Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Growing up, my fridge at home was always covered the same way with mine and my siblings’ drawings or things Mom thought were important and wanted to show off. Thinking about it, I try to remember Sharon’s fridge. I don’t remember things decorating the front of it, but I do remember the fridge in my apartment back in Colorado always had lots of Zuri’s school art on it. Maybe it’s just an insignificant coincidence, but I can’t help but think about what having our fridge covered with randomness meant to me growing up, and what Javion said, coupled with Zuri telling her friend I was her mom.
It’s difficult to think about in some ways because I can remember all the times over the years I left Zuri behind to go on vacation, to visit my family for the holidays or to just spend time with friends, and I hate thinking about how me leaving her behind might have made her feel. Did she resent me in those moments or doubt that I cared about her?
I hope not. I let out a long breath and turn to rinse out my glass before I place it in the dishwasher.
I guess none of it matters now, from here on out it’s the two of us. I will do the best I can to be someone that she can look up to and count on.
Eleven
NALIA
Staring at Cole on the screen of my phone after spilling my guts, I try to interpret his expression, but he’s always been impossible to read, so I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“Honey, we aren’t together, it’s okay,” he says softly, after dragging out the moment and I blink. I’m sure that’s supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn’t because now I just feel like an idiot. I spent weeks and weeks assuming that we were still in a relationship because I was too ignorant to understand that the night I told him that I was moving, he broke up with me without actually breaking up with me.
“I know,” I lie as I swallow down my annoyance. Getting angry with him isn’t going to do any good, and honestly, it’s not all his fault. I should have ended things with him before I left Colorado. I knew that things wouldn’t work with us being so far away. If I’m honest, they weren’t working when we lived in the same building. But again, he’s the first guy that I’ve been with who wasn’t a jerk. Knowing how rare that is nowadays, I was hanging on, hoping that what we had might turn into something more.
“So, who’s the guy?” he asks, distracted by whatever it is he’s looking at off-screen, probably his computer.
“No one.” The timer I set for the cookies I put in the oven right before he called starts to chime, and I take my phone with me as I leave my office and walk down the hall to the kitchen.
“No one?” He looks at me. “He must be someone if you’re calling to tell me you kissed him.”
Okay, I’m not having this conversation with him. “I’m sorry, I…”
“You know you can talk to me.” He cuts me off. “Things didn’t work out with us, but I still consider you a friend, and I care about you and Zuri.”
Friends. Can I even be friends with him? Probably, it’s not like we didn’t start out as friends, and we’ve basically been nothing more than friends for months. Even when we were together, I felt like he was more of a friend to me than my boyfriend most of the time. Sure, we kissed when we were in bed and had sex from time to time, also always in bed, but there was never any real passion there. I guess the real question is, do I want to be friends with him? Maybe? I don’t know.
“Shit,” he mumbles, dragging me from my thoughts. “I have to go, I have an important call coming in, but call me later.”
“Ugh, sure,” I get up right before he hangs up then stare at my phone as drop it to the counter.
Shaking off how weird that was, I grab the spatula from the drawer and carefully remove the cookies I pulled from the oven off the pan and place them on a baking rack to cool. When I’m done, I add more cookies to the cookie sheet and put them in the oven, setting another timer, then rinse the bowl and put it in the dishwasher.
By the time I’m done cleaning up my mess, the last batch of cookies is done, so I take them out and leave them to cool, and head to my room to change. I have a dozen errands to run today. I have to go to the bank, the courthouse, and the clerk’s office to file some paperwork for Talon and Bax, and I need to go to the grocery store and stop by Rafe Motors to pay for the work Logan did on my Bronco. Something I didn’t remember until this morning, when I got into my car to take Zuri to school.