17. “Let the Lord work.”
“LET THE LORD WORK.”
HALE
Nico started the book club because the women wouldn’t let him join theirs.
There was a whole situation.
Nico asking, reasonably and politely, like he does everything. Some kind of deliberation on their end. Then Tabby suggesting, with suspicious innocence, that he start his own.
She offered to host it at the bookstore and even open it to the public.
In the end, only four of us showed. Grant, because Ava had decided attendance was good for him.
Carter, because somebody promised him first pick of the book and that was enough to lure him in.
Nico, obviously, because it was his idea.
I’d been lukewarm about the whole thing until Nico sent me the title. Ten seconds with the synopsis, and suddenly book club had potential.
Me: You sure you sent the right book?
Nico: yea. Carter’s pick.
Me: and we’re just going with it?
Nico: He seemed confident.
I looked at the cover again. City skyline. Man in a suit. Jaw set like somebody was about to catch a bullet.
Then I texted Carter.
Me: That’s your pick? Kingdom Come
Carter: Yeah.
Me: You sure about that?
Carter: Yes Hale. I’m sure. You got a problem with Black fiction? You never seen New Jack City?
I was a Black man in America. Of course I’d seen New Jack City. And me having an issue with Black fiction was ridiculous.
I pulled the cover up one more time.
Carter, the most deliberate man I knew, who ran scenarios before ordering lunch and never committed to anything without at least three backup plans, had looked at a romance novel, seen a skyline and a hard jaw, and decided it was about turf wars and body bags.
I wasn’t missing this.
Me: My bad. Had the title wrong.
Let the Lord work.
Now it was seven o’clock, after hours at the bookstore.
Nico had dragged four chairs into a loose circle near the reading nook under the front window.
Grant had taken the armchair closest to the door with Havoc asleep beside his boots.
Carter sat across from me with his arms crossed, face set, and I had the chair nearest the shelves.
Tabby was behind the counter, elbows planted, watching us like she had front-row seats to a comedy special.
“So.” Nico looked at the three of us. “What did everyone think?” His copy of the book was tabbed in three different colors. Man came prepared.
Carter lifted his chin. “It was good.”
The consensus so far was that Carter had absolutely meant to choose a romance novel and would be taking no questions at this time.
Grant made a noise and wisely said nothing.
Nico processed that. He’d come in with questions ready, probably a whole sequence, and it was good wasn’t a lot to go on.
“Themes?” Nico tried again.
Carter nodded. “Power. Loyalty.”
“Vulnerability,” Grant said.
“Stamina,” I said.
Everyone’s eyes went to me.
“What?” I set my bottle down. “Came up a few times. The man’s stamina was… a lot. Medically speaking.”
Carter smirked. “Speak for yourself.”
My middle finger went up.
That was when the door opened and the women piled in. Annie came first, arms full of bags like she’d raided the snack aisle. Ava and Yasmine followed her in, and Tabby came out from behind the counter to meet them.
“Did we miss anything?” Annie asked, dropping the bags onto the low table in front of the reading nook.
“Just getting started,” Tabby said. “Take the nook. It has the best view of Carter pretending he meant to do this.”
Carter looked over. “I meant to do this.”
They ignored him and moved toward the cushioned corner under the front window.
Nico had built it for Tabby the year before, back when the two of them were still pretending they were just friends and she’d hired him to “make better use of the corner.” Now it was all deep cushions, built-in shelves, and a little brass lamp that made the whole thing look innocent if you didn’t know either of them.
“Sweet,” Annie said. “The sex nook.”
“Annie,” Tabby hissed. “I tell you things in confidence.”
Nico closed his eyes.
That Tabby and Nico were, in a word, sex-positive was news to nobody. They’d been caught enough times that “knock first” had become community policy.
“Sorry,” Annie muttered, not sounding sorry at all.
She climbed onto the cushions and started unpacking snacks. Ava settled beside her, already looking like she’d paid for a ticket. Tabby scooched in next, half hostess, half judge.
Yasmine looked at the remaining six inches of cushion, made the only sensible decision of the night, and took the chair beside them instead.
“You said this was closed to the public,” Nico said.
“It is,” Tabby said. “We’re not the public.”
“Continue,” Annie said, already digging into chips. “Pretend we’re not here.”
“We’re not your entertainment,” Nico said.
“Of course not,” Ava said, lying clean through her teeth.
Nico sighed. “We were talking about—”
“Stamina,” I supplied.
“And Hale’s lack of it,” Carter said.
“The physicality,” Nico cut in. “How it works as communication between them.”
We all looked at him.
