Before I Let Go, page 24
“So you have an open relationship?” Harvey asks. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not open. We’re monogamous.” Ken slides Merry an amused glance. “At least I think we’ve always been.”
“Always.” Merry chuckles, settling deeper into the crook of Ken’s arm. “We chose each other, and our minds have never changed.”
A server walks up to our table with a tray of desserts, redirecting the conversation, but I can’t shake what they’ve said. If Josiah and I had taken that route, we never would have divorced. We would have just parted ways, but I think the hurt and bitterness would have still followed us. The piece of paper doesn’t define your commitment, but neither does its absence. I suspect what Josiah and I once had would have been just as strong had we chosen not to marry, and it would have hurt just as much when we fell apart. My thoughts wander to the simple gold band and chip diamond ring Josiah gave me, all he could afford at the time. It’s in the same jewelry box with those turkey earrings and the wheel necklace he gave me for our anniversary. A crypt for diamonds and demons and ghosts.
“Chocolate?” Josiah asks, jarring me from my maudlin musings.
“Huh?” I look from him to the plate of desserts.
“The chocolate is delicious,” Merry says. “But the pear turnover is sublime. I recommend everyone try it at least once.”
“Pears are my favorite fruit,” I tell her with a smile. “I haven’t had any in forever. I’ll have the turnover.”
“The pear trees are out back,” Ken says and slides the pastry onto my plate with his knife. “They were here long before we were. We just keep them going. Some of the best pears in the state.”
“They’ve won contests,” Merry adds, pride in her smile. “You won’t regret trying it.”
“Oh, dear God,” I moan, turning the warm pears and flaky crust in my mouth. “This has to be a deadly sin.”
Merry laughs. “Told you.”
“Taste,” I say, heaping some of the gooey dessert onto my fork and bringing it to Josiah’s mouth. It’s habit. We always used to share our food. He opens immediately, his eyes closing in appreciation.
“Wow,” he says, forgoing the chocolate cake to reach for a turnover of his own from the tray. “Does the recipe for this come with the business?”
“Perfect segue,” Ken says. “You’ve seen us on paper and now you’ve met us in person. Seen our operation.”
“Eaten our food,” Merry says with a smile. “Are you interested?”
“You have a great place here.” Josiah sets his fork down on the plate in front of him. “Beautiful space. Great neighborhood. Yasmen and I need to discuss it before we make any solid plans.”
“It’s not just what could happen here,” I tell them. “But making sure expanding won’t compromise what we’re doing in Atlanta.”
“I’ve got all your numbers,” Harvey interjects.
“She doesn’t mean money,” Josiah says. “We’ll need to oversee this expansion. We’re in a boom, too, and it demands a lot of us. We don’t want to spread ourselves thin.”
“Our kids come first,” I say. “We need to make sure we won’t be cheating them, missing things we should be there for if we take this expansion on.”
“We respect that.” Merry twines her fingers with Ken’s on the table. “How old are they again?”
“Deja’s thirteen,” Josiah says.
“And Kassim’s ten,” I add.
“We were in the thick of building this when our twins were young,” Ken says, exchanging a rueful smile with Merry. “We missed a lot.”
“And we paid dearly for it.” Merry sighs, her perennially cheerful expression darkening some. “Thank goodness we realized they were getting off course before it got too bad.”
“So you weigh the pros and cons, keeping them first,” Ken says. “And let us know, but don’t take too long. We’d love knowing this place we put so much into is in great hands when we leave. You seem like exactly the kind of people we’d want to see here, but either way we’ll be putting this place on the market come the new year.”
“And as soon as that happens”—Merry snaps her fingers—“it’ll be gone.”
We finish dessert and walk the property, touring it in more detail than when we passed through the dining room to the table. In the back, there’s a large room with bottles of wine and all varieties of liquor lining the walls. Ken grabs one from a high shelf and holds it out to Josiah.
