“We’re good,” she says, sparing me a quick look and wiping sweat from her brow.
I’ve had very little interaction with her since she and Josiah broke up. We never really vibed or hung out, but I’ve been avoiding her, and I suspect she’s been avoiding me. I glance around the kitchen, filled with steam and buzzing with activity.
“Have you seen Josiah?” I ask.
She tilts her head toward the rear of the kitchen, her expression serene minus the telling tightness around her mouth. “Cellar.”
“I’m gonna go make sure we’re ready for the toast,” I tell her. “Happy New Year, Vashti.”
Her eyes glint with something that in anyone else I would take as resentment, but the glass over her emotions is opaque. I can’t be sure what I see. She nods and turns back to the team pulling down orders and preparing food.
We don’t have a true cellar, not with the two-story house we renovated for Grits, but we made do, creating a large space dedicated to the liquor at the back of the kitchen. Inside, Anthony, Milk, and Josiah are loading bottles of champagne from a cooling station onto carts. The three men glance up when I enter, and I smile, only looking long enough at Josiah to see he’s fine as hell in his impeccably tailored slacks, white dress shirt, and suspenders.
Suspenders. He never used to wear them. My new favorite thing could be divesting him of them.
“Gentlemen,” I say, walking in farther. “Getting ready for the big toast?”
“Yeah,” Anthony answers. “We’re close, so loading up the champagne.”
“You look mighty pretty tonight, Yas,” Milk says, stepping over and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
I glance down at my bright pink dress studded with sequins. The neckline is high enough to hide my necklace, but it’s not modest. Not on me, clinging to my breasts the way it does like a sparkly second skin. The hem hits midthigh. I splurged on Tom Ford padlock sandals. Hendrix said they make my legs look like they should be wrapped around either a pole or a man. I take that as a compliment.
I hug him back and kiss his cheek. “Happy New Year, Milk.”
“Wanna take these out?” Anthony directs the question to Milky. “And come back for the next batch?”
“Yessir.” Milky releases me with a final squeeze and helps Anthony wheel out the first cart of champagne bottles.
Leaving Josiah and me alone. We stare at one another in the secluded space, and for a breath, I forget the revelry beyond this room and all the people gulping down their sorrows and sloshing good times in glasses. It’s just us again. Everything we built together lies on the other side of this door. The flourishing business, all the friendships we fostered, even the children we brought into this world, none of it existed before this right here. The you and me of Josiah and Yas. I fight back the ludicrous urge to bolt the door and trap him here with me until the New Year dawns.
“I could help.” I gesture toward the second cart partly loaded up with bottles.
“Nah. I got it.” He runs appreciative eyes over my appearance. “Besides, that dress is much too pretty for hard labor, and those shoes ain’t ever seen a day of work.”
I laugh, fisting the high ponytail Deja gave me for the night and tossing it over one shoulder. “You right about that.”
His deep chuckle rumbles in the quiet of the room, and I shiver, absorbing the low, sexy timbre. His cologne, the one he’s worn for years that seems to smell better than ever, fills my nostrils. I’m having a visceral reaction to my ex-husband in a confined space.
“Um, are we okay on code?” I ask, as much to distract myself from dry humping the man as the need to know the answer.
“Yeah. Bayli’s counting. When we reach our maximum, she stops letting people in. Pretty sure that was about an hour ago.”
“It’s a packed house.” I lean one hip against the counter. “Everyone’s loving it.”
“You did an outstanding job.” He loads another bottle onto the cart. “Seem’s at Jamal’s, right?”
“Yeah, and Deja’s spending the night with Lupe.”
“So empty house. Free night. Big plans with Lancaster?”
“Mark?” I laugh and shake my head. “No. I heard he’s doing a fundraiser to ring in the New Year.”
“And he didn’t want to show his girlfriend off to all the Black folks he needs votes from?”
Hurt prickles behind my breastbone. I turn down the corners of my mouth. “So that’s the only reason a man like Mark would want to date me?”
He runs a glance over me from the top of my ponytail down to my shoes, lingering on the ample curves in between. “I think we both know he has plenty of reasons to want a woman like you. The question is whether he deserves you, and I say hell no.”