by Kennedy Ryan
Some of the haze clears, her gaze sharpens, focuses on me.
“But I want to be the last,” I tell her, letting her search my eyes, my face so she’ll see the truth I can’t hide from her anymore. “I couldn’t be the first, but I want to be the last. No one else. You understand what I’m saying?”
Another tear slides from the corner of one eye and down the sleek curve of her jaw. “I understand.”
And like a million times during our childhood, she hears the things I don’t say aloud. She reads between lines of invisible ink when no one else even knows I’m writing. It feels too soon to give it voice, but every part of me, body, soul, heart and spirit quakes with the inescapable truth I know she saw even though I didn’t say.
Our first time together was stolen from us, and I don’t hold against her any who have come since. But the truth was carved into ancient tablets of stone and etched into our hearts.
I love her.
And from here on out, I want to be her last.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kimba
“This is delicious.” I try not to slurp a spoonful of the savory pho too loudly. “You made this?”
“Please don’t be too impressed.” Ezra smiles through the glow of the candles on the dining room table. “You’ve had my stuffed French toast and my pho. That’s the extent of my culinary talents unless it’s in a box and says, ‘add water.’”
“Well, you’re very talented.” I roll a lascivious look over him seated across from me. “In the most delightful ways. I love the way you fuck.”
The boy Ezra would have blushed and shoved his hands in his pockets, shuffled his feet had I said something like that to him. Not that I would have in the eighth grade, but even when our classmates made dirty jokes back then, red would crawl up Ezra’s neck and over his cheeks.
The man Ezra returns my look with interest, his eyes caressing my nipples pebbled through his T-shirt.
“What you said.” I tip my head toward the foyer. “Out there.”
“What about it?” He doesn’t hedge or pretend he doesn’t know which part I mean.
“You said you wanted to be my last.”
“I do.”
We stare at each other through steam and candlelight, seeing clearly.
“I’m not asking you to put a name to it or formalize it yet, Tru, but I already know I only want you.”
For an anoxic second, I can’t breathe. Those words take my breath, steal my reasons for never wanting strings. What if he is the reason I never wanted strings? For the first time with anyone, I want to put a name to it.
Us.
Mine.
His.
Love.
I sort through the new emotions he has inspired. Are they new? Or just renewed from our childhood? Reborn into this age, this new epoch of our lives?
The back door opens to the kitchen.
“It’s just me!”
Ezra’s lips tighten and exasperation crinkles a frown on his face. I touch his hand on the table.
“We’ll talk more later,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Promise.”
“Pho!” Mona yells from the kitchen. “I thought I smelled it wafting all across the backyard through my window.”
Ezra rolls his eyes and silently mouths “wafting.” I cover my mouth to suppress the giggle that threatens to come out. He gives me a wry grin and drops his head back to stare at the ceiling when we hear Mona in the cabinet getting a bowl, rummaging through the drawer for a spoon.
She walks into the dining room wearing a huge smile and a T-shirt declaring I AM MY ANCESTORS’ WILDEST DREAMS.
“Damn.” She frowns, taking in the dimly lit room. “Y’all got it all dark in here.”
She turns on the overhead light, simultaneously dispelling the darkness and the romance. She plops down beside me with her bowl and a glass of water.
“You’re outta beer, Jack. You know I like beer with my pho.” She points her spoon at him. “Ya slippin’.”
“I would have stocked up,” Ezra says, his words clipped and sarcastic, “if I’d known you were coming.”
“I always come for pho, silly rabbit,” she says. “Kimba, you were so good on CNN tonight, by the way. Your hair looked fabulous.”
“Thanks, Mo.” I pull a knee up to my chest, propping my heel on the seat.
“That jumpsuit you had on.” She executes a chef’s kiss. “Perfection. I need it.”
“A Lotus Ross design.”
“Ooooh, I like her and that husband of hers—um, the ex-NBA dude.”
“Kenan?”
“Yasssss. Fine ass.”
She casts a glance over my attire, several steps down from what I wore earlier on the show. She looks at Ezra, whose shirt is inside out.
“Did I interrupt?” she asks with a straight face, but her lips twitch. “Y’all been in here fucking?”
The three of us break the silence with laughter.
“You’re forgiven,” Ezra drawls, standing with his empty bowl. “Want more, Tru?”
“No, I’m good.”
He stops beside me and drops a kiss in my hair before striding back to the kitchen for seconds. The silence between Mona and me grows heavy with the weight of her concern.
“You sure you know what you doing?” she finally asks, her voice subdued.
“I do, yeah, Mo.”
Ezra walks back in and sets a beer in front of Mona. “One was hiding in the back. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“Thanks, boss.”
I’d almost forgotten she works at the school.
“You off for the summer?” I ask her, taking another spoonful of pho.
“Yeah,” she says. “We have limited summer programming.”
“Thank you again for managing so much, letting me focus on finishing the book,” Ezra says.
“You know I got you, Jack.” She tosses a napkin that bounces off his face. When we were in school, I was the thing they had in common, but now they obviously have their own relationship and she truly is part of his family.