“I wanted to give you this as a token of our appreciation,” Ken says. “The two of you coming up here to view the place, taking time to see what we’re about, means a lot.”
“Wow.” Josiah reads the label on the square bottle, a note of admiration creeping into his voice. “Yamazaki. Nice. Thank you very much.”
I’ve heard Josiah talk about the expensive Japanese whiskey, but haven’t actually tasted it myself. We end the tour in a small courtyard where, when it’s warm, diners can eat at wrought-iron tables. It’s exactly the kind of thing I could see us doing for our customers. This is a great spot, and a second Grits would thrive here. I recognize the gleam in Josiah’s eyes. It was there when we first started in Atlanta. The man loves a challenge.
“It was so nice meeting you,” Merry says, leaning forward to give me a peck on the cheek while we wait for the Uber. I move to pull away, but she squeezes my arm gently, bringing me closer.
“It’s not too late,” she whispers in my ear.
I lean back to peer at her face. She subtly tips her head toward Josiah and Ken saying their goodbyes just ahead of us.
“I don’t…” I glance at Josiah, too, my heart skipping traitorous beats at how handsome he looks, a broad smile creasing his lean cheeks. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Merry releases a sly, low laugh. “I watched the two of you all through lunch stealing glances at each other when you thought no one was looking. Maybe a second chance?”
My eyes stray to Josiah’s wide shoulders, the powerful lines of his back beneath the impeccably tailored jacket, the striking profile and flash of white teeth in a panty-melting smile.
“I was no walk in the park, Merry.”
“Who wants to walk in the park? I think that man would run wild with you.”
Her words settle between us on the cool air, and I don’t know what to make of them. Don’t know if there’s any truth to what she says, or that I’d be willing to risk my pride to find out.
Do you want him back?
Mama’s question sifts through my thoughts, disturbing and titillating. How much longer can I ignore the attraction simmering between us? Now that he’s no longer with Vashti, should I press? See if he’d even be interested in…what? I demanded a divorce, and now that my libido wants to come out and play, I want what with him?
“Thank you for everything,” I tell Merry. “We’ll be in touch.”
She gives me a knowing smile, but lets me go and waves goodbye.
The Uber pulls up to the curb and I climb in gratefully. When we were in the restaurant, time seemed to fly by, but now that we’re done, the long day is catching up with me. We spent more than four hours with Merry and Ken. Once we reach the room, I don’t want to move until we have to fly back.
The room.
Meeting Merry and Ken, checking out the restaurant, distracted me from the clear and present danger waiting in room 428. I have to sleep with Josiah mere feet away.
“Let’s talk about it when we get back, yeah?” Harvey leans into Josiah’s window, brows arched questioningly.
“Okay.” Josiah gives a little salute and rolls up the window. Harvey pats the car twice and strolls back into the restaurant as we pull off. I let my head loll against the seat.
“So what’d you think?” I ask, watching him through the slits of my lashes, eyes growing heavy with fatigue.
Josiah rests his head on the leather seat behind him, linking his hands across the tautness of his stomach. “I think it’s a great opportunity.”
“Agreed.”
“We have to weigh what it will cost financially, of course, but also what it will require of us.” He turns his head to look at me. “I would have to be here a lot in the initial stages. If I’m not around as much, more falls on you with the kids.”
“I’d be fine with that, I think. It’d only be for a season.” I catch his eyes in the dimming light of early evening. “It could be great for us. Help us set up the kids well.”
“Yeah. I did think of that, of course. College fund, money to help with their first car, first house.”
“Mama couldn’t afford any of that. I was lucky to get a partial scholarship, and paying back those student loans was rough in the beginning. I want better for them.”
“Byrd definitely didn’t have the money to help me with my car, that secondhand Honda.”
“Secondhand?” I laugh. “That was more like fourth- or fifth-hand.”
“Hey.” He fake frowns. “I worked at a car wash all summer saving for that thing.”
