Chapter 18
washington
. . .
As my iPhone traveled on the conveyor belt, WIFEY flashed on the screen.
“Wait,” I told the TSA agent. “Need to take that call. It’s my wife.”
The TSA personnel glanced at the tray before it went through the scanner, not even making a move to pull it back.
“My man, you got a wife up this late and you ain’t home?
” he asked. “She got questions. You sure you want that kinda smoke?” His hand continued to wave me through.
Either he was one of those sign flippers in another life, or TSA agents got used to shuffling us through like sardines. “You may need three antacids.”
Bruh …
I raised my arms and went through the body scanner.
Ten minutes later, I was shoving my feet into chukka boots, had my belt in my hand and the phone in the other, going back beyond the security checkpoint. I wanted to find my wife, but that TSA line, though? It hadn’t been half that long when I’d first shown my passport and boarding pass.
Now it sat longer than the Shaka Zulu series Momma had all us boys watching when we were too damn young, pausing to offer her commentary. And Madison wasn’t answering me.
After grabbing a beer that cost more than a six-pack of Dat’Suma, I walked the line.
I glanced at folks, took a pull of my drink, and searched for a familiar face.
Told myself if I ended up strolling to economy parking before the line ended, I’d swing by Madison’s place.
Or do something pathetic like walk my ass back in the other direction, get back in this damn line, strip down again, and try to catch my flight.
Maybe greet someone with a hundred-dollar handshake. That whole Aye, where you been?
I sipped my beer and kept my stroll slow until I could see the end. Did I feel relief?
Please. I didn’t want to know anyone. I wanted …
Maddy?
She marched forward but looked sideways, searching the angry, frustrated faces in line.
I blocked her path.
“Who are you looking for, bébé?”
She glanced forward at the last second, and her face collided with my chest. Smiling, I gripped the small of her back.
When a couple chuckled at her expense, she popped my shoulder. Aight now, tit for tat. My hands settled low on her ass, squeezed roughly.
“Hey,” she growled.
“Technically, I’m supposed to hit. It’s your birthday. Thirty-three?”
“Twenty-seven swats. Uh-uh.”
“Girl, you were twenty-seven when we met.”
“Was not.”
No, she wasn’t, but she’d been twenty-seven for a few years.
Before that she was twenty-one. At one point, I wondered if I had robbed the cradle.
I took her hand before she could get trampled by a woman dragging a carry-on the size of a studio apartment.
Had the nerve to eye us like we wanted to cut.
But she wasn’t the only one. People were out here committing foot homicide with luggage wheels.
Straight rolling over ankles and sacrificing toes.
Lip caught between her teeth, Madison glanced at me as if she had no clue she was testing my self-control on purpose. No sex, not even a little sex, until she entered our home? Dayum! Lord, help me.
“You already made it through this, huh?” she asked, voice soft, eyes brighter than the overhead fluorescents deserved.
“Yep.” Since it was a sin not to look, my eyes lingered, tracing the contours of her body.
That dress slid over her, painted on. Her perfume drifted up, warm and sweet, tightening every part of me.
My gaze dropped to her lips again. I tugged a finger into the collar of my linen shirt.
“Did your birthday dinner get canceled?”
“No, Lynetta and I tried this new Spanish place.”
What about her parents? They always canceled. Those two needed to grab some switches out of the bayou and beat the brakes off themselves.
We strolled toward the nearest airport restaurant with plastic menus and twenty-seven-dollar fries. I kept her tucked close because the crowd was wild and she smelled too good to release.
“Wash, you’re out here with the rest of us po’ folks, pinching pennies on a red-eye,” she teased.
“Nah, my pride goes into tailored suits, golfing, anything my woman wants.”
“What woman?”
“And my man cave,” I said over her.
Laughter slipped out of her, soft, familiar, and tugging at the deepest place in my chest.
We sat at the edge of the restaurant. The lights were low. Her lipstick was perfect enough to ruin.
After glancing at the menu, we agreed to share red velvet cake for her birthday. “So why did you buy that Bentley?” she asked. “And for the record, you did nothing to warrant a Waiting-to-Exhale situation on your car.”
