Page 21 of Can't Get Enough

“It was fantastic.” I reach for the cup and take a deep swallow. “Mmmmm, that’s good. Thank you.”

“You know I got you.”

And she always does. I met Skipper at a job fair in the AUC. She’s one of the rare folks actually born and raised here in Atlanta. East Point, to be specific.

At whiplash speed, she can swing from the polished executive assistant with her Clark Atlanta University business degree, to your guide on everything from the finest African braiders in a twenty-mile radius to the city’s best oxtails.

“So tell me everything.” Skipper plops into the seat across from my desk, avid curiosity lighting her blue-gray eyes. Golden-brown locs fall past her shoulders and she crosses one leg over the other, settling in for any gossip from the party that kicked off the summer.

I glance from the iPad on my desk, its screen crowded with a bulging to-do list, to my assistant and sigh. She won’t stop bugging me unless I give her some good intel.

“Five minutes.” I hold up my palm and spread my fingers. “That’s all I can afford. I got too much to catch up on.”

“Five minutes. Startinnnnnnng…” She consults her invisible pretend wristwatch. “Now!”

“What do you want to know?” I sit back in my chair, relaxing into the buttery leather cushions.

“Who’d you see?” Skipper leans forward and rushes on before I have a chance to respond. “I mean I’ve seen all the pics on social media, but who did yousee? Who’d you meet personally?”

I scroll through my memory for all the celebrities I met and share the ones I know will make her gasp and scream.

“Oh, my God!” She squeals and covers her mouth with one talon nail–tipped hand. “Grip performed? If you get invited back next year, I’m going as your purse. You’ll just have to carry me around.”

We share a laugh over that ridiculous notion and I take another sip of coffee, hoping it will wake me more. I flew back to Atlanta late last night. If I didn’t have so much work to do, I would have stayed home to recover from the Miami shenanigans. The after-party Chapel dragged me to involved strippers, hard liquor, and… mud? All those mojitos ate my recollections of what happened when we left Zere’s house.

“Is their place as gorgeous as it looked inArchitectural Digest?” Skipper asks.

“Yeah, they have a beautiful home.”

I pause with the cup halfway to my lips and allow myself to remember the conversation with Maverick. NowthatI recall with crystal clarity.

“I wonder if they’ll keep it,” Skipper says, reaching across my desk to grab one of the Godiva chocolates never far from reach.

“What do you mean?” I dial back into the conversation. Did I miss something? “Why would they get rid of a mansion on Biscayne Bay? That’s some of the most coveted real estate in the country.”

“I meant now that they aren’t together anymore.” Skipper unwraps the candy. “He is a billionaire, though, after selling that app. I assume the house is in his name and I guess it’s not like an actual divorce where they split everything. They weren’t married, but that house justkind of became synonymous with their relationship because of how big a deal that party is. I hope—”

“Not together?” I cut into Skipper’s one-breath tirade. “What do you mean? I was just at their party, and they were very much together.”

Skipper stops mid-chew of her chocolate, a feral gleam in her eye only juicy gossip could inspire. “You haven’t heard?”

She doesn’t wait for my response but reaches into the pocket of her skirt for her phone. After a few clicks and swipes, she zips around my desk and drops the phone in front of me. She leans over my shoulder to read her screen.

“It’s quits for the model and the mogul.”

My jaw drops, and the headline on Black Business, a popular entertainment site, is a hook in my open mouth, pulling me in.

Reality television star Zere O’Malley and her longtime boyfriend Maverick Bell released a joint statement announcing their split after three years of dating.

“We go our separate ways as friends who deeply respect each other. The time we’ve had together has meant so much to us both. This is an amicable situation and a decision we’ve reached mutually. We ask for privacy as we move forward with the next chapter of our lives.”

I reread the statement again and again, but the words don’t compute.

Can’t say I’m sorry this is almost over.

The hurt on Zere’s face when Maverick said that. His rush to reassure her. Looking back, knowing this, it all makes sense. I felt more than once that something seemed off between them. My Spidey senses must have been correct. They usually are.

“Sounds like they did the ol’ united-front thing for the party,” Skipper says, resting her ample bottom on my desk and facing me, “but had this all planned before Saturday. That’s what everyone’s saying online, but no one saw it coming.”

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