I bend forward a little, giggling. “And had the nerve to pick me up for our first date in that death trap. I should have gotten a tetanus shot after sitting in that tore-up front seat. Literally tore up from the floor up.”
“I can’t believe I drove you around in it.” A smile bends his lips, and his shoulders shake with a silent laugh. “Or that there was a second date.”
“Remember we had to rig the seat belt?”
“And we got stopped by that cop?”
“Um, we didn’t get stopped by the cop,” I remind him. “We were parked behind that fried-chicken spot that caught fire over off Moreland.”
“Shit.” He runs a hand over his head, laughing. “You’re right.”
“He banged on the windows with that flashlight because they were all fogged up and we were…”
Fucking.
Steam-drenched memories waft around us. Me on top in the front seat, thighs spread over him, dress pooling at my waist, panties pushed aside so he could get in. We couldn’t make it home. Josiah had pulled into the abandoned lot when it was late and there was no one around because we had to have each other. Urgent heat had burned through common sense and caution.
My heart hammers a frantic beat and my lungs are breath-starved. I lick my lips, and he tracks the movement, heavy-lidded eyes smoldering from the memory or from this moment, I’m not sure.
I cough and sit up straight. Josiah turns away to look out the window, effectively shutting down the conversation. The last few minutes of the ride we spend in silence, the city a whir of bright lights and holiday optimism strung through branches and suspended from the stars like tinsel.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Josiah
So room service for dinner?” I ask Yasmen, poking my head into the bedroom.
In the last few hours since our meeting, we’ve both been chilling in our own corners. She’s lying on her side, one pillow beneath her head and one between her knees. The braids splay out around her, rippling over her shoulders and down her back. She’s changed clothes since our lunch meeting and scrubbed her face free of makeup. In her sweatpants and Aggie pride T-shirt, socked feet tucked under her, she could be that college girl I fell for practically on sight.
“Yes, please.” She rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling and groaning. “I don’t care if you bring the food to me in a trough, as long as I don’t have to leave this room.”
I walk in and sit on the edge of the bed, handing her the room service menu. “The steak looks good.”
“Already had steak. I’m trying not to eat red meat more than once a week. I may have to make an exception because you know I’m trash for a good mushroom sauce.”
“Still medium-rare?”
“Yup.”
“All right. Well, lemme get this order in.”
While we wait for the food to arrive, I change clothes, too, putting on sweatpants and one of my Morehouse hoodies. When I leave the bathroom and reenter the bedroom, Yasmen sits propped up against the pillows.
“I’d love for the kids to have the kind of college experience we did,” she says wistfully.
“An HBCU?”
“I’d settle for anything with Day at this point. She keeps saying she doesn’t need college at all. Kassim will probably end up at MIT or Harvard or somewhere.”
“You may be the only mom I know who sounds disappointed that her son will most likely attend an Ivy League school.”
She rolls her eyes, allowing a small smile. “You know what I mean.”
Her phone rings on the bed beside her.
“Speaking of our amazing children,” she drawls, picking up the phone. “It’s them. FaceTime.”
I sit down beside her, leaning back on the pillows and smiling at the screen when their faces pop up.
“Mom!” Kassim says. “Dad, hey!”
“Hey, son,” I say. “What you been up to today?”
“Madden with Jamal.” His face lights up. “But guess what Grandma did?”
“There’s no telling.” Yasmen laughs. “Made you clean out your closet? Scrubbed your shower with a toothbrush?”
“Yeah, like she always does,” he says, practically bouncing in his eagerness to spill it. “But she cooked chitterlings again.”
Yasmen wrinkles her nose. “She smelled up my whole house?”
“No!” Kassim’s smile grows impossibly wider. “She cleaned them with bleach before she cooked them and you can’t smell ’em at all.”
I share a quick panicked look with Yasmen. “Don’t eat that.”
