“Yeah.”
“Like Melissa-Melissa?”
That made him chuckle a little. “Nigga, how many Melissas you think I’m talking about?”
“I’m just making sure I heard you right.” I rubbed my jaw. “She on vacation too?”
“Yeah. She staying in the villa across from mine.”
I let out a laugh before I could stop it. “Ain’t that about some shit.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You talk to her?”
“Yeah. We ran into each other yesterday. Had a drink.”
I leaned back again and shook my head. “Roman Blake on vacation running into the same woman he can’t stop thinking about. That don’t sound like coincidence to me.”
“Man, shut the fuck up.”
I laughed. “Nah, I’m serious. What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” he said too fast.
That made my brow raise. “Mhmm.”
“She just out here trying to clear her head, same as me. We talked a little. That’s it.”
I could hear it in his voice, though. That edge. That interest. Roman was trying to sound casual, but I knew my brother too well.
“You like her,” I said plainly.
He was quiet.
Then, “I ain’t say all that.”
“You ain’t gotta say it. I got ears.”
Roman sighed on the other end, and for a second neither of us said nothing.
Truth was, hearing that little shift in him did something to me. It had been a long time since I heard anything in my brother’s voice that sounded like curiosity instead of grief. Evenif he didn’t want to admit it, that girl was doing something to him.
“You being careful?” I asked after a minute.
Roman let out a dry chuckle. “Why the fuck everybody keep asking me that?”
“Because I know you,” I told him. “And because I know what it look like when you start getting attached.”
“I’m good.”
I wanted to believe him, but Roman had always loved hard. Too hard sometimes. And after everything that happened with Mo, I knew whatever feelings he let in now was gone come with a whole lot tied to it.
Before I could say anything else, April walked into the living room looking good as hell in one of them Walmart Moo-moo’s. I swear my baby was bad in anything she put on her thick ass. I looked at her and smiled, but the look on her face let me know she had an attitude.
She folded her arms and leaned against the wall.
I pointed toward her and sighed. “Aight, bro, I’m about to call you back.”
