“I’m not looking.” She peers through the crack of her fingers. “I mean, maybe a little.”
I swing my legs over and off Naz’s lap and straighten out my dress. “Nothing to see here.”
“If you say so.” She turns back toward the door. “I came to find you because they’re about to cut the cake.”
“Oh, yay.” I move to follow her, but Naz pulls me up short.
“Hey, about what you asked for,” he says, his smile as dazzling as the chandeliers out front. “I’m going to court you like you deserve.”
“You old school.” I laugh. “And old-fashioned.”
“You like it.” He pulls me toward the door. I dig my heels in, stopping so that he turns a querying look to me. I look straight into his eyes. No teasing. No humor. No confusion or even guilt.
“I like you,” I say, squeezing his hand for emphasis.
“I know,” he says, stepping out into the hall and leading me toward the music drifting from the dance floor. “I mean, I got to third base with you the night we met, so I figured.”
“Oh, my god!” My cheeks go hot, despite the fact that we’ve done much freakier things since that night on the roof senior year. “Mama would have plucked me like a chicken if she’d caught us.”
“Cliff caught us instead.”
I’m silent, letting the prickly situation with Cliff still ahead nick my happy bubble for a second.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it work with Cliff.” He lifts my chin and searches my eyes. “You trust me?”
The confidence and earnestness in his eyes settle the unease gripping my heart, even if only for the next few minutes. How could I not trust him? I nod and lean into him for our last few steps into the main room. We melt into the crowd that’s waiting and watching the stage. He pulls me close, my back to his front and his arms linked over my middle.
“Good evening, everyone,’” Lotus says from the stage positioned in the middle of the room. She wears a white floor-length cape dress that bares one shoulder. “Thank you for traveling to celebrate Kenan’s birthday with us.”
Kenan stands beside her, watching her with so much adoration, I feel like a voyeur. Like an interloper observing something so intimate between them, even though it’s just a glance. I wonder how long it will take for me to look at Naz that way.
Unless I already do?
Two servers wheel a huge, multi-tiered white cake onto the stage.
“Before we cut this masterpiece of a cake,” Lotus says, “I want to make a toast to my husband, my best friend, my soul mate.”
Lotus closes her eyes briefly, pressing her lips tight as if fighting for control of her emotions.
“Kenan,” she says. “You’re the pushiest patient man I’ve ever met.”
A light ripple of amusement flows through the crowd.
“You were determined to get your shot with me,” Lotus says, “and you did.”
Kenan only nods, his expression sober, his attention completely on Lotus, who grips her hands in front of her waist, the richness of her sun-browned skin a startling contrast to the snowfall of her dress. I’m not sure if they even need any of us in this moment, they’re so intent on each other.
“When we met,” Lotus continues, “I wasn’t looking. I was deliberately not looking, actually, and had sworn off dating altogether.”
She holds his stare while servers distribute glasses of champagne to the crowd.
“But to quote one of my favorite pieces, the Song of Songs, ‘I have found the one whom my soul loves.’ I always tease you about the difference in our ages, but I want you to know I relish every year we’ve had so far and covet every year ahead.”
He cups her face with one huge hand and kisses her forehead, leaning to whisper in her ear. Whatever he says, he doesn’t care that we can’t hear. It elicits a trembling smile from his beautiful wife.
“Sorry, y’all,” she laughs, turning tear-bright eyes back to the crowd. “That was just for me.”
“I told her that when I get her home,” Kenan says with a shameless grin, “I’mma—”