5. Nolani #2
“They interrogated you over pralines.”
“They asked questions. I had answers.”
“You’re always this calm?”
“Only when I ain’t worried.”
I turned toward him. “You weren’t worried?”
“Nah. I came to pick up a woman I like, not apply for parole.” My laugh came fast. Landon glanced over. “See? Worth it.”
“What?”
“Whatever I said that got that laugh.”
“You’re very pleased with yourself.”
“I’m pleased with you.”
That one came too smoothly for me to decide what to do with it.
My hand moved toward the pendant before I caught myself.
He saw anyway.
I expected the usual teasing.
Instead, Landon kept his attention on the road.
A few minutes passed before he spoke again.
“Since we got some road ahead of us, I wanna make one thing clear.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It ain’t. I asked you out because I wanted you here. Not because I needed somebody in the passenger seat and you happened to be available.” I turned toward him. He continued driving. “Pretty women everywhere. That ain’t rare. You stayed on my mind after you left. That got my attention.”
My pulse did something unnecessary.
“You don’t know me that well.”
“I know.” He looked at me briefly. “That’s why we out here.” Something in the simplicity of it settled me. “I’m not interested in building a whole woman in my head off two conversations and then getting mad when you ain’t her. I’d rather learn the real one.”
I held his profile in my attention for a moment before looking ahead.
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”
“Same way I learn anything worth knowing. Pay attention. Ask questions. Don’t assume I mastered the material after day one.”
I laughed. “Of course you made me coursework.”
“I said worth knowing, Hershey. Don’t rewrite my syllabus.”
“See? This is why I asked.”
He grinned.
At the next light, his attention shifted toward me.
“I had plenty I could’ve done today. I wanted this one.”
There it was.
Direct.
No speech about destiny. No exaggerated certainty about who I was to him after forty-eight hours.
Just choice.
The light changed.
He drove on.
I looked out the window before my face exposed too much.
The iron archway marking Self Springs Marina appeared several minutes later, black lettering rising above palms and flowering crepe myrtles.
Landon slowed beneath it.
“This my Self Springs, by the way. Not the brochure version.”
Blue water opened beyond the windshield, bright with sailboats and sunlight.
I smiled.
“Okay, Coach. Show me.”
He looked over.
“Gladly.”
The marina recognized him before we made it ten steps from the SUV.
A man coiling rope beside a charter boat lifted his chin. “Coach Brooks.”
“What’s good, Vernon? Your mama make it home from rehab?”
“Tuesday. Already fussing at everybody.”
“Then she’s feeling better. Tell her I asked about her.”
Farther down, a woman working beneath the raised hood of a motorboat waved him over. Landon asked about her son’s college decision without needing the boy’s name supplied first.
“He took Langston,” she told him. “Engineering scholarship.”
Landon’s whole face changed.
“That’s what I’m talking about. Tell Malik he better stop by my office once he gets settled. No reason to be on that campus acting like he don’t know nobody.”
“You know he will.”
We kept moving.
Nobody behaved like Landon was famous. They simply knew him. And he knew them back. Names. Mothers recovering from surgery. Children leaving for college. Businesses. Families. Small details that only remained small if you weren’t the person being remembered.
“You know everybody.”
“Nah.” I looked at him. “I know the people I know.”
“That answer made absolutely no sense.”
“Made perfect sense. Knowing somebody’s name ain’t the same as knowing them.”
I considered that while he led me toward a narrower pier.
“Daddy used to bring me and Lennox out here before sunrise. Lennox hated waiting. He’d cast every thirty seconds like fish were supposed to respect his work ethic.”
I laughed. “Did it help?”
“Made Daddy threaten to throw the whole rod in the Gulf.”
“And you?”
“I could sit.”
“Patient even then?”
“Observant. Patience came later, when I realized rushing didn’t make fish give a damn about my schedule.”
That sounded more like him.
We stopped at the end of the pier.
Water folded around the pilings below us.
“Daddy used to tell me water would expose whether you wanted something or just wanted control over when you got it.”
I looked toward him.
Landon shrugged once, like the statement didn’t need additional decoration.
“Did you listen?”
“Eventually.”
“Apparently consequences got tuition.”
He cut his eyes toward me.
I smiled.
“You remembered that?”
“I pay attention too.”
His laugh followed us back toward the promenade.
A broad stone walkway curved along the harbor, lined with cafés, boutiques, benches, shade trees, and couples making no effort to hurry anywhere. Children ran around a fountain shaped like an open book while old-school R&B drifted from somewhere ahead.