“Why wait to exhale?”
She shook her head. “Even when you were a year into corporate law, you drove a Prius through the hoods of New Orleans. Didn’t give a crap if the wheels were naked.”
“No rims, don’t care.” I shrugged.
“See. I was always the best part of you.”
“Woman, you are my best half. My backbone. My rib. My good thing.” I pulled at my beer again, then set it on the wooden surface. “Missed you. The Bentley was your next car.”
“It was supposed to be.”
“So, it was a psychology grab for me,” I replied. “Didn’t even like that blue.”
“You love blue.”
“You still playing innocent? No jury around, bébé, but me in a light blue car? Baby blue, I think it was.”
“Windsor Blue. And I get it. You’re not with the bougie blues, like Tiffany.”
“Nah. No way in hell my cousin Tiff got a color named after her. She still sells weaves and weed. After the government passed medicinal weed, she asked if it was legal to invest in, paranoid ass.” I laughed.
“Oh, Tiff. Hood rich has perks, though.” Madison sighed, but then she said, “Anyway, I got a little jealous the first time I saw you driving one of my dream cars.” She shook her head.
The server came to our table, and I ordered the red velvet cake. After arguing with that man for a good three minutes, polite arguing but still arguing, about how he should “check the whole airport” for a candle, I turned toward her.
“Thank you, DOJ.”
“DOJ?” My brow lifted. If I had a gavel, I’d tell her to get that mess outta here. “You must be sleepy, Maddy. That stands for Depart—”
She reached forward, grabbed my beard, and pressed her lips to mine. “Daddy of Justice.”
I stood corrected. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I stopped the tears and laughter.
“I miss you, Washington … and I miss my birthday gifts. What did you,” she stopped speaking, hid a smile behind her hand, elbows on the table, and glanced away. “Never mind. We are so stupid. Why did we rush to Shonda to handle our mess?”
“Because we’ve gotta handle it, bébé.”
“I know, but … your birthday wishes. They blow my mind.” Madison dropped her head, and she gripped her hair in that good way I used to do for her when she couldn’t stand any more of me worshipping her.
Man, somebody had to do it, but it should’ve been me. “I remember when you were seventeen,” I said, “talking about we can’t. You’ll go to jail. You’re twenty-two, Washington.”
“I didn’t sound like that.” Madison rolled her eyes.
“Yes, you did.”
“Okay, maybe. On my eighteenth birthday, though …” she whispered, glancing up with a subtle smile. Her leg fidgeted, and her posture seemed to yearn for me.
“Yep. The gift of your life.”
She gripped her water glass with both hands and sipped as if needing an anchor to sanity.
“Cool your hot little tail down.”
“Mkay, Baby Virginia.”
I hoped my brain wasn’t as imaginative as it had been the night we went to the rage room. All that thinking of positions and love faces? Too much work. “We can kiss, though.” I shrugged.
“Washington, always feigning nonchalance.” She muttered, “Damn, thumbs-up text.”
“What thumbs … oh. You should’ve sent me a picture.”
“Boy, if I had sent you a little something, something, you’d have created your own emoji, bald head and all. I can imagine the pose you’d send. Sparkling dark eyes, chin in hands. All smiles.”
“Woman, you’re talking out the side of your neck.” I glanced around. “They’d better hurry with that cake because it’s two minutes to midnight. We’ve got some foreplay to do.”
“Shhh …” she said as the server approached, apologizing about not finding a birthday candle.
“Stop all that.” I cut off the server. “You know good and damn well, you didn’t search either high nor low for my bébé’s candle, man.”
The server gave me a tight smile and walked away.
Madison snorted, raising her voice. “Sorry, sir. He missed his plane.”
“Oh no. I’m about to fly high off you in a minute.”
She leaned forward, licking her lips. “Wish me a happy birthday. With your mouth.”
The way she said that? My soul stood up, packed a suitcase, and walked toward her.
“That’s how it’s always done, huh?” she teased. “With your words, I mean.”
