’t freezing.
Daylight saving time had the sky looking like midnight even though it was barely eight o’clock.
Late November in Philly was no joke. When Jackie last checked her phone, it was twenty-nine degrees.
Now it was twenty-three. She was freezing.
The black leather button-down mini dress she’d bought earlier looked cute as hell in the store.
Short, fitted, expensive. She’d told herself stockings would be enough.
Now, sitting in the passenger seat of Najee’s truck with the heat on full blast, she was still shivering.
The oversized leather motorcycle coat helped, but not enough.
Her thighs were bare under the thin stockings, and every time the wind hit the truck it felt like ice sliding up her dress.
Najee had parked a block away on purpose.
All through dinner he’d been threatening to make her “sexy ass walk” back to the car.
Jackie had laughed it off then. Now she was rethinking her life choices.
He hadn’t let her walk, of course. Najee wasn’t one of them.
But he’d made her wait in the warm restaurant while he pulled the truck up, and the whole time she’d sat there replaying the server incident in her head.
Midway through the meal the young guy had gotten a little too friendly smiling too hard, leaning in when he refilled her water, calling her “beautiful” like it was part of the script.
It was Innocent enough in Jackie’s mind.
Najee saw it different. “Ayo, my man, you good?” Najee had said, voice low and calm but sharp enough to cut.
“Last time I checked her eyes was up here.” He’d taken his glasses off slow, like he was making sure the server really saw him, then reached across the table, took Jackie’s menu, and wrote both their orders down himself.
Handed the slip back without another word.
The server had damn near tripped over his own feet trying to get away. Jackie had leaned in after he left.
“Najee… that was mean.”
“No,” he’d said, voice even. “He was disrespectful. To me and you.”
She’d teased him about it the whole rest of the meal, but low-key?
The way he shut it down so smoothly had done something to her thighs under the table.
Now they were back in the truck, heat blasting, and Najee was quiet, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on her thigh like it belonged there.
“You still cold?” he asked, glancing over.
“Freezing,” she admitted, rubbing her arms.
“I should’ve known better than to wear this little ass dress in November.”
Najee’s eyes flicked down to her legs for a second before returning to the road. “You look good as hell in it. But yeah… the second we get in the house, I’m ripping it off you.”
Jackie laughed, thighs clenching at the casual threat.
“This dress is three hundred dollars, Nigel.” Without missing a beat he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and peeled off three crisp hundred-dollar bills. He handed them to her like it was nothing. She took the money, stuffed it in her purse, and shook her head.
“You are a sick man.” Jackie laughed. “I’m not though,” he said, clutching her thigh tighter.
A comfortable silence fell over the car.
Jackie could tell whatever was wrong with the house was weighing on him.
He’d been a little different ever since he brought it up.
She wasn’t crazy—she knew her house needed work.
Hearing it wouldn’t shock her. But once they pulled up outside his office in Rittenhouse.
a feeling came over her. It wasn’t good or bad.
But whatever it was she couldn’t shake it.
“You gotta grab something from your office?” Jackie asked as she leaned back against the window and yawned. “Yeah,” he said. “But I want to show you something.”
That feeling washed over her again. “Show me what?”
“An apartment,” he said finally, looking at her for the first time.
Jackie’s stomach tightened. “Why would I need to see an apartment, Nigel?”
He let out a deep breath. “Because… you can’t stay at your house anymore.”