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“What is it?” Kai asked.
“You’re just”—my smile turned into a full-on grin—“cute.”
“Cute?” Kai asked when I pulled into the parking lot, a small smile stretching across his lips. He glanced over at me and lifted Ana from her car seat, who didn’t wake up this time, then followed me through the emergency exit doors.
When we entered, I spotted Mom behind the front desk with a couple nurses. She smiled at me, and I grimaced and sat beside Kai, who cradled Ana in his strong arms. I leaned closer to him. “When do you think João will—”
Before I could even finish my sentence, João stormed through the hospital emergency doors with Landon following behind him. He had changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. I could only imagine what his other clothes looked like right now, covered with the Redwood rich blood.
“João,” I said, standing up and hurrying over to him. “Your mom is stable.”
Pissed off, João pushed past me and walked right back into the back hallway, as if he already knew where to go. He disappeared into a room and slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing through the quiet hospital.
An hour later, João finally came out of the hospital room and walked right out the emergency exit doors. I yawned and followed him out the doors to find him sitting on one of the benches outside.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, leaning against a pole and wrapping my arms around my body to stay warm.
Snow drifted down around us, piling up on the streets and sticking to my hair.
João glared up at me. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
“Okay,” I said, swaying back and forth on my heels.
Usually, I would push him to talk, but tonight, something felt different. He had witnessed his mother almost die in the fucking back of a rich man’s restaurant. He had every right to keep his mouth shut for now. I didn’t know how that man processed shit, but it definitely wasn’t by talking it out.
So, I decided to change the subject.
“So, do you remember when you asked me to watch Ana, you said that you’d do anything for me?” I asked, rocking back on my heels again and clasping my hands behind my back. “Well … I know what I want from you.”
João leaned back, rubbed a hand over his face, and groaned. “Can’t this wait?”
“No.”
After clenching his jaw, he stared up at me with those dark brown eyes. “What is it?”
“A date.”
João chuckled and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. “You’re fucking with me, right?” he asked, sticking a cigarette between the corner of his lips and lighting it. “Out of everything you could possibly want, you want me to bring you on a date.”
“Yes, I do.”
The lightness in his eyes suddenly disappeared, his gaze hardening. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and shook his head, blowing out a puff of smoke. “I’m not fucking bringing you out on a date.”
“You have to.”
“I don’t have to do shit, Imani.”
“I watched Ana for you.”
Instead of coming at me twice as hard with an insult, João tossed his barely smoked cigarette onto the ground, stomped it out, and stood, studying me. “Don’t get any fucking ideas. I’m only going to do it for Ana, not because I like you.”
“I don’t like you either, dickhead,” I said, but maybe I did a little. “I just want to go out.”
“Why can’t you ask Landon?” João snapped.
“Because I want to go out with you.”
João stared at me for a few long moments again until he finally turned on his heel and walked past me toward the hospital doors. “Be ready. Tuesday night. Eight p.m. And don’t fucking expect it to be a nice date. I don’t do that shit.”
