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Which is not the best thought to have circling through my brain when she says, “Yes, tonight I’d like you to meet my parents.”
CHAPTER19
BOILING TO THE TOP
DEJONAE
“Don’t be nervous,”I breathe out and shake my hands at my sides.
Sazuki gives me an amused look. He shifts the gift he brought for my parents to his other hand. “You should take your own advice.”
I glare at him. “My parents are loving, welcoming people. They’re going to accept you.”
“Then why are you sweating?” Sazuki removes his handkerchief from his suit pocket and dots at my face.
“Don’t.” I swat his hand. “You’re going to mess up my makeup.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did.” I grab his hand and inspect the handkerchief in the porch’s golden glow. There’s brown foundation smeared across the pristine white cloth. “Look at that.” My hands flutter around my face. “Do I look awful?”
“You look beautiful,” he says, his voice deep and rumbly.
My skin tingles.
For a second, the nerves flee, replaced with a deep and throbbing desire to touch him.
But it skitters away when I remember where we are.
And why we’re here.
I suck in a deep breath and pound my fist against the door.
“Coming!” my mother yells.
I have a mini-heart attack.
“You were not this nervous to meet my mother,” he points out.
“Because you already married a black woman once. Ashanti took the brunt of all this—” I gesture to the door—“for me.”
His lips twitch. “I do not know why I feel slightly insulted.”
“I didn’t mean itlike that. It’s just that my parents haven’t really… I mean they’re notracistor anything, but you’re a lot of... unexpected things.”
“Japanese? Older? A divorcee with a child?”
“All of the above.” I glance behind me at the street. “Is it too late to bolt?”
The door swings open, cutting off my escape plan.
My mother and father stand together in the doorway. Mom is wearing her favorite apron over a flowered dress. Her hair is done up in a swoop and pearl earrings glitter from her ears.
She looks like a million bucks.
Dad is spiffy too in an ironed, button-down shirt, black slacks and his ‘church’ shoes, black loafers that are so shiny I can see my reflection like I’m looking at glass.
I don’t understand why they’re dressed like this.
