Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Yep.” I jogged around the convertible and got in. Sitting there, staring out the window into the bright morning sun, I muttered, “I can’t believe he had nothing. Slid him a few dollars, even though he told me he didn’t need to hold nothing. That man needs to hold a résumé.”
She chuckled, soft and low. “Be kind to him.”
“A Black man can’t get anywhere being babied.”
“You … told me the same about Elijah.”
We didn’t bring him up much, and I had the feeling Shonda’s contract included him as a silent caveat in her unusual torture.
Lack of sex? It was silent and deadly.
But there shouldn’t be any hiding the salami when we couldn’t discuss our boy. Shonda was right about that.
“If I had known …” I replied, starting the car.
“You couldn’t have known,” she whispered, then shook her head with a soft laugh. “He was a little crybaby, though, huh? Instead of terrible twos?”
“He was a tough three after you rationed your kisses.”
“True.” She took my hand as I drove.
madison
. . .
Shreveport who? Was I low-key sabotaging our chances to make it to the wine spritzer? Well, yes, I was. But I had many more reasons than a desire not to relive my son’s funeral and Bridget’s statement. Beignets. And farmers markets.
Who didn’t love a farmers market? Okay, maybe that was the genetic makeup that came from my bougie mommy. She couldn’t resist the marches fermiers when in France. A mercadillos in Spain. And an asaichi in Japan, which translates as a morning market. However, I wondered if my mind had constructed that correctly. If so, Duolingo had nothing on me when it came to recalling Mom’s many adventures and how she loved to Spanglish or Japlish it out wherever she traveled.
I would’ve called the mashup of languages thugging it out, but she would’ve slapped me and then snatched the annual subscription of truffle face mask she got me one year and forgot to cancel.
In my attempt to derail our actual plans, I’d done an online search and brought up every farmers market off Interstate-10. So far, I’d dragged us through Sorento and Baton Rouge without getting us arrested or me a urinary tract infection. Because I’d been on my best behavior, like first-date behavior where you share desserts and stuff. Now we were in Opelousas. The sun was shining and a zydeco melody floated through the air.
The smell of powdered sugar drifted toward me, a trap for new couples. All that sharing and caring, so sweet. But I had loved this man too long to hurt his feelings. “Listen,” I blurted, “I can’t share these with you.”
Maybe I moaned the words in between bites of heavenly beignet goodness, but I tried to be kind about it. I cradled the brown paper bag, newborn-style.
Washington tilted his head. The sun caught his beard in a disrespectful way, glowing, showing off, and making his lips look too kissable for a public place. And I meant the type of kiss that pleased me the most.
Yet, my dead-serious face made those seductive lips part in a restrained sigh. He handed the vendor double the cash for his own bag of beignets. “They better be that damn good.”
Oh, they are.
We wandered through the market, weaving between tables stacked with homemade jams and jars of honey that looked sinful in the sunlight. The mounds of bright peppers made me want spice in life. Man, I loved Louisiana.
“Stop looking at me sideways, Wash,” I murmured, focused on a basket of strawberries while he stared a hole in the side of my face.
“At the rate we’re going,” he drawled, “we’ll arrive this time tomorrow.”
“Bite your beignet. It’ll make you happy.”
His long stride caught me off guard, and I had to snatch my baby beignets to the side to keep them safe. Cute frustration thickened those sexy thick brows.
“Maddy, I’m serious. This is our last stop. We’ll miss the entire wine spritzer.”
“Boy, what’s more important? Show face, then getting some later … or rubbing elbows with Gaston DuVall and Bridget all afternoon and evening. The choice is yours. A passionate release, or dry wine and judgment.”
“We’re showing face,” Washington declared.
I lifted my bag, and he lifted his. I bounced my shoulders and sang, “We showing face.”
Washington, my six-foot-something menace, did the same jig, his paper bag in hand, and completed the song with “Hell yeah, we is!”
Partners in crime, we did our dance and our chant until a little old lady glared at him over her walker. Face serious, he cleared his throat. Dang, her little Morton’s-table-salt face just shoplifted his joy.
My mouth firmed into a line. “Okay, Paint—”
“Madison.”
“Dry.” I patted his solid, perfect chest. My hands almost settled there. Almost slid around. Instead, I remembered how I rubbed his bald head with his favorite oil. I cleared my throat. That granite chest was mine. I’d revisit it later. “C’mon, I’m comparing paint drying on every surface of a room to your facade. Because in bed you are wild. Be enjoyable in the now, okay?”