Page 51 of The Plus One

“She better be.”

I slipped my phone into my pocket and headed toward the elevators. Tomorrow, Kema and I were going somewhere with no wedding party, no ex-boyfriends, and no reason to pretend. Just me and her.

Eleven

Kema

Ace woke me up by kissing all over my face. I wanted to be annoyed, but his silliness had me giggling internally, making it hard to pretend I was still asleep. His lips moved from my forehead to my cheek, then the corner of my mouth.

“Get up, Kema. I wanna take you somewhere.”

“Ace, please.” I pulled the covers over my head. “I just wanna sleep. We don’t have anything scheduled today.”

“Oh, but you can’t because we got plans.”

I opened my eyes. “No, we do not. Stephen and Sisi are spending time together today. It’s a free day.”

“It was a free day, but…”

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you do?”

“Why you always assume I did something?”

“Because you’re standing over me fully dressed trying to wake me up.”

Ace had on a white T-shirt, white shorts, and slides. His locs were pulled back. Like usual he smelled good as fuck. Good enough that I momentarily forgot to be irritated with him. He snatched the comforter off me. “Get up.”

“Ace!”

“Come on, baby. Wear something comfortable and pack a swimsuit.”

I sat up, trying not to react to him calling me baby.

He’d been doing that more often. At first, it was only around Markel and Tiana. Now he said it when we were alone, and every time he did, I had to remind myself this was supposed to be fake.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“Maybe you’ve never had a good one.”

“So you’re kidnapping me for the day?”

Ace stared at me. “You brought me to another country on my private plane just to kidnap me?”

“You asked me to come.”

“I was under emotional distress.”

“You were horny.”

My mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You know what? I’m going back to sleep.”