“It does,” he said, a little defensive. “They don’t talk about their feelings. They show it. Through—” He gestured.
“Acts of service,” Grant said. “Aggressively naked acts of service.”
“Exactly,” Nico said, seizing it. “They use sex to say what they won’t say out loud.”
“One way to phrase it,” Annie said around a chip.
Carter leaned back in his chair. “It worked, though.”
Annie eyed him. “Worked how?”
He shrugged. “You believed they were obsessed. You felt it.”
“That’s actually true,” Ava said. “Plot was wild in places, but I bought that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”
“Wild in places,” Annie repeated. “Baby, that man crossed state lines on pure dick and instinct.”
“Which is why it was entertaining,” Ava shot back.
Grant bent to scratch his dog behind the ears. “My issue was logistics.”
“What do you mean?” Carter asked.
Grant took his time about it. “People keep doing all this furniture-breaking, wall-slamming, middle-of-the-day fucking. Nobody got a job? No lower back pain? Nobody needs water or a snack?”
Ava laughed. “You don’t complain about logistics at home.”
Grant’s smile turned downright smug. “That’s because we hydrate.”
Even Nico cracked a smile.
After that, it stopped being a discussion and became what it had probably been from the start. People half-talking over each other with a book as the excuse.
“See?” Tabby pointed with her drink. “This is why women read romance and men think they’re reading about organized crime. Subtext.”
Carter looked offended. “I understood the book.”
“You thought the first three chapters were a setup for a turf war.”
“There was tension.”
“There was dick,” Annie corrected.
More laughter.
The discussion dissolved from there.
Annie slid out of the reading nook to dig through the snacks again, and Havoc lifted his head at the sound of a Slim Jim wrapper.
“Absolutely not,” Grant told him. Havoc sighed and put his head back down.
Ava refilled her drink and stayed leaning beside Tabby, the two of them falling into their own side conversation.
Yasmine stood to toss her empty bottle. When she drifted back toward the circle, she didn’t return to her chair, but dropped into the one beside me instead. She reached for my beer before she’d even settled all the way, took a sip and made a face. “Terrible.”
“It’s an IPA.”
“I know what it is.”
I took the bottle back from her. “I’ll try to be more considerate with the beer you steal from me.”
“That’s all I ask.”
I smiled and looked back toward the others.
The conversation kept rolling without us. Carter and Annie were arguing about whether obsession was romantic or a red flag, with Ava jumping in just to stir the pot. Nico looked relieved that people were at least still talking about the book, even if the thing had long since slipped its leash.
Beside me, Yasmine tucked one leg under herself and kept her eyes on the group. Then, quiet enough that nobody else could hear, she said, “You coming over later?”
I tapped my knee to hers. “You asking about my stamina, Ms. Valentine?”
Her mouth twitched. “I’m asking if I should leave the door unlocked.”
“Leave it unlocked.”
She reached for my bottle again and took another drink. So much for not liking it.
Nico’s eyes were on us. So I cut left, nodding at the tabs in his book. “What are all those for?”
“Notes,” Nico said. “For Tabby.”
“For Tabby,” I repeated.
“Inspiration.”
Carter laughed. “If you need tabs for that, you’re already in trouble.”
“He really isn’t,” Tabby called from across the room.
Grant shook his head. “We’re reading a biography next time.”
“No we’re not,” Carter said. “We’re reading book two.”
It was technically someone else’s turn to pick, but no one argued.
Around nine, things started winding down. Grant had to get the dog home. Annie had work in the morning.
Yasmine stood when I did, and I passed her the water she’d set down earlier.
“Thanks,” she said, not looking at me.
“Sure.”
When I glanced up, Ava was watching us. Thoughtful. Then she turned to collect her purse. Grant clipped Havoc’s leash on and said his goodbyes, the other hand already reaching for his wife.
“Same time next month,” Nico said, clearly pleased at the outcome of the evening. I was happy for him.
“Same time,” I said. “Are we really going to let Carter pick another one?”
Carter started defending himself. I caught something about book two, then Annie mentioned CeeCee and baby clothes, and my attention slid to Yasmine.
She was saying something to Annie, dimple showing, and I stopped tracking the conversation.
“Hale.” Carter’s voice cut through. “What do you think?”
I had no idea what they were talking about. “Good idea.”
He seemed satisfied.
“Bye, y’all,” Annie called.
“Good night,” Yasmine said.
“Good night,” I said.
She nodded and walked out with her arm looped through Annie’s, the bell over the door chiming behind them.
When I turned back, Nico was watching me with a small, knowing smile.
Yeah. I wasn’t fooling him at all.