Nina rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“It’s not cute to me that you’re jealous,” she let him know.
“You call it jealous, I see it as me being strategic, but whatever. Have a good day, my love.”
“You’re insane.”
“You still coming home to me tonight so I can’t be too insane.” He winked at her.
Just like that, they’d reconnected and fallen back into a routine that they both were accustomed to. Nina closed the door harder than necessary and walked toward the building. She refused to look back, knowing his eyes were still on her. She had only made it a few steps when she heard his voice call her out.
“Babe?”
She stopped and turned around.
Jio leaned across the passenger seat and grinned. “You the boss. This your shit. Don’t go in there apologizing for being late.”
She gave him a crooked smile. “I love you,” she mouthed the words.
“Have a good day, baby.”
She waltzed intoMarcelle & Co.with her head held high, his jacket on her shoulders and his scent on her skin as she walked through the glass doors.
By the time she reached the elevator, Ava was already standing there with a vanilla latte and wide eyes.
Nina accepted the coffee without a word.
Ava looked at the jacket and her dress, and she tried to find her eyes, but they were hidden behind sunglasses, although there was no sun inside the building.
“I assume you had a GOOD morning….” she said slowly.
Nina took a sip of coffee and removed her shades. “Not today, girl.”
Ava pressed her lips together to try her best to fight a smile and laugh, but a blind woman could tell the type of night that she’d clearly had.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The elevator doors opened and Nina stepped inside. She stared at her reflection in the mirrored wall and tried her best not to smile, but that damn Jio Gotti, she couldn’t help it.
η
Several months later, Nina woke up to the smell of sausage and profanity. Jio was in the kitchen cursing up a damn storm. Him being this angry in the morning should’ve concerned her, but it didn’t. A year ago, she couldn’t get him out of bed before noon, and now the tables had turned, and it was her that slept in for as long as she could. Jio was now the early bird. The past few weeks they’d settled into a groovy rhythm that no one cared to name. Nina went home to grab clothes and Nino, and she hadn’t been back to her crib since. They were doing a good job of overlooking the fact that they’d just spent a whole yearapart. In Nina’s eyes, it was love and distance that had repaired everything that was broken in their relationship. She’d been on cloud nine and she prayed nothing changed to bring her down because she was floating.
Her laptop sat closed on the nightstand where she’d abandoned it the night before. The stack of paperwork she’d been meaning to review before bed remained untouched too. She needed another break and soon. She was on the verge of rescheduling everything on her calendar because she’d been craving one thing, and that was another uninterrupted day in Miami with Jio, but he told her to hold off.
Work was once the safest place to hide. Her routine was structured and predictable. She figured that if she worked hard and long enough, achievement would be waiting for her… but Jio was back and life was sunny again. So, she no longer had to tire herself out for no reason. Her peace of mind wasn’t found in quarterly reports and performance reviews. Nina had implemented new boundaries around work, and when she tried to erase those limitations to lay up under her baby, he didn’t let her.
“We locked in right now, boo. Miami not going nowhere,” he continued to reassure her. She wasn’t trying to keep hearing that though.
“Bookie bear, you up yet?” he hollered from the kitchen.
“Barely,” she shouted back.
“You want breakfast?” he asked anyway.
“Yes and coffee please! I’m getting up in two seconds.” Nina wiped the sleep away from her eyes and slid out of bed. She was naked and her hair was all over the place. The days of her caring about what she looked like around him had faded. He loved her just how she was, and for that, she loved him even harder.
