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I wipe at my eyes, grateful for the lighter mood. “I am. It was good this morning. Not awkward. In fact, it was almost…”
“Almost what?” she presses.
I lift my shoulders and let them fall. “Almostnormal,like, we’ve always done that…wake up together, bicker about the difference between yogurt and ice cream, talk about skipping our plans for the day and just spending it together.”
Jordan’s smile is bright, and her eyes suspiciously glassy. “Don’t you dare go emotional on me, Richards. I’m not steady enough.”
“It’s just so good to hear this, and see you so…happy.”
“I’ve always been happy,” I tell her.
The look she gives me is soft. “You were happy, Nala, but maybe…you weren’t whole?” Then she looks over my shoulder and those eyes go bright. “I think someone else feels the same way.” She leans down and pecks me on the cheek—a very forward thing to for Jordan Richards—and then she turns on the heel of her beautiful shoe and walks in the other direction, petite legs eating up the concrete and still managing not to look rushed.
I feel him before I see him, my body already in tune with his presence.
I turn, and there he is, five feet away and closing the distance quickly. It’s like a jolt to my system this first hit of Malcolm, the feeling pulsing through my veins and igniting my need for him—like a craving that can only be satiated by the sight and feel of him.
Has it really only been four hours?
No, my subconscious answers,it’s been nine years.
Girls on their way to class stop and watch him, and I can’t blame them because I’ve seen him naked and I’m still mesmerized. Even in a walking cast, Malcolm Brady is sexy as hell.
He’s got on a white T-shirt and a pair of gray Nike shorts that are made from the same material as sweatpants. His baseball cap is on backward, so I can see his face clearly. What I see has my mouth going dry, and my lips parting.
As if he knows this, Malcolm’s lips quirk into a smile when he reaches me, but it doesn’t last long because then they are on mine, and neither one of us waists energy with smiling.
I don’t care that we’re in public. I don’t care that Malcolm’s hands are at my hips, hauling me against him, sneaking down to rest on the top of my butt. I don’t care that my whimper is audible and just a little desperate when he presses his tongue through my lips to battle with mine. All I care about is him, this, how it feels to hold the man I’ve always wanted, and know that he wants me back.
When we break apart, Mal only moves inches, keeping me tugged up against him with one arm, and using the other to brush the hair away from my face since my top-knot was dislodged when we began making out.
“I liked the picture you sent me.”
His voice is heavy with need, and I can’t help but tease him a little bit, wiggling myself as close as I can, delighting when his eyes darken and his breathing changes. “Do you think I won’t retaliate, Nala?”
A shiver runs down my spine because his words are challenging, and that excites me. Everything he does excites me.
“As much as I’m kind of hoping you will,” I say, and I actually hear his groan. “USD is Catholic, and I can guarantee someone would object to whatever it is you have in mind.” I plant a quick kiss on his lips, laughing when he tries to take it further, burying his face in my neck and groaning when I push back. “Didn’t your text promise me tonight, anyway?”
“Couldn’t wait to see you,” he mumbles against my skin, and my heart flutters.
I try to keep it light, but inside, everything inside of me is shifting, pushing over, stretching itself thin until it makes room for the love filling me up. The love from Malcolm, and the love I have for him.
“Careful, a girl could get used to hearing those words,” I tell him.
He leans back, eyes latching onto mine and holding. “She better,” he says in such a matter-of-fact way I don’t know how it still manages to sound romantic. And then he adds, “just like she better get used to the fact that ice cream is not breakfast. A body needs real food,” he says, letting me go and grabbing the bag I didn’t see him set down.
Emblazoned on the front isThe Deli Llama. “You brought me lunch?”
“I broughtuslunch. Couldn’t stand to think of you subsisting off ice cream and vending-machine fruit bowls,” he says. Swinging an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me in and plants a kiss on top of my head. “How much time do you have before your next class?”
I slip my phone from my back pocket and check the screen. “Thirty-five minutes.”
“Perfect. Let’s get you fed.”
For the first time in almost six years, I let myself get to know Malcolm—really know him, without the shields or the masks, without the hidden secret of my feelings. We eat sandwiches on a bench under a shaded flower tree, ignorant to anyone and anything outside of our bubble. We talk about his branding session with Brooks, how he has to finalize all of the details for material and style now that they’ve settled on a logo, and we talk about business and his approach to releasing the label, how his PR team is going to corner his niche.
“We’re going to release it personally, here, in a couple months. Introduce what we have, let people know what it means…a homecoming gift.”