She slurps a big spoonful of pho. “Mama Tran’s recipe?”
“Mama Tran?” I ask.
“Aiko’s mother,” Mona answers. “She makes the best pho I’ve ever tasted. By now, Ezra’s is a close second.”
The rich flavors all of a sudden rot in my mouth. The woman he was speaking Vietnamese with. She’s practically his mother-in-law. When I glance up, Ezra is watching. He knows me too well. I try to force a smile, but at every turn I’m reminded how deep his ties with Aiko go and how disruptive pursuing a relationship with me so soon may be.
I stand and pick up my bowl, only half the soup eaten, and walk into the kitchen. Dumping the rest down the garbage disposal, I lean against the counter and look around. Photos of the three of them are pinned to the refrigerator. Reminders are written on the chalkboard for Noah, half in English, half in Vietnamese. A decorative mug on a shelf reads “Best Mom Ever.”
I look up and Ezra’s standing there.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice low, private.
I’m captivated by the concern, by the emotion on his handsome face. Forget Mona. Who cares about Mama Tran’s pho recipe, and fuck that mug. Ezra’s mine. I’m his, and no one’s going to make me feel bad about it. I tip up onto my toes, weave my fingers into his hair and bring his head down for a kiss.
“Oh, good grief,” Mona says from behind us. “Am I gonna have to deal with this every time I enter a room from now on?”
“Yes,” Ezra says against my lips. “If I have my way.”
“It’s my way, too,” I whisper to him.
“All this smooching,” Mona says, rinsing out her bowl and loading it into the dishwasher. “You’ve come a long way since Jeremy. Wasn’t that the guy who was your first kiss at our middle school dance?”
“I was her first kiss,” Ezra says, pride in the smile he aims at our friend. “Shows how much you know.”
Mona’s mouth drops open. “You
two turds!”
We all laugh, and my phone rings. Piers.
“I need to take that,” I say, wiggling out of Ezra’s grip. “Hey, Piers. Thank you again for all you did today. I won’t forget it.”
“Oh, yeah.” He clears his throat. “That. Just doing my job. There’s some, uh, new developments.”
I frown. “It was good intel, right? Colson’s company—”
“Oh, yeah. The intel was accurate. I actually have more on him where that came from we can use when the time is right. No, there’s something else I need to discuss with you.”
I glance over at Ezra, who I can tell is barely listening to Mona. He keeps looking over at me, every glance a simmering flame I can’t wait to turn up all the way once Mona leaves.
“Maybe we can talk about it Monday,” I say, my eyes locking with Ezra’s in an unspoken, but absolutely clear message. “I think I’m busy tonight.”
Ezra nods in decisive agreement.
“Okay,” Piers says. “But I think you’ll want to hear what else I’ve learned.”
I force myself to focus, dragging my gaze from Ezra’s tall frame. “More dirt?”
“Uh, yeah. You could say that. It’s…well, it’s dirt, yes.”
“You can give me all you got on Colson on Monday, Piers.”
“It’s not dirt on Colson.”
“Then who’s the dirt on?”
“Your father,” Piers says, drawing an audible breath. “The dirt’s on your dad.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ezra
“You still mad at me?”
I force myself to focus on Mona. Through my kitchen window, I can see Kimba sitting on the trampoline in the backyard. She’s been on the phone for twenty minutes, and based on her expression, it’s not good news.
“Huh?” I ask. “Mad at you for what?”
“Busting up in here when you obviously wanted some time alone with Kimba.”
“I always want to be alone with her,” I say absently. “I’ve had to get used to sharing, though I’m still not very good at it.”
“I don’t mean to beat a dying horse,” Mona says, sipping the last of her beer, “but this won’t be as easy as you think. You’ll be asking Noah to adjust to not only the fact that you’re no longer with his mother, but that you’re now with someone else.”
“We don’t have to roll everything out at once. If Noah’s mature enough to understand why we never married, he’s certainly mature enough to understand that we never will. We’ll still be a family. It’ll just look different.”
“And you hope Kimba will be part of this new family you’re dreaming of?” Mona snorts. “Based on what I’ve seen of Kimba, a white picket fence might feel like a cage. She’s gunning for the nation’s next hottest campaign, and she’s coming off the last one. Take what you can get, but don’t expect everything from her, okay?”
I’m still turning her words over in my head, figuring out what’s true and what I can “settle” for from Kimba, when Mona yawns.
“Busting up your little love nest has worn me out,” she says, heading for the back door. “I’m going home.”
I walk with her into the yard. She waves to Kimba, who still sits on the edge of the trampoline and waves back with a small smile, her attention obviously on the phone call. I check the garden, a cover for the fact that I want to be nearby when Kimba finishes her call.
“Okay, Piers,” she finally says. “Keep me posted, and thanks.”
I cut through the squash and string beans to reach the trampoline. She extends her hand, a worried look on her face. I walk over, climb up onto the trampoline and pull her inside the net covering with me. I lay us both down and tuck her into my side, pushing the hair away from her face.
“Everything okay?” I ask after a few silent seconds.
