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She knitted her brows in concern. He didn’t sound like himself. But if there was one thing she’d learned being married to Marcus, it was how to reassure a man. “I’m good. I’m happy. You make me happy. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay, cool. Me, too.”
She let her head fall back onto his chest and wondered why his heart was beating so fast. It thumped against her cheek, and she felt something she never felt when she was with him: worried.
“Is something else on your mind?” she said.
When he didn’t answer, she raised up and propped herself up on her elbows. She wanted to see his face. “What’s wrong?”
He averted his eyes. “I don’t know yet. Before I came here, I got word of something. Bakari got into some shit, and it’s not looking good. At all.”
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked, hoping he would tell her everything. She wasn’t Iesha, so it’s not like she deserved to know, but it would be nice. They weren’t family, but they were much more than friends.
He opened his mouth and then closed it like he wanted to tell her but thought the better of it. And her feelings were a little hurt, because obviously, to Joe, not sharing it with her was considered the better of it. “I think,” he trailed off. "…I think we should just enjoy the rest of the time we got.”
She faked a smile and returned to her spot on his chest. Whatever this was, it was serious. She told herself it was family business, and therefore notherbusiness, but he’d shared those kinds of things with her before. Why clam up now?
Despite Joe’s secretiveness, she later made her way into the elevator on a cloud, smiling as she remembered how good the evening had been. She saw herself in the gold mirrored doors and thought she looked ten years younger. Happiness does that. Good sex does it, too. And it was nice to feel happy, for once. Because what a shitty year this had been so far.
The doors opened, and she stepped off the elevator and into a small crowd of people. They looked to be setting up tables on the left side of the lobby. Some of them looked young. College kids, maybe.
She hooked a left to get to the parking garage, and just as she was passing one of the tables, she saw the words “STOCKTON HIGH SCHOOL” screaming at her in block letters.
She didn’t get the chance to be confused, because a hand touched her shoulder just then. She whirled around and came face-to-face with a heavy-chested black girl who looked familiar, but whose face she couldn’t quite place.
The girl smiled brightly just before she dropped the bomb.
“Hi! Aren’t you Bria’s mom?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It’sinevitable.Ittakesa while, maybe years, but eventually, all mothers become “So and So’s Mom.” It doesn’t matter what your name used to be or how you identify. It doesn’t even matter how you feel about it. You simply wake up one morning and look in the mirror and realize you’ve crossed over from PYT to your kid’s mom. If you’re lucky, you get to be a MILF, but even then, the default assumption is that you’re a mother first. No longer a woman. Just the vessel that produced the person who actually matters.
Even Ladonna, who was having the best sex of her life and feeling the sexiest she’d ever felt, was not immune. She had been spotted, and even with the smell and dewy sweat of lovemaking still covering her, she was just “Bria’s mom.” But that didn’t register to her. Not at that moment.
She’d been caught.
Now she knew why the girl looked familiar. “Yes, that’s me,” Ladonna said, her heart thumping in her chest.
“I knew it. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Asia, from student council. And Model UN, of course,” the girl said with the sunny disposition all teenagers have with adults who aren’t their parents.
“Okay, yeah, I remember you now. Good to see you again.”
“You too. Tell Bria I said hi.”
“I will,” Ladonna said. “Why are you guys here?”
“Oh, tonight’s the Model UN tournament. Well, today and tomorrow.”
Shit.
“Is Bria here?” Ladonna was afraid of the answer.
Asia frowned. “Bria’s not in model UN.”
Ladonna looked around, hoping to spot her daughter and prove Asia wrong. Of course Bria was in model UN. She’d said so. Ladonna remembered that conversation clearly. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
