Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“It’s me,” Ezra says, his smile tentative. “How are you, Mrs. Allen?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and got stingy with your hugs,” Mama says, resting her hands on her hips.
“No, ma’am.” Ezra reaches down to squeeze my much shorter mother.
“Who would have thought?” Mama pats his back and then pulls away to peer up at him. “Tall as your daddy. It’s good to see you.”
It is? The last time she saw Ezra was the night of the argument. She did everything in her power to convince me I shouldn’t look for him and seemed satisfied when my defiant efforts to find him proved fruitless.
“Good seeing you, too,” Ezra says.
“How are your parents doing?” Mama asks, her tone polite and only mildly interested in the couple who used to be like family to us.
“My father passed away a few years ago.” Sadness flits through Ezra’s dark blue eyes, making them that near-purple color they’d become when he felt something deeply. Everything else about him may have changed, but at least that is the same. “Mom’s doing well. She remarried last year.”
“I’m so sorry about your father.” Mama squeezes Ezra’s hand. “Please give Ruth my best.”
“I sure will.” He turns to his son. “This is Noah, Mrs. Allen, the only grandchild and subsequently, spoiled rotten. Noah, this is Mrs. Allen, Kimba’s mom.”
“Hi.” He glances up through long lashes at my mother. “My bubbe lives in New York.”
“Ezra, you used to call your grandmother Bubbe, too. Ruth was so devastated when she passed.” Compassion gathers in Mama’s eyes. “Poor Ruth, losing so much.”
“Mrs. Allen.” A slim woman wearing glasses and a semi-anxious expression steps into our circle. “The board wants a few photos with you. You, too, Kimba.”
“Thank you, Brenda,” she says. “We better go. It was so good seeing you again, Ezra and Mona. Lovely meeting you, Noah.”
“What about lunch tomorrow?” Mona says quickly, taking my arm. “We need to hang, girl. Catch up. It’ll be fun.”
Ezra doesn’t speak, but the muscle in his jaw draws tight beneath his skin. He’s looking down at the ground in that deliberate way he used to have. A casual posture that did little to hide his alertness. At least, not from me. Do I still know him?
“Kimba!” Mama says from a few feet away, already lining up for pictures. Something akin to anxiety marks her expression when her glance flicks between Ezra and me. “Come on.”
I hear it again. Our parents’ raised voices. The angry demands that separated me from my best friend. The desolation of watching from my porch as he left, knowing somehow, despite what he said, that it was for good.
“Say noon?” Mona asks. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the address.”
Ezra does glance at me then, and the look in his eyes wills me to say yes, even as Mama’s expression urges me to pull away.
Not again.
“Noon?” I grab Mona’s phone, punching in my number. “I can’t wait.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ezra
“More water, sir?”
The server doesn’t look much older than the girls at YLA, but if I’m not mistaken, she’s checking me out. Mona and Aiko always say I’m bad at picking up on these things, but she’s come to my table four times in five minutes offering water, and every time, the looks are bold enough that even I know what’s up.
“Uh, no.” I give her a polite smile. “I’ll order something when my friends get here.”
“Okay.” She points to her chest…name tag. “Cherise. Just holla if you need me.”
I give her another polite smile, this one a dismissal.
My phone rings and I know it’s Mona before I even look at the screen.
“Let me guess,” I say, already smiling. “You’re running late.”
“You don’t know my life.”
We both laugh because I very much do know her life, and she knows mine. Except I haven’t told her about the breakup. Yet.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Well, my cousin Alicia and I needed to run by this shop.”
Flea market.
“And we were supposed to start early, but got behind,” she says. “I’ll be there fifteen minutes, tops. Kimba there yet?”
“Not yet.” But if she comes soon, I’ll have fifteen minutes alone with her.
“Some things never change,” Mona says. “You were always early, I was always late, and Kimba was always—”
“Right on time,” I say as Kimba walks into Tips and surveys the Saturday lunch crowd. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
“K, bye.”
I wave to get Kimba’s attention, smiling in a way I hope is normal. I don’t feel normal. I feel…jittery, like my body resumed the adolescent state from when we were friends before. My palms are sweating. My heart is pounding. I’m this close to shoving my hands in my pockets even though I’m sitting down.
But she’s so damn beautiful.
I’m not the only one who notices. A few men here with their girls cast discreet looks Kimba’s way as she walks by, her stride confident, her generous curves shown off to perfection in the orange dress that stops a little above her knees. Curls riot around her face and brush her shoulders. Her makeup is light, but flawless. She looks…expensive. Even though she’s dressed simply, sophistication clings to her as faithfully as the dress clings to her body. And when she gets close enough, her scent floats around me and makes me want to breathe so deep she’s the only thing I can smell. It’s lemony with something earthier beneath.