some major problems if you attempt to sashay your sexy ass out of my house.”
“Oh, well, that’s good then.”
“And a new rule. When we’re in bed, you’re by my side.”
I smiled at Chris’s bossiness. That’s a rule I could get behind. I sighed, relieved. “I like that rule. Keith never, well, he didn’t like to hold me afterward. He said I was too hot.”
“Another new rule.” His voice dropped to frigid temperatures. “Don’t mention Keith’s bitch ass while in bed with me. Out there in public and for business, sure. But that’s it. He isn’t like me, and I’m damn sure not like him.”
I squeezed his bicep and snuggled against his chest. “I’m sorry, that was dumb of me. I won’t mention him, in um, bed again.”
“Good.”
“So, there will be an again?” I tried but failed to contain the hopeful tone in my voice.
“Damn right,” he rumbled. “Give me ten, twenty minutes, we’ll do another round.”
“Twenty minutes?” I lifted my head. “That doesn’t happen in real life.” I snorted. Only in books. The romance books I used to love reading until Keith shattered my heart.
“I already confessed you were my fantasy come true. You think I’m waiting hours to get my fill again?”
“We shall see,” I teased and patted his chest. “We shall see.”
It’s important to note that I did see. All. Night. Long.
SEPTEMBER
CHAPTER 13
O Sister, Where Art Thou?—Raina
“You sure you don’t want to stay with me?” My mother’s big brown eyes peered at me from across the breakfast table.
I shook my head, scooping up my corn flakes and feeling like a big fat loser. Single, in my thirties, living with my mama.
“I’m sure, Ma. Kara already has a room ready for me. It’d be rude not to move in.” And I’ll lose my damn mind if I have to tell you for the umpteenth time that I’m fine.
“All right then. I just want to make sure this is what you really want. I just want you to be happy. You seemed really happy with Cam—”
“Ma,” I groaned and dropped the spoon in my nearly empty bowl. “I don’t want to talk about it. Why do you keep bringing him up?”
“Why don’t you want to talk about him?” She dug in.
Ma had never had a real backbone, so it surprised the hell out of me that she decided to have some steel in her spine now.
“Because we’re over. Because he wanted things from me that I couldn’t give him. People break up all the time, every day, in fact. And when people end relationships, it’s viewed rude as he—I mean, as heck to bring it up.”
“Sorry. I live alone, so I must’ve lost my manners over the years,” Ma said in the most unapologetic voice I’d ever heard in my life.
I stood and emptied the milk from my bowl into the sink. “I’m going to my room to write. Please don’t—”
“Interrupt you,” she interrupted me. “I know.”
I left the kitchen and returned to my box-size room. Ma had downsized, but I was damn lucky to have a room, even kid-sized, to crash in. I needed to save all my coins for my career change. Being a writer ain’t easy.
I sat in front of my desk, shook my head from side to side, and did a few exercises I knew some actors did before a scene. Doing this relaxed my mind and my fingers, and I was able to zone out and hit my daily word count.
My plotting board sat propped against the dresser. The yellow trifold board looked like a seventh grader’s science project with its array of sticky notes scribbled with my outlines for each chapter. My manuscript, a series of humorous essays, was turning out well. Today’s entry would be about the bougie friend who studied abroad for one summer and came back speaking another language like she was a native.
My old college friend had spent a year somewhere in Latin America. Homegirl came back with a wavy brown sewn-in weave and started rolling her R’s like there was a gun to her head. I chuckled at the memory. Plot in place, I was on a roll and nearly finished with the chapter about being true to yourself when the doorbell sounded.
A flash of irritation zipped through my body, but then I remembered that this wasn’t my place.
“Raina!” Ma’s voice was high-pitched and weird. “You’ve got a, um, visitor.”
“A visitor?” I mumbled under my breath. “Be there in a minute!”
I saved my work and pushed away from the