“I tasted a little.” Kassim grimaces. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Deja pokes her head into the shot. “But then I reminded him she cleans them so much because chitterlings are literally full of sh—”
“Deja Marie,” I warn. I know she curses, but it would be great if my ten-year-old didn’t follow suit quite yet.
“Well, they are.” She grins, flitting a glance from me to her mother. “Where are you guys?”
“In Charlotte,” Yasmen answers. “You know that. We’ll be home tomorrow.”
“No, I mean, where are you right now?” She frowns. “Are you in bed?”
Oh, damn.
In the FaceTime preview, I see Yasmen and me sitting shoulder to shoulder, propped up by pillows, our heads nearly touching as we both try to fit into the shot.
Yasmen straightens, leaning a few inches away from me. “We’re, um, just waiting for room service.”
“We were in meetings all day,” I add. “And didn’t feel like going out, so we’re eating in your mom’s hotel room.”
“Cool,” Kassim says, not questioning. Deja’s eyes, however, remain on us, fixed and suspicious. “Guess what Grandma told Deja today.”
“Oh, Lord,” Yasmen says. “What?”
“She said,” Deja begins and laughs. “‘You so hardheaded, you don’t believe fatback is greasy.’”
“It is greasy!” Kassim pipes in. “She fried some and there was grease everywhere.”
“And she started playing her music while she was cooking,” Deja goes on. “But stuff I’ve never heard like ‘Merry Christmas’ by the Temptations and ‘Jesus Is Love’ by the Commotion.”
“The Commodores,” I correct.
“Put your grandmother on the phone,” Yasmen says after a few more minutes of them relaying all the weird things Carole did with chitterlings and bins from the Container Store.
“Okay,” Kassim says, running from the room and holding his phone. “Grandma!”
“I’m gonna take this into the sitting room,” Yasmen says, standing and leaving the bedroom just before I hear Carole come on to greet her.
She doesn’t want her mother asking the kinds of questions Deja did, doesn’t want her to realize we had to share a room. Carole and Yasmen are still chatting when our food arrives. I tip the server and set our tray down at the small table in the dining area.
“Mama says hey,” Yasmen offers, sitting at the table across from me.
I lift the lid from my dish to reveal the chicken piccata I ordered. “They haven’t driven her crazy yet?”
“Not yet.” Yasmen laughs, lifting the lid from her dish too. “Ooooh. This steak looks delish.”
She eyes my chicken covetously. So predictable.
“And yet,” I say, my smile knowing, “you want to taste mine.”
“I mean, just a little.” She holds up two fingers, squeezing a tiny bit of space between the tips.
I slide my plate across to her, and she slides hers across to me. We always shared our food, sampling whatever was on the other’s plate.
“Oh, this is so good,” she moans.
I bite into the steak, which seems to dissolve in my mouth, it’s so tender. “Damn, that is good.”
“Halvsies?” A hopeful grin crooks the corners of her lips.
Wordlessly I slide my plate across the table, and she divides her steak and puts half onto my plate and then does the same with my chicken. She passes the plate back to me and we dig in, grunting at how good it is.
“Not bad for hotel food.” I wipe my mouth with the linen napkin and lean back in my seat. “Want dessert?”
“What I want,” she says, “is to taste that Yamazaki.”
“Seriously?”
“Break it out. You’ll just take it to your house and let it molder for the next half century.”
I retrieve the bottle of whiskey from my bag, grab two glasses from the bar, and meet her in the adjacent sitting room. She takes the couch and I sit in the armchair directly across.
“It’s strong,” I warn and pour a glass for her.
“I could use strong.” She takes a long draw of it and gasps, lightly bangs her chest. “You weren’t lying. Good, though. Tastes like pure gold.”
“It costs about that much. Slow down.” I take a more measured sip and nod. “This is the good stuff. You gotta savor.”
“Mama’s having the best time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she moves here after she retires.”
“The kids would love that.”
“So would I. I sometimes wonder if…” Yasmen shrugs. “I don’t know. If maybe I would have handled things better if she’d been around.”
