Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
This will be over soon. Desiree and I will leave to have a celebratory meal and drink, catch up on life. Monk will take Meekah somewhere. Maybe he’ll take her home. Good-night kiss on the porch? Put her through the mattress for old times’ sake?
“Isn’t that one of your favorite movies, Verity?”
I’m ripped from my private spiral when my name is called.
“Huh?” I search the three faces for any sign of what we’re discussing. “What?”
“Brown Sugar,” Desiree answers. “Meekah was saying it’s playing at Hollywood Forever. They don’t usually have movies this late in the year, but it’s like a one-time showing.”
“It’s always been weird to me,” Meekah comments with a little shudder. “Watching movies at a cemetery.”
“Brown Sugar is showing?” I ask, now fully tuning back in. “I actually might check that one out.”
I sense Monk’s peripheral scrutiny and turn to meet his eyes.
“What?” I ask cautiously.
“Nothing.” He shrugs, an unguarded grin making him look like the Monk of years ago. “Just thinking about you watching that movie over and over again, mouthing every word.”
“Not every word.” I actually giggle. “Just that scene after Taye and Sanaa have sex, or as they called it, ‘getting busy.’”
“And also when Taye Diggs’s character catches his wife with Richard Lawson,” Monk says, giving the name the same inflection Taye did.
“‘My divorce!’” he and I quote at the same time, sharing a long look and a good laugh.
“Sooooooo,” Meekah says, eyeing us both closely. “I gather you like the movie, too, Monk.”
Monk shrugs, his amusement dimming. “Sentimental value, I guess.”
I lost count of how many times I made him watch that movie with me. I saw us in those characters. The girl, a writer, and a guy in the music industry, striving to make their way. Those Sunday afternoons in his apartment—listening to music, watching movies, with making love as the intermission—were some of the best of my life.
“You ready?” Desiree turns to me. “You promised we’d celebrate.”
“Of course.” I steady myself with a palm against the wall to slip my heels back on. “It’s your night, doll.”
I offer Meekah a polite smile. “And your night, too. Congratulations. You really did steal that scene.”
“Guess I’ll see you on set Monday,” Monk says.
“Wait.” Desiree gapes. “Are you doing the Canon Holt movie, too, Monk?”
“Yup.” He slips his elbow into the crook of Meekah’s.
“Really cool for you guys to be working together,” Desiree comments. “After all these years.”
After all these years.
The words replay in my head once we part ways with Monk and Meekah. After I have dinner with my old friend. While I’m in bed, staring up at my ceiling and recalling the intoxicating scent that hung around Monk tonight, sandalwood and sentiment. The jolt to my system when I’m around him; the shock of attraction—I can’t deny it’s still there.
After all these years.
So much has changed, but I’m beginning to accept that some things never do.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Monk
Rarely have I felt more ridiculous than I do right now, scanning the crowd on the Hollywood Forever lawn. Seems like everybody and their mama is out for the one-time showing of Brown Sugar.
The idea planted itself in my head like a bad seed last night. Meekah bludgeoned me with questions as soon as Verity was out of earshot.
“Is that her?” Meekah demanded.
“Is that who?”
“Verity Hill. That vibe you guys got going on is like a neon light. Is she the reason you could never get serious about any woman I’ve ever known you to date?”
“I haven’t dated that many women.”
“My point exactly,” Meekah retorted smugly. “So is she the one who got away?”
If I ever believed there was such a thing as “the one,” it would have been Verity, but she ruined that.
So, why you here looking for her?
“I’m not looking for her,” I counter under my breath, shifting the blanket rolled beneath my arm. “She don’t own this flick.”
I pull the brim of my baseball cap down a little lower. I’m not in the mood to socialize. This is some bullshit. I’m going home.
“Monk?”
The sound of my name with that tentative note, in that husky voice, stops me.
I look up from beneath my cap and come face-to-face with the woman I’m absolutely not here to see.
“Verity.” I think I sound suitably surprised. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”
“Uh, yeah.” She shifts a white paper bag from one hand to the other. “Banging my head against my laptop at home wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I thought, why not?”
“I know how that is.”
“You told me once that it all came naturally to you. Remember? And music was always easy.”
“Shiiiiit. That was before every song had a deadline.”
“Nice to hear the great Monk Bellamy is mortal.”
“In the end, I’m just a man,” I say with a smirk. “Though you got the ‘great’ part right.”
“And still so modest,” she laughs.