“You need to help things along. Get a matchmaker. Join a dating site—it’s just not natural to be alone.” She reached for her tea, ice clinking against the glass. “And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been avoiding Sunday dinners because you don’t want us asking about your love life.”
“And yet, here we are, talking about my love life.” I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t want to suffer her wrath. Instead, I filled my mouth with more pot roast.
“I’m not trying to pressure you, baby. I just want you to be happy. And it seems like you spend all your time taking care of other people and none of your time letting anyone take care of you.”
I set down my fork with more force than necessary. “Okay, look. I work a lot. I like my job, I’m good at my job, but it’s a lot of responsibility and there aren’t too many people that look like us in administration at RMC, so I’m trying to stay in the admin wing. We have a case coming up involving a patient death and Diane Hart—y’all know who she is?”
A glance around the table brought nods.
“She’s involved. It’s the most important file I’ll work on all year. I’m focused on this. I’m working. Hard. Am I clear?”
“I still think you’re hiding a man from us,” Naomi said. “Maybe he’s new or?—”
“Alright, enough,” came a booming voice at the head of the table. My father was not much of a yeller, so when Byron Sutton spoke, everyone listened. “Let’s find a different topic of conversation.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
My mother picked up her fork. The conversation shifted. Aaron started complaining about his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. Mia asked if she could get her hair done in braids for the upcoming dance and lobbied for her and me to shop alone without Aaron.
The normal chaos of a Sutton family dinner returned. But I felt Alicia’s eyes on me through the rest of the meal.
Watching. Calculating. Figuring me out the way she always did.
Nosy ass.
After dinner, Alicia cornered me in the kitchen while I was helping put away leftovers.
“I’ve known you my whole life, you know. You taught me how to ride a bike. You held my hand when I got my period for the first time and thought I was dying.”
“This is not kitchen conversation, Alicia.”
“My point is I know you. You don’t have to tell me anything, but don’t bullshit me. You’ve never been good at that.”
My mouth went dry. All the vulnerability, all the restless energy that Cole had stirred in me over the last week surged up and made me want to scream. Instead, I wiped my hands on a towel and spun on her.
“You obviously don’t know me well enough to know to back the fuck off.”
Before she could respond, my mother swept into the kitchen.
“Harper, you should take some of this roast home,” she declared, already reaching for foil. “It’s just your dad and me and we won’t eat all of this. And I made some greens on Friday, you can take those too. And butter beans; they’ll go with the cornbread. Don’t forget the macaroni and cheese?—”
“Mom, I don’t need all that food. Send it home with Aaron,” I cut in, but she was already halfway to the fridge.
“Yeah, send it home with me.”
“I am sending some home with Aaron, but you’ll take some too. Men like a woman with meat on her bones.” She pressed a stack of plastic containers to my chest, insisting. “Load up. That wasn’t a request.”
I left my parents’ house with my car loaded down, enough leftovers in the passenger seat to last me at least a week. The drive home was nothing but quiet highway and Mary J. Blige thumping through the speakers.
A check of my phone reported that there was still nothing from Cole.
I had more important things to worry about than a man who could kiss me in a parking lot like that, then disappear into the ether without so much as a “hey, that was fun, let’s do that again and more.”
By the time I made it home, a mood was coiling through me. Not anger, exactly. Because, if I wanted to, I could text him. I could be a modern woman who didn’t wait around, who sent the first message with no worries about rules and norms. Nothing was stopping me from being her.
But I wasn’t going to be the one who chased, who put herself out there to be left dangling in the breeze. If he wanted me, he could come get me.
I scooped up my leftovers, headed to the elevator to my apartment, and tried to ignore how ridiculous I felt for letting aman I’d only met last week and kissed exactly once get under my skin like this.