I looked her dead in those pretty brown eyes. “Madison, this will be your best year. Love. Happiness.”
Her eyes shimmered, but without tears, and she smiled as if warmth spread through her.
And then her greedy behind grabbed the only fork dude had given us. “You can’t have the first bite.”
“Long as I have you, chère, I’m good.”
She leaned in.
Her lips grazed the fork, tongue sweeping the frosting. My entire spirit left my body to go pray. The no-sex contract burst into flames. She licked her lips again, enjoying torturing me.
“Good?” I managed, trying to sound like that mouth didn’t still affect me deep down to the bone.
“Meh. My red velvet box cake is better.” She teased, licking her lips again.
“I know how you do. Adding in extra flavor, but this cake cost twenty-nine dollars and some sexual vulnerability.”
“You’re ridiculous. Taste it.” A smile played on her lips as her eyes drifted down to my mouth.
Man, I swear the airport thermostat whispered, You got this, bro, and shut itself off.
I pushed the cake aside. She was my cake.
Her breath tickled my lips. I leaned in close enough to taste the chocolate fantasy. My brain was already building the headlines:
“Judge Violates No-Sex Contract in Airport Café. Nation Shocked; Therapist Disappointed.”
But when Madison looked up, all lashes and danger, the logic I lived by flatlined.
“C’mere.” I brushed her cheek with my thumb, and she laughed. God, that laugh.
I kissed her. Slow, like the end of time might never arrive. Deep, like she’d starved me. Her hand slipped up to my chest, soft against steel. I gripped the back of her neck, and she tilted enough to press into me. “Happy birthday, chère.”
My mouth tasted her again, just to survive. She sighed against my lips. The air between us wasn’t big enough to hold everything that we meant to each other. “I love you, Wash.”
Pulling back, I watched her eyes flutter open. “I love everything about you, Madison Selene Babineaux.”
She was smiling at me when someone at the table closer to the bar laughed. Man? Woman? Indistinguishable. But the laughter made Madison’s shoulders jolt as she glanced around. That damn laugh sounded like two car horns got into a slap fight.
We busted up laughing. I said, “Somebody sounds like a car horn?”
“Yep.” Madison spoke through giggles, then she jumped to her feet.
“Maddy, bébé, where are you going?”
She snatched up her purse. “My car. We’ve gotta go!”
I stood, tossed cash onto the table, and chased after her. In seconds, I matched her sprint with my own leisurely jog. “Madison, I don’t know how bad the cake was. But we didn’t have to dine and dash.”
Madison groaned, rushing through the sliding door. Outside, she hurried over the path, tripping over a folded stroller on the ground as a man wrestled luggage from an SUV.
I yanked her closer to me. “Bébé, what is it?”
“My car. It’s … it’s not here.”
I shrugged. “The tow company can keep your Dawoochie. Consider it a mercy mission.”
“Washington!” she gasped. “Stop, I can’t afford that fee.”
“Okay, take the Bentley. The mechanic handed it over a long time ago.”
“Really? Why are you still riding the Range Rover?”
“Out of respect to your … hatred, I guess. The Rover was a lease, not a rental. Are you passing on your dream car?”
“Not my dream anymore. I’m humble. I want my Daewoochie! Ugh.” She tilted her head. “That sounded awkward.”
Woman had the nerve to look serious.
“Maddy, I’m not paying more than the car’s worth to have it released from the impound. Maybe it ascended.” I held her in my arms. “God saw the struggle and said, Come home, Daewon’t-Start. You’ve fought the good fight.”
“Excuse me?” Madison pressed her chest away from me. “My car started. Mostly.”
“Bet the only thing that always functions is the horn.”
Those plush lips remained sealed.
“Madison? That’s a safety risk.”
“Maybe.” Her lips met mine, soft, passionate, and lingering. “But kissing you is a risk to our contract. You think we can make out all night long even if my birthday is over?” She chewed her bottom lip. “And I mean it, Washington. We’ll just make out?”
Just? Nope. But would I say that?