Page 30 of Double

“Tinsley,” Double corrected. “There’s a L in there. T-i-n-s-l-e-y. Tinsley.”

“Tinsley,” Treasure repeated.

“Tinsley, this is my cousin, Royalty. Royalty, this is Tinsley.”

“Hey. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to⁠—”

She cut me off with a screech then grabbed my hand. “Oh my gosh, Double. Is this ring big enough?” She looked me up and down playfully. “Oh, you must be bouncing on that⁠—”

Double cut her off, removing my hand from her grasp. “Cool out, Ro.” He looked at me. “That branch of the Waters family tree routinely does too much. Lucky, you know? The one who hit your homegirl in the head with the choppa? Yeah, these are his sisters.”

I looked at both women before nodding. “Oh, okay.”

“I just stopped by to introduce y’all to Tinsley. We got other stops to make. Where’s my sister?”

“Journey and Anastasia went to meet with a provider,” Treasure said carefully, seeming to make sure she was pronouncing every word. She consulted the computer screen. “She’ll be here at one o’clock.”

Double nodded. “A’ight. Like I said, we still got other stops to make.” He hugged Treasure tightly. “See you later.”

“See you, Double. Bye Tinsy.”

“She fuckin’ with you,” Double told me as Treasure snickered happily.

“Bye, Treasure. It was nice to meet you,” I told Royalty.

“You, too.” We left the skin clinic, heading in the direction that Double told me was south. Once we made it past the parking lot belonging to the clinic, he pointed out a building that held salon suites.

“This is one of my mom’s locations. There are six salon suites inside. Do you know what salon suites are?”

“I do,” I assured him. “Are they hair suites or nail suites?”

“Okay. Okay.” He nodded with a grin. “Two are nail suites, the other four are hair.”

We kept walking past that business. “So your family owns this entire block?”

“We own this block and the next three blocks. One of my cousins has a barber shop down there. There’s a restaurant, Brown Sugar Soul. A family friend is the owner and head chef. My dad has an auto parts store down there. We lease to a bakery, to a flower shop, and to a husband and wife who run a paint & sip business . . . just all kinds of shit.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah, the South Side was losing businesses because of the crime. It was like the only thing that could survive in our neighborhoods were liquor stores. Big Hill decided that he didn’t want that for this area. He invested in it, put the proper channels in place to discourage criminals, and now it’s viable.” At the next building, he stopped walking. “This is our office building.”

I looked up at the sign: Hill Top Management Company. Double entered the security code, then held the door open for me. When I stepped inside, I was floored. If I thought I was awed by the skin clinic, it was nothing compared to what I felt when walking into his family’s office building. First of all, the lobby of the building screamed old money. I knew because I had come from old money.

Growing up, my father always had a nice and stately office. When Faylise and I decorated our own office for Velvet & Vintage, we’d made sure that the office was top of the line and beautiful. Still, when I compared it to Double’s family’s office, neither my father’s nor my office could ever.

The lobby was decidedly masculine with dark wood paneling on the walls, on the built-in shelves, and on the reception desk. There were pops of gold to warm up all of the dark wood. Gold on the reception desk, on lamps, and on vases that held humongous floral arrangements. The furniture—the sofa and chairs in the waiting area were a comfortable-looking caramel velvet. The throw pillows were green and beige. It was the perfect balance of masculine but cozy. Besides that, the office smelled good. It smelled like sandalwood and vanilla.

“It’s gorgeous,” I told Double.

“Yeah. We spend a fair share of time here. My grandfather felt like it should at least be comfortable.” Double took me around the office and introduced me to everyone.

“Last stop before I take you to lunch.” He took my hand and led me from his office building to the building right next door.

“What is this?” I asked. Every single building he took me into was prettier than the last.

“This is an event space. I told you that my mom established a foundation—Passion’s Project. Occasionally, we need to host events and don’t have time to vet a venue. My mother wanted this space for that. And also because she thought that the people of this community should have somewhere local and close by to hold smaller to mid-sized events. There are two rooms—one larger and one smaller. Come on.” He led me deeper into the hallway. As we walked, the sound of voices grew louder.