Page 27 of Grown

I shouldn’t have listened to him. I shouldn’t have been so eager to sneak out the back of the hotel into a Suburban, with the same security guard I saw with him the night we met. I should have at least changed out of my party dress. Mind on autopilot, body numb.

Until I reach room 1015.

Korey snatches the door back as if he has been waiting near it since our call. His face softens as he pulls me in.

“Damn. Are you OK?”

He yokes me into a hug. Not just any hug, the type of hug that feels like metal and magnets slamming together, desperate for each other.

“What are you doing in Jersey?” It’s the only thing I can think to ask.

“You’re in shock,” he says, leading me to the sofa. “Come. Sit. Drink this.”

He eases a glass of clear liquid into my hand that doesn’t smell a thing like water. I don’t resist, even though I know I shouldn’t be drinking. But there are lots of things I shouldn’t be doing right now.

I take a sip, then another.

“Thanks,” I mumble, glancing around.

His suite is massive. A giant, plush cream living room with a balcony facing the New York skyline across the Hudson River.

Korey is dressed in heather-gray sweats and a white T-shirt. Casual and comfortable, yet somehow sexy. Yes, that’s the word I want to use. Feels funny to even think it.

“What happened?”

I tell him about Creighton, my hands shaking, reliving the moment, an out-of-body experience. Korey listens, pensive but calm. Calmer than Daddy would’ve been if I told him some boy pushed up on me. But I guess that’s the difference—Korey doesn’t treat me like a kid. He treats me... regular, I guess.

“It’s aight. You’re safe now,” he says, rubbing my shoulder. “Boys be like that, you know? Be mad thirsty to get some buns.”

“You... you think he wanted to...”

“Oh, no doubt! That’s all them little knuckleheads be thinking about. They never take the time to get to know you.To ask how your day was. To talk about your favorite Disney movie.” He chuckles. “Can’t believe you be hating onPocahontaslike that.”

I let out a laugh, my chest feeling lighter.

“And I didn’t lead him on or nothing, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Sometimes... that’s what people think. That a girlwantedit.”

Korey shakes his head. “That ain’t your style, Bright Eyes. Trust me, one day you’ll realize it ain’t you and it got everything to do with the other person.”

I try to relax with that fact, thumbing the edges of my glass.

“Besides, don’t see what dudes get out of drugging and forcing themselves on chicks. I like my ladies awake and enjoying themselves. I don’t know—maybe I’m different.”

I hold my breath. “Or just a good person.”

He blinks at me then shakes the ice around in his glass.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

We sit there, drinking each other in, his hand resting on my knee. When did that get there? Chimes burst out of the Bluetooth speaker beside me, the start of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack’s “The Closer I Get to You.”

“Mmm,” I say. “I love this song!”

“Oh, word? What you know about this?”