Salem’s chest tightened, and she rushed to say, “Stop being stupid.”
Talia pushed on Salem’s arm with her toe. “Only when you stop being blind.”
Talia had passed out in the middle of a sentence ten minutes before, just like she did almost every time she spent the night.
Mimi always joked that her best friend had an on and off switch. Come six a.m., she’d pop right back up at full speed.
Salem had slinked out without waking her to use the bathroom, brushed her teeth, then twisted her hair into the braid she wore to sleep.
Flicking off the bathroom light, Salem slipped out the door and back into the darkened hall, her bare feet quieted as she tiptoed for her door.
She stilled with the presence that fell over her from behind.
Close. Close. Closer.
The hairs at her nape shivered and lifted, and she gulped, gathering herself to turn around.
Carlo stood right behind her.
Talia was right. He was hot. Tall and thin but strong. Mostly a man. He’d stopped going to school two months ago, which she’d heard Mimi lecturing Darius about just yesterday.
Carlo was a bad influence.
Trouble, she’d said.
And Mimi didn’t want Darius hanging around him as much as he used to. Obviously, Darius wasn’t quick to listen, but it was hard to blame him when Carlo had been his best friend since they’d moved in with Mimi all those years ago.
Carlo’s short black hair was wavy, and even in the middle of the night, it appeared styled. His clothes and car expensive and flashy. His eyes as sharp as his jaw.
With a wry smile, he leaned against the wall. “What are you doing out here, sneaking around in the middle of the night?”
Salem’s heart thundered like crazy, but she managed to send him a scowl. “I could ask the same about you.”
He laughed a low, rolling sound that vibrated on the dense air. “Ah, bambola, it’s my job to sneak around. And yours is to be sweet.”
He grinned when he said it, a joke she didn’t understand.
Salem suddenly felt trapped, though she let her voice fill with defiance as she lifted her chin. “This is my house. I’m no concern of yours.”
He reached out and ran his fingertips along her jaw. “That is where you are wrong.”
Trembles rocked through her. She was pretty sure they weren’t the good kind.
“Carlo.”
Salem jolted when she heard the voice, and she stumbled back far enough that she could see Mimi at the head of the hall.
“I think your momma is probably wondering where you are. You should go home.” Mimi’s voice was harder than she’d ever heard it.
Carlo roughed a chuckle, so casual, like he didn’t care at all about the cut of bitterness in her words. He just angled forward, whispered, “One day, pupa…one day,” before he turned and eased down the hall, dipping his head in a faked pleasantry at her mimi as he passed.
The door opened and rattled shut behind him.
Mimi’s face was red. “Stay away from him, Salem. As far away as you can.”
Frantic, Salem nodded. “Okay, Mimi. I will. I promise.”
EIGHT
JUD
It was early Monday morning when I was down in the lobby searching for some paperwork that probably didn’t exist.
The place was a fuckin’ disaster, stacks of forms and receipts and shit piled for days.
Okay.
Months.
It was no secret I’d let this shit get out of hand.
Suffice it to say I wasn’t paying much mind when the black pickup truck rolled into the lot. It was early, yeah. Just after seven. But I figured Darius was getting a jump on his day.
Except it pulled into a spot on the opposite side of the lot from where he normally parked, the truck facing away, and it was a hot second before the driver’s door finally opened.
A very hot second.
Because it wasn’t Darius climbing out.
It was Salem.
That girl straight devastation.
A gift wrapped in a black, seductive bow.
I froze, watching her through the bank of dark-tinted windows that fronted the lobby.
That ebony hair was curled into these fat waves that danced all over her shoulders, and there was no missing the way nerves scattered around her as she hesitated for a beat. She glanced around like she was hoping this little visit was covert, girl inhaling deep before she seemed to get it together and started walking across the parking lot toward the building.
“Fuck me.”
Today she was wearing these fitted black dress pants that hit her just above the ankles, the waist high with a silky, baby blue blouse tucked into it. Sky-high heels and red lipstick and fuck…my dick stirred, guts tangling at the sight.
This girl was a motherfuckin’ knockout.
A fantasy.
A dream.
Everything that I knew better than to want but was thirsting for, anyway.
Wanting her went directly against every commitment I’d made for myself.
Went against the grain of what I was striving for.
Against everything Darius had asked of me.