Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You been watching that door,” Tasha said.
“I have not.”
“You absolutely have.”
I gave her a look.
Tasha stood at my stove stirring something that smelled like garlic, butter, lemon, and whatever else she did to salmon that made me stop pretending protein and discipline could carry a grown man through life.
She gave me one back with more authority.
Tasha had been with me since my third year with the Forge. She cooked when my schedule got ugly, fussed when my refrigerator looked like somebody rich and irresponsible lived alone, and had decided Imani needed feeding as much as I did.
Tasha and Imani had their own little alliance now. The week before, Mani had pulled her aside and asked what I liked after a long day these days. Not what I ate in college. Not what Mama used to send back to campus with us. What I reached for now.
I came home that Thursday to find her at my stove with Tasha talking her through lemon-herb chicken and sweet potatoes, Imani concentrating on that pan like it had personally challenged her. She tried to play dinner off when I walked in.
I ate two plates and let her pretend I didn't understand what she'd done.
I didn’t argue with women who knew where the knives were.
The lock clicked at seven twenty-six.
I looked up before I could stop myself.
Tasha smiled into the pot. “Mmhmm.”
“Don’t start.”
“Too late.”
Imani walked in carrying her work bag, her coat over one arm, and the kind of tired smile that made me want to find out who had annoyed her and handle it before dinner.
“Something smells amazing,” she said.
Tasha turned from the stove. “Because I am here.”
Imani laughed, and my kitchen felt better.
She belonged in here too easily. Purse on my counter. Coat over one of my chairs. Bracelets catching light near the sink. Voice mixing with Tasha’s like this was already part of the house and all I had to do was stop acting surprised by it.
She had started fitting at Mama’s the same way.
The Sunday before, I walked into the den and found Mani on the floor between Danielle’s knees while Dani worked one braid loose at a time.
Kayla sat cross-legged beside them, serious as hell about unraveling the few ends they trusted her with.
Hair was everywhere. Mama was talking over all three of them from the recliner, and nobody looked up like Imani being there needed explaining.
I stood in the doorway long enough for Danielle to ask if I planned to help or just stare.
“You eat today?” Tasha asked.
Imani paused.
Tasha pointed the spoon at her. “Guilty.”
“I had coffee.”
“That is not food.”
“And almonds.”
“That is what birds eat when they’re depressed.”
I looked away before I laughed too hard.
Imani cut her eyes toward me. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re smirking.”
“Because she’s right.”
Tasha nodded. “I told her. Boiled eggs. Cut fruit. Chicken wraps. Something she can grab between meetings without acting like chewing is a personal failure.”
“I have improved,” Imani said.
“Barely.”
“Some improvement is still improvement.”
“Listen to you trying to negotiate nutrition.”
I crossed the kitchen and touched the back of Imani’s neck. “Hey.”
She turned toward me on the stool, eyes lifting to mine. “Hey.”
Her braids were twisted into a low bun, a few soft pieces loose near her temples. Cream blouse. Camel coat. Dark trousers. Gold hoops. Saint Aurelia diamonds at her wrist and throat because apparently a regular Thursday deserved evidence.
I kissed her slow.
Soft enough for company.
Long enough for her lashes to lower when I pulled back.
Tasha made a sound behind us. “I have food on this stove and eyes in my head.”
Imani laughed against my mouth.
I kissed her once more because I could, then leaned back. “Go shower. Dinner’ll be ready when you come down.”
“You telling me to shower?”
“I’m telling you to get comfortable.”
“Bossy.”
“Concerned.”
“That sounds like a rebrand.”
“I know somebody in marketing.”
Her smile came tired but real.
I walked her to the stairs because I liked doing that too. She stopped halfway up and looked back at me.
“My bag still in your room?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t move it?”
“No.”
“You didn’t put it in the guest room?”
I looked at her.
Her mouth curved. “Okay.”
I watched her go until she disappeared.
Downstairs, Tasha packed leftovers while I poured wine into the decanter. She gave me reheating instructions for food we were about to eat, then looked at me too long.
“What?” I asked.
“You got that thinking-too-hard face.”
“I think.”
“Not like that.”
I set the bottle down.
Coach Price needed an answer tomorrow. Marcus had called three times, and his last voicemail didn’t leave much room for me to pretend the clock wasn’t running. The businesses could handle the shift. My people had made that plain. Pops had too.
But Imani was upstairs in my shower.
Her career was opening wider.
Mine might be doing the same.
