Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Hell, that statement? My brother won the round table diss off with that.
I tucked my arm around her waist. “What are you doing, Zuri?” I whispered low in her ear.
“Helping.”
“You’re off the clock.” I grabbed the plates stacked in her hands.
She didn’t let go. “I don’t want the servers’ side-eyeing me for the special treatment.”
“They won’t.”
“They have.”
“Which ones?”
Zuri let go of the plates. “Not tonight, Montana. You were nasty to your brother.”
“Would love to get nasty with you. Different category, though.”
“Well, you’ve already been this type of nasty with me!”
I stared at her, waiting for her to sprout three heads. She mumbled, “3X.” The irony.
I put the dirty dishes on the clean white linen table.
“There!” She glared at the plates. “That’s the point, Montana! The busser changed the linens on this table, and look at what you’ve done.”
“Follow me.” I wrapped my arm around her and guided her into the back office, closing it after us.
“This because of Adelle?” I asked, leading her to the pink furry chair.
“Nope.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned toward her and sat. “No more Adelle. I told her she wasn’t you.” My brow lifted when she didn’t respond. “Zuri, lemme make it up to you? Dinner tomorrow? Paris? New York? Italy?”
Her arms folded. “Is this your version of an apology? While I don’t need an expensive my bad, I have feelings. And you hurt them.”
“Okay.” I set up my lips to say the words. Failed. Pinched the bridge of my nose. Tried again. Framed my beard. “I am ….”
“Don’t kill yourself, Big Country.”
“Holler that when we get close. Real close.”
“I’ll say it when you’re stubborn”—she listed off her fingers—“prideful, narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical, pompous, smug, ego—”
“You said that.”
“No. I aimed for egocentric this time. Yeah, that. If I have an enormous head, your ego fills outer space.”
Head tilted, I scrubbed my jaw. “There’re infinite galaxies—which part of space? Be specific, bébé.”
“All. Of. It.”
“Appreciate the clarification. Where should we eat tomorrow?”
“I’ll take dinner in your momma’s kitchen—preferably without you.” She let out a breath. “I don’t mind … with you. I just hope you’ll be the funny guy. My friend … Montana.”
“Friends? Nah.”
She scoffed, getting up. “Then what do you want?”
“We gotta fake date again.”
zuri
. . .
The next morning, I checked out the contract while Montana and I sat at the cast-aluminum table on his mom’s porch.
Pinching off a piece of Virginia’s famous chocolate croissant and dunking it into my coffee mug, I weary-eyed section seven. “What’s this?”
“Well, Doctor Sweet Cheeks, I’ve included a contingency after our discussion. I’ve signed so many contracts. Gotta protect us both.”
“This is negotiable, right?”
“Nah. Other portions, yep. This part? Nah.”
I scoffed. “The contract says, I, Zuri Sweet Cheeks, MD. So adorable. I’ll use that surname for my next alias. Let’s see, Sasha Von Sweet Cheeks.” My eyes flicked to him, and I swore his laser-dark gaze almost made me combust. Guess me leaving wasn’t funny.
Clearing my throat, I continued, “Will date Montana Babineaux until the Sunday immediately after Valentine’s. Wait, that’s a month away from today?”
He shrugged.
“She will receive a sports ut-utlity—should it spell utility?”
He snatched the paper. “That’s what it says.”
“Made ya look.” I sniggered, bummed that this pretend thing included an expiration date. Why so soon? Not that I’d always been ten-toes-down. “You made the honor roll through high school. Oh, and your fifth-grade spelling bee photo is totes adorable. You got second place. Did your mom cut your hair?”
“Non.” Creole. Yep. I’d gotten under his skin. “That style was in. Zuri, did you live under a rock until Big Country brightened your life?”
I blinked at his attempt to draw from my past.
Something in him seemed genuinely interested before the eye roll. He said, “Keep it up, bébé, and I’m adding more to this contract.”
“More? As in, I get an SUV not to exceed one hundred grand in value, and a hundred grand cash.”
“No. More as in you can’t leave the bayou state for five years.”
“Last night, I agreed not to move within six months of getting a one-hundred-thousand-dollar vehicle—not as if I needed anything so fancy.” I wasn’t crazy about those plans either.
“You’re the bad negotiator. You forgot I’d offered you fifty grand for our first date. You declined it after your little boardroom show, remember? You could’ve been getting fifty-K per date. You chose a car.”
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “No. Wait. You tricked me. I was darn near in a food coma after dinner. You asked how my Nissan was … I told you, besides the crappy knock-knock jokes, real good. That’s leading. Yep. In lawyer terms, You. Led Me! I should take Washington up on his offer to work as a secretary at Cohen & DuVall. You scammed me.” There was a little more to that. We were alone. Thinking had never been so hard—except for any other times we were alone.