She shakes her head and wraps an arm around my waist, squeezing tight. Angling my head down to see the frown on her face, I lift her chin with my index finger. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Piers, a guy from my team who always has his ear to the ground for me, heard something…disturbing.”
“What’d he hear?”
“He found out someone’s written an unauthorized biography about my father.”
“He was a great man. Lots of public figures have biographies written about them. Is there something bad in it? Lies?”
“Definitely lies.” She pulls away and slants a searching look up at me. “This author alleges my father had an affair.”
“What? Who do they say he had an affair with?”
“Your mother,” Kimba says, her voice quiet and questioning. “That’s ridiculous, right? My dad would never…your mom…it makes no sense.”
I don’t respond. When the rift happened, I didn’t understand anything except we were moving away and I didn’t get to see Kimba anymore. That was all I cared about. When I was older, I replayed that night over and over in my head and started assembling the fragments into something that, though horrific, made some kind of sense. Our parents had an affair. I had no idea who cheated with whom, or even if my speculation was right. But hearing Kimba say it aloud, I realize it may have been.
“It’s not true.” Kimba pushes up to sit and look down at me. “You know my father. He’d never…it’s a lie, Ezra. We have to prove it’s a lie. We have to talk to your mom so she knows they’re telling these lies about her. That they’re planning to publish these lies about my father.”
“Yeah.” I sit up and put my arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. “We will.”
“Why don’t you sound shocked?” She pulls away, peers into my face in the moonlight. “You don’t believe this, do you?”
I stare back, wishing I had learned to lie to her, but I never did. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe me.” She scrambles off the trampoline and walks swiftly back into the house. I heave a sigh and follow. She’s already up the stairs and in the guest bedroom by the time I join her. She jerks my T-shirt and boxers off, tossing them onto the bed and walking over to the chair where she draped her jumpsuit. She pulls it on and slides her feet into the high heels.
“Where are you going?” I ask, as if I don’t know.
“Home. I have to warn my family.” She stops and closes her eyes. “My mother. What am I going to tell her?”
“What did Piers say exactly?”
“He says there’s an early copy going around. Several people have read it, but it hasn’t been published yet. It paints my father as some kind of hypocrite for posturing himself as a civil rights activist and pillar of the community, which he was, while having an affair with your mother, which he wouldn’t do. I know in my bones they didn’t, Ez.”
Considering how evasive my mother has always been, I honestly don’t know what to believe. A tear slips down Kimba’s cheek, which she brushes away impatiently.
“I need to get home, tell my family, figure out a battle plan, including an injunction to shut this shit down before it hits bookstores.” She grabs her bag from the bench at the foot of the bed, pausing to look at me. “Can you talk to your mom and find out why anyone would lie about this? Help me get to the bottom of it?”
I nod wordlessly and follow her down the stairs, reaching for my keys from the dish on the foyer table. “I’ll take you home.”
“No.” She looks from my keys to my face and bites her lip. “I already called for an Uber.”
I frown and glance at the front door where, not two hours ago, we shared our bodies with each other, peeled our souls back for each other. Will it only take a rumor for us to lose that again so quickly?
Her expression is implacable, and maybe I could persuade her, but it’s obvious she wants to be alone.
“Will you please call me when you know more?” she asks. “After you talk to your mom?”
“Will you promise that we won’t allow our parents’ drama, whatever this is, to come between us? Because I’m not losing you over some stupid shit, K
imba. Not again.”
“I just don’t know what to believe.” She looks at me, uncertainty in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you either. I do know that.”
It’s a small comfort, but I take a few steps forward and press her soft body into the door. I bend to brush her bottom lip with my thumb, and then kiss her, gently at first, and then with increasing heat and intensity. The visceral attraction, the thing that magnetizes us, that has always drawn us together, doesn’t fail me now, and she’s pliant and kissing me with unchecked hunger within seconds. Her phone dings with an alert, and she pulls back, checks her cell, and grimaces. “My Uber’s here.”
I open the door for her and she rushes down the steps toward the waiting car. Before she gets in, she turns to me one last time. “Call your mom.”
So many times I probed this issue with my mother, seeking confirmation of my suspicions and hoping I was wrong, but she always managed to shut it down, play it off or freeze out my attempts. I watch the taillights of Kimba’s Uber die, swallowed by the night.
“Not this time, Mom,” I say. “This time there’s too much at stake.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kimba
“This is ridiculous,” Kayla says from her seat at the kitchen table the next morning. “Daddy? Your source must be mistaken.”
I look at each of them, Mama, Kayla and Keith, and wish like hell I could spare them this ordeal. Mostly Mama, who has been largely silent since I broke the news to them at the emergency family meeting I called. She’s probably in shock.
“I wish he was wrong.” I thank Esmerelda for the toast and herbal tea she’s become so adept at preparing.
“I mean, Ruth Stern?” Keith asks, his face twisted disparagingly. “I don’t believe it. If Daddy was gonna cheat, it would be with somebody finer than Ruth Stern.”
All three women at the table swivel our heads to him as if on a string and glare.