Tasha snapped a lid onto a container. “Talk to her before you get quiet and make her guess.”
I stared at her.
She smiled. “I said what I said.”
“I don’t remember asking.”
“Men rarely do.”
Then she picked up her bag and left like she had not stepped all in my business with clean shoes on.
When Imani came back downstairs, I had to take a second.
She had let her braids down. They fell over her shoulders and down her back, still a little damp at the edges from the shower.
Her face was bare except for lip balm, skin warm brown under the kitchen lights.
She wore one of my black T-shirts, of course, the thing hanging loose and stopping mid-thigh.
Her legs were bare. Toenails white. Thin anklet at one ankle.
A quick flash of her navel ring showed when she pushed her braids behind her shoulder.
Something in my chest settled and stirred at the same time.
Imani was stubborn, funny, sensitive beneath all that lipstick and attitude, too fine for peace, and nebby as hell when she thought somebody had a story.
She was also standing in my kitchen in my shirt like she belonged there.
Like my life had been waiting for her to walk through it barefoot.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to make a decision.”
I handed her a glass of wine. “I’m looking at your toes.”
“My toes?”
“White polish.”
“You noticed my toes from over there?”
“I notice everything on you.”
Her expression softened before she covered it with a sip of wine. “That was a good answer.”
“It was the truth.”
Her gaze moved down to the shirt. “And before you say anything, yes, I’m wearing this.”
“I bought you loungewear.”
“This is better.”
“It’s big as hell.”
“That is the point.”
“It hides too much.”
“From who?”
“Me.”
She smiled into her glass. “You’ll survive.”
“Barely.”
We ate at the smaller table near the windows because I liked her close and because the formal dining room still felt like it belonged to somebody pretending to be more civilized than me.
Tasha had made salmon with lemon-caper butter, roasted sweet potatoes, greens with smoked turkey, and warm rolls Imani tried not to grab too quickly before giving up.
Mostly, we ate quiet.
Easy quiet.
The kind that let the day come down.
She told me about meeting Nia at The Nocturne and the Saint Aurelia preview they were shaping. Small guest list. Legacy. Self-possession. Diamonds on women before trays. A room where Black women could see the jewelry alive before anybody started talking price.
“That sounds like you,” I said.
“It’s us. Nia has a strong eye. She understands atmosphere.”
“And The Nocturne?”
“The right fit. It carries history without begging people to respect it.”
I liked the way she said that.
“You excited?”
“I am.”
“Good.”
She watched me over the rim of her glass. “And you?”
I knew what she meant.
I looked down at my plate. “I’m something.”
“That sounds like avoidance.”
“It is.”
She didn’t push.
So I told her about the business meeting instead.
Chuck saying I undercut him when I stepped into problems too fast. Deja getting make-right authority in writing and looking like she had won a small war.
Omar claiming mushrooms were emotional. Pops sitting at the end of the table like he didn’t need to be there and enjoying every second of my managers telling me the truth.
“And your mother brought pound cake?” Imani asked.
“And tea.”
“Of course she did.”
“Said Pops’s coffee had been disrespecting people since morning.”
Imani’s laugh hit the table warm.
“She’s right,” I said. “His coffee tastes like punishment.”
“Did she give you advice too?”
“Mama always gives advice. Sometimes she hides it under dessert.”
“What did she say?”
I rubbed my thumb along the side of my glass. “Not to let fear get a vote it didn’t earn.”
Imani’s expression changed.
“Mm.”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds like your mother.”
“It worked too. Made me mad.”
“Truth does that.”
I looked at her.
She looked back, soft but not fragile, hair down, mouth bare, sitting in my shirt at my table like she had been coming home to me for years.
After dinner, I took our glasses to the living room and turned on Thursday night football. Chicago and Dallas. Not my team, which was probably for the best.
The fireplace burned low in front of us. Imani curled beside me on the couch, legs across my lap. My hand rested on her calf beneath the hem of my shirt, thumb moving over her skin. Her anklet touched my wrist every now and then. Her toenails flashed white when she shifted.
I loved her.
That was no longer the problem.
The problem was how much life stood around that love asking for room.
She rubbed her thumb over my forearm. “You’re not watching.”
“No.”
“You okay?”
I picked up the remote and turned the volume down until the room held mostly fire and the little bit of football I wasn’t using as an excuse.
Imani shifted when I did.
“I need—”
“We should—”
We both stopped.
Her mouth curved faintly. “Go ahead.”
“I need to go first.”