A cyclist came around the curve faster than common sense recommended.
Landon shifted closer and put one hand against the small of my back, guiding me toward the inside of the walkway.
The bicycle passed.
His hand stayed.
I looked up.
“You know I wasn’t about to get run over.”
“I know.”
“Then what was that?”
His eyes dropped toward me.
“Opportunity.”
“For what?”
“To touch you.”
The answer was so immediate I nearly missed a step.
“At least you’re honest.”
“I told you Friday I don’t believe in wasting good openings.”
His palm left my back when we reached the door of Black Laurel Books.
That was probably fortunate.
The bookstore looked nothing like Franklin’s.
Where Franklin Books felt inherited, Black Laurel felt curated.
Dark wood shelves rose beneath brass lights.
Poetry occupied an entire wall. Art books stretched across marble tables, rare editions sat behind glass, and open books hung from the ceiling of the children’s section like birds caught midflight.
A Black woman with silver hair looked up from behind the counter.
“Landon Brooks. You finally brought somebody worth dressing decent for.”
“I dress decent every day, Ms. Renee.”
“You wear Langston shirts and athletic pants every day.”
“That’s campus formal.”
Her attention shifted to me.
“This is Nolani,” Landon said. “She owns Crème & Chill Ice Bar & Bakery in Self Ridge. Scoops & Stories is part of it.”
Recognition brightened Ms. Renee’s face. “The place with the author murals and reading section?”
“The reading space has grown beyond a section, but yes.”
“I love that concept. Children need more places where a book doesn’t come with somebody grading them afterward.”
Before I could answer, a circular display in the children’s section caught my attention.
Books had been arranged around prompt cards inviting young readers to redesign an ending, write a letter to a character, or create something inspired by the story.
An idea arrived before I could stop it.
“We could do something similar at Scoops & Stories. Not this exactly, but maybe one book every month, then let the children develop a dessert around it.”
Landon came to stand beside me.
I kept going.
“They could create flavors based on the setting or characters, draw labels, name the dessert, then invite their families for a tasting at the end of the month.”
“That sounds like you.”
I looked at him. “What does that mean?”
“Taking something sweet and making it do more than taste good.”
The answer found me before I could prepare for it.
I looked back at the display.
He didn’t ask when I planned to launch it.
Didn’t turn an idea into a deadline.
Didn’t start calculating what I would need.
He simply let me have it.
We wandered through the store for another twenty minutes. Near the poetry wall, a muted pink collection caught my attention. The back described poems about womanhood, rest, and figuring out who remained when usefulness stopped being the measure of worth.
I opened it.
Read one page.
Another.
Put it back.
Then picked it up again.
By the third time, I realized Landon was standing several feet away, talking to Ms. Renee.
Good.
I returned the book to the shelf and moved on.
Ten minutes later, he walked toward the register with it beneath his arm.
I stared at him. “You didn’t have to buy that.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
“You touched it three times.”
I opened my mouth.
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Four if we count you pretending to reorganize the shelf after you put it back.”
“I was straightening it.”
“Sure.”
Ms. Renee handed him the bag.
I looked at it.
Nyla’s message came back.
Let him be nice to you without turning it into a debt.
I accepted the bag when he handed it to me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
And that was it.
No speech from him.
No refusal from me.
We walked out.
The gallery two doors down held Black life across enormous canvases. Grandmothers braiding hair on porches. Men bent over domino tables. Children running through sprinklers. Families gathered around Sunday tables. Lovers dancing in kitchens.
Near the back, one painting stopped me.
A Black woman stood alone at the shoreline with an enormous blue sky behind her. Her dress moved in the wind, waves reaching toward her feet, but nothing about her posture looked like waiting.
The brass plate beneath it read Enough to Remain.
Landon came to stand beside me.
He didn’t ask why I’d stopped.
I appreciated that.
We stood there for a while, sharing the same painting without trying to determine what it meant for the other person.
Eventually, I moved.
He moved too.
Outside, late-afternoon light had turned the storefront windows honey-gold.
Landon nodded toward a path beyond the trees.
“Come on, Hershey. One more stop before dinner.”
I looked at him.
“More walking?”
“Your shoes comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop complaining.”
“I wasn’t complaining.”
“Pre-complaint.”
“That is not a thing.”
“Preventative coaching.”
I laughed and followed him.
By a little after five, the promenade had